The function of language‐writing, language and philosophy, language and action‐became a significant theme within romantic writing in general. More particulary Musset'sFantasioand Vigny'sChattertonoffer apparently divergent “ethics of language.” Fantasio uses speech, with its rhetoric and pseudo‐philosophy, as a self‐conscious, self‐contained means of entertainment whereas Chatterton, in despair of attaining communicable knowledge, prefers silent meditation. Words, spoken rather written, become for Fantasio a perpetually renewed means of escape from metaphysical thought and action. For Vigny a disequilibrium of philosophical and poetic values leads to a negation of words and communication, that is to silence. Whereas Musset considers words as substitutes for action, Vigny conceives of writing as an activity sufficient in itself and of literary works as monuments to a writer's achievement, hence subscribing to a “new critical” view of texts. the metaphysical uncertainties of the romantic writers are intimately reflected in the uncertainties of romantic writing, of the value of words as communication or entertainment and as