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1998 Number 46
GASTELLIER, FABIAN. Angélique Arnauld. Paris: Fayard, 1998.
Review: L. Theis in Le Point 1338 (1998), 91: "A travers la biographie de cette personnalité, F.G. retrace les grandeurs et les misères du double établissement campagnard et parisien [de Port Royal] dont l'histoire est liées à celle du règne de Louis XIV."
KREMER, ELMAR J., ed. Interpreting Arnauld. Toronto/Buffalo/London: University of Toronto Press, 1996.
Review: H. Phillips in MLR 93 (1998), 507–08: Useful collection of essays explores the relationship of Arnauld's work to that of Descartes and Thomas Aquinas. "While many of the discussions here are highly technical for the non-philosopher, they none the less persuade us of the degree to which there are simply no shortcuts to an adequate account of intellectual debate in seventeenth-century France."
KREMER, ELMAR J., ed. The Great Arnauld and Some of His Philosophical Correspondents. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994.
Review: D. Scott in PhQ 49 (1998), 261–263: "This is a collection of essays subdivided into four sections which deal with, respectively, Arnauld's contribution to logic and the scientific method, Arnauld's relation to Malebranche on the subject of ideas, the Arnauld Leibnitz correspondence and Arnauld's views on grace and free will." Articles include Jill Vance Buroker's "Judgement and Predication in the Port Royal Logic," Fred Wilson's "The Rationalist Response to Aristotle in Descartes and Arnauld," a study of scientific methodology, Monte Cook's "Malebranche and Arnauld: The Argument for Ideas," Elmar Kremer's "Arnauld's Philosophical Notion of an Idea," Steven Nadler's "Malebranche's Theory of Perception," Norman J. Wells' "Objective Reality of Ideas in Arnauld, Descartes, and Suárez," Richard Watson's "Arnauld, Malebranche, and the Ontology of Ideas," Graeme Hunter's "The Phantom of Jansenism in the Arnauld Leibnitz Correspondence," Jean Claude Periente's "The Problem of Pain: A Misunderstanding Between Arnauld and Leibnitz," and Elmar Kremer's "Grace and Free Will in Arnauld."
DEBAISIEUX, MARTINE. "La Pourmenade de l'Ame dévote de Jean Auvray: du 'Triomphe de la Croix' au triomphe de l'écrivain." Tra Lit 10 (1997), 119–33.
Focuses on the presence of author as he affirms his identity and yet remains sufficiently humble in order to point his reader to Christ. D. discovers three principal stages (from "analogie" to "différence") in the author's progressive presence in the text and concludes, "sous le couvert de la tradition, le recueil de Jean Auvray ne retracerait-il pas en fin de compte le trajet de l'auteur du mont Calvaire au mont Parnasse?"
ZUBER, ROGER, ed. Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, Oeuvres diverses (1644). Paris: Champion, 1995.
Review: B. Bray in PFSCL 15 (1998), 343–345: Termed a "remarquable publication."
EKSTEIN, NINA. "Appropriation and Gender: The Case Study of Catherine Bernard and Bernard de Fontenelle." Eighteenth-Century Studies 30.1 (1996), 59–80.
Article deals with how various works of Catherine Bernard (especially her tragedy Brutus) came to be attributed to Bernard de Fontenelle. The scope is broadened to include discussion of how authorship may be ascertained as well as the position of women authors in various rewritings of literary history.
EKSTEIN, NINA. "A Woman's Tragedy: Catherine Bernard's Brutus." Rivista di letturatura moderne e comparate 48.2 (1995), 127–139.
A discussion of how Catherine Bernard inscribed a female voice within what appeared to be a traditionally male tragedy. Reflecting the double-voiced nature of the play (the male voice of dramatic tradition and female voice of Bernard) are numerous doubles on all levels, doubles which convey not duplication, but more often disproportion and difference. Bernard incorporates both the voice of the patriarchy and a critique of it, strong male values and their dissolution.
PIVA, FRANCO, ed. Catherine Bernard/Jacques Pradon: Le Commerce galant ou lettres tendres et galantes de la jeune Iris et Timandre. Fasano/Paris: Schena/Nizet, 1996.
Review: G. Berger in RF 109 (1997), 363–65: Admirable edition, reliable, accurate, with detailed introduction and notes. Edition is based on a copy of the original publication in comparison with other later ones and the 1696 one of Lyon.
Review: Roger Zuber in BSHPF 143 (1997), 293: Identified by Piva as the letters of an 18-year-old Bernard, exchanted with Jacques Pradon, this early example of the epistolary novel, à deux, in an annotated edition with glossary continues to enhance the stature as writer to which Piva has richly contributed.
KENNY, NEIL, et al. Béroalde de Verville, 1556–1626. Paris: Presses de l'Ecole Normale Supériure, 1996.
Review: E. Rassart-Eeckhout in LR 51 (1997), 156–59: Twelve specialists confront B de V's "textes souvent denses" in this volume of Acts of the first colloque devoted to the author. Rich and stimulating anaylses treat epistemological preoccupations (Terence Cave), textual production (André Tournon), V.'s Sérodokimasie and an "esthétique du chaos" (Michel Renaud), as well as several other perspectives of the author's life and work.
MATHIEU-CASTELLANI, GISELE, éd. Pour une lecture du Moyen de parvenir de Béroalde de Verville. 2e éd., revue. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997.
Review: BCLF 595 (avril 1998), 742–43: "Cette seconde édition [réed. 1984, Association des Publications de la faculté des lettres de Clermont-Ferrand] ne modifie pas la première; elle permet d'aborder avec des notions plus justes la lecture même du texte, toujours jubilatoire, mais un peu stupéfiant." Bibliographie, index des noms propres, notes bibliographiques.
DUPUY, MICHEL, éd. Oeuvres complètes. Pierre de Bérulle. T. II: Courts Traités. Paris: Cerf, 1997.
Review: BCLF 596 (mai 1998), 1086: "Ce volume appartient à la série des Oeuvres complètes dont plusieurs tomes sont déjà parus. Il s'agit de la première édition critique des oeuvres de Pierre de Bérulle, fondateur de l'Oratoire en France. Ici sont rassemblées des oeuvres de jeunesse: le Bref Discours de l'abnégation intérieure, le Traité des énergumènes, trois discours de controverse: De la mission des pasteurs en l'Eglise, Du sacrifice de la messe célébré en l'Eglise chrétienne et De la Présence du corps de Jesus-Christ en la Sainte Eucharistie et, enfin, d'autres oeuvres de controverse."
FERRARI, ANNE. Figures de la contemplation. La "rhétorique divine" de Pierre de Bérulle. Paris: Cerf, 1997.
Review: BCLF 597 (1998), 1212–13: F. "a choisi de centrer sa recherche sur l'étude du style de Bérulle, et, par cette recherche, d'éclairer le rapport entre la spiritualité du cardinal et son style. Au départ de cette recherche, il y a une hypothèse qui, à la fois, la fonde et l'oriente: celle du lien nécessaire entre une spiritualité aussi exigeante que celle de Bérulle et la forme dans laquelle cette spiritualité s'exprime."
CORUM, ROBERT T. Reading Boileau: An Integrative Study of the Early Satires. W. Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1997.
A careful reassessment of the first nine Satires which makes a convincing case for Boileau as a gifted poet and not just as a commentator for French classical doctrine.
CREPU, MICHEL. Le tombeau de Bossuet. Paris: Grasset, 1997.
Review: J. P. Amette in Le Point 1312 (1997), 112: "Non seulement on se familiarise avec cette oeuvre abrupte et marmoréenne, mais une vie se dessine. Pas seulement le prédicateur et ses grands effets de manche mais aussi le polémiste qui se méfie comme de la peste des jansénistes .... Ce qui nous touche, dans ce livre, c'est que le tableau clair obscur s'allume. Il y a des taches, des couleurs flamades, des lueurs de rideaux, des profils ... Condé, Turenne, Pascal... Le livre, qui se veut un traité de réflexion littéraire, devient petit à petit une fête funèbre, un enterrement aux flameaux, une galerie murmurante de courtisans fantomatiques, devenus posthumes, dans leurs soucis religieux difficilement épuisables... [C'est] une construction de civilisation si étonnante de tensions et d'acharnement qu'on reste ébahi. La si bizarre familiarité de C. pour les hommes de ce temps ... demeure un spectacle surprenant.... Loin de nous faire entrer dans un musée, C. nous a rallumé les lustres du Grand Siècle."
Review: J.-C. Esslin in Esprit (novembre 1997), 214–15: "Lecture vivante et perspicace" de Bossuet. "Ce qui attire M. Crépu, semble-t-il, c'est une idée du théâtre social, le théâtre du monde sur lequel Bossuet se bat chaque jour de sa vie durant. Il réussit parfaitement à l'évoquer pour nous." Pour l'auteur, Bossuet joue le rôle "d'un médiateur indispensable entre 'le pôle des Ecritures et la scène historique'. Il permet d'estimer les moments où les fils de la tradition se rompent, où le nouveau ne peut plus entrer dans l'ancien, mais où s'impose la tâche de se saisir des questions abandonnées, de s'aventurer dans les 'friches' théologiques."
Review: F. de Martinoir in QL 724 (1997), 12–13: "Approche neuve des idees qui cerne l'oeuvre de Bossuet et peut aider à la situer ou à la comprendre." Centers upon "le mouvement des idées que [Bossuet] n'a pas voulu ou pas su mesurer. Ainsi, le Dehors que Crépu fait entrer dans son étude, c'est Spinoza, Descartes, Malebranche, Richard Simon, Pierre Bayle, qui vont modifier le champ d'études des connaissances et que Bossuet a voulu réduire, dans un combat perdu à l'avance... Aux Grands, Bossuet montre leur néant face à cette comédie [de la Cour] et l'on ne peut qu'admirer son courage." Also treats "la querelle du Quiétisme": "Pour la première fois ici, la signification ontologique de Bossuet est mise en rapport avec son écriture qui est avant tout écriture de l'Incarnation, la métaphore n'étant pas chez lui une sorte d'indication, mais en elle même un acte.... Pour Bossuet, ... lorsqu'on se trouve devant ce que l'on ne peut nommer, on doit constater et attendre, c'est alors 'l'épreuve de l'indicible', ...." C. "constate que l'héritage de Bossuet est sans doute un sens inouï de la limite."
Review: Anne Pons in L'Express 2418 (11 June 1997), 72: "Travail savant et minutieux," by literary editor of La Croix, enhanced by an informing sense of contemporary painting, this biography squarely faces Bossuet's forbiddingness in polemic and the distance that separates his unfolding career and authority from the present.
SERGENT, LAETITIA, ed. Tyridate, tragédie. Genève: Droz, 1998.
First new edition since the original publication of 1649, followed by Le Fils supposé (1672), with 50 page introduction.
DE BAECQUE, SYLVIE. "L'Eloge des Histoires dévotes, ou l'apologétique romanesque de Jean-Pierre Camus." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 31–45.
Author discusses numerous religious texts published between 1620 and 1644 that Camus labelled "Histoires dévotes." Often, these texts took the form of novels in which Camus intended to expand his audience and reform literature. De Baecque describes the "programme" of the "Histoires dévotes" as "celui d'une conversion des Belles Lettres ... qui mimerait leurs procédures pour les combattre en leur sien, et retourner en un sens religieux leurs effets sacrilèges." Unlike his mentor François de Sales, Camus privileges the book as the space in which virtuous solitude may be reached.
DELOFFRE, CHARLES, éd. Robert Challe. Mémoires; Correspondance complète; Rapports sur l'Acadie et autres pièces. Genève: Droz, 1996.
Review: C. J. Betts in MLR 93 (1998), 225–26: Deloffre "adds ample contemporary and documentation, with bibliography, illustrations, index, and so on, giving the volume considerably more value than the bare content of Challe's own writings."
WEIL-BERGOUGNOUX, MICHÈLE, ed. Séminaire Robert Challe, "Les Illustres Françaises." Montpellier: U Paul Valéry-Montpellier III, 1995.
Review: P. Malandain in RF 109 (1997), 361–63: Praises W.-B. and the contributors for a volume which succeeds "à faire signifier ensemble les diverses composantes du roman." Studies by eminent specialists such as Bernard Bray illuminate strategies of narration while other essays situate C. in a literary-historical context. Particularly singled out for praise are contributions on juridical practices (F. Deloffre and J. Goldzink).
ERSKINE, ANDREW. "'Combien est grande la'foiblesse humaine'; Pierre Charron's View of the Human Condition." SCFS 19 (1997), 49–59.
Following the calls of other Charron scholars M. Adam (1991) and C. Belin (1995) to reject the Garrassian distortion of the priest Charron as a subversive libertine and to return to his texts, this useful, concise presentation places the De la sagesse in the context of Charron's earlier Les trois veritez and the doctrinal soundness to which Saint Cyran is a guarantor. The author finds in Book V the grounds for qualifying Charron as a Christian skeptic and late humanist in the line of Erasmus.
ANDRE, GEORGES. "Le contexte historique de Polyeucte." IL 50.1 (1998), 3–8.
G. claims that in this play, C. "a cherché plus que dans n'importe laquelle de ses tragédies, à reconstituer le cadre historique de l'action." Specifically, the contextual details of the play "font souvenir que l'on est dans l'empire romain, sous Dèce, en 250, lors de la persécution déclenchée par celui-ci contre les chrétiens." From a religious standpoint, G. suggests that C. evokes a period in Roman history in which "traditional Roman cults," along with "mysterious oriental cults," combined to create an atmosphere of oppression against Christians. Among the historical themes which make their way into C.'s text are the obstinance of Christians, various cults of martyrdom, and the premonitory power of dreams.
AUCHINCLOSS, LOUIS. The Roman Empire of Corneille and Racine. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.
Review: MS in TLS 4920 (18 July 1997), 33: Reviewer finds this short book that explores the parallel through "gloire" more interesting for what it reveals of its author, most tellingly in the commentary on the playwrights' two Bérénice plays. "Overall, Racine gets short shrift, though we sense that Auchincloss prefers him. A pity he is not more uninhibited about exploring his own lively, quirky personal responses.
BELLENGER, YVONNE. "La dérobade devant l'amour: Ronsard et Montaigne précurseurs d'Alidor." PFSCL 15 (1998), 113–127.
"Il faut . . . apprécier la puissante originalité de C. dont la trouvaille, dans La place royale, consiste à prendre comme sujet un des éléments qui participent de la loi du genre (le mariage d'inclination) et à déclencher toute l'intrique à partir de cette situation, en la dissociant et en la transformant en dilemme."
DANDREY, PATRICK, ed. Corneille, Polyeucte. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
Review: M. Margitic in PFSCL 15 (1998), 291–292: An excellent edition providing a "fascinating new reading" of the work.
DOSMOND, SIMONE. "Les confident(e)s dans le théâtre comique de Corneille." PFSCL 15 (1998), 167–175.
Concludes that, except for the character Lyse, the role does not really exist in C.'s theater: main characters confide in one another and the servant class fulfills other functions.
FORESTIER, GEORGES. Essai de génétique théâtrale. Corneille à l'oeuvre. Paris: Klincksieck, 1996.
Review: C. Carlin in RF 109 (1997), 357–58: "La tragédie cornélienne produit le sens par la forme" according to F. and this is a formula which the reviewer finds "heureuse." Indeed F. reminds the modern reader that Corneille himself had undiscovered form in his 1660 letter to l'Abbé de Pure as he described poetics as essential and other concerns (moral, political, etc.) as secondary. Praiseworthy for its systematic elaboration of a major tenet of Corneille criticism.
Review: Marie-Odile Sweetser in FR 70.5 (1997), 732–34: This "important ouvrage qui fera date dans les études cornéliennes et plus généralement dans celles du théâtre classique" is a rigorously systematic and "impeccable" examination of Corneille's evolving dramaturgy in terms of contemporary treaties and aesthetics. "Très stimulant et novateur."
GEORGES, ANDRE. "Les conversions de Pauline et de Félix et l'évolution religieuse de Sévère." LR 51 (1997), 34–51.
Careful and persuasive analysis demonstrates that, contrary to numerous critics, it is not theater or rhetoric that explains the conversions but the nature of grace itself, operating in different manners (sudden or progressive). Rich notes correct misperceptions such as that of J. Boorsch, by careful attention to C.'s original text.
GOSSIP, C.J. "Cinna and the Marais Company in 1642–43." SCFS 19 (1997) 149–59.
Careful examination of Georges Forestier's proposed redating (Cinna Folio ed., 1994) of the first public performance as soon after Easter rather than in July 1642. After very useful summary of Corneille's practice from Médée on with publication after first performance, patterns of Corneille, Racine, Moliere of first performances in summer are surveyed. Adequate composition of the Marais troop for staging, research suggests, leaves no compelling reason to move the first performance to the spring.
GOSSIP, C. J. "The Unity of Horace." MLR 93 (1998), 344–55.
From factual, text-based arguments as well as more subjective, interpretive ones, Gossip concludes that the death of Camille in Horace does not constitute "'une disparité dans la construction d'un caractère cornélien'" as Georges Forestier maintains. "Before the modern reader or spectator follows him in accepting readily Corneille's self-criticisms of an unbridgeable structural split between le péril public and le péril particulier, between what is héroïque and what is infâme, he or she would perhaps be wise to reflect, not just on the elastic nature of the first of these epithets but on the remarkable unity of purpose and tone Corneille achieves in his masculine yet elegiac presentation of events, decisions, dilemmas, and emotions and on what this tells us about the cohesion of the various parts."
HOWE, ALAN. "La publication des oeuvres de Pierre Corneille (1637–1649): sept documents inédits." RHL 98.1 (1998), 17–42.
Article seeks to inform the reader about the dates and order of publication of the first editions of Corneille's early "tragi-comédies." Author explains "la nature et la durée de la collaboration entre deux éditeurs parisiens, Augustin Corbé et François Targa," whose names appear on the title pages of the 1637 editions of La Galerie du Palais, La Place royale, La Suivante, and Le Cid. H. researches the market value of the editions when they were first published. The fact that the first three plays together equaled 70% of the Cid's worth reflects "non seulement les intentions lucratives des éditeurs, mais aussi, indirectement, la réputation glorieuse de l'auteur du Cid."
HUBERT, JUDD D. "Corneille ou le mélange des genres." PFSCL 15 (1998), 225–231.
Studies the insertion of comic scenes in C.'s "serious" plays: ". . . l'auteur de Rodogune et de Suréna a répandu trop de lucidité dans ses ouvrages pour les besoins de la tragédie et . . . il a créé des personnages intelligents capables de saisir tout ce qu'une situation malencontreuse peut comporter de ridicule et d'absurde."
LASSERRE, FRANÇOIS. "La raison d'être des a parte dans Le Menteur." PFSCL 15 (1998), 203–211.
Studies C.'s reflections on theater and the playwright's complicity with the spectator: C. "a voulu ce sujet du Menteur, il a voulu les a parte pour rendre exactement ce qu'il voyait dans ce sujet, une fable de la création dramatique, ou plutôt de la micro-société formée par la représentation dramatique, dans laquelle la part de chacun, auteur, spectateur, groupe des acteurs, est définie avec une grande précision."
LE GALL, ANDRE. Pierre Corneille en son temps et en son oeuvre: enquête sur un poète de théâtre au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Flammarion, 1997.
Review: Maya Slater in TLS 4961 (1 May 1998), 9: Conscientiously solid research offered in a vivid style and with a "fine feeling for drama." But there are gaps, almost perversely as though from a general tendency to refuse to repeat the general and banal, sometimes on main issues (e.g.,, a global view of the "querelle du Cid" or on that play itself), As biography, this one "fails to do justice to this misjudged, undervalued, magnificient playwright."
LYONS, JOHN D. The Tragedy of Origins: Pierre Corneille and Historical Perspective. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.
Review: D. Clarke in MLR 93 (1998), 221–22: "Drawing on Timothy Reiss's reflections on tragedy and history (Tragedy and Truth [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980]), and on George Huppert's account of late renaissance and Early Modern historiography (The Idea of Perfect History [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970]), John Lyons suggests that Corneille's tragedies offer evidence of the underground survival of a cultural and historical relativism peculiar to the critical and comparative traditions of late sixteenth-century jurist historians." Reviewer cites occasional summary assertions regarding seventeenth-century political and ideological contexts but finds considerable merit in the textual commentary of the plays, particularly Polyeucte.
Review: Pierre Ronzeaud in RHL 98.4 (1998), 656–57: Highly favorable evaluation in which R. claims that L's work "fera date dans la critique cornélienne." For the reviewer, "l'apport premier du livre réside dans ce choix méthodologique de superposition du référent (Histoires), et du texte (histoire) et du contexte (esthétique théâtrale et pratique politique contemporaines)." Reviewer mentions L.'s analysis of Cinna, Horace, Polyeucte, Sertorius, and Attila. Of note is the way in which L's definitions of "Histoire" and "histoire" highlight Corneille's "modernity," both "past" and "present."
Review: R.J. Nelson in FrF 22 (1997), 246–48: Reviewer questions certain concepts of tragedy (versus tragicomedy) but is highly appreciative of L's "lively, intriguing contribution" in these analyses of Horace, Cinna, Polyeucte, Sertorius, and Attila which are useful "lessons in history and historography."
Review: B. Rubidge in CompD 31.4 (1997/8), 607–610: In Corneille's theater, "the peripeteia ... occur ... when there is a change in circumstances. [This change is] often one which the characters could not foresee and which, even at the conclusion, they have trouble assimilating. In The Tragedy of Origins, J. L. proposes rich, stimulating readings of several of Corneille's plays that fit this pattern. He examines the intersection of history and tragedy as ways of explaining unexpected change in social, political, and cultural circumstances." Readings of Le Cid, Horace, Cinna, Polyeucte, Sertorius and Attila. "'Within these plays a present, a moment of Roman history, is confronted with its past. The thesis of The Tragedy of Origins is that this confrontation, which requires the recognition of an irreversible transformation is, for the protagonists, a wrenching dislocation.... Such a transformation is, in historical terms, an origin, and in dramatic terms, a tragedy.' L.'s introduction and conclusion, offering insightful reflections on the nature of origins, emphasizes the point that an origin can only be identified retrospectively. People living through an event that will later be recognized as the origin of a new order are inevitably blind both to the new order and to the nature of the events they are experiencing. For the author this blindness constitutes a tragic structure... L. connects Corneille's treatment of origins to a relativist tendency in Renaissance historiography and invokes Donald R. Kelley's and George Huppert's accounts of 'historicism'... Corneille thus seems to be described as a kind of ethical relativisit, sensitive to the way values change." Strongest chapters are those on Horace, Cinna and, slightly less so, Polyeucte; later chapters require modification of the initial thesis of the book. "L.'s provocative, original argument will interest even those readers who are not persuaded that these plays represent moments in which ethical systems are overturned.... This book rests on a subtle discussion of the role of time, continuity, and change in the construction of Corneille's tragedies. The discussion of the characters' own understanding of their place in history relative to the past, present, and future is exceptionnaly rich and is sustained by sensitive readings of the texts."
MARGITIC, MILORAD. "Humour et parodie dans les comédies de Corneille." PFSCL 15 (1998), 157–165.
Sees in C.'s sense of humor a skeptical detachment indicating a strong self-confidence, esthetically a manifestation of the baroque phenomenon of illusion created and destroyed, and ideologically a desire to subvert accepted values.
MAZOUER, CHARLES. "L'épreuve dans les comédies de Pierre Corneille." PFSCL 15 (1998), 145–156.
Studies the origins, reality and the effects of ordeal on Cornelian characters. The ordeal has a positive value in C.'s theater and represents an important link between the comedies and the tragedies.
MINEL, EMMANUEL. "Du Menteur à sa Suite: de la valeur comme vaine sociabilité à la valeur en liberté surveillée ou d'une théâtralité problématique à une théâtralité autonome." PFSCL 15 (1998), 213–224.
Studies the theater-audience relationship.
MURATORE, MARY JO. "Strategies of Containment: Repetition as Ideology in Horace" RF 109 (1997) 252–63.
Convincing close analysis demonstrates the plays "gendered resistance to a mimetric imperative that sustains Rome's obsession with political 'unity'." As she carefully inventories the variety of terms used to name or to characterize gender in Horace and discusses "heroic behavior [as] determined by behavioral conformity," M. wonders "what masterpieces might have been written if ideological conformity [Richelieu] had not silenced the rebellious voices of unconventional poetry."
NERSON, JACQUES. "Véronique Olmi acclamée en Avignon." RDM (septembre 1998), 160–65.
Impressions du festival d'Avignon de 1998: "Rodrique lui-même n'a plus de coeur, au sens XVIIe siècle du mot, mais des états d'âme. Dans le Cid mis en scène par l'Irlandais Declan Donnellan, il nous est présenté comme un puceau pleurnichard, intimidé par le moindre jupon. Il n'y a plus que les femmes (Chimène, l'Infante . . .) qui aient le droit de se montrer viriles." Malgre le succès de ce spectacle, "on ne peut pas dire qu'il soit original, il ressemble trait pour trait au Cid monté la saison dernière par Thomas Le Douarec au théâtre de la Madeleine."
POIRIER, GERMAIN. Corneille, témoin de son temps. II: "Le Cid" (1636). PFSCL/Biblio 17, 84 (1994).
Review: D. Blocker in RF 109 (1997), 548–49: Sees in Le Cid a kind of panegyric to the glory of the Jesuites. P.'s interpretation rests on a complex system of allegories which fails to persuade the reviewer. B. calls instead for examination of C.'s relationship with the Compagnie de Jésus by careful attention to documents. Despite P.'s considerable erudition, the thesis fails to convince.
RIOU, DANIEL. Lectures de Corneille: Cinna, Rodogune, Nicomède. Rennes: Presses Universitaires, 1997.
RUBIDGE, BRADLEY. "Catharsis Through Admiration: Corneille, Le Moyne, and the Social Uses of Emotion." MP 95.3 (1998), 316–333.
Article seeks to "explain the significance of Corneille's theory of catharsis through admiration by discussing it in the context of explanations of catharsis and related discussions of tragedy's emotional and ethical effect from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Corneille's theory of catharsis seems to highlight both the futility and the formlessness of the controversy over catharsis. [R. argues], however, that Corneille's claim [in the préface of Nicomède] marks a pivotal moment in early modern efforts to explain catharsis.... The history of criticism in this case also depends on the history of emotions that is to say, the significant inflections in accounts of tragedy's emotional and ethical effect correspond to changes in the ethical status of the tragic emotions. In different periods, fear, admiration, and pity were assessed in different ways." R. cites Pierre Le Moyne's Traité du poème héroïque as the proximate source for Corneille's account of catharsis through admiration.
RUBIDGE, BRADLEY. "The Code of Reciprocation in Corneille's Heroic Drama." RR 89.1 (1998), 55–76.
For R., Corneille's thematic of "reciprocation" is linked to notions of disinterested generosity. C's characters "construe almost all social interactions as exchanges" and engage in a discourse about "their own and other's behavior" that alludes to "the ideal of uncalculating generosity." Discussing reciprocity in the Cid, Suréna, and Polyeucte, among others, R. concludes that heroism "can be explained in terms of reciprocation since "the hero is set apart because no one can trade with him and make a commensurate return for his services." As a result, an underlying notion of C's "serious plays" is that "noble persons bestow benefits without thought of reward."
SOARE, ANTOINE. "Sur un mensonge du Menteur: 'poudre de sympathie' et 'résurrections' tragi-comiques." PFSCL 15 (1998), 193–202.
Studies the relationship of falsehood to theatrical illusion and imitation.
VUILLEMIN, JEAN-CLAUDE. "Hypocondrie, illusion et dramaturgie: Cloridan, Eraste et autres Orphées baroques." PFSCL 15 (1998), 177–191.
Studies the therapeutic depiction of madness: "Tout en demeurant la source principale de la folie du personnage, l'illusion, dans un processus ressortissant assez bien à celui du pharmakos derridien, ou à celui de la captatio benevolentiae rhétorique, possède la capacité d'être manipulée et retournée contre elle-même afin d'éradiquer l'erreur et de s'ouvrir à l'éblouissement de la vérité."
WAGNER, MARIE-FRANCE. "L'éblouissement de Paris: promenades urbaines et urbanité dans les comédies de Corneille." PFSCL 15 (1998), 129–144.
"Les lieux de mémoire parisiens, réfléchis dans la géométrisation des formes de la ville, se métamorphosent et se métamorphosent en lieu de l'esprit, aboutissement sublime de l'urbanité."
ZUERNER, ADRIENNE. "Disguise and Gendering of Royal Authority in Corneille's Clitandre." FR 71.3 (1997), 757–74.
Able analysis of the transvestism of the play as it exposes one's relationship to the king and therefore to real power.
BAUMONT, OLIVIER. Couperin, le musicien des rois. Paris: Gallimard, 1998.
Review: BCLF 597 (1998), 1381: "Même en format de poche et en 128 pages, le claveciniste Olivier Beaumont présente les divers cadres des activités de François Couperin à Paris et à Versailles, replacées dans leurs contextes historique, organologique . . . , familial et sociologique."
GERMAIN, ANNE. Monsieur de Cyrano Bergerac. Paris/Lausanne: Ed. Maisonneuve Larose, 1996.
Review: P. Billard in Le Point 1222 (1996), 64: G. "s'appuie sur des témoignages des principaux compagnons de Cyrano pour retrouver une réalité historique qui parfois dépasse la fiction. D'abondantes citations restituent le climat de l'époque."
HAMMOND, NICHOLAS and MICHAEL HAWCROFT, eds. Dissertations contre Corneille. By l'Abbé d'Aubignac. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1996.
Review: D. Clarke in MLR 93 (1998), 221: Convenient edition contains D'Aubignac's three Dissertations on Sophonisbe, Sertorius, and Oedipe, along with republication of the fourth Dissertation which did not appear in Granet's 1739 Recueil de dissertations. Useful introduction provides "resumes of all the pieces constituting the querelle of 1663." Fuller discussion of the core issues on which D'Aubignac and Corneille differed would have been welcome.
BANDELIER, GILLES. "Un lecteur catholique de l'Histoire universelle d'Agrippa d'Aubigné; Gabriel Boule." BSHPF 143 (1997), 9–19.
Boule is an unusual transmitter of the history. Treating it respectfully, he recycles it in his work of catholic apologetics, Essay de l'histoire générale des Protestants (1646).
FANLO, JEAN-RAYMOND, éd. La response de Michau l'aveugle suivi de La réplique de Michau l'aveugle: Deux pamphlets théologiques anonymes publiés avec les pièces catholiques de la controverse. By Agrippa D'Aubigné. Paris: Champion, 1996.
Review: K. Cameron in MLR 93 (1998), 502–03: "This is a strange but fascinating collection of pamphlets from 1595–96 that throw an interesting light on the discussions between Catholics and Protestants over the sovereignty of the Pope and whether he can be considered the Antichrist."
LAZARD, MADELEINE. Agrippa d'Aubigné. Paris: Fayard, 1998.
Review: BCLF 600 (1998), 1679: ". . . une bibliographie étincelante, qui ne se substitue pas à l'ancienne et lourde biographie savante d'Armand Garnier (Agrippa d'Aubigné et le parti protestant, Paris, Fischbacher, 1928), mais en utilise l'érudition avec discrétion pour un ouvrage alerte et fervent, au fait des renouvellements critiques qui, depuis quelques années, saluent en d'Aubigné un auteur-somme, et des renouvellements historiographiques qui peuvent aborder l'histoire des guerres de religion de façon moins manichéenne que ne le fait d'Aubigné lui-même."
Review: B. Lambert in RDM (septembre 1998), 134–36: Commentaire assez négatif de cette biographie "sans souffle et même complètement étouffant par ses accumulations de noms farcies d'incidentes inutiles, ses répétitions, ses avancées sans rythme ni couleur (une gageure!), ses vues sans hauteur, sans parler des négligences de correcteur . . . ."
JAOUEN, FRANÇOISE. "Civility and the Novel: De Pure's La prétieuse ou le mystère des ruelles." YFS 92 (1997), 105–125.
Exploration of the interdependence of civility and literature in De Pure's novel La Prétieuse ou le mystère des ruelles which "combines all the various characteristic elements of preciosity and introduces the 'mystery' as ultimate origin and cause of both the phenomenon and the text . . . and also provides some insight into the genre itself."
AUBRY, CLAUDE. "Performance Review of Jean-Marc Chotteau's Le jour où Descartes s'est enrhumé, performed at the Théâtre 13 in January 1998." Le Point 1320 (1998), 83.
"Le spectateur assiste, en bâillant légèrement, à des ragots de cour, de sombres histoires d'espions, des apparitions de la méchanceté souveraine qui affectionne les termes viriles et joue la désinvolture sophistiquée." Based on Descartes' fatal trip to visit la reine Christine.
AUTOUR DE DESCARTES: Exposition du Quadricentenaire (12 avril-10 mai 1996). La Flèche: Publication du Prytanée national militaire de La Flèche, 1996.
Review: Marc Escola in RHL 98.1 (1998), 139: Reviewer states the purpose of the book is to "catalogue" the works by and about Descartes that exist in the library at La Flèche. Each entry is composed of a brief bibliographical notice where the pages pertaining to Descartes are indicated. E. finds the catalogue "assez pauvre en ouvrages philosophiques contemporains des grands textes de Descartes, mieux fourni pour le XVIIIe siècle." In addition, "la liste des 112 titres recèle peu de surprises."
BIARD, JOEL and ROSHDI RASHID, eds. Descartes et le Moyen Age. Paris: Vrin, 1997.
Acta of the Fourth Centenary Sorbonne Colloquium. Contents listed in Isis 89.3 (1998), 589.
BITBOL HESPERIES, ANNIE and JEAN PIERRE VERDET, eds. Le monde, 1'homme. Paris: Seuil, 1996.
Review: Roger Ariew in Isis 88.3 (1997), 539–40: Fine edition of the two works posthumously published in 1664, 1667, With the diagrams of the 1667 (Clerselier) edition, "some astonishing figures," notably our part of the solar system revealingly dynamic when juxtaposed with contemporary geostatic diagrams. Numerous extracts from Caspar Bauhin's Theatrum anatomicam that D. consulted. Works are reunited and edited with the intention of showing the unity of D's vision across the two. Modernized punctuation and orthography, ample introduction, rich annotation. "It is impossible to recommend it too highly."
CHAPPELL, VERE. Descartes's Meditations: Critical Essays. Oxford: Rowan and Littlefield, 1998.
COTTINGHAM, JOHN, ed. and trans. René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy with Selections from the Objections and Replies. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Review: C. Bonnen in PFSCL 15 (1998), 286–287: A revision of interest to undergraduate students of philosophy, of more limited value to advanced readers in the histories of science, theology and ideas. Overall, a "nice introduction to Descartes' metaphysical thought . . . ."
DEKENS, OLIVIER. "Métaphysique et morale de Descartes à Kant." RMM (1998), 219–37.
Descartes' rationalism is examined in the relation between ethics and metaphysics, seen as archetectonic since based on the sciences and teleological as far as knowledge. The play of this relationship within rationalism, and its position in respect to empiricists, shows the originality of Kant's position for the supremacy of practical reason.
DICKSON, WILLIAM J. "Descartes: Language and Method." SCFS 19 (1997), 61–72.
Explores the rhetorical nature of the Discours (and the illusion of its absence) whereby D. works to persuade readers of the truth of his discovery through three of its aspects: imagery, which serves as argument by analogy; lexis in "ethically loaded vocabulary"; syntax of Ciceronian design that represents and enforces the "longues chaînes de raisonnement." A skillfully argued case for rhetoric.
GAUKROGER, STEPHEN. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Review: Susan James in SCFS 18 (1996), 21–31: Revisionist study which asserts the primacy of the natural philosopher over the metaphysician, revaluates the nature of Cartesian dualism, and traces a sinuous connection between mechanism and divine transcendence. Interpretation that "will vastly improve our understanding of Descartes' intellectual motivation," although some danger is felt in its possible limitation of appreciation of the breadth of his originality in mathematics and mechanics or in supposing that because metaphysics is motivated as a vindication of mechanics that its importance is therefore subservient.
Review: M. Wilson in PhQ 49 (1998), 258–261: "An important contribution to Descartes scholarship... [a] unique, erudite and in many respects effective volume... G. makes the most of what information is available from contemporary reports, correspondence, and so on, about Descartes' personal history. His account of Descartes' adult life proceeds year by year, and sometimes month by month... G. integrates with the biographical material extensive exposition of much of Descartes' writing.... The book's main flaws ... have to do with issues of clarity and rigour in the accounts of more properly philosophical issues ... however, ... overall this is a work of exceptional scholarship, especially in the scientific dimension ... with many nice pictures and diagrams."
HALLYN, FERNAND, ed. Les Olympiques de Descartes. Geneva: Droz, 1995.
Review: Boris Donné in RHL 98.1 (1998), 137–139: D. asks the initial question of what do with this text, written during Descartes's youth, in which he recounts and explains three "visionary" dreams. Reviewer describes an approach that interprets the Olympiques from a standpoint of 1) philology, 2) rhetoric, 3) symbolism, and 4) the integration of this text into D.'s corpus. With respect to this particular edition, reviewer states, "si ce recueil mérite d'être lu pour l'image complexe et nuancée qu'il offre de la pensée de Descartes, il intéressera un public plus large que celui des seuls philosophes." The reason for this larger appeal is that the Olympiques "jettent un éclairage indirect sur l'imaginaire et la littérature du temps."
HAUSMAN, DAVID B. and ALAN HAUSMAN, eds. Descartes's Legacy: Minds and Meaning in Early Modern Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.
Review: W. F. Desmond in Choice 35.6 (1998), 1002: "'Descartes ... has in the Third Meditation given all the machinery he needs to escape the circle of ideas... without turning to God. The Meditations is not circular but secular.' This is the main theme of the authors' book. They distinguish three demons in Descartes: (1) that our ordinary judgments about the world are mistaken; (2) that there is no external world merely a set of possible worlds that a demon uses to create in us the false belief that we are in contact with an actual world; (3) that ideas are not at all what they seem we only believe they are. According to the Hausmans, in order to solve the third demon problem Descartes needed intentional objects, ideas, and this required a new substance nonphysical. The Hausmans argue that a proper understanding of the semantics of Cartesian ideas is not at odds with a functionalist theory of mind. Indeed, they argue that Descartes's legacy can only help foster a proper understanding of a theory of mind. After more than 350 years of Cartesian commentary, it is exciting to read something new. This original and cogently argued book will ensure that Descartes will be discussed for another 300 years. It should become required reading for all Descartes scholars and philosophers of mind."
MENN, STEPHEN. Descartes and Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998,
RIBE, NEIL M. "Cartesian Optics and the Mastery of Nature." Isis 88 (1997), 42–61.
Presents the Dioptrics as a practical work whose instrumental character provides a readily mathematizable model that requires no consideration of light's "true nature." Descartes extensively points out the possibilities of improving vision by artificial means. This critique is held to be the source of his doctrine that the purpose of sensory perception is to preserve the mind-body composite rather than to provide knowledge of the essential nature of things. The ultimate goal of the Dioptrics is then to master human vision by raising it from a mere means of self-preservation to an instrument of scientific knowledge.
RODIS-LEWIS, GENEVIEVE. La morale de Descartes. Paris: PUF, 1998.
Review: BCLF 597 (1998), 1282: Réédition (1957) bien venue: "Décomposé en quatre moments (la jeunesse de Descartes, morale et métaphysique, les passions, la personne et la communauté), l'ouvrage retrace avec art le parcours de Descartes, et sa conceptualisation spécifique."
SEPPER, DENNIS L. Descartes's Imagination: Proportion, Images, and the Activity of Thinking. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
Review: Enrique Chávez-Arvizo in Isis 88 (1997), 143–44: Revisionist work on imagination "well worth reading." The tripartite thesis: imagination plays a central cognitive role in the early writings, that role becomes restricted from Le Monde on, is ignored altogether from the Méditations on. But claims also a career-long preoccupation with imagination as a key part in thinking through the nature of thinking. Descartes's psychology is held to be more closely entertwined with premodern than modern. Reviewer expresses some misgivings on a certain blurring of theory and practice in this account.
SUTTON, JOHN. Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
VERBEEK, THEO, ed. Descartes et Regius: autour de 1'explication de l'esprit humain. Atlanta/ Amsterdam: Rodopis, 1993.
Review: Dennis Des Chene in Isis 88.2 (1997), 337–38: Almost all new material offering a fine case study in the reception of Cartesianism (in Utrecht) with no oversimplification. Verbeek describes the reception during the decade of D's friendship with Regius (1637–47). The pitch of dispute was raised to the point that both the stadtholder and French ambassador had to intervene. A useful point of entry is discussion of the participants, the course of the quarrel and by 1650 the penetration of Cartesianism into the University. Geneviève Rodis Lewis and Gilles Olivio both examine the problem of the unity of body soul and together provide a good introduction to the problem, importantly focusing on unity, rather than interaction. Annie Bitbol Hespéries explores the differences on physiology.
VINCI, STEPHEN. Cartesian Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
DUNKLEY, JOHN, ed. L'Irrésolu. Paris: Société des Textes Français Modernes, 1995.
Review: D. F. Connon in MLR 93 (1998), 225: Valuable critical edition of an early, relatively obscure play by Destouches which reworks and reverses the theme of Molière's L'Ecole des maris.
BREME, DOMINIQUE. François de Troy, 1645–1730. Paris: Somogy, 1997.
Review: BCLF 597 (1998), 1385: Né à Toulouse en 1645, François de Troy représente l'un des grands oubliés de la prestigieuse école de portraitistes qui encensèrent le règne de Louis XIV. . . . Cet ouvrage constitue le pendant d'une importante exposition organisée par le musée Paul-Dupuy de Toulouse, la première manifestation française d'envergure consacrée à ce portraitiste attachant malgré le caractère quelque peu compassé de ses modéles."
HENEIN, EGLAL. Protée romancier: les déguisements dans l'Astrée d'Honoré d'Urfé. Fasano/Paris: Schema/Nizet, 1996.
Review: Boris Donnée in RHL 98.1 (1998), 136–37: Reviewer applauds the author for exploring "en détail le labyrinthe des histoires de l'Astrée, sans que les narrations enchâssées éclipsent la trame principale." While D. does quibble with the book's organization, saying that, "Le plan aurait peut-être pu procéder d'un dessein plus ferme," he calls the work "un précieux guide dans l'univers des fictions d'Honoré d'Urfé."
MEDING, TWYLA. "Diana's Domain: The Displaced Center of Feminine Utopia in Honoré d'Urfé's L'Astrée. EMF 4 (1998), 84–124.
M. strives to "contribute to a better understanding of utopia in early seventeenth-century France by showing how a number of traits borrowed from the tradition of utopia are transformed in L'Astrée." With respect to the article's title, M. argues in Part One that "utopia is equivalent to the domain of the goddess Diana: a sort of aquatic island-in-reverse, a primitive sea surrounded by impenetrable mountains." She then gives a "detailed study of Céladon's 'awakening' in the Palais d'Isoure," and discusses how the travestied Céladon (as Alexis), "becomes subsumed into the feminine world which censures and then incorporates him." Part Two of the essay explores how the "structure of emblem combines narrative and ekphrasis in order to suggest an allegory of the fall of the golden age."
RENDALL, STEVEN,trans. Honoré d'Urfé. Astrea. Binghamton, N.Y.: MRTS, 1995.
Review: J. Harrie in RenQ 50 (1997) 922–23: First translation into English since the 17th c., R.'s publication of the unabridged first part of L'Astrée is greatly appreciated. Based on H. Vanay's French edition, R.'s volume, accompanied by a useful introduction, allows for wider diffusion of a work critical to literature and culture of the 17th c.
ROSSETTO, PAULE. "La rêverie aquatique dans l'Astrée." Tra Lit 10 (1997), 101–17.
Persuasive study demonstrates importance of "water"-it fascinates the characters, structures and organizes the intrigue, and invites the readers to reflect. Of particular interest is R.'s analysis of an intense mystical episode (III, 3).
SANCIER-CHATEAU, A. Une esthétique nouvelle: Honore d'Urfé correcteur de l'Astrée (1607–1625). Geneva: Droz, 1995.
Review: Wendy Ayres-Bennett in SCFS 18 (1996) 177–80: Given the 1,000 corrections identified and considered to move in the same direction as Malherbe's corrections of Desportes and Vaugelas' remarks, the reviewer discusses the historical position and consequent historical revision that should be accorded to d'Urfé. Troubled by quantification, absent here, and by the reversibility of some later corrections, as well as the absence of effect on Vaugelas, the reviewer would maintain the present historical narrative and add this new material as documentation of a tendency she has herself already lengthened in her research on Vaugelas' translation of Quintus Curtius.
JAMES F. GAINES and PERRY GETHNER, eds. Lucrèce, tragédie. Geneva: Droz, 1994.
Review: William Brooks in CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997), 255–57: Favorable review in which B. praises, among other things, the introduction's "good sections on political themes of the play, and on Du Ryer's rather allusive poetic style." Reviewer "welcomes" the editors' contributions, and commends the Textes Littéraires Français series for its "textual reliability and judicious exegesis."
QUIGNARD, PASCAL, ed. La faussetés des vertus humains. Paris: Aubier, 1996.
Review: M. Schneider in Le Point 1238 (1996), 110: New edition of key work of the forgotten Jansenist who inspired La Rochefoucauld and others. Jacques Esprit was a "tombeur des masques et auteur d'un traité dont la descendance se retrouverait de Kierkegaard à Nietzsche ... Ce 'livre noir' dispense plus d'éclat que bien des élucidations des encyclopédistes." "C'est à P. Quignard ... que revient le mérite d'avoir exhumé ce beau livre mélancolique, accompagné d'une longue préface, en fait un traité en soi, qui donne à celui d'Esprit sa portée moderne."
DEREGNAUCOURT, GILLES, et al.,eds. Fénelon, évêque et pasteur en son temps (1695–1715). Lille: Université Charles de Gaulle, 1997.
Review: Michel Dupuy in RHEF 84 (1998), 188–89: Excellent collection of papers offered at a colloquium at Cambrai in 1995, arranged under "Un évêque au carrefour de diverses influences," concentrated around Cambrai; "Pastorale et écclésologie;" "Fénelon les pouvoirs et la société de son temps;" Fénelon après Fénelon." Reviewer gives a complete listing of titles and participants that constitute "une grande richesse."
LE BRUN, JACQUES, ed. Oeuvres. Tome II. Paris: Gallimard, 1998.
Review: Peter Bayley in TLS 4961 (1 May 1998), 8: Second and final volume of the Pléïade selected works, from 1699, not incorporating the correspondence edited in Orcibal's edition but the Lettre à l'Académie is here, as is the Réfutation du système du père Malebranche promised for vol. 1 (1983). Meticulous annotation based on "scholarship of the highest order." The vast range of writings, some edited critically for the first time, should not be overshadowed by Télémaque (edited here in the line of Albert Cahen's edition), and makes even sharper the pivotal position between centuries that F. occupies and his intellectual rigor (e.g. the Plans du gouvernement of 1711). Bayley offers a judicious and suggestive commentary on the fortunes of F. as a writer.
Review: N. Casanova in QL 725 (1997), 15 + 18: New volume includes the "Lettre à Louis XIV" (1693) and Les Aventures de Télémaque. "Quand nous lisons ces pages souvent d'une poésie racinienne, ce n'est pas l'image d'un brûlot qui nous vient à l'esprit. Nous songeons plutôt à ce que l'on appelle la lutte écologique... Dans le Télémaque, Fénelon a inoculé avec suavité au concept de 'gouvernement', la substance propre à désintégrer l'espèce 'roi'... sans doute n'y a t il pas de 'bon roi', sans doute Fénelon aida t il nombre de ses lecteurs à s'en apercevoir. Un degré de plus, eût il été moins aristocrate, et il inventait la démocratie."
VIDAL, DANIEL, ed. Esprit Fléchier, fanatiques et insurgés du Vivarais et des Cévennes. Récits et lettres, 1689–1705. Grenoble: J. Millon, 1996/97.
Review: Jacques Solé in RHEF 84 (1998), 189: Anthology of pieces beginning with the 1680 polemic with Jurieu and the Bishop's information on Languedociens at the turn of the century, finally the horrified chronicle of the Cévennes, 1702 5. The elegance of the writer is as clear as is his lack of comprehension of the depth of feeling and religious "mysticism" seen in the Cévennes.
STROUP, ALICE. "Foigny's Joke." EMF 4 (1998), 165–93.
Article examines Foigny's La Terre australe connue in terms of authorial strategies, Foigny's ideas on physical and human nature, sexuality, language, religion, and various philosophical schools, particularly neo-Stoicism. S. claims that the originality of her essay lies in unearthing "the natural theology that permeates the work." Specifically, she refers to the text's uniqueness in emphasizing "sexuality as the link between nature and society." With respect to the article's title, S. states that "hermaphroditism is the key to Foigny's joke," because by portraying "Australians" as hermaphrodites who attribute their "rational, learned, and equitable society" to their hermaphroditism, F. "privileges the abnormal" in European society, and therefore subverts western mores concerning sexual and political norms.
MARCHAL, ROGER. Fontenelle à l'aube des Lumières. Paris: Champion, 1997.
Review: R. Howells in MLR 93 (1998), 835: Study of Fontenelle's work from the 1670s to the 1750s "treated broadly by genre"—poetry, fiction, theater, critique morale et philosophique, scientific vulgarization. Reviewer regrets lack of index and chronology, cursory bibliography and minimal notes, but finds that the study "offers a comprehensive and judicious account, while quietly developing an interpretation, of the works of this remarkable figure."
TAVENEAUX, RENE., ed. Saint Pierre Fourier, La Pastorale, l'éducation, l'Europe chrétienne. Paris: Messene, 1995.
Review: Bernard Chédozeau in RHL 98.1 (1998), 135–36: Favorable review which focuses on Fourier's religious, intellectual, and political background. For C., Fourier "est le représentant d'une religion qu'on pourrait dire baroque, et cet ouvrage, qui honore la riche littérature religieuse qui se publie depuis quelques années, rappelle les valeurs très solides de la première réforme catholique tridentine menée dans l'esprit d'un humanisme dévot."
HOFFMANN, KATHRYN. "Palimpsests of Knowledge, Feast of Words: Antoine Furetière's Dictionnaire universel." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 47–59.
H. examines Furetière's quarrel with the French Academy over his dictionary. Dealing with the "politics, the methodology, and the pleasures of education in language" offered by the dictionary, H. sees the work not only as a social document and as an "inventory of words," but as "an encyclopedic revelry around the thing." Taking the example of the definition of "chocolate," H. argues that F.'s work, unlike the Academy's dictionary, becomes "an exercise in palimpsest lexicography" that "exposed the essential problematics of knowledge and its transmission to the public."
MURR, SYLVIA, ed. Gassendi et l'Europe (1592–1792). Actes du Colloque International de Paris "Gassendi et sa postérité." Sorbonne, 6–10 octobre 1992. Paris: Vrin, 1997.
Important collection of 26 papers, including M. Osler, "Volonté divine et vérité mathématique: le conflit entre Descartes et Gassendi sur le statut des vérités éternelles;" Marianne Schaub, "Naudé et Gassendi;" Jean Charles Darmon, "Le Gassendisme frivole de Saint Evremond;" S. Murr, "Bernier et Gassendi;" T.M. Lennon, "Gassendi et Pierre Bayle, deux acolytes de Clio;" R. Popkin, Gassendi et les scientifiques anglais." Complete listing in Isis 88.3 (1997), 588–89.
SARASOHN, LISA T. Gassendi's Ethics: Freedom in a Mechanistic Universe. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Review: Roger Ariew in Isis 88 (1997), 338–39: Analysis mainly of Part 3 of the Syntagma philosophica. Introductory chapters on biography and on the relationship of ethics and natural philosophy are followed by others treating pleasure, freedom of will (a separate chapter on astrology and freedom), the roles of pleasure and freedom in state and society. A running dialogue with Descartes, Hobbes, and Molina is maintained. "Sound analyses" and interesting rapprochements. Reviewer questions the relationship of the Exercitationes to the Syntagma, the latter not representative of the earlier allignment of natural philosophy, Epicurean revival, and ethics of the former. Further research in comparison of Gassendi's two books with earlier schooltexts (which they resemble) is called for.
HEPP, NOEMI. Mémoires et autres inédits de Nicolas Goulas, gentilhomme ordinaire de la chambre du duc D'Orléans. Paris: Champion, 1995.
Review: Natalie Grande in RHL 98.1 (1998), 147: Reviewer discusses the need for this work, saying that it fills a gap left by the incomplete edition of Goulas's Mémoires published in the nineteenth century. The previous edition did not include the first thirteen chapters of the manuscript in which G. discusses his origins and youth. Two other heretofore unpublished works are included which "éclaire la conception qu'avait Goulas du travail du mémorialiste."
WORCESTER, THOMAS. "Defending Women and Jesuits: Marie De Gournay." SCFS 18 (1996), 59–73.
Examines in defense of Jesuits the Adieu de l'âme du Roi de France (1610) viewing its parallels with the Eqalité des hommes et des femmes (1622). A parallel is seen between the defenses of the two minorities, the Jesuits being defended for their nurturing of the young, preaching, and especially their fight against heresy, utility to the state that women have shared according to the exemplary models of the preaching of Mary Magdalen.
BERTAUD, MADELEINE. "Deux Ariane au XVIIe siècle: Alexandre Hardy et Thomas Corneille." SCFS 19 (1997), 135–48.
Contrasts, through differences in dramaturgy and tone, the tragicomedy of Hardy (publ. 1625) and Corneille's elegantly constructed, high toned tragedy (1672). Shows that the latter's dramatic interest, even at its time from the source, derives from Scudéry's "Carte du tendre."
ESCOLA, MARC. Jean de La Bruyère. Paris/Roma: Editions Memini, 1996.
Review: Nathalie Grande in RHL 98.1 (1998), 150: Reviewer praises the volume which appears in the "Bibliographie des écrivains français" collection of Memini. The work contains "pas moins de 967 références, dont 848 entrées critiques au sujet de l'auteur des Caractères." The bibliographical selections include entries on manuscripts, editions and translations, as well as biographical and general studies. Thematic sections contain notations on Theophrastus, La Bruyère's aesthetics, and morality. Author concludes by mentioning, "les différentes index [qui] complètent parfaitement le volume."
JAMES, EDWARD. "La Bruyère on Values in Practice." SCFS 19 (1997), 73–82.
An elegant commentary on LB's varying judgments of the discrepancy between men's principles/ intentions in their practices/actions amusement, irony, resentful satire all take on "non classical" expressions leading us to believe that all depends on circumstances and temperament, as these lead to severity or humanity. A very valuable enumeration of recent critical writings on LB is included in the notes.
KEAVENEY, COLIN. "La Bruyère and the 'Civilizing process'." SCFS 19 (1997), 83–95.
Examines the ways in which N. Elias uses citations from LB in the elaboration of his theories, then concludes with questions of LB's assimilation to the society with which the Caractères set up an apparently adversarial relationship.
LANDRY, JEAN-PIERRE. "La Bruyère et les prédicateurs." PFSCL 15 (1998), 27–40.
Studies the relationship between the arts of the moralist and the preacher, touching on La B.'s spirituality. Concludes that the author is "un représentant exemplaire de ces laïcs chrétiens du XVIIe siècle, . . . ."
LAVOREL, GUY. "Ponge et La Bruyère: deux hommes de caractères." PFSCL 15 (1998), 41–53.
Studies the notion of character in the two authors using Van Delft's concept of the openness and the closedness of character.
LEPLATRE, OLIVIER. "La Bruyère ou le livre de curiosités." PFSCL 15 (1998), 55–67.
According to the author, "la collection, modèle spatial et architectonique, métaphore épistémologique, structure le livre."
RICORD, MARINE. "La mélancolie du langage dans les Caractères de La Bruyère." PFSCL 15 (1998), 69–80.
"Car que fait le moraliste, sinon combler le vide du langage en le désignant par l'écriture en cherchant à lui substituer un ajustement plus grand des signes? Dire l'écart, c'est déjà le compenser, l'orienter vers une plénitude possible, une vérité divine, une vérité morale."
ROUKHOMOSKY, BERNARD. L'esthétique de La Bruyere. Paris: Sedes, 1997.
Review: BCLF 598–99 (1998), 1444: "Cet ouvrage, qui selon le principe même de la collection dans laquelle il figure, fait suivre l'étude critique de l'oeuvre envisagée de nombreux extraits de celle-ci, présente, avec brio et clarté, le style et l'esthétique de l'auteur des Caractères."
SANCIER-CHATEAU, ANNE. "L'art du parallèle dans les Caractères de La Bruyère." PFSCL 15 (1998), 81–88.
Studies parallel construction and antithesis in the work: "Il donne à voir des êtres lisses, inaccessibles au changement, mus par une passion ou une ambition dominantes qui leur donnent cohésion et unité."
THIROUIN, LAURENT. "La dénonciation du jeu dans les Caractères de La Bruyère." PFSCL 15 (1998), 89–106.
La B's condemnation of gambling and his ambivalence before play and playfulness.
VAN DELFT, LOUIS. La Bruyère ou du spectateur. PFSCL/Biblio 17, 96 (1996).
Review: Margot Kruse in RJ 47 (1996 publ. 1997), 244–45: K. points out, with approval, how these essays develop the lines of the author's Chapter 9 of his Littérature et anthropologie..., opening LB's world up through the "world is a stage" topos.
GANIM, RUSSELL. "Locus amoenus vs. locus terribilis: The Spatial Dynamics of the Pastoral and the Urban in La Ceppède's Théorèmes." FLS 24 (1997), 201–213.
The appropriated classical pastoral retreat transformed for the meditant into the Mount of Olives in the first 100 sonnets alternates with the space of Jerusalem/Sodom. The poet as spiritual guide draws the reader into repeating Christ's journey, then ultimately to be able to undertake that mediation within the trials of the city.
PLANTIE, JACQUELINE, ed. Les Théorèmes sur le sacré mystere de nostre redemption. Paris: Champion, 1996.
Review: Richard Crescenzo in RHL 98.2 (1998), 288: C. mentions the exclusion of La Ceppède's annotations in the edition, but in general praises the volume, calling it, "un instrument de travail fort précieux pour tous ceux qui s'intéressent à cette période exceptionnelle pour la poésie 'théologienne'." Reviewer points out the usefulness of P.'s lexicon, bibliography, and numerous indices. From a bibliographical and thematic standpoint, the edition emphazises La Ceppède's reading of Panigarola, as well as the relationship between mystery and the concept of the "figure."
CAMPBELL, JOHN. Questions of Interpretation in La Princesse de Clèves. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopoi, 1996.
Review: A. Green in MLR 93 (1998), 224–25: "Campbell's own balanced, sympathetic, and detailed contribution to this flood of criticism is particularly welcome as it condenses a mass of critical opinion into a form that students and specialists will find invaluable. He identifies the main areas of controversy, reviews a wide range of critical responses that have been made to them, and then proceeds to suggest plausible readings based on a close analysis of the novel's language."
GEVREY, FRANÇOISE. L'esthétique de Madame de Lafayette. Paris: SEDES, 1997.
Review: Bettina L. Knapp in FR 72.1 (1998), 124–25: Solid and scholarly as well as readable and even engrossing study in four parts: "Un auteur dans son temps," collecting portraits by contemporaries on gallantry, developed through imagined dialogue into an "esthétique du lien social," and opening out literary genres related to conversation; "La Disposition," considering contemporary practices and "rules" for narrative; "L'esthétique des personnages," concentrating on the ways LF sheds the Aristotelian rules. A "sensitive exploration."
GREEN, ANNE. Privileged Anonymity: The Writings of Madame de Lafayette. Oxford: Clarendon Press-Legenda Paperbacks, 1996.
Review: Maya Slater in TLS 4893 (10 Jan. 1997), 23: This first monograph in a new series of the European Humanities Research Center is a collection of separate essays chronologically arranged on each of the texts, examined through a few important themes: the complex interplay between public and private persona (La Comtesse de Tende), sexual relationships as a battleground for mastery (La Princesse de Montpensier(, communication between the sexes (Zayde), and the tension between silence and speech (La Princesse de Clèves). Book is best when closely examining texts. Some comparison between texts and those of contemporaries would have been illuminating.
LETTS, JANET. Legendary Lives in La Princesse de Clèves. EMF Critiques. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 1998.
Letts studies Mme de La Fayette's knowledge and artistic use of historiographic materials.
BACCAR, ALIA, ed. La Fontaine et l'Orient: réception, réécriture, représentation. Actes du colloque de Tunis. PFSCL/Biblio 17, 98 (1996).
Review: T. Alliott in MLR 93 (1998), 504–05: Welcome investigation highlights the enigmatic and the paradoxical in La Fontaine's Fables. Studies focus on such topics as "the interplay of literary convention and factual reality" in the poet's work, the influence of the translated version of Pilpay's fables, and the "impact of La Fontaine on Arabic literature."
Review: Boris Donné in RHL 98.2 (1998), 298–99: Most of the articles in this compendium focus on "les fables du second recueil inspirées du Livre de Lumières de Pilpay." The work is divided into three sections: 1) Représentation et écriture, 2) Réécriture, conception du monde, and 3) L'orient. L'histoire et ses images." D. cites the originality of many articles, and highlights the way in which the volume demonstrates the subsequent influence of the Fables on Arab literature and art.
Review: O. Leplatre in PFSCL 15 (1998), 281–282: Studies of themes related to the Orient presenting elements of esthetic diversity, echos of the theme in La Fontaine's relations with other writers, and the importance of the fable in Eastern cultures and its role in images of the East.
BIRBERICK, ANNE L. Reading Undercover: Audience and Authority in Jean de La Fontaine. Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, 1998.
Focusing on the Fables, Les Amours de Psyché, and the Contes, B. examines author/audience relations and demonstrates how La Fontaine remains a largely subversive artist even while he seeks to establish himself within a conventional system of literary patronage.
BIRBERICK, ANNE L., ed. Refiguring La Fontaine: Tercentenary Essays. Charlottesville, VA: Rookwood Press, 1996.
Review: M. Slater in MLR 93 (1998), 223–24: Nine thematically grouped essays in four sections. The first section, "Context and Pretext," contains articles by Marie-Odile Sweetser, Michael Vincent, and Martine Debaisieux which "revaluate the poet in different contexts." The second section, "Writing, Reading and Perspective in the Fables," focuses on the texts themselves and offers analyses from Richard Danner, Russell Ganim and Catherine Grise. The third section, "Narrative Loss and Figuration in Psyché and the Contes," contains articles by Twyla Meding who explores how the cliches of the pastoral novel are subverted in Psyché and Anne Birberick who examines the six Contes portraying nuns. In the final section, "Refabulations," David Rubin discusses translations of research.
BRODY, JULES. Lectures de La Fontaine. EMF Monographs 1 Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 1994.
Review: Sylvie Dangerville in FR 70 (1997), 734–35: An "oeil expert vers des découvertes textuelles inédites" in I,5,22; II,15; VII,7; VIII,4 and l'Adonis in the spirit of "diversité c'est ma devise." Particular attention to narrative turns, mixture of styles.
BURY, EMMANUEL. L'esthétique de La Fontaine. Paris: Sedes, 1996.
Review: J.-P. Collinet in PFSCL 15 (1998), 282–283: Reviewer calls this work, directed especially at a student readership, an "élégante synthèse." Includes anthology of important texts.
Review: Boris Donné in RHL 98.2 (1998), 297: Book is organized into two parts: 1) une anthologie d'une soixantaine de textes de La Fontaine pertinents pour l'étude de son esthétique," and 2) the explanation of La Fontaine's work as "une poésie ancrée à la fois dans la société mondaine du XVIIe siècle, et dans de profondes traditions rhétoriques et poétiques." Among other topics dealt with are "le renouvellement et l'appropriation du genre par La Fontaine," as well as "l'évolution de son art au fil des recueils."
DANDREY, PATRICK, ALAIN GENETIOT, et BORIS DONNE, éds. Le Fablier, Revue des Amis de Jean de La Fontaine, 7. Chateau-Thierry: La Société des Amis de Jean de La Fontaine, 1995.
Review: M. Slater in MLR 92 (1997), 973–74: Reviewer cites several important contributions in this first of two volumes commemorating La Fontaine's tercentenary in 1995. J. P Collinet in collaboration with R. Josse provides detailed historical research on contemporary documents relating to La Fontaine in "La Fontaine au fil des jours"; "De l'art des devises à la poétique de l'apologue", by P.Dandrey, "examines the parallels between the Preface to the first "Recueil" of La Fontaine's Fables (1668) and le Père Le Moyne's De l'Art des Devises of 1666. . . . The volume is completed by a bibliographical revision, a lively evocation of the poet's birthplace by Colette Prieur, and four short articles written for the national press by Marc Fumaroli, covering the musicality of La Fontaine's verse, his late conversion, philosophical origins, and debt to Italian literature bibliographical revision."
DE LEY, HERBERT. Fixing Up Reality: La Fontaine and Lévi-Strauss. PFSCL/Biblio 17, 97 (1996).
Review: Boris Donné in RHL 98.2 (1998), 297: Largely unfavorable review where D. states that while most readers would expect a well-reasoned, rigorous, structuralist reading of La Fontaine by De Ley, what emerges is an "isole[ment] plus ou moins arbitraire de quelques fables, [qui] glisse l'une à l'autre par analogie pour tisser un long commentaire aux conclusions sans surprises." Especially disappointing is De Ley's reliance on Lévi-Strauss, who, according to D., "n'a jamais parlé de La Fontaine."
Review: M. Slater in MLR 93 (1998), 505–06: Exploration of the "parallels between the anthropological writings of Lévi-Strauss and the Fables and Contes of La Fontaine." De Ley "picks out patterns analysed by Lévi-Strauss and applies them to La Fontaine. The result is a series of new and varied insights, many of which are original and fruitful."
Review: O. Leplatre in PFSCL 15 (1998), 298–300: Reviewer calls this study a "lecture des Fables . . . profonde et somme toute neuve . . . .": De Ley "nous montre la fable au travail avec le réel . . . ."
FUMAROLI, MARC. Le poète et le roi: Jean de La Fontaine en son siècle. Paris: Des Fallois, 1997.
Review: Peter France in TLS 4908 (23 April 1997), 12: Fine appreciation of Fumaroli's career, and recent polemical as well as celebratory writings on French culture, give nuanced consideration to this "expansive and distinctly personal book." The "case of La Fontaine" is above all used to evoke a larger vision of the development of culture in post-Renaissance France. This "dernier poète de la Renaissance" serves also as "an ideal synthesis of Frenchness." There are many illuminating comments on individual poems but these stop short of full-scale analysis, though they are invariably in the context of social life. Argues that the fall of Foucquet made the poet by freeing him to explore, with more discipline, other forms of poetry and to solidify a "tragic vision" based on awareness of the impossibilty in the new world of Versailles of the incorporation of his own visions, of Psyché and Adonis, that enrich the fables. Personally, it began a life-long detachment from the center of power. Reviewer has some misgivings about the starkness of the opposition of poetry and Realpolitik, near mythic treatment of the Foucquet-Colbert confrontation, and the value of the salon as a cultural ideal for the end of the 20th century.
Review: Françoise Graziani in CTH 19 (1997), 60: Brief presentation of the book as the first to work out the continuity of La Fontaine's Renaissance aesthetics. Signals also the "fraternité quasi-idéologique" shared with Tristan l'Hermite.
GRIMM, JURGEN. Le "dire sans dire" et le dit: études lafontaniennes II. PFSCL/Biblio 17, 93 (1996).
Review: T. Alliott in MLR 93 (1998), 222–23: Sixteen articles, most of which date from the past five years, focus primarily on the Contes of La Fontaine. Grimm rejects formalist interpretations which ignore the personal, social, and political contexts of La Fontaine's works in favor of "reading the text in breadth and depth." Volume continually challenges traditional assumptions and suggests new areas of research.
Review: O. Leplatre in PFSCL 15 (1998), 318–320: A second volume of 16 studies completed between 1972 and 1976 and using the scholar's social criticism approach to the poet.
GRISE, CATHERINE. Cognitive Space and Patterns of Deceit in La Fontaine's Contes. EMF Critiques. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 1998.
Grisé applies Goffman's "frame analysis" to structure in the Contes.
LANDRY, JEAN-PIERRE, ed. Présence de La Fontaine. Actes de la Journée La Fontaine. Paris: Champion, 1996.
Review: M. Slater in PFSCL 15 (1998), 329–330: Several studies: the poet's attitude toward women, the theme of withdrawal, the conflict between characters and their speech, and La F. the dreamer. According to reviewer, a volume characterized more by enthusiasm than innovative ideas.
LE FABLIER 8, 1996. "La Fontaine 1695–1995." Colloque du Tricentenaire.
Review: M. Ricord in PFSCL 15 (1998), 304–306: A collection of articles from the tricentenial observance that represents a "bilan critique" of La Fontaine studies. Both an excellent introduction to the poet and a reference work.
LESAGE, CLAIRE, ed. Catalogue de I'Exposition, Bibliothéque Nationale, 1995–1996. Paris: Seuil, 1995.
Review: Jean Marc Chatellain in BB, 1997, 184–85: Generously illustrated and generally organized around the place of image in the fables and in culture. Long introductory essay by M. Fumaroli on the Epicurean poetics of LF; Michel Couan on their rapport with real gardens; Michel Pastoureau on blasons; Claire Lesage on Court spectacles. One part is given to illustrators. J-P. Collinet on "un cycle du reflet" sets the subtle "jeux de miroirs" that are the fables themselves.
MEERHOFF, KEES and PAUL J. SMITH, éds. Fabuleux La Fontaine. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi, 1996.
Review: T. Alliott in MLR 93 (1998), 503–04: Well-produced collection of articles divided into four sections. The first section contains essays by P. Pelckmans on the theme of death, M. Slater on the presentation of the pagan gods, and J.-P. Collinet on the theme of delusion. The second section explores the emblem tradition in contributions by D. Russell and L. Grove. In the final section, S. Houppermans analyzes the Les Lunettes; P. Smith explores "the mystery of a French translation of the Latin fable, Gallus (1673) by Commire; G. Parussa examines a 1670 collection of fables by Saint-Glas "that develops the text of La Fontaine and also reuses the engravings of Chauveau"; and K. Meerhoff "provides a very interesting picture of the fortunes of La Fontaine in eignteenth-century criticism."
Review: Alain Génetiot in RHL 98.2 (1998), 299: The goal of the compendium is to "désigner en La Fontaine le 'fabuliste'," and to "place[r] les Fables sous le signe d'une rhétorique savante." The first three articles deal with representations of death, while the following essays focus on the relationship between the Fables and the emblematic tradition. One article is centered on the Contes. G's impression is quite favorable, as he states that, "ce recueil met ainsi en évidence les intentions complexes et raffinés qui ont présidé à l'écriture de ce livre adulte que sont les Fables."
RONZEAUD, PIERRE AND PATRICK DANDREY, eds. La Fontaine: Adonis, Le songe de Vaux, Les amours de Psyché. Actes . . . du 30 novembre 1996 et . . . du 25 janvier 1997. Paris: Klincksieck, 1997.
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in PFSCL 15 (1998), 337–339: Important studies devoted to the poet's "oeuvres galantes." Includes a "choix bibliographique."
SHAPIRO, NORMAN R.,trans. Fifty More Fables of La Fontaine. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.
Review: N. B. Palmer in Choice 35.11/12 (1998), 1860: Shapiro "once more reproduc[es] in English both 'the tune and the tone'... of the original.... Shapiro's translation re-creates the intimacy, the naturalness, the chattiness, the digressions, the rhyme, and especially the wit of La Fontaine.... A handsome book—beautiful paper, delightful illustrations, nicely bound, with good notes and bibliography."
Review: n.a. in VQR 74.4 (1998), 132: "S. is most successful with the fables that deviate least from Greco-Roman objectivity, linear organization, and insistence on eternally recurring traits. But when his source texts are most Lafontainian—skeptical or epicurean in viewpoint, dense, resonant, and conflictual in method as well as radically creative with genre norms—S. corrects the French poet's eclecticism by skillful massaging, tweaking, and pruning. The result is an undeniably delicious read—fluent, lively, and transparent—but like Fifty Fables of La Fontaine, Fifty More is less a translation than a thorough-going and backward-looking adaptation, as remote in profile from the original as La Fontaine's fables are from their classical models."
SLATER, MAYA. "La Fontaine's Hidden Images." SCFS 18 (1996), 91–103.
Similar to the trick focus of some Flemish and Italian paintings that superimpose a human and an inanimate shape, some fables may appear to play on human images and inanimate contexts, most often to satirize or mock some kind of human distortions. Special attention is given to XI,4 and II,16 in which a dreamlike suggestiveness presents a new perspective on the world subtle enough to represent La Fontaine "at his most original."
WALDMAN, GUIDO,trans. Forbidden Fruit: Selected Tales in Verse. London: Harvill, 1998.
Review: Maya Slater in TLS 4963 (15 May 1998), 25: 12 of the 70 contes adapted rather than translated, in the spirit of Ogden Nash. "Fun to read and attractively illustrated."
MCBRIDE, ROBERT, ed. Lettre sur la Comédie de l'Imposteur. Durham: University of Durham, 1994.
Review: S. Bamforth in MLR 93 (1998), 831–33: "The question of the authorship of the text is the central focus of the edition. The name of La Mothe Le Vayer has been mentioned before as possible author, but McBride breaks new ground by ascribing the work definitely to him. The arguments are a combination of the thematic and the stylistic, and are clearly set out in the introduction." Reviewer remains unconvinced but finds McBride's contribution to the debate "a stimulating one, and the edition he has produced of the Lettre is excellently and thoroughly documented."
CLARK, HENRY C. La Rochefoucauld and the Language of Unmasking in Seventeenth Century France. Genève: Droz, 1994.
Review: O. Roth in Archiv 234 (1997), 196–201: Detailed review places C.'s various critical interpretations in context of La R. criticism by Jean Lafond, Louis Van Delft, Corrado Rosso and others. C.'s conclusions are, in R.'s view, in harmony with the analysis of H. Scheffers on the sociogenesis of the concept of honnêteté. "Mondain" impulses dominate in C.'s analysis and La R. is portrayed as a forerunner of the liberal Enlightment moral system.
HODGSON, RICHARD G. Falsehood Disguised: Unmasking the Truth in La Rochefoucauld. West Lafayette; Purdue University Press, 1995.
Review: Edmund Campion in FR 71.5 (1998), 840: Analyzes, with great insight, LR's ambiguous reflection on truth and falsehood in developing the central moral ambiguity of the Maximes. An important contribution to the study of the reception of the work.
CAMERON, KEITH et PAUL WRIGHT, éds. Les Tromperies. Pierre de Larivey. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997.
Review: BCLF 595 (avril 1998), 742: Larivey "publie sous son nom six comédies en 1579, puis trois autres en 1611 alors qu'il est chanoine à Troyes, toutes traduites et transposées dans le contexte français de l'époque. Les Tromperies, la meilleure des trois pièces du second recueil reprend ainsi Gl'Inganni de Niccolo Secco (1509–1560) . . . . L'édition critique se repose sur l'édition originale de 1611, la seule connue, parue chez Pierre Chevillot à Troyes." Bibliographie et glossaire.
Review: M. Lazard in BHR 60.2 (1998), 579–80: "La collection des Textes littéraires dirigée par Keith Cameron, fidèle à sa tradition, s'est enrichie d'une pièce non réeditée depuis sa parution au XIXe siècle dans l'Ancien théâtre français (Bibl. alzévirienne, Paris, 1856). Les Tromperies sont l'une des Trois comédies des six dernières de Pierre de Larivey, Champenois, publiées en 1611 à Troyes, et restées, d'ailleurs sans suite malgré la promesse du titre."L. trouve ce volume "révélateur du talent du chanoine de Troyes et de son rôle dans l'évolution de la comédie en France."
BONFAIT, OLIVIER, ANNE REINBOLD, et BEATRICE SARRAZIN. L'ABCdaire de Georges de La Tour. Paris: Flammarion, 1997.
Review: BCLF 598–99 (1998), 1616: "Publié dans la collection 'L'ABCdaire' de Flammarion, à l'occasion de l'exposition Georges de La Tour aux galeries nationales du Grand Palais, ce vade-mecum n'apprendra rien aux connaisseurs et aux spécialistes; conçu à partir d'une sélection de mots clés, il ambitionne de parcourir certains thèmes propres au contexte culturel de quelques grands artistes."
CUZIN, JEAN-PIERRE et PIERRE ROSENBERG. Georges de La Tour. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1997.
Review: BCLF 598–99 (1998), 1637: Catalogue d'exposition, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 3 oct. 1997–26 janv. 1998, [qui] "fera . . . date, et dont les notices ont été complétées et remises à jour en ce qui concerne les provenances, l'historique des expositions, les bibliographies . . . . Il remplacera enfin dignement le catalogue fondamental de l'exposition de 1972, d'autant qu'une seconde édition est prévue, avec davantage de précisions et avec quelques nouvelles découvertes."
Review: G. Raillard in QL 725 (1997), 16–17: In this retrospective, "Les oeuvres actuellement reconnues autographes sont mêlées aux copies, les séries sont présentées à la suite, en leur entier, de quelque main qu'elles soient.
FOHR, ROBERT. Georges de La Tour. Le maître des nuits. Metz: Adam Biro, 1997.
Review: BCLF 598–99 (1998), 1617–18: "Articulé en six chapitres, l'ouvrage explore le contexte historique et culturel de cet oeuvre magique qui reflète les passions de l'époque . . . . Fort bien documenté, cet essai constitue un excellent complément au catalogue de l'exposition parisienne."
FRAISSE, BERNARD. "La Tour toujours redécouvert." RDM (novembre 1997), 168–171:
"L'exposition du Grand Palais, organisée par Jacques Thuillier, Pierre Rosenberg et Jean-Pierre Cuzin, rassemble quarante-deux toiles de l'artiste et des copies anciennes d'oeuvres disparues, certaines sans doute lors de l'incendie de Lunéville en 1638."
MALETTKE, KLAUS. Ludwig XIV. von Frankreich. Leben, Politik und Leistung. Göttingen: Muster-Schmidt, 1994.
Review: I. Mieck in HZ 264 (1997), 487–88: Welcome biographical treatment in the German language (filling a major lacuna) by prominent and trustworthy historian. Demographics and social structure of France are treated, as well as ruling practices of Louis XIV. Reviewer would have appreciated more critical apparatus, but notes the considerable account taken of controversy in current scholarship.
ONG VAN CUNG, KIM SANG. "Malebranche et l'exemplarisme médiéval." RMM (1997), 343–63.
Malebranche's affirmation that we see everything in God does not figure in the main sources of exemplarism, Augustine and Aquinas. The role of exemplarism in the noetic of Aquinas in fact implies the efficacy of the secondary cause that the notion of occasional cause in Malebranche refutes. The doctrine of vision in God is nonetheless seen as an attempt to apply exemplarism to the new conception of matter and knowledge held with a view to conserve a more classical conception of creation than Descartes's.
PINCHARD, BRUNO, ed. La légèreté de l'être: études sur Malebranche. Paris: Vrin, 1998.
14 papers including A. Robinet,"Un siècle d'études malebranchistes: courants dominants,' and B. Pinchard, "Sensibilité de Malebranche: l'occasionalisme au delà du tragique?" Full contents listed in Isis 89.3 (1998), 597.
LEVER, MAURICE, ed. Cendre et poussière: mémoires de Marie de Mancini. Paris: Le Comptoir, 1997.
Review: François Crouset in FL (3 July 1997), 8: Republication of the 1683 La Princesse Colonna. Special praise for the brilliance of Lever's introduction.
JOHNSON, STEPHEN. "André Mareschal's La Crysolite: From Preface to Text." SCFS 19 (1997), 185–97.
Valuable examination in Mareschal's sole narrative fiction (1626) of the author's play with contemporary anti heroic or "realist" claims for fiction. Probative use of contemporary instances of the strategy shows how it is played upon from the preface to the text in a manner to install a permanent ambiguity.
GRISE, Catherine. "La clôture dans les Odes de François Maynard." CM 19 (1998) 23–34.
Finds that the complexity of Renaissance odes reappears in M.'s last lines, or "clausules." Referring to studies by Bahti, Hamon and others, author analyzes a number of the odes to,reveal corresponding "procédés sémantiques de clôture." The ode to Racan puts a new twist on the Horatian exegi monumentum (Bk. III, 30). But sometimes M. has written in a surprise ending, to offer the reader a very different conclusion than he might anticipate. Despite their structural stability, odes exhibit a tension between the Malherbian prescription to close, and the desire to escape that discipline and not "clôturer."
MANSAU, Andrée. "Loin d'Oriane et de Dulcinée? Nouvelles amours et poésie moderne de Maynard." CM 19 (1998), 35–38.
Links M. to Don Quixote, which he read and which influenced him; compares M.'s search for a contemporary poetic form to Cervantès' struggle for the modern novel against the roman de chevalerie. Both authors finally reject Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula. Turning away from academic, courtly, foreign and even antique sources, M. "recherche dans l'exil et dans la souffrance, loin des muses vénales, la force de l'inspiration ...l'exilé veut être le nouvel Orphée," and he compares himself to Balzac.
ROBERTS, WILLIAM. "Maynard and the Death of a Daughter." CM 19 (1998), 39–59.
Six prefatory paintings recall the importance given to 17th c. children, whose survival was always problematic, and establish other ties with M.'s ode (or elegy) "L'Astre du jour." The much regretted teen-age daughter is presented affectionately, as sweet, virtuous, and a sort of Cornelian heroïne. Close analysis reveals a strong influence of Malherbe's Consolation à Du Périer, and of preciosity. Poet rails against this Divine, but "unnatural," injustice and calls for his own death. At the end he steps outside the poem, and points to a father so distraught that his very reason has departed. Yet the text itself is very carefully constructed.
SWEETSER, MARIE-ODILE. "La Belle Vieille comme éloge paradoxal." CM 19 (1998), 9–23.
In a perspicacious reading of the prevailing circumstances and [the] poetic techniques used, author traces the history of the genre "éloge paradoxal" and illustrates in detail how M. follows its format of "hommage ambigu & attitude ambivalente." Although "le vocabulaire du service amoureux est systématiquement utilisé", M. follows an underlying logic akin to that of Malherbe, and also introduces unexpected, surprising developments. The widow's situation is compared to those of Madame de Clèves and Andromaque, and to social norms of the time. The protagonists seem to be archetypes, the poem's last stanza raises questions about M's basic sincerity. S. sees here a "parodie légère d'une situation amoureuse essentiellement littéraire"; suggests that this was M.'s last-ditch effort to rival with the younger salon poets, and regain his faltering reputation. Praises this "excellent artisan du vers...[cet] artiste conscient qui vise à perfectionner son texte."
BAMFORTH, STEVEN. "Jacques Lassalle et sa mise en scène de Dom Juan." OeC 22.2 (1997): 164–180.
L'auteur établit des points de comparaison entre la mise en scène de Dom Juan de Jacques Lassalle pour le Festival d'Avignon en juillet 1993 et celle sur le plateau de la salle Richelieu de la Comédie Française le 9 octobre 1993.
BIET, CHRISTIAN. "La veuve et l'idéal du mari absolu: Célimène et Alceste." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 215–26.
B. suggests that the portrayal in the theater represents transformations occurring in drama as a whole. Widows embody "de nouveaux héros...[qui] dépassent le statut du motif pour devenir les pièces essentielles du schéma fictionnel et acquérir une profondeur psychologique et sociale encore ignorée jusqu'alors." Author applies notions of "le droit de la veuve" during the Ancien Régime to the Misanthrope, arguing that the freedom granted to widows explains Célimène's audacious nature, making her a "véritable danger public." Yet, her freedom is not absolute, as society will eventually force her to remarry or gradually lose what authority she has as a libertine. B. concludes, "la veuve est libre d'être libre, libre de ne pas choisir un mari..., de rester menacée par le temps qui s'écoule...et d'être condamnée et réléguée pour avoir trop exercé cette liberté."
BILLARD, P. "Les femmes savantes. Compte-rendu de la mise en scène de Simon Zine à la Comédie-Française." Le Point 1360 (1998), 127.
Dans cette mise en scène, Trissotin "est un parfait Tartuffe. L'éclairage s'avère enrichissant, sans rien gommer des multiples facettes de la pièce. Loin de toute caricature, le raffinement de l'interprétation, aux bords de la perfection, traduit toutes les subtilités des contradictions morales, psychologiques, sociales qui tétanisent la famille de Chrysale."
BILLARD, PIERRE. "Performance Review of Les Fourberies de Scapin directed by Jean-Louis Benoît at the Comédie-Française, December 1997. Le Point 1316 (1997), 143.
"Jean-Louis Benoît instaure un équilibre miraculeux entre ce guignol époustouflant et la gravité mélancolique, voire désespérée, sous-jacente chez Scapin. Il dispose, pour exprimer cette approche si neuve et si riche, de deux instruments virtuoses: la troupe déchaînée des jeunes Comédiens-Français, qui endiablent rythme et caricatures, en parfaits saltimbanques. Et Philippe Torreton qui impose un intrigant Scapin, aventurier recru de cicatrices et d'ingratitude, qui met à secourir les autres une ingéniosité désabusée. Son regard féroce décape la farce de toute gentillesse et dénonce la bande de salauds et de crétins où, en grand valet-maître de comédie, il rétablit un ordre sans illusions."
BLUM, BILHA. "Behind Closed Doors. Tartuffe at the Tel Aviv Gesher Theatre." OeC 22.2 (1997): 20–30.
Analysis of Yevgeny Arye's staging of Tartuffe at the Gesher Theatre in 1995–96 concentrates on the set and the use of language "as essentiel to the understanding of the performance's thematic implications."
CAMPOS, CHRISTOPHE et MICHAEL SADLER. "La ville à l'assaut de la maison: Tartuffe au Soleil Levant." OeC 22.2 (1997): 54–72.
Analyse de la mise en scène de Tartuffe par Ariane Mnouchkine en 1995 à la Cartoucherie. "Dans ce Tartuffe, l'exotisme est inattendu. La cabale, dans le monde contemporain, c'est pour elle [Mnouchikine] l'intégrisme, islamique ou autre, c'est à la fois le radicalisme religieux et l'intolérance. La rencontre qui inspire à Ariane Mnouchkine cette création est celle d'un constat d'intolérance et une manifestation de sympathie morale et politique pour les peuples mediterranéens qui en sont victimes."
CARMODY, JIM. "Molière in America." OeC 22.2 (1997): 73–82.
Analysis of two Molière productions, the first directed by Robert Falls using a British translation/adaptation of Le Misanthrope by Neil Bartlett at the La Jolla/Goodman Theatre, and the second a staging of Les Fourberies de Scapin directed by Andrei Belgrader (1992–93) at the Classic Stage Company in New York and based on the Belgrader/Berc translation and adaptation. The author concludes: "These two productions are, I think, important landmarks in recent American theater history. They offer evidence that the new generation of American theater artists is less in awe of Molière's canonical status and therefore less inhibited in its desire to bring the plays to contemporary life. Both of these productions make Molière American, but they do not do so by attempting to cover over the very real differences between his dramaturgy and those to which American theater artists and audiences have become accustomed. Instead, they do so by going back to the original and trying to effect theatrical rather than literary translations."
CARMODY, JIM. Performance review of The School for Wives. La Jolla Playhouse, San Diego. 9 July 1997. TJ 50.2 (1998), 251–252.
"With its powerful central focus, its playful foregrounding of the theatricality of the scenic space, and the dollhouse dimensions of Agnes's living quarters, Mark Wendland's scenography recalls Christian Bérard's famous designs for Louis Jouvet's 1936 production.... Director Neel Keller... entices the audience into a kind of conversation with Arnolf that continues virtually unbroken until the end of the play at the same time as he uses the scenery, costumes, and the entire opening sequence to frame his version of The School for Wives as a deliberately tongue in cheek exploration of a French classic. Keller sustains the emphasis on the 'Frenchness' of the play with inventive ways of marking the beginnings of each act.... Along with this frivolity, and perhaps because of it, Keller manages to produce a School for Wives that effectively hits almost every note in Molière's tonal scale. Keller gives us broad farce and near tragic emotional intensity as well as most of what lies between in a production that seems delighted to take on the play's notoriously difficult mixture of dramatic genres and theatrical styles. He is helped enormously in this by an outstanding performance by Tom McGowan as Arnolf, leading a very strong cast, as well as by Paul Schmidt's superb new translation, which emerges in Keller's production as more attractive and stageworthy than the version by Richard Wilbur that has been the standard translation for the last thirty years or so."
COTTIS, EILEEN. "Les Molière de Red Shift." OeC 22.2 (1997): 156–63.
C. se propose "d'examiner deux mises en scène de comédies de Molière par l'une des meilleures compagnies indépendentes de la scène britannique contemporaine. Il s'agit du Misanthrope (1988) et de George Dandin (1995) par la Compagnie Red Shift."
EDNEY, DAVID. "Molière in North America: Problems of Translation and Adaptation." MD 41.1 (1998), 60–76.
E. shows "that modern North American audiences and theatre people do not see the French playwright as their counterparts in France do and that translators are partly responsible for this different perception, which has led to the creation of a distinctively North American Molière." Includes analysis of his own translations as well as those of Richard Wilbur. Addresses various difficulties of translation: humor, verse, modernization, proper names. E. concludes: "The division between the earnest French approach and the no-holds-barred North American one is by no means absolute: wit, fantasy and boisterous comedy can be found in the French performances of Molière; human content and substance are not absent from North American productions. It is a question of balance; and a question of basic attitudes, which stem from the different place the dramatist occupies in the cultural heritage of France and of North America. Translators, whether willing or reluctant, aware or unwitting, have had an important role to play in this scenario; by emphasizing the comic, witty elements of the text, by making them stylized rather than realistic, they have fuelled the movement towards an unrestrainedly theatrical Molière that I see as distinctively North American."
EMELINA, JEAN. "La mise en scène du Misanthrope par Jacques Weber (Nice et Paris, 1990–91)." OeC 22.2 (1997): 103–114.
Analyse du Misanthrope créé le 14 décembre 1989 au Nouveau Théâtre de Nice: le décor, le jeu des acteurs et l'interprétation des personnages. "L'inconséquence (Alceste) et l'inconstance (Célimène) sont devenus déchirements de coeurs vrais. Dès lors, même quand on sourit, on adhère. Weber nous invite à vibrer pour des amants qui ne sont plus mal assortis. La comédie est devenue drame. Rousseau aurait (enfin!) aimé ce Misanthrope."
FLECK, STEPHEN. "Enjoyment and Subversion in the Comedy-Ballets." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997), 1–9.
F. states that the article "will address certain aspects of the comedy-ballets'" theatrical workings in order to suggest that the enjoyment of the late comedy-ballets came to be linked with an implicit subversion of ... the prevalent social order." Article deals mainly with comparisons between Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and Le Malade imaginaire, although mention is made of Les Fâcheux and Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. Among the major themes involved are transformation of identity, carnivalization, and the "undermining and eventual dissolution of the comedic." F. concludes with a paradox: "...the more the work pleased the court, the more subversive it became of the world view which upheld that court."
GAINES, JAMES F. "L'eveil des sentiments et le paradoxe de la conscience dans l'Ecole des femmes." FR 70 (1997), 407–15.
Starting with the paradox of need for another in the play of passionate feeling, Gaines incisively explores the neatly formulated preposition that "L'identité individuelle repose sur la science des autres." Arnolphe's over systematized "prêt-à pensée" contrasts essentially with the openness to risk of the "jeunes Amoureux" in a "comédie molièresque" that underlines its phenomenological complexity.
GOODE, WILLIAM O. "Molière au bureau des merveilles: Molière à Paris." FLS 24 (1997), 189–20.
Lively evocation of "behavioural urbanization" of Paris according to Colbert's dream of its eminence, the spending of money and the sharing in the comedy of city life.
GRIFFITHS, BRUCE. "Les fortunes de Molière au pays de Galles." OeC 22.2 (1997): 95–102.
"En dernière analyse, les fortunes de Molière reflètent, comme il advient, les étapes franchies par le théâtre de langue galloise en général. Au début, des morceaux traduits pour des raisons purement littéraires, au moment où le théâtre n'existait guère; puis, des pièces entières traduites, souvent dans un style livresque peu convenable à la scène, et montées par des troupes de lycéens ou d'acteurs amateurs, dans des locaux mal équipés; tout dernièrement, à la radio, à la télévision ou dans des théâtres bien équipés, ont lieu des représentations ambitieuses, traditionnelles ou innovatrices, devant des auditoires acquis au grand comique."
JANVIER, SOPHIE. "Performance Review of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme directed by Jean-Denis Vivien at the Château de Grignan, summer 1998." Le Point 1350 (1998), 74.
"Un Bourgeois gentilhomme surprenant! Jean-Denis Vivien et Viviane Theophilides ont choisi de respecter l'extravagance baroque de la comédie-ballet originale, mais se jouent de l'unité de lieu. De la façade Renaissance à la cour des ruines, en passant par la galérie des Adhémar et la cour du puits, le specateur visite le joli château de Grignan en même temps qu'il suit le spectacle. Une désambulation qui permet des variations de registre plutôt réussies: commedia dell'arte, marionnettes, opéra-bouffe... L'ensemble a de l'allure, et les intermèdes chantés et dansés sont parfaits..."
LAMONT, ROSETTE C. Performance review of Tartuffe. The Maryland State Company/University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Center Stage, Baltimore. 9 June 1997. TJ 50.2 (1998), 249–251.
"Director Xerxes Mehta's Baltimore production of Tartuffe proved both thought provoking and visually opulent... Mehta's production... combines an erudite deciphering of the past with allusions to our contemporary domestic pressures from the conservative far right and the Evangelical movement as well as the proliferation of extremist cults around the world. Mehta's boldest innovations are never gratuitous. They are solidly grounded in the play's structure and text, even when the scenes are wordless." Examples: Orgon's fantasy realm as a dream sequence; Tartuffe wearing a crown of thorns; silent parody of the Last Supper; Tartuffe's eating habits displayed on stage; the near rape of Elmire. "Mehta's set and costume designer, the Romanian born Elena Zlotescu, has erected a cosmic stage setting with its gilded Renaissance cupids and angels hovering high above the stage... A mist of golden veils draped the stage.... Together with Clifford Hall's vaulting, requiem like score, these elements reminded us that a spiritual dimension exists."
LE ROUX, MONIQUE. Performance review of Les Fourberies de Scapin, mise en scène de Jean Louis Benoit à la Salle Richelieu de la Comédie Française. QL 731 (1998), 26.
"L'accueil reçu par Les Fourberies de Scapin n'aurait... rien d'étonnant, si le triomphe actuel ne dépassait largement et le succès assuré à toute pièce de Molière et le cercle du public habituel." L. credits Phillippe Torreton's celebrity, but especially Benoit's mise en scène with this succes, particularly as the latter manages to "exalter tout à la fois la force comique et la férocité de la pièce."
MALLINSON, JONATHAN, ed. Molière: Le Misanthrope. London: Bristol Classical Press, 1996.
Accessible and scholarly critical edition, primarily addressed to students, offers a well-balanced introduction and accompanying sixty-page commentary. Close textual analysis focuses on the exceptional ambiguity of the work.
MCBRIDE, ROBERT. "Le Tartuffe du tricentenaire." OeC 22.2 (1997): 11–19.
L'auteur se sert de deux interprétations du rôle de Tartuffe—celle de Louis Jouvet en 1950 (un Tartuffe qui n'avait rien d'un hypocrite) et celle de Fernand Ledoux à la Comédie-Française en 1951 (un Tartuffe hypocrite voyant)—comme "deux paramètres utiles qui permettent de situer telle ou telle interprétation dans la tradition théâtrale."
PARISH, RICHARD, ed. Le Tartuffe ou l'Imposteur. By Molière. London: Bristol Classical Press, 1994.
Review: S. Bamforth in MLR 93 (1998), 831–33: "The text is based on the Grands Ecrivains de la France edition, itself based on the first edition of 23 March 1669, although . . . the text as it actually appears is a photographic reprint of the Blackwell edition of 1946 . . . ." S. finds that "the originality of Parish's edition lies first and foremost in its preface and notes. To compare his version with the original critical apparatus of 1946 is to see the distance covered in the interim (and rightly so) by Molière criticism . . . ." Parish views religion as the central issue of the play.
PEACOCK, NOEL. "Lectures scénographiques de L'Ecole des femmes." OeC 22.2 (1997): 128–146.
"Cet article a pour but d'examiner de près un aspect scénographique, celui du décor, de L'Ecole des femmes, pièce que la critique n'a pas étudiée d'une facon qui reflète sa place au sein du corpus moliéresque. L'objectif est double: étudier de quelle manière le décor est porteur de sens, et comment l'environnement scénique dans lequel l'acteur parle et se déplace nous aide à lire, et, parfois, à relire la pièce; examiner comment les metteurs en scène et les décorateurs du vingtième siècle ont conçu (visuellement) L'Ecole des femmes, et comment cette conception est liée à la critique et à la culture contemporaine."
POMMIER, RENE. Etudes sur le Tartuffe. Paris: Sedes, 1994.
Review: S. Bamforth in MLR 93 (1998), 831–33: Pommier's study, "which takes the form of three extended explications de texte together with a modified version of the essay 'Un séducteur à titre posthume: Tartuffe' from his Assez décodé, first published in 1978 (Paris: Roblot), might fairly be summed by the the motto 'it is as it is: it can be no other.' Far from offering any new reading of the play, Pommier stakes his claim on stating that 'no new reading of the play is possible'."
REYNOLDS, OLIVIER. "That Sun King Feeling." TLS 4959 (17 Apr. 1998), 20.
A review of Peter Hall's Piccadilly Theatre production of Le Misanthrope in a new translation by Ranjit Bolt.
ROCHELEAU, ALAIN-MICHEL. "La présence de Molière dans le théâtre au Québec." OeC 22.2 (1997): 83–94.
" . . .je tenterai de démontrer dans cet article que les plus grandes phases d'évolution du théâtre au Québec ont eu lieu, dans une large mesure, sous l'égide et grâce à la présence des comédies de Molière": Molière et la Nouvelle France (1606–1760); Molière et le Bas-Canada (1760–1867); Molière et le Québec contemporain (1867–1990); Les Compagnons de Saint-Laurent (1937–1952); le Théâtre du Nouveau Monde.
ROY, DONALD. "'Plus heureux que sage'? Imaginant des Malades en anglais et en français." OeC 22.2 (1997): 147–55.
Professeur d'études théâtrales à l'Université de Hull, Roy a trois fois mis la pièce en scène; il a joué le rôle de Polichinelle travesti en vieillard de music-hall; et il a créé sa propre version du Misanthrope intitulée Sick in the Head. "Chaque fois que je me suis immergé de nouveau dans cette comédie, entouré de comédiens différents, elle m'a dévoilé des richesses inaperçues, de nouvelles possibilités ou de nouvelles permutations d'interprétation. Aussi mon affection grandissante pour l'ouvrage est-elle allée de parti avec une perception accrue de la manière instinctive (ou est-ce calculée?) dont Molière l'a composé en vue de le représenter—par quoi je veux dire non seulement, comme on a souvent constaté, qu'il a visé le jeu de sa propre troupe d'acteurs mais qu'il a envisagé en même temps l'expérience totale du spectacle de la part des spectateurs et, pour ainsi, dire, l'herméneutique qui s'ensuit. . . . [C]'est cet aspect de sa dramaturgie que j'ai chosi d'aborder aujourd'hui."
SIMKOVA, SONIA. "Les liaisons dangereuses. Tartuffe sur la scène slovaque dans les années 80." OeC 22.2 (1997): 31–46.
"Parmi les pièces de Molière, la comédie de Tartuffe est celle que l'on préfère en Slovaquie. Elle a souvent été mise en scène et de manières différentes. Tantôt comme satire anticléricale, comme cabaret politique, farce de boulevard, portrait sarcastique de moeurs, tantôt comme tragi-comédie, parfois grotesque. Les mises en scène des années 80 que nous venons d'évoquer sont le résultat de la confiance dans cette polysémie textuelle. Pour ce qui est du modèle de la théâtralité, Pietor et Strnisko avaient l'habitude de le désigner par le mot de Bakhtine: le réalisme grotesque. L'interprétation de Miols Pietor a été ancrée dans le contexte social. Pour être efficace, elle avait besoin de la coopération des spectateurs qui la complétaient par des données politiques. Par certains details, elle faisait penser au Tartuffe de Planchon. La mise en scène de Strnisko au théâtre de Bratislava fut cependant beaucoup plus autonome, plus universelle. Elle n'a rien perdu de son pouvoir de communication, même après la révolution de Velours. Elle fait recette encore aujourd'hui. La concrétisation scénique de Blaho Uhlar se distinguait des autres par son esthétisme sophistiqué, mais elle exprimait les mêmes préoccupations à propos de notre mode de vie. Les quatre mises en scène dévoilaient, chacune à sa manière, les liaisons pragmatiques en tant que liaisons dangereuses."
SNAITH, GUY. "Maîtres et servantes. Possibilités pour 'la Maison' dans Tartuffe." OeC 22.2 (1997): 47–53.
Professeur de français de l'université de Liverpool, S. discute la mise en scène de Tartuffe par la section française pour un public d'étudiants et de professeurs. Ils ont créé une société dramatique appelée "les Marottes" qui a présenté Tartuffe en 1989.
WHITTON, DAVID, éd. Molière mis en scène. OeC 22.2 (1997). Tübingen: Narr, 1997.
Fascicule de 14 articles répartis en trois sections qui traitent de l'histoire performative de Molière. La plupart des contributions sont issues d'un colloque organisé à l'Université de Lancaster en septembre 1995 et qui avait pour objet "de réunir spécialistes du théâtre et spécialistes de Molière autour d'un thème à la fois spécifique et vaste: Molière et la mise en scène. Plus généralement, on espérait favoriser une vaste convergence entre les études moliéresques, encore dominées par une tradition littéraire, et la discipline des études théâtrales. La seule contrainte imposée fut que les contributions devaient traiter de réalisations spécifiques modernes ou contemporaines." Pour les articles de la première section,"Visages de Tartuffe," voir R. McBride ("Le Tartuffe du tricentenaire"), B. Blum ("Behind Closed Doors"), S. Simková ("Les liaisons dangereuses. Tartuffe sur la scène slovaque dans les années 80"), G. Snaith ("Maîtres et servantes. Possibilités pour 'la Maison' dans Tartuffe"), et C. Campos et M. Sadler ("La ville à l'assaut de la maison: Tartuffe au Soleil Levant"). Pour les articles de la deuxième section, "Molière naturalisé," voir J. Carmody ("Molière in America"), A.-M. Rocheleau ("La présence de Molière dans le théâtre au Québec"), et B. Griffiths ("Les fortunes de Molière au pays de Galles"). Pour les articles de la troisième partie, "Pièces et mises en scène," voir J. Emelina ("La mise en scène du Misanthrope par Jacques Weber (Nice et Paris, 1990–1991))", E. Woodrough ("Outre manche, autre langage. The Misanthrope fait peau neuve pour 1996"), N. Peacock ("Lectures scénographiques de l'Ecole des femmes"), D. Roy ("'Plus heureux que sage?' Imaginant des Malades en anglais et en français"), E. Cottis ("Les Molière de Red Shift"), et S. Bamforth ("Jacques Lassalle et sa mise en scène de Dom Juan").
WHITTON, DAVID. Molière: Dom Juan. Plays in Production, ed. M. Robinson, vol.3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Review: J. D. Newman in TheatreS 42 (1997), 104–105: Whitton "traces the play's production history from the script's scandalous premiere under the playwright's direction, past its long obscurity during the nineeenth and twentieth centuries, and through its re emergence on the twentieth century stage. Besides acting as a guidepost for dramaturgs and directors of this particular script, W.'s book may also serve as a primer of twentieth century directing styles." "The author explores the religious, atheistic, Marxist, absurdist, and modernist interpretations of the script with a breadth of understanding of each and philosophical devotion to none." "The study also includes in the appendix an extensive catalogue of European productions of Dom Juan including lists of performers, directors and designers."
WOODROUGH, ELIZABETH. "Outre manche, autre langage, The Misanthrope fait peau neuve pour 1996." OeC 22.2 (1997): 115–127.
Mise en scène du Misanthrope par Lindsay Posner au Young Vic à Londres; traduction par Martin Crimp, le dernier né des traducteurs anglais du Misanthrope. "Comme tant de jeunes metteurs en scène auhourd'hui, Posner souhaite à tout prix être dans l'actualité, mais se veut un surmoderne classique. En employant la technique de la surimpression pour imposer un instantané de la société mondaine et médiatique de l'Angleterre fin-de-siècle sur cette grande comédie de la politesse des moeurs en France au temps de Louis XIV, ce Moliériste branché ne veut pas moins que transposer la date de la première du Misanthrope de 1666 à 1966 sans toutefois diminuer en rien la grandeur de l'oeuvre originale. Ce remake qui, tel un blockbuster américain se déclare la version du Misanthrope, serait donc destiné à faire à sa façon la promotion de la culture française, tout en faisant état de l'évolution de la langue anglaise."
CHARNLEY, JOY. "Béat Louis de Murault: Some Thoughts on the France of Louis XIV." SCFS 19 (1997), 125–34.
Presentation of the Swiss moralist who published a series of letters on the national traits of France (and of England) in 1725, deriving from stays there in 1681 84 and 1694. On France, which is meant to be a warning to his countrymen, he is largely negative, considering the France of Louis XIV to be overpoweringly dedicated to cultivation of "le paraître."
BOITANO, JOHN. "Naudé's Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque: A Window into the Past." SCFS 18 (1996), 5–21.
A fine "mise-au-point" of the principal significance of Naudé's treatise viewed as his concern for primary sources, critical thinking, and public access. Recommendations for the inclusion of Renaissance occult philosophers and hermetic writings are a noteworthy instance. Useful final situation of the Advis in the evolution of Naudé's works and the role played in it by attachment to Mazarin and the influence of political intrigue at the papal court.
GUION, BEATRICE, ed et trans. Pierre Nicole. La vraie beauté et son fantôme, et autres textes d'esthétique. Paris: Champion, 1996.
Review: P.-J. Salazar in PFSCL 15 (1998), 320–321: ". . . cinq moments de la réflexion port-royaliste sur le Beau . . . ." Nicole, muses the reviewer, may indeed be the Malherbe de Port-Royal rather than the unfeeling thinker he has been said to be.
Review: Laurent Thirouin in IL 50.1 (1998), 41–42: Quite positive review in which T. states, "Quelle satisfaction de voir enfin accessibles à tous des textes fondamentaux, constamment cités de deuxième ou de troisième main, et par bribes plus ou moins cohérentes! En réunissant dans un dense volume les principaux écrits d'esthétique de Pierre Nicole, Béatrice Guion comble une lacune majeure dont souffrait l'histoire littéraire. Elle le fait en outre avec une compétence et une rigueur qui dédommageront amplement de l'attente." Among the texts included in this volume are Nicole's Dissertatio, his preface to the Recueil de poésies chrétiennes et diverses, as well as excerpts of essays such as De l'Education d'un Prince, and du Traité de la Grâce générale."
BROOKS, WILLIAM. "The Significance of Engravings as Examples of Personal Iconography of the Second Madame, Duchess of Orleans, 1672–1722." SCFS 18 (1996), 73–91.
Informative chronicle on the many portraits, prints, engravings that illustrated Madame's fifty-one years' residence in France and commentary on their evolution from "youthful pin-up," via action shots, to unconscious fashion model, first lady of France and finally to a symbol of French dignity on the international state. Illustrated by 13 plates.
BROOKS, WILLIAM and P.J. YARROW. The Dramatic Criticism of Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orléans. With an Annotated Chronology of Performance of the Popular and Court Theatres in France (1671–1722), Reconstructed from Her Letters. Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996.
Review: Buford Norman in FR 70 (1997), 596–97: Part I, "Notes of a Theatre-goer," exhaustively traces over the entire correspondence Madame's comments on plays, playwrights, actors, and her responses to the "querelle du théâtre" in the wake of the attacks of Bossuet and other clerics. The theatrical history of the period is much enlightened by this newly organized source. The longer Part II lists every performance seen, some 2,000—"an excellent job identifying them." Appendices correct misdatings of letters and break down performances by genre and period.
Review: D. Van der Cruysse in RF 109 (1997), 146–48: Warmly welcomed by the preeminent Liselottiste, V.d.C., the volume contains an anthology of German and French passages from the voluminous correspondence as well as a record or calendar of plays seen by Madame, a "travail de bénédictions." This useful tool of research for theater specialists is highly readable.
BOITANO, JOHN. "Le 'point-fixe' judéo-chrétien dans les Pensées de Pascal." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 61–70.
Article deals with the role Jews serve in Pascal's rhetoric. As B. puts it, "Nous avons plutôt choisi d'examiner ici la question de l'établissement de la preuve par Pascal de la véracité historique autant que spirituelle de la religion chrétienne." Pascal's reliance on "la chronologie judéo-chrétienne" becomes a "point-fixe" in that it undergirds "l'historicité biblique" that lends authority to his writing, especially with respect to "libertine" readers. Through their constancy and prophetic revelation, Jews represent stability throughout human history, a history mostly characterized by corruption, contradiction, and imperfection. By emphasizing the history of the Hebrews, Pascal "tente de faire sortir de ce chaos une synthèse spirituelle assez claire et distincte pour séduire un libertin désorienté."
BOLD, STEPHEN. Pascal Geometer: Discovery and Invention in Seventeenth-Century France. Geneva: Droz, 1996.
BOUCHILLOUS, HELENE. "La portée anti-cartésienne du fragment des trois ordres." RMM (no.1-jan.-mars 1997), 67–84.
With the aid of related fragments the principal function of Pascal's second order is clarified as an attack on a science whose connectors are thought rather than simple Cartesian metaphysics. Bringing J.-L. Marion's interpretation into play, it is permissible to see a central tension between Cartesian metaphysics and the order of Christian charity rather than only the displacement and dismissal of the former in L308.
CARRAUD, VICENT. "Des concupiscences aux ordres de choses." RMM (no.1-jan.-mars 1997), 41–66.
The originality of Pascal's interpretation of the three kinds of concupiscence (1 John, 2:16) is twofold. On the one hand, the pleasures of the senses are no longer in question and the Jansenist doctrine of delectation, based on imitation, is abandoned. On the other, in so far as it is particularized, love of power is transformed into love of riches. The reversal into the three orders of things can only be understood if Pascal's entire meditation is focused through 1 Corinthians, 30. Thus the reading of L933 makes it impossible to assume it as a perfect model or to give it an architectonic role in the construction of the apologia.
COLE, JOHN. Pascal. The Man and His Two Loves. New York: New York University Press, 1995.
Review: Boris Donné in RHL 98.1 (1998), 140–42: D. claims that "l'ambition du livre est de tracer une biographie psychologique et littéraire de Pascal." In sum, this "biographie" deals with various traumas Pascal suffered during his formative years. These traumas, in turn, led to psychological difficulties that bore an indelible stamp on his theology and philosophy. Reviewer states that "le livre de Cole est précieux en ceci qu'il éclaire l'oeuvre pascalienne par les acquis de la médecine moderne sans tomber dans un schéma causal simpliste—la maladie produit l'oeuvre—sans négliger la richesse de l'élaboration des textes."
DUFLO, COLAS. Le jeu: de Pascal à Schiller. Paris: PUF, 1997.
Review: Pierre Sauvanet in RMM (1998), 299–300: Part of a larger project defining the nature of play as human activity. Here the philosophical questions are contextualized historically with a first chapter that includes Pascal, who thus constitutes a founding moment "du renversement entre le divertissement et le pari, qui apparaissent dès lors comme deux types ludiques opposés. The broader work is Jouer et philosopher (PUF, 1977).
FERREYROLLES, GERARD. Les reines du monde. L'imagination et la coutume chez Pascal. Paris: Champion, 1995.
Review: F. Lagarde in PFSCL 15 (1998), 307–308: A study which, according to the reviewer, depicts a Pascal not "en souffrance" but as a dazzling deconstructionist; a study which is itself "éblouissante" but perhaps "falsa." "Ce Pascal malin et content est peut-être une curiosité, mais il reste que la démonstration en est magistrale; le livre est d'une érudition formidable et il n'y a pas meilleur ouvrage sur ces questions passionnantes de l'imagination et de l'habitude au XVIIe siècle."
GUENANCIA, PIERRE. "Quel est l'ordre de soi?" RMM (no.1-jan-mars 1997), 85–96.
Beginning with the distinction of the second order from the first through the conscious act constituting a "soi," attempts are made to distinguish this "soi" from the historically pejorative "moi" and to set its limits.
HAMMOND, NICHOLAS. Playing with Truth: Language and the Human Condition in Pascal's Pensées. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Review: Erec R. Koch in FR 71.2 (1997), 288–89: Part I, examining the importance of language and order to the persuasive process, examines textual interferences with any determinate interpretation; II, the representation of the human condition by six key terms: "inconstance, ennui, inquiétude, repos, bonheur-félicité, justice" demonstrates linguistic instability and disorder as part of man's fallen condition; III links this fallenness with "play" as articulated by L. Thirouin and its sense of linguistic unstableness. The linguistic predicament seems undertheorized, especially in respect to the work of Louis Marin, as does the final status of negative theology. But this is "a very important contribution."
HARRINGTON, THOMAS M. "Le Pari de Pascal," RF 109 (1997), 221–51.
H.'s impressive ability to communicate the mathematical and philosophical underpinning of P.'s pari allows the conscientious reader to grasp more fully its foundations and ramifications. H. distinguishes between P.'s proofs, "de nature mathématique et métaphysique au premier stade," and "au second ... surtout concrètes et expérientielles." Useful bibliography and a curious 6 page section addendum in which H. corrects certain scholars from the 19th c. to the present whose views are not in accord with those in the present article.
LE GUERN, MICHEL, ed. Oeuvres complètes I. Paris: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1997.
Review: D. Descotes in QL 737 (1998), 19: "Le premier mérite de cette nouvelle édition, c'est qu'elle remplace celle de Jacques Chevalier...," particularly in that the new edition presents the scientific works in readable format: "Ce sont donc à la fois le savant et le polémiste, et toujours l'auteur engagé qui apparaissent dans ce premier volume, plus que l'apologiste et le mystique... M. Le Guern a incorporé quelques textes qui, quoique bien connus pour la plupart, n'apparaissent pas dans les éditions omnibus.... On trouvera par exemple, au lieu du texte ordinairement fourni du petit écrit sur la signature du Formulaire, tout l'opuscule de Nicole dont il est extrait, et par lequel il est connu. De même, l'auteur fournit les Réflexions d'un Docteur de Sorbonne... et plusieurs des Ecrits des Curés de Paris en plus de ceux qui sont dûs à Pascal... La Requête des Curés de Nevers figure aussi avec une attribution à Pascal.... L'ordre adopté pour la présentation des textes est difficile à comprendre.... L'établissement des textes profite aussi des progrès considérables effectués par les précédents éditions... les commentaires de fond proposés dans les notices et les notes tiennent aussi compte des importants progrès des recherches pascaliennes des trente dernières années.... Voici donc une édition pleine de substance, mais qui prêtera sans doute dans les temps à venir des discussions de fond...."
Review: Nicholas Hammond in TLS 4984 (9 Oct., 1998), 12: Finds this new Pléïade edition no more successful than the 1954. Criticizes use of Le Guern's own numbering (following his Folio ed., 1977), "essentially a hodge-podge of Lafuma and Sellier." "At times eccentric readings of MS." This first volume of two contains the mathematical writings and religious polemics. Intelligent introduction and endnotes with extensive quotations from counter polemics ("But there still remains a need for the Jesuit responses in full.").
MAGNARD, PIERRE. "Les trois ordres selon Pascal." RMM (no. 1, jan.-mars 1997), 3–18.
The question is whether the doctrine of the three orders, the fruit of a mystical mathematics deriving from Proclus and Dionysius is a Jacob's ladder figure or the radical discontinuity of incommensurable realities. In any case it reveals Pascal's deep alienation from Cartesian dualism and at the same time his distance from Berullian spirituality.
MAGNARD, PIERRE. Pascal ou L'art de la digression. Paris: Ellipses, 1997.
Review: BCLF 597 (1998), 1277: "Après avoir retracé le parcours scientifique dans lequel se dévoile la question de l'infini . . ., l'auteur s'attache à parcourir les considérations de Pascal sur l'homme . . . afin de dégager le point central à partir duquel tout bascule, de la raison à la foi: à savoir la question du péché originel."
MEURILLON, C., ed. Pascal. L'exercice de l'esprit. Paris: Revue des sciences humaines, 1996.
Review: Marc Escola in RHL 98.1 (1998), 143–44: The collection addresses two main questions: 1) Sur quelles bases l'homme peut-il construire son savoir à défaut de pouvoir le fonder? 2) Quelle valeur accorder à l'exercice de l'esprit si celui-ci ne peut pas être à lui-même sa propre fin?" Among the themes covered are the epistemology, anthropology, and irony of P.'s works. Reviewer suggests that the contributions are most noteworthy.
MICHON, HELENE. L'ordre du coeur, philosophie, théologie et mystique dans les Pensées de Pascal. Paris: Champion, 1996.
Review: Hélène Bouchilloux in RHL 98.1 (1998), 138–40: B. calls the book "assurément stimulant," and finds useful that the work "attire l'attention sur une indéniable difficulté: comment départir finitude et culpabilité, dualité ontologique de la créature et dualité théologique du péché et de la grâce dans la créature humaine?" Yet, reviewer states that by introducing the notion of the "coeur" in the book's final section, there lacks "une élucidation de l'épistémologie pascalienne," which detracts from the work.
Review: Philippe Ducat in RMM (no.1/1997), 147–48: Maintains that the search for an order should be a matter of discursive reading rather than an analysis of writing by fragments. A "lecture totale" (and full apologetic design) are discernible in the three modes of discourse that are philosophical (for the "libertin"), theological (for the heretic) and mystical (for the "honnête homme"). Reviewer finds the first demonstraton "discutable" because of an abbreviation of the encounter Pascal-Descartes and reduction to "une recherche morale." The third is "fragile," due to failure to distinguish different kinds of religious discourses clearly. Most suggestive, and the major contribution of the book is the tracing of theological discourse in respect: the suggestion of two Christocentric systems, reformist and Pascalian, would open the line of supposition that the Reform could have found in the "janséniste un allié substantiel."
MOROT-SIR, EDOUARD. La raison et la grâce selon Pascal. Paris: PUF, 1996.
Review: Hélène Bouchilloux in RHL 98.1 (1998), 143: Favorable review of a volume that contains two heretofore unpublished articles, "Pascal et la pédagogie janséniste de la parole," and "Anatomie du Mémorial." B. praises the work, stating that "L'auteur propose ainsi une thèse forte qui permet de mesurer non seulement la modernité de Pascal ... mais encore et surtout son originalité au sein de la pensée classique: la vérité n'est plus adéquation de ce qui est dit et de ce qui est, elle est désormais réception à la fois linguistique et pratique de la parole de Dieu."
Review: Jan Miel in FR 72.1 (1998), 124: Rather than on the theme announced by the title, this is a posthumous collection of seven essays in which Pascal is often refracted off other writers and in comparisons with others in the philosophical tradition. The most constant concern is with language (Chapters 3,,5) on Pascal and Wittgenstein, and the existentialists, which are the most original. The densest and most directly concerned with Pascal treats reason.
Review: D. Wetsel in PFSCL 15 (1998), 332–333: A posthumous collection of the scholar's writings on Pascal in which he continued to contest issues accorded mainstream status in Pascalian studies. Reviewer finds the volume to be a fitting tribute to Morot-Sir.
PECHARMAN, MARTINE. "L'ordre dans les trois ordres et l'ordre des trois ordres chez Pascal." RMM (no.1-jan.-mars 1997), 19–40.
Proposes to distinguish through exegesis of L933 and 308 first two forms of order operating within each of the three Pascalian orders. Once distinguished, the stage is set for identifying the variants among the three. The first form of internal order is by intentional objects, commanded by the prevailing ends of the will. This form reduces the three orders to equality. The second internal order, the means of performing the end, brings to light a judgment of perfection allowing for the conception of a hierarchy as well as an established "disproportion hyperbolique" among the three.
REVUE DE METAPHYSIQUE ET DE MORALE (no.1/janvier-mars 1997).
"Les trois ordres de Pascal." The six articles and one review of this special issue are entered separately in this volume of French 17
VIZIER, ALAIN. "Pascal et l'herméneutique." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 71–103.
V. reinterprets Pascalian hermeneutics in terms of what he calls "certaines conditions de la perception," defined as "les positions et les perpsectives qui rendent possible une non-saisie du sens (un aveuglement)." Beginning with fragment 274 (Lafuma edition), V. seeks to "interroger les dispositifs démonstratifs pascaliens: le recours à la Bible, aux Juifs et au judaïsme, et sa transformation corrélative du concept de la figure." By relying on perspectives, Pascal challenges notions, or "médiations" or the real, and in so doing, rethinks the longstanding contradictions that define the human condition.
ZARKA, YVES-CHARLES. "Les implications politiques des trois ordres de Pascal." RMM (no.1/jan.-mars 1997), 97–106.
The significant point of the theoretical import of L308 is the reworking and redefinition of political-sociological terms according to its doctrine. The status and function of the political is thus rethought. The play of the city of God, against the city of man, with the guide of a reading of Leibniz brings to light: 1) determination of the nature of political reform; 2) the political function of "critique et légitimation;" 3) the order or degrees of discordance/conciliation between the two cities.
FRAGONARD, MARIE-MADELEINE et FRANÇOIS ROUDAUT, eds. Etienne Pasquier: Les recherches de la France. Paris: Champion, 1996.
Review: Jean Vignes in RHL 98.4 (1998), 654–55: V. celebrates the appearance of the volume which he calls, "l'un des projets éditoriaux les plus ambitieux de ces dernières années." V. describes the text as presenting, "une somme monumentale de la science historique de la Renaissance." He then outlines the chapter headings, the contents of which include: the political and administrative institutions of the Ancien Régime, the relationship between France and the Vatican, as well as the history of French poetry and the etymology of several words with an explanation of proverbs.
SAUPE, YVETTE. Les Contes de Perrault et la mythologie. Rapprochements et influences. PFSCL/Biblio 17, 104 (1997).
Review: Bernard Chédozeau in IL 50.1 (1998), 32. The work is presented in three parts: "L'univers du conte merveilleux," "les fables milésiennes," as well as a category entitled, "Vers l'épanouissement du burlesque." C.'s remarks are favorable, as he concludes, "ces analyses permettent une récapitulation intelligente des recherches menées en ces domaines; elles proposent avec précision et clarté de nombreux développements qui permettent de définir à partir des Contes une esthétique aux vastes horizons. Bref, elles invitent à la lecture renouvelée d'une oeuvre prestigieuse."
Review: R. Howells in MLR 93 (1998), 834–35: "Yvette Saupé is showing, in effect, how in the Contes Perrault both uses and ironizes 'mythology,' moving from 'romanesque' to burlesque, as part of his Modernist agenda." Reviewer finds "that an interesting argument would have benefited from more sophistication and clearer focus."
BREJON DE LAVERGNEE, BARBARA, NICOLE DE REYNIES, et NICOLAS SAINTE FARE GARNOT. Charles Poerson, 1609–1667. Paris: Arthéna, 1997.
Review: BCLF 598–99 (1998), 1635–36: "Poerson, peintre décorateur de qualité, lequel a réalisé et a participé à la réalisation d'ensembles parisiens importants au XVIIe siècle, n'a pas besoin d'être poussé, de manière un peu laborieuse, au rang d'un génie artistique tel que l'impose un certain idéal romantique attardé, pour que soit légitimée la synthèse des recherches attentives que lui consacre Arthéna." Ce catalogue "riche de renseignements sur le monde de l'art et des comparaisons entre l'oeuvre de Poerson et celle d'autres artistes" fut publié à l'occasion d'une exposition organisée par les musées de la Cour d'Or à Metz en 1997.
CROPPER, ELIZABETH and CHARLES DEMPSEY. Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and Love of Painting. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.
Review: Norman Bryson in TLS 4884 (8 Nov. 1996), 12–14; Strong recommendaton for renewed interpretive context for dealing with Poussin's "cultural remoteness" in this "book of strong statements, close in spirit to Louis Marin's." The principal motivations of Poussin's erudition, visual austerity, technical innovation derive from ways his images "organize a kind of sociability." Friendship is contextualized philosophically, historically and particularly within Poussin's circle. The interpretation alone of the self-portraits in respect to Poussin's patrol Chantelou justify acquisition of this study (on the reviewer's shortlist with Blunt and Marin).
MCINTYRE, BRUCE. "Quinault's Lyric Tragedies: A Genealogical Sketch." EFL 34 (1997) 1–23.
A useful and gracefully written, well informed presentation of the development of Quinault's twelve lyric tradedies. Cadmus et Hermione (1673) is taken as the blueprint for what follows (through Armide in 1868), though considerable variation in sub plotting exists, Atys is the masterpiece. Both Quinault's aesthetic and his very successful talents are well defined.
BONZON, ALFRED. Racine et Heidegger. Paris: Nizet, 1995.
Review: Levilson C. Reis in FR 70 (1997), 466–67: Part I of this essay drawn from a course offered in Sao Paulo defines the nature of Racine's poetry from an Auerbachian perspective. The more original and valuable Part II reads the poetry as "dévoilement de l'être par le langage" in respect to time. Despite some elliptic presentation, and familiar territory, this "petit volume apporte une forte contribution aux études raciniennes, en révélant, de connivence avec la pensée de Heidegger, une facette ignorée de la tragédie racinienne."
DESNAIN, VERONIQUE. "At the Alter: Marriage and/or Sacrifice in Racine." SCFS 18 (1996), 159–67.
Explores death as "the only rebellion available to woman." When marriage is a political gesture and "a reward where man is given a prize for his heroic actions," the supposition that happiness may be found at the alter is fully deception.
FORESTIER, GEORGES. "Ecrire Andromaque: quelques hypothèses génétiques." RHL 98.1 (1998), 43–62.
Article deals with possible sources for Racine's play. F. discusses Virgil and Euripides, as well as classical mythology. To answer the question, F. enlarges the question, asking where the idea of a "chaîne des amours—Oreste aime Hermione qui aime Pyrrhus qui aime Andromaque (laquelle reste fidèle à la mémoire d'Hector)" originates. He cites Seneca's Trachiennes and Rotrou's Hercule mourant as possibilities, and even mentions the "pastorale dramatique" as a potential influence. The character of Andromaque is inspired by the elegiac tradition, especially Ovid's Héroïdes. The Ovidian model also "explique la nouveauté du rôle d'Hermione" in that she is "exclue de bonheur" by being deprived of the one she loves. F. concludes by arguing that Hermione's internal collapse at the end of the play is a point of distinction between Corneille and Racine, in that Racine's characters, based on models from antiquity, express "la voix de l'instinct de la nature toute nue."
FRANCE, PETER. "Thoroughly Modern Barbarians." TLS 4982 (25 Sept., 1998), 18.
Reviews of Luc Bondy's production of Phèdre in French at King's Theatre Dublin and Jonathan Kent's in English at the Almeida, with Diana Rigg, in Ted Hughes' highly praised new translation. Interesting points made by France on the contemporary actability of the text in these two successful productions.
LANDRY, JEAN-PIERRE. "Bérénice: travail de deuil et rite de sacrifice." Tra Lit 10 (1997), 135–47.
Striking and thorough analysis of mournings. Despite R.'s affirmation in the preface that blood and death are not necessary to tragedy, L. points to the importance of many deaths for the play and, therefore, multiple situations and discourses of mourning. L. compares Bérénice's sacrifice to Abraham's, concluding that the same spiritual experience is present: "consentir à se dépouiller de son désir le plus essentiel."
LIBAN, LAURENCE. "Phedre déracinée." L'Express 2466 (8–14 octobre 1998), 13.
Negative review of Luc Bondy's production of Phèdre at the Odéon.
PARISH, RICHARD, ed. Racine, Phèdre. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1996.
Review: Nancy McElween in FR 71.6 (1998), 1057–58: Useful edition for advanced rather than beginning students. 1697 text is used, with a well informed introduction including section on staging, resonances of other plays on the theme, poetic language. "Thoroughly researched and clearly stated."
Review: D. Shaw in MLR 93 (1998), 506–07: Despite Parish's "delight in technical terms" that "might be thought dangerously close to pedantry," the reviewer has high praise for the "subtle textual commentary" in this serious critical edition that "expertly demonstrates the poet's technical skill and proves, once and for all, that Racinian simplicity is an artful illusion."
REILLY, MARY. "Racine's Hall of Mirrors." SCFS 18 (1996), 133–45.
Examines the highlighted tension and conflict created during the delays in the revelation of secrets with special attention to the ways in which language, as a source of anguish and discord, distorts and conceals, then finally dominates.
ROHOU, JEAN, ed. Jean Racine entre sa carrière, son oeuvre, et son Dieu. Paris: Fayard 1992.
Review: Jean Emelina in RHL 98.1 (1998), 147–150: Favorable review of a "volumineuse étude [qui] retient l'attention. Elle restructure et revigore notre image de l'auteur et de son oeuvre. Solidement charpentée, riche et claire, minitieuse et rigoureuse, elle est écrite d'une plume à la fois alerte et érudite." Much of the book focuses on Port-Royal, Racine's "vision tragique," as well as the metaphysical dimension of his work. Yet, the reviewer questions the "psychocritical" approach of many of the contributors, countering with the possibility that Racine was a "caméléon" who adapted to the tastes and aesthetics of his time.
SELLIER, PHILIPPE, ed. Racine. Théâtre complet, 2 vols, Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1995.
Review: Ronald Tobin in FR 71.4 (1998), 658–59: Praise for the elegance and economy of the editorial work of this edition for the general public. Thoughtful introduction focuses on Racine's tragic vision, innocence, violence, and the body.
SOARE, ANTOINE. "Néron et Narcisse ou le mauvais conseiller." SCFS 18 (1996), 145–49.
Valuable review of the "flou" in Racinian tragedy (Andromague, Bajazet, Britannicus) which traps the reader/spectator into a supposition of what is not there. "Narcisse devient mauvais conseiller comme il devient confident, par l'imposture néronienne." Subtle and convincingly argued.
STONE, HARRIET. "Inheriting the Father's Image with his Blood: Mithridate's Legacy to Xipharès and Thésée." PFSCL 15 (1998), 267–278.
Explores ". . . how Mithridate, a tyrannical leader, comes to be imbued with an aura of power despite the fact that by the drama's end he has lost virtually everything: the war, the woman he loves, and his life."
TRETHEWEY, JOHN. "Anti-Judaism in Racine's Athalie." SCFS 18 (1996), 167–77.
Despite apparent evidence for, and some interpreters' assertions of, Racine's philosemitism, analysis of the play foregrounding blood-letting and the blindness of literalism of the "juif charnel" as expressed by Abner, shared by all who are instruments of Athalie's fate, and not contradicted by Joad, indicate a certain anti-Semitism. Racine may be seen to share the prejudices of his culture as instances in the apologetic tradition and illustrated by remarks of Bossuet and Pascal.
WOOD, ALLEN G.,ed. Le mythe de Phèdre: les Hyppolyte français du dix septième siècle. Paris: Champion, 1996.
Review: Michèle Longino in FR 71.5 (1997), 838–40: Adds to Racine's play La Pinelière's (1635), Gilbert's (1647), and Bidar's (1675). Excellent introduction with contrastive and thematic treatments, useful notices on the obscure earlier playwrights and up to date bibliography. Reviewer outlines the ideal course in which this book would be a welcome centerpiece.
VUILLEMIN, JEAN CLAUDE. Baroquisme et théâtralité. Le Théâtre de Jean Rotrou. PFSCL/Biblio 17, 81 (1994).
Review: Gerhart Poppenberg in ZRSL 108.2 (1998), 219–20: Favorable review in which the main points concerning the baroque, love's place, and definition of characters are seen as setting the nature of Rotrou's achievement. Some passing reservations about the author's shaping of literary history.
DUMORA-MABILLE, FLORENCE. "Quand dire, c'est voir: Moyse sauvé de Saint-Amant ou la scène d'écriture." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 133–48.
Article deals with the rhetorical strategies in the "songe de Jocabel" in Moyse sauvé. For D-M., this rhetoric becomes, "une sorte de technique psychologique chez l'orateur ou le poète, qui, pour émouvoir le public par un effet de présence, doit s'émouvoir soi-même artificiellement, et véritablement s'exercer au fantasme." Integrating the "songe de Jocabel" into the typological ancestry of dreams represented in the Bible, the fable, epic, and mythology, D-M. states that the originality of the text lies in its ability to "rendre visible la scène de l'écriture," making S-A.'s poetry "une écriture voyante—une écriture de voyant, et une écriture qui se voit."
SCHOLL, DOROTHEE. Moyse sauvé, poétique et originalité de l'idylle héroïque de Saint-Amant. PFSCL/Biblio 17, 90 (1995).
Review: S. Winter in RF 109 (1997), 545–48: Praised as a multifaceted (bibliographical, literary, aesthetic, cultural, political and socio-historical) study. Important contribution on the reception of St.-A.'s work in the 17th c. and its signal modernity.
CAPLAN, JAY. "Un sujet post-absolutiste: Saint-Simon et la politique de l'invisible." Tra Lit 10 (1997), 163–74.
Rich analysis of what he terms the post-absolutist subject, one which is "partagé entre le personnage public, humble et silencieux . . . soumis à la Loi aux yeux de tous, et la personne privée, qui, triomphant du Roi même, ne connâit plus de limites. Particularly helpful development on "lit de justice."
LE ROY LADURIE, EMMANUEL. Saint-Simon ou le Système de la Cour. Paris: Fayard, 1997.
Review: BCLF 598–99 (1998), 1543–44: "E. Le Roy Ladurie aborde en sociologue, étayé par une étonnante érudition historique, la structure mentale de Saint-Simon. D'abord la hiérarchie, basée sur le rang. Puis sa théologie, soucieuse de gradation entre les archanges, les anges, les saints et les pécheurs. Enfin sa hantise de l'impur . . . ."
Review: J. Nicolas in QL 730 (1998), 23: L. et F. s'intéressent avant tout à "établir la cohérence absolue ... de notations de cinquante années. Le système de la monarchie préexistait chez notre duc à son expérience de la politique et de la cour, vécue comme un renforcement, une vérification de principes soutenus ... Pour Saint Simon, ... le temps a corrompu la perfection primitive frôlée sous le règne de Louis XIII ... qui avait marqué l'élévation de sa famille .... Depuis lors et surtout avec Louis XIV s'est opéré un glissement néfaste, si bien que le mémorialiste vit dans le sentiment tragique d'une dégradation continue.... Aux racines de cette vision plus passionnelle que politique, L. décèle les obsessions intimes du petit duc, celles de la pureté, de la légitimité, l'horreur de la bâtardise, le caractère sacré de ce qui touche à la personne royale.... Quelques idées fixes en matière de politique et de la société résument son art de gouverner: la confusion résulte des unions disparates, des prétentions insupportables de ceux qui n'étaient pas nés pour commander.... Après cette étude d'un système imaginaire qui prétend exprimer la quintessence du monde réel, vient une libre réflexion sur l'époque de la Régence, souvent méconnue." L. "conteste ... le point de vue paradoxal de Norbert Elias ... qui voyait en Satin Simon 'le précurseur de la sociabilité moderne par le biais de la société de la Cour'." Selon L., "C'est à Paris ou en province et non à Versailles, que s'est épanouie la civilisation bourgeoise."
Review: Angelo Rinaldi in l'Express 2422 (4 déc.,1997), 76–77: Monumental reconstruction of the court system followed by that of the Regency. Rinaldo praises the liveliness of the narrative and the soundness of its methodological foundation.
Review: John Rogister in TLS 4959 (17 Apr. 1998), 36: A "fascinating structural anthropological analysis of the court at Versailles as a "political machine." Especially stimulating chapters on physiological attitudes (the courtier's "obsession with his insides," beyond his blood); factions and cabals; "demographie Saint Simonienne (Saint Simon alludes to 1,366 marriages out of a total court population estimated at 10,000) and its theory of "hypergamie féminine;" leanings toward renunciation. Critical of N. Elias's theory of aristocratization as a linear pattern of evolution from "courtoisie" moving toward a specific "court society." Here and in Part Il's analysis; of the Regency, "Ladurie and Fitou have usually got things right."
Review: L. Theis in Le Point 1320 (1998), 74: "[U]ne sorte de rapport d'archéologue, voire de paléontologue, que l'illustre historien a élaborée...." La recherche de E.L.R.L. "livre les matériaux propres à reconstituer, ou au moins à interpréter ... 'la société de la cour'. Cette société atteint précisément son apogée lorsque Saint-Simon donne à en connaître pour s'y trouver lui-même immergé." E.L.R.L. étudie ce "système clos" dont l'"homogénéité très forte [lui] permet... de développer son analyse systématique. Il le peut d'autant mieux que Saint-Simon conçoit la société, du moins celle qui l'intéresse, comme structurée par un principe unique, celui de l'hiérarchie.... Ecrit dans un style parfois désinvolte ou goguenard, à l'instar de Saint-Simon lui-même, cet ouvrage, à la fois savant et elevé, est du meilleur effet en ce qu'il donne envie de lire véritablement et intelligemment le monument auquel il est consacré."
LAGARDE, FRANÇOISE. "Désordre et ordre dans Le Roman comique." FR 70 (1997), 688–75.
The seemingly perpetual movement of the novel is seen as articulated by the interplay of Dastin, who incarnates "l'ordre classique des congruences, des proportions et des bienséances culturelles," and Ragotin, involuntary agent of an "ordre anthropologique plus élémentaire, plus naturel." Ragotin as pharmakos, and the narrative through him, poses a resistance to "classicisme aristocratique." An important addition to Scarron studies.
OUEDRAOGO, JEAN. "Dissimilation et révélation dans le théâtre de Paul Scarron." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997), 11–22.
O. discusses the use of the mask in Scarron's theater, suggesting ways in which physical, linguistic, and social disguises shape baroque drama. The plays studied include Jodelet ou le Maistre valet, L'Héritier Ridicule, ou la Dame intéressée, et Dom Japhet d'Arménie. O. looks at patterns on masking, revelation, particularly as they relate to notions of class and gender. With respect to notions of theatricality and perception, O. summarizes his argument as follows: "Chez Scarron le paraître se joue à niveaux: les protagonistes jouent à se donner une identité vis-à-vis de leur propre entourage d'artistes ou de comédiens mais aussi à l'endroit des spectateurs."
WALLIS, ANDREW. "Le Roman comique, récit spéctaculaire." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 193–203.
W. discusses the theatricality of Le Roman comique. Author states that for Scarron, the combination of the theatrum mundi, as well as "le théâtre dans le théâtre," create "un échange entre spectateur et scène, représent[ant] la fusion du spectateur et du spectacle, et spectateur comme spectacle: le récit spéc[tac]ulaire." W. views three episodes depicting Ragotin's falls, or "dégringolades" as particularly theatrical because the language describing these incidents suggests sight and representation. Claiming that theatricality is grounded in 1) sight, 2) spectacle, and 3) death, W., via Aristotle and Georges Forestier, suggests that in overseeing the spectacle in the theatrum mundi, the observer becomes a kind of god that deliberates and evaluates the outcome of the play. From an existential standpoint, the role of the spectator points to the transitory and absurd nature of the theater and life itself.
DENIS, DELPHINE. La muse galante. Poétique de la conversation dans l'oeuvre de Madeleine de Scudéry. Paris: Champion, 1997.
Review: M. Bourgeois-Courtois in PFSCL 15 (1998), 300–302: An excellent study that shows that "en dépit d'un réel travail d'intégration, les conversations restent dans le roman le plus souvent marginales et ludiques. 'Elles demeurent les premières étapes du passage graduel du grand roman épique à la littérature d'inspiration morale'."
SCHLUMBOHM, CHRISTA. "Emblematik und Narrativik: Text, Illustration und Versinnbildlichung in Scudérys Roman La Promenade de Versailles." RJ 47 (1996; pub. 1997), 120–35.
Analyzes the emblem frontispiece along with similar representations representing love's silence as a constitutive element of the text's allegorization of the "cabinet du silence." Ingenious and thoroughly argued interpretation.
BARNWELL, H.T. "'Il faut que je vous conte ...': Fact into Fiction in the Letters of Madame de sevigne." SCFS 19 (1997), 109–24.
Distinguishing "telling a good story" in preference to relating the news, in order to prolong epistolary conversation, identifies the techniques of the talents of the letterwriter and illustrates them in a series of characteristic and mostly famous performances. Although agreeably written, the analysis is disappointingly familiar.
DOSTIE, PIERRE. "Du faste au dépouillement: deux 'manières de peindre' chez Mme de Sévigné." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 149–60.
Article discusses Sévigné's narration of two major events to Bussy-Rabutin: 1) Condé's funeral, and 2) the wedding of the Comte de Guiche. D. suggests that S. grants more importance to the spectacle of the ceremony as opposed to Bossuet's funeral discourse, but hints at Bossuet's talent in a way that unmistakenly marks him as an important literary figure. The "faste" of Condé's funeral is contrasted with the "dépouillement" of the comte de Guiche's marriage ceremony. D. highlights the difference between "un récit hyper-descriptif," and "une narration hypo-descriptive," arguing that this technique is found throughout her Correspondance.
PELCKMANS, PAUL. "La soeur jalouse ou les partialités de l'évidence." OL 53 (1998), 296–311.
Defines through the peasant characters of Sorel's nouvelle a pre modern attitude embodied in them that represents life by a "culture de la soumission" and death as the transgression of its norms (in the dénouement).
SCHOLLER, DIETRICH. "Abschied von den nich mehr freien Kunsten. Der Stellenwert der Artes liberales in Charles Sorel's Science Universelle." ZRSL 108.1 (1998), 18–26.
Examines the ways in which Sorel's traditional encyclopedic format in his 1641 Science is already showing the tendencies that make l'Encyclopédie, namely keen attention to the discoveries of contemporary science and generally attention to the needs of "arts et métiers." A substantial contribution to a renewed understanding of the singularity of Sorel's book.
ADAM, VERONIQUE. "Le mythe de l'androgyne dans l'oeuvre de Tristan l'Hermite." CTH 19 (1997), 5–15.
Powerful evocation of the melancholy of a quest for fusion, the desire for a lost other half, to be realized only in the cut of death and liquefaction. Considers Hérode/Marianne, the Hermaphrodite, Sénèque/Néron, Orphée, the Page. Interesting use of analysis of sound qualities.
BATEROWCZ, MAREK. "Quelques apports espagnols dans la poésie de Tristan?" CTH 19 (1997), 50–58.
Carefully reviews the reasons for Tristan's rejection of Spanish models in poetic style and offers the suggestion that his theatre may have been more open, given the presence of echoes of Las Casas, Carlos Garcia, and an affinity for Calderon.
BERREGARD, SANDRINE. "Tristan poète de l'amour est il un précurseur des romantiques?" CTH 20 (1998), 52–62.
The cliché of Tristan "romantique" tends on the one hand to work from a stereotypical reduction of the romantic lover and on the other to distort the poet's texts. But the gain from such comparisons has been to show in those texts "une sensibilité en rapport avec la présence de la nature."
CAHIERS TRISTAN L'HERMITE 19 (1997). "Tristan et les mythes."
Bibliography and chronology of the Société d'Amis for 1996 (with prospectus for the new edition of the collective works to be published by Champion).
CAHIERS TRISTAN L'HERMITE 20 (1998). "Tristan poète de l'amour."
Bibliography and chronology of the Société d'Amis for 1997. Contains Ten Year Index for 1989–1998.
GLASGOW EMBLEM STUDIES 2 (1997). "Emblems and the Manuscript Tradition."
Half this issue is dedicated to description of the newly found MS. containing Tristan poems: Stephen Rawls, "The Bibliographical Context of Glasgow University Library SMAdd.392: A Preliminary Analysis;" Alison Adams, "Manuscript Texts from Glasgow University SMAdd.392;" and "Glasgow University Library SMAdd.392 and the Printed Version of Tristan L'Hermite's Poetry;" Laurence Grovel "Tristan L'Hermite, Emblematics and Early Modern Reading Practices in the Light of Glasgow University Library SMAdd.392."
GRAZIANI, FRANÇOISE. "Orphée et la Baccante." CTH 19 (1997), 30–39.
Considers Tristan's poetic imitation through the key adaptations of previously invariant elements: the omission of his death and the intercalation prior to his descent of an encounter with the "Baccante amoureuse." In terms of the celebration of the fusion of music and poetry (= opera), dedicated to the castrato Blaise Berthold, the reconstituted myth after establishing a veritable dialogue with its shapers from Ovid through Marino saves the glorification of all-powerful poetry by absolving Orphée from moral fault. Fault lies only in individual physical weakness.
GROVE, LAURENCE, "Glasgow University Library SMAdd.392: Treize poemes inédits de Tristan." CTH 20 (1998), 29–51.
Poems deriving from MS. interleafing in a copy of Otto Van Veen's Amorum Emblemata (Anvers, 1608) dating from ca. 1625 and signed "Trist." Poems reprinted here with commentary and six interfacing emblems.
GUICHMERRE, ROGER. "La première scène des Satyres dans l'Amarillis: Tristan poète érotique." CTH 19 (1997), 40–49.
Presentation of Tristan's adaptation of a pastoral sketch by Rotrou focuses on the scenes introducing three satyrs whose gaze involves an interplay of concrete details that transform the poetry into "un petit chef-d'oeuvre de poésie érotique" and, as Jacques Morel has suggested, not unworthy of "l'Après-midi d'un faune."
MALLET, NICOLE, "Les plaintes de la mal aimée: passion et scénographie dans la tragédie d'Osman." CTH 20 (1998), 17–26.
Graceful study of the ways in which Tristan gives heroic status to the figure of the "fille du Moufti" in the "dénouement insolite." Builds on author's "Osman et les politiques" CTH 6 (1994).
RIZZA, CECILIA. "La mythologie dans les Amours." CTH 20 (1998), 5–14,
Analyzing some 50 mythological figures in the collection, importantly concentrated in Les Plaintes d'Acante, demonstrates how Tristan use of them in expression of love is not one of mutually exclusive opposites and how the poet goes beyond the code use of metonymic personification.
SPICA, ANNE-ELISABETH. "Le poète et l'illustre pasteur: la figure mythique de Céladon." CTH 19 (1997), 17–29.
Analyzes across Tristan's collections the presence of a "complexe-Céladon" by which the "prince-berger" transforms the "Page-poète"'s imaginairy pastoral space into the mythic site properly expressive of the birth of the poetic act.
MARTIN, CAROLE. "L'utopie, le souverain et l'individu: le cas des Sévarambes." EMF 4 (1998), 194–214.
Article discusses the critical reception of V's "L'Histoire des Sévarambes," then moves to the author's statement of purpose which she explains as that of questioning "la raison de l'absorption d'une image de l'absolutisme en les préparatifs de son abolition [autrement dit]: pourquoi est-il si tenant de confondre ce que nous concevons en termes de tyrannie déguisée avec la mouvance abolitionniste qui réalise la première république française?" C.'s conclusion suggests that while V's "utopies libertines visent une démocratisation du pouvoir," they also imply the "insuffisance" of this democratic thought.
DEBAISIEUX, MARTINE. "Première journée de Théophile ou l'exorcisme de la tradition." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 179–92.
D. begins with the question of where to place the Première journée generically. Two choices present themselves: 1) "l'histoire comique," or 2) "le récit personnel." Author opts for the latter, describing the Première journée as "la tentative de l'auteur...de définir son identité et son écriture." Interpretating the episode of the possessed girl as a metaphor for the societal constraints Théophile felt as a writer, D. argues that, "l'auteur se sépare de l'image et du discours de l'autre pour reprendre possession de lui-même et éviter l'alienation qui le menace."
EKSTEIN, NINA. "The Second Woman in the Theatre of Villedieu." Neophilologus 80 (1996), 213–224.
Article deals with the second (and secondary) woman character in each of Villedieu's three plays, Manlius, Nitétis, and Le Favori. This second woman is a distinct departure from the norms of the classical stage in her characterization. The presence of the second woman is linked as well to a structural split in each of the plays. She becomes a significant locus for Villedieu's inscription of a personal authorial voice.
KUIZENGA, DONNA. "'Fine veuve' ou 'veuve d'une haute vertu'? Portraits de la veuve chez Mme de Villedieu." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 227–39.
K. highlights the diversity of Mme de Villedieu's portraits of widows, who can be characterized as "amoureuses, coquettes, hypocrites, ridicules, vertueuses, intelligentes, entreprenantes, ambitieuses, et violentes." Among the works mentioned are the Annales galantes, Manlius, Carmante, et Le Portrait des foiblesses humaines. This multiple portrait of the widow is based largely on the social stratum to which the widow belonged. Economics determined the roles of widows. As a result, there is no "mythe de la veuve" in Villedieu. On the contrary, Villedieu shows herself to be "sensible à la réalité de la veuve."
WOLFGANG, AURORA. "La duplicité d'un roman par lettres: Le Portefeuille de Mme de Villedieu." CdDS 7.1 (Spring 1997) 241–53.
W. claims that the importance of Villedieu's text stems from: 1) the inversion of a traditional formula, in that a masculine narrator recounts and laments the infidelities of the women he loves and 2) the self-conscious exploitation of the duplicity of the letter in the epistolary genre. Speaking of the dissemblance inherent in the genre, W. argues, "Le message et ses effets se multiplient à chaque fois qu'il passe entre les mains d'un nouveau lecteur. Le cheminement même et les lecteurs variés de ces missives font partie intégrante de l'intrigue. Ici, les lettres font plus que transmettre l'histoire, elles en sont le fond et la forme." Given the scrutiny of the society portrayed in Mme de Villedieu's work, duplicity becomes the sole means of maintaining a sense of privacy, or as W. puts it, "la discrétion sur les affaires du coeur."
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