The main goal of this thesis is to examine a cultural series that we designate as “chansons lumineuses écrites” (“written luminous songs”), hence producing a diachronic study of the cultural practice of writing the lyrics of a song on screen, from the 19th to the 21st century. In doing so, our second goal – of a theoretical and methodological nature – is to put the concept of “cultural series,” created by André Gaudreault and refined with the help of Philippe Marion , to the test of a case study, while working with a set of relevant examples.Two sets of examples give this cultural series its chronological boundaries: the magic lantern slides produced and marketed by the French firm Lapierre, in the second half of the 19th century, and lyric videos, official textual music videos which appeared on YouTube around 2010.In the first section of this thesis, we will focus on the Lapierre “vues sur verre en bande” (“glass views in strips”), hand-painted glass slides intended for domestic projection which illustrate popular subjects, including songs. We will document the technical functioning of magic lanterns in general and the series of slides marketed by the Lapierre firm in particular, to propose a relevant method of aesthetic analysis of these slides. In turn, we will put this method to the test as we examine the corpus of the Lapierre illustrated songs.In the second section, we will show that the practice of writing song lyrics on screen did not disappear in the 20th century, and that a cultural series exists, from the 19th to the 21st century. We will then focus on three types of medium: magic lantern, film, and video. A fourth chapter will discuss the particular practice of the bouncing ball and, through this example, we will prove the permanence of our cultural series, over the long term, and beyond changes of medium.The third and final part of this work will examine the emergence of lyric videos, official music videos which started appearing around 2010 on YouTube, illustrating mostly pop songs. Two theoretical chapters will first discuss how lyric videos force us to reconsider the theory, history and aesthetics of music videos in the era of YouTube and digital platforms. Three chapters will then attempt to describe and understand the vast corpus of lyric videos, using comparative, generic and genetic approaches. André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion, « The Unfinished Business of History: Defense and Illustration of the Concept “Cultural Series” », in The Oxford Handbook of Silent Cinema, edited by Rob King and Charlie Keil (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024), 95‑115.