© 2007 University of Nebraska–Lincoln. All Rights Reserved.
Sonoma State University |
Modern Language Association |
UNL Center for Digital Research in the Humanities
2000 Number 48
SOLL, JACOB. "Amelot de la Houssaye Annotates Tacitus." JHI 61 (2000), 167–187.
A study of the neglected volume of Tacitus hand-annotated by Amelot, which shows how Amelot, with the aid of a method adopted from the Jesuits, was able to deploy Tacitus in a wide range of his other works.
GASTELLIER, FABIAN. Angélique Arnauld. Paris: Fayard, 1998.
Review: F. de Noirfontaine in DSS 206 (2000), 144–145: "Dans cette biographie destinée à un large public, Fabian Gastellier a dressé un portrait attachant de la mère Angélique. Mais dans la deuxième partie de l'ouvrage, l'auteur donne l'impression de n'avoir pas toujours réussi à dominer sa documentation. Les développements trops longs sur l'histoire politique et religieuse n'aident pas à la compréhension du personnage. Pourtant l'abondante correspondance de cette figure emblématique de la Réforme catholique . . . ouvre de fructueuses pistes de recherche qui permettraient de mieux dégager son rôle, par exemple, dans la direction spirituelle."
VAN MEERBEECK, MICHEL. "Un manuscrit important pour la correspondance d'Arnauld." DSS 204 (1999), 549–556.
At the Bibliothèque royale in Brussels, the author recently discovered a copy of 250 letters of Antoine Arnauld. Written during Arnauld's exile and covering the period 1682–1690, these letters were used, the author speculates, in the anti-jansenist trial of Pasquier Quesnel.
HILGAR, MARIE-FRANCE. "Les Héroïnes baronesques." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 1–12.
Article deals with Michel Baron, a protégé of Molière who wrote a number of plays in the late seventeenth century. Hilgar claims that the originality of Baron's feminine characters helps distinguish Baron's theater from that of his mentor.
BOST, HUBERT and PHILIPPE DE ROBERT, eds. Pierre Bayle, citoyen du monde. De l'enfant du Carla à l'auteur du Dictionnaire. Actes du Colloque du Carla-Bayle (13–15 septembre 1996). Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999.
Review: J-.P. Cavaillé in RPFE 1136 (2000), 125–127: Work in two sections: one devoted to Bayle himself, his native region, and his readers, the other to questions of interpretation and erudition surrounding Bayle's works, particularly the Dictionnaire. "On regrettera que la figure dominante du recueil soit celle, terne et convenue, d'un Bayle bon protestant et sincère fidéiste. . . Heureusement, quelques analyses présentent un autre Bayle. . . Un volume diversifié donc et très utile pour l'érudition et la réfléxion critique, très maniable également, grâce à ses trois index: noms propres, œuvres de Bayle et articles du Dictionnaire."
CHARNLEY, JOY. Pierre Bayle. Reader of travel literature. Bern: Peter Lang, 1998.
Review: S. Requemora in RHL 100 (2000), 155–56: Generally unfavorable review of study dealing with the influence of travel literature on Bayle's œuvre. Reviewer states that author does not include precise textual analyses, and fails to take a problematic approach to Bayle's work.
MAGDELAINE, MICHELLE, MARIA-CRISTINA PITASSI, RUTH WHELAN and ANTONY MCKENNA, eds. De l'Humanisme aux Lumières: Bayle et le protestantisme. Mélanges en l'honneur d'Élisabeth Labrousse. Paris: Universitas-Oxford, Voltaire Foundation, 1996.
Review: E. Dubois in FS 54.3 (2000), 367–8: The first section follows the history of the Reform from the 16th to the 19th century. Other sections cover, for instance, faith in the Reformed church; the link with Bayle to philosophy and literature; Bayle's acquaintance with Quakerism; his attitude to the Revocation and to Jansenism. This is an "impressive volume of wide-ranging scholarship."
MORI, GIANLUCA. Introduzione a Bayle. Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1996.
Review: J.-P. Cavaillé in RP (1135), 567–8: Cavaillé praises this work as far more than an introduction to the work of Bayle, terming it "une biographie intellectuelle [et]. . . une véritable clé de lecture pour l'ensemble de l'oeuvre [de Bayle], qui paraît pourtant résister à toute interprétation unitaire." "La solution de nombreuses difficultés d'interprétation, consiste pour [Mori] à 'lire Bayle avec Bayle', c'est-à-dire avec les critères de lecture que lui-même utilise, se fiant jusqu'à un certain point seulement à ses déclarations explicites." Mori finishes by detecting in Bayle's work "la présence d'une écriture de la dissimulation libertine", and therefore aligns himself against the tradition of critics who see in Bayle a sincere Protestant believer, opening a fascinating discussion on the nature of the reader ("bien ou mal intentionné"?). Mori concludes his analysis with a "useful and combative" survey of the critical reception of Bayle from the eighteenth century to the most recent critical analyses, with an interesting emphasis on the work of Italian scholars from Cantelli to Paganini to Bianchi. Cavaillé notes in closing the extremely complete bibliography, and Mori's web site devoted to Bayle: www.cici.unito.it/progetti/bayle.
PIVA, FRANCO, éd. Catherine Bernard/Jacques Pradon: Le commerce galant ou Lettres tendres et galantes de la jeune Iris et de Timandre. Fasano: Schena, 1996.
Review: U. Jung in Archiv 236 (1999), 451–57: Edition crucial to a reconsideration of this work and its place in the history of the French epistolary novel. Text is based on original edition of 1682; introductory essay and notes offer important insights into Bernard's work and life, considerations of verse and prose, and aesthetics of love (tranquillité, raison, passion, désordre, etc.).
GIORDANO, MICHAEL, ed. Studies on Beroalde de Vervillle. Paris-Seattle-Tübingen: Biblio 17, 1992.
Review: R. Corum in CdDS 7.2 (2000), 245–48. Favorable evaluation in which reviewer states that "Giordano deserves congratulations for bringing together this fine collection of essays." Highlights include Gisèle Mathieu-Castellani's "astute reading of the varied poems comprising Les Souspirs amoureux (1583), and Tom Conley's article on the "visual and/or aural cues" that establish connections between Le Palais des curieux and Le Moyen de parvenir.
RENAUD, MICHEL. Pour une lecture du Moyen de parvenir de Béroalde de Verville. Paris: Champion, 1997.
Review: E. Rassart-Eeckhout in LR 52 (1998), 367–68: This second edition continues the scholarly rehabilitation of the famous 17th c. doctor/writer. All citations are now taken from the Moreau/Tournon fac-simile edition of 1984 and the bibliography is brought up to date.
BEAUDE, JOSEPH. "Bérulle ou la raison ardente." RPFE 1137 (2000), 149–156.
Analyzes what is defined as the progression of "burning reason" in Pierre de Bérulle's mystical writings, from the Bref discours de l'abnégation intérieure (1596), to La vie de Jésus (his last work).
BELIN, CHRISTIAN. "Le discours en forme d'élévation selon Bérulle." Littératures Classiques 39, 253–264.
The work of Bérulle ignores the opposition between theological discourse and mystical elevation. Rather, it proposes a mystical theology: humanity is predestined, even through words, to elevation, which is "la finalité suprême de cette venue du Verbe en un corps. . ."
MICHON, HÉLÈNE. "L'anéantissement: de l'ontologie à la mystique." Littératures Classiques 39, 265–282.
One of the major themes of Berullian spirituality is considered from two perspectives, that of the variety of its sources (among which Neo-Platonician philosophy and Augustinian vision), and of the complexity of the discourse which, in Oeuvres de piété, expounds on the "anéantissement de la créature."
HACHE, SOPHIE. "La rhétorique du sublime au XVIIe siècle: ses enjeux dans la reconnaissance d'une littérature française" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 129–138.
The notion of sublime in the 17th century, in Boileau's translation of Longinus' treatise, particularly in the Préface and Réflexions diverses the translator attached to the text. The rhetorical reflection on the sublime, at first theoretical, will become ". . .un lieu privilégié pour l'exploration d'un panthéon 'classique' en voie d'élaboration."
NABLOW, RALPH A. "Voltaire, Candide, and Boileau's Third Satire." RomN 40 (2000), 161–65.
Points out similarity between Voltaire's description of two victims of the Inquisition, who have torn the bacon off their chicken, and a couplet in Boileau's third satire. Concludes that similarities should be noted in future editions of Candide.
LANDRY, JEAN-PIERRE. "Parole de Dieu et parole des hommes: limites et légitimité de la prédication selon Bossuet." Littératures Classiques 39, 221–236.
Bossuet as theoretician of sacred eloquence: what is the risk of profanation implicit in the use of rhetoric in sermons?
POUZET, REGINE, éd. Charles IX. Récit d'histoire par Louis Dauphin et Bossuet. Clermont-Ferrand: Centre de recherches sur la Réforme et la Contre-Reforme, 1993.
Review: J.-M. Cauchies in LR 52 (1998), 157–58: Praised as a contribution to history, historiography and education. The latter because Pouzet "fait revivre . . . le quotidien de l'éducation intellectuelle du jeune Louis" (157). Historical notes.
BECHERER, AGNES. "Heinrich IV. und die Heraklesfigur-Ikonographische Perspectiven in der französischen Versepik um 1600." RF 111 (1999), 21–41.
Explores in addition to Ronsard's poetry, the verse epic of Pierre Boton and Jean Godard for two typological variants of the Hercules myth—foundation of the nation and prestige of a civilized and literary France (l'Hercule de Lybie and l'Hercule gaulois). A rich complement to Boton's 1996 volume Das Bild Heinrichs IV in der französischen Versepik (1593–1613). Tübingen: Narr.
BOYER, CLAUDE. Tyridate, tragédie, suivi de Le fils supposé. Edition critique parLaetitia Sergent. Genève: Droz, 1998.
Review: Ch. Mazouer in DSS 206 (2000), 156: The reviewer praises Sergent's introductory essay, which examines "l'originalité du traitement thématique (l'inceste; la dialectique du vrai et du faux; le déguisement inconscient)" and provides "une analyse uniquement dramaturgique et technique." Reviewer finds the annotation too abbreviated but concludes that this critical edition will bring overdue attention to a playwright largely overshadowed by Corneille.
POPIN, JACQUES et FREDERIC DELOFFRE, éds. Journal: Du Voyage des Indes Orientales et Relation: De ce qui est arrivé dans le royaume de Siam en 1688. By Robert Challe. Genève: Droz, 1998.
Review: M. Cardy in MLR 95.3 (2000), 836: "The work under review is an edition of two hitherto unpublished texts that were discovered by Popin and bound together in a single manuscript volume among the holdings of the Staatsbibliothek in Munich. Included is a glossary, illustrations, indexes, and bibliography.
DE RAYMOND, JEAN-FRANCOIS. Pierre Chanut, ami de Descartes: un diplomate philosophe. Paris: Beauchesne, 1999.
Review: BCLF 618 (2000), 713–14: Nommé ambassadeur à Stockholm en 1645, cet ami de Descartes "'est conscient de l'importance des idées, de la création intellectuelle, scientifique et artistique dans la présentation et le rayonnement de son pays. L'originalité de son action en ce domaine tient à l'osmose qu'il réalise entre ces sphères culturelles, suivant leur propre logique, qui ne se réduit pas à un rôle instrumental, et l'action politique'." Livre bien documenté.
BLOCKER, DÉBORAH. "Jean Chapelain et les lumières de Padoue. L'Héritage italien dans les débats français sur l'utilité du théâtre (1585–1640)" Littératures Classiques 37 (1999), 97–116.
The author analyzes the impact of the Italian theoreticians of the theater (Jason de Nores, Faustino Summo and the other "lumières de Padoue") on the French early 17th Century debate on the utility of theater.
DUPRAT, ANNE. "Morale et fiction en poétique: La combinaison des vraisemblances chez J. Chapelain." RSH 254.2 (1999), 45–61.
"Chapelain articule donc ici les deux dimensions principales de la vraisemblance, concept-clé de toute réflexion sur la fiction littéraire, en montrant que l'une complète l'autre: aucune fiction ne peut fonctionner sans le vraisemblable commun, qui en fait le fond, et aucune ne peut être efficace sans le vraisemblable extraordinaire, qui se détache sur ce fond et fait tout l'intérêt de la fable" (p.60).
JEAN-SIMEON CHARDIN, LE MAGICIEN DU QUOTIDIEN: "LE BENEDICITE" ET AUTRES CHEFS D'OEUVRE. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux; Issy-les-Moulineaux: La Cinquième multimédia; Paris: Vilo, 1999. 1 cédérom Mac/PC.
Review: BCLF 620 (2000), 1089–90: "Les cédéroms qui accompagnent désormais les grandes expositions contribuent à élaborer un nouveau type de document, à mi-chemin entre la balade débonnaire au musée, le livre scolaire et la découverte intrigante de boîtes mystères que recèlent désormais les écrans du virtuel." En ce qui concerne ce cédérom: "Trois entrées permettent d'accéder aux informations, par le tableau lui-même, par des parcours thématiques ou encore par des chronologies (historique, artistique ou biographique). Bonne introduction à l'oeuvre du peintre pour tout un chacun, dont l'auditeur regrettera seulement que le commentaire, fort intéressant, soit déclamé sur un ton quasi religieux."
MASTOIANNI, MICHELE. Jean-Baptiste Chassignet tra manierismo e barocco. Un' introduzione alla lettura del Mespris de la vie et consolation contre la mort. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: R. Crescenzo in RHL 100 (2000), 314: Book situates Chassignet between the Mannerist and Baroque movements, and discusses his imitation of the Bible. While emphasizing the illusion of the Baroque, Mastoianni's study also highlights the personal but coherent style of Chassignet's poetry which itself is reminiscent of the Pléiade.
Review B. Papasogli in S Fr 127 (1999), 125–127: Praiseworthy for its rigorous and concrete contribution to late 16th and early 17th c. scholarship. Renews the debate centering on baroque ethics and details Chassignet's themes and images. Finds that Mastoianni's methodology is "una sorta di oscillazione tra l'idea e l'immagine"(126).
SCHERER, COLETTE, ed. Jean Claveret: L'Esprit fort: comédie. Geneva: Droz, 1997.
Review: A. Howe in FS 53.4 (1999), 468–9: The earliest of Claveret's eight plays is published here for the first time since the original octavo edition of 1637. Scherer discusses its qualities in a succinct and informative introduction which relates Claveret's practice to that of his contemporaries.
Review: B. Louvat in DSS 206 (2000), 155–156: Eclipsed by Corneille's early comedies, Clavaret's 1637 play is important today for an understanding of the development of the theatre in the 1630s, notes the reviewer. A hybrid genre formed of the pastorale citadine and comedy, the play is "symptomatique de la prise en compte progressive des règles de composition du poème dramatique." The editor provides a detailed literary analysis of the play and a selected bibliography.
VILLAIN, JEAN. La fortune de Colbert. Préface dePierre Chaunu.Avant-propos deFrançoise Bayard. Paris: Comité pour l'histoire économique et financière, Ministère de l'Economie, 1994.
Review: K. Malettke in HZ 265 (1997), 785–87: Important both for the light it sheds on C. and for its contribution to the history of France as a country. Offers numerous correctives to modern research. Praised for attention to archives and the multifaceted and rich examination of the central subject of inquiry.
DUBU, J., ed. Armand de Bourbon, Prince de Conti. Les Devoirs des Grands. Précédé de la vie d'Armand de Bourbon, prince de Conti, 1629–1666. Paris: Communication et Tradition, 1998.
Review: J.-Y. Vialleton in RHL 100 (2000), 144: Discusses Conti's personal transformation from a "grand seigneur" to a "dévot." Book is primarily religious in nature, and is conceived as an "expérience pénitentiel."
Review: O. Ranum in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 310–311. ". . .Jean Dubu's work pulls together just about all that can be known about that particular prince of the blood."
BIET, CHRISTIAN. "La sainte, la prostituée, l'actrice. L'impossible modèle religieux dans Théodore vierge et martyre de Corneille." Littératures Classiques 39, 81–103.
Analysis of Corneille's religious play focusing on the difficulties implied in the choice of a religious topic, and on the reasons which bring the author to turn a Christian tragedy into a "tragédie galante et politique." Théodore is thus seen as the latest French theatrical attempt at representing a saint's life and also as a defense of theater: "une participation de l'auteur aux débats sur la moralité et la légitimité du théâtre."
CARLIN, CLAIRE. "Chimène et Phèdre mélancoliques: la féminisation de la mélancolie." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 163–175.
Chimène and Phèdre as two moments of the denigration of melancholy in 17th century France, denigration accomplished through the feminisation of the "tempérament mélancolique."
COUPRIE, ALAIN. "De l'usage de l'histoire dans les tragédies de Corneille et Racine: deux visions différentes de la tragédie politique." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 225–234.
Writing of history in Corneille and Racine, which uses a constant strategy of "faithful infidelity": historical tragedies are both "récriture et réinvention de l'histoire"; in the same way, political tragedies, paradoxically, cannot aim at providing an "art de gouverner".
DEPRUN, JEAN. "Les 'noms divins' chez Corneille et Racine: le cas des 'noms ontologiques' ". PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 269–276.
The study of "ontological names" in both authors shows that Racine might be "moins métaphysique" que Corneille.
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Corneille's Cinna, mise en scène de Simon Eine, Comédie Française, automne 2000. Le Point 1469 (2000), 182.
"Surtout au début, Véronique Valla (Emilie) exagère: elle tord la bouche, elle s'exalte, elle s'enivre. Tout n'est que rage et ressentiment. A cela près, Simon Eine rend pleinement justice à l'éloquence de Corneille: chaque comédien assume son texte sans la moindre défaillance, avec force et clarté."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière and Corneille's Psyché, mise en scène de Yann Duffas, Théâtre Louis-Jouvet, jan-fev. 2000. Le Point 1427 (2000), 111.
"Duffas a remplacé les violes et les hautbois de Lully par la kora et le bongo. . . on s'interroge, n'y a-t-il pas une frontière infime entre le cucul et le sublime? A vous de juger."
GRIMM, JÜRGEN. "Suréna et Phèdre ou l'abdication du héros." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 177–186.
Parallel of the two plays, the last of Corneille's long career, and Racine's last tragedy before his retirement from the theater. Both plays present ". . .des héros qui ont renoncé à la réalisation des pulsions les plus intimes de leur for intérieur, et qui de ce fait ont abdiqué. . ."
GUELLOUZ, SUZANNE. "《 Le chef d'oeuvre 》 《 le plus tragique 》 《 de l' Antiquité. 》 L'Oedipe de Corneille et La Thébaïde de Racine." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 29–43.
Study of the links between the two tragedies, both structured by the theme of "parricide", "la substance même de l'intrigue de La Thébaïde" et "le moteur de l'action chez Corneille," as well as of the rewriting of the myth accomplished by both authors.
GUTLEBEN, MURIEL. "Faste et pompe, monstres et sublime dans Médée de Corneille et Phèdre de Racine. PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 153–161.
Comparison of the two tragedies, emphasizing "le faste et la pompe, la présence fascinante des monstres et le surgissement du sublime." Two diverging esthetics are contrasted, in Médée an esthetic of "pompe" and "somptuosité", in Phèdre, of "dépouillement."
HEPP, NOÉMI. "Perspectives cornéliennes et raciniennes sur Rome ennemie: autour de Nicomède et de Mithridate." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 143–151.
Beyond the basic similarities between the themes of the two tragedies (Roman imperialism seen as unbearable tyranny, political and amorous rivalry of the two sons of the reigning king, etc.) the author pinpoints the differences between the two plays.
HUBERT, J.D. Corneille's Performative Metaphors. Charlottesville, Rookwood Press, 1997.
Review: W.D. Howarth in FS 54.1 (2000), 80–1. H. treats Corneille's plays as "performative scripts or scores" in this book which consists largely of revised articles. The idea of "performative metaphor," accompanied by the related notion of a "fugal" interplay between illusion and elusion, contributes an interesting focus to the whole.
KOWZAN, TADEUSZ. "Identité du personnage théâtral: de l'anonymat à l'autoréférence." Semiotica 130.3–4 (2000), 269–282.
Use examples from Corneille and Molière to demonstrate character identification and authorial self-reference in lines.
LASSERRE, FRANÇOIS. "Corneille et l'Alexandre de Racine." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 45–55.
The author explains Corneille's condemnation of Racine's Alexandre by the latter's moving away from his predecessor's theatrical principles: the function of the Cornelian author is to free the exchange between the characters in order to allow the spectator to exert his/her own judgment, and draw his/her own conclusions; Racine in Alexandre moves systematically away from these principles.
LOEHR, JOËL. "'Crayonné au théâtre': Suréna et sa mise en scène." RHT 51.2 (1999), 113–122.
Cet article se propose d'interroger une mise en scène de Suréna par Anne Delbée dans ses multiples composantes: objets et éléments du décor, costumes et gestuelle, éclairage et musique, mais aussi citations d'origines diverses ajoutées ou greffées au texte de Corneille.
MAZOUER, CHARLES. "Corneille et Racine dramaturges comiques." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 237–249.
"Impossible" parallel of Corneille and Racine as authors of comedies, whose esthetics in the comic genre appear far apart. Yet the comparison is attempted through the study of "procédés comiques", "cibles comiques" and "personnages ridicules" in both authors, as well as through the question of laughter.
MINEL, EMMANUEL. "Trois parallèles de Corneille et Racine dans les années 1680–1690: Longepierre (1686), La Bruyère (1688–89–91) et Fontenelle (1693)." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 189–200.
Study of the three "parallèles" which give form to the debate and rivalry between Corneille's and Racine's partisans. Minel argues that this literary exercise becomes an arena where the diverging conceptions of literary history and literary modernity held by the "Anciens" and the "Modernes" are played out.
POIRIER, GERMAIN. Corneille témoin de son temps. Le Cid (1636), préface deJean-Pierre Chauveau. Paris-Seattle-Tübingen: PFSCL 1994.
Review: S. Toczyski in CdDS 7.2 (2000), 277–80: Poirier's study interprets Le Cid as an allegory of the "trial, condemnation, and abjuration of Galileo Galilei in 1633." Reviewer is "impressed" by author's "very Christian approach" in the attempt to suggest that Le Cid attempts a reconciliation between "science and faith." However, reviewer expresses doubt that the play contains "such an elaborate polemical plan."
RIDING, ALAN. "Finally Reviewing a Play that Amused the Sun King." NYT Feb. 3 2000.
Review of Yan Duffas' revival of Psyche, a play by Molière and Corneille, that has not been staged since 1671, when it was premiered for Louis XIV.
ROHOU, JEAN. "De Pertharite à Andromaque: les enseignements d'une comparaison historique." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 57–84.
The similarities and differences between the two plays are examined to emphasize two diverging "visions de la condition humaine, deux dramaturgies et deux moments du XVIIe siècle."
SALAZAR, PHILIPPE-JOSEPH. "Des aristotéliciens de l'autre: Corneille et Mme de Lafayette" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 213–222.
Autre as Foucaldian "dispositif", as discursive strategy, in two examples: La Princesse de Clèves and Polyeucte, read in the light of Aristotle's Topics and Metaphysics.
SOARE, ANTOINE. "L'intertexte cornélien d'Alexandre à Bajazet." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 85–113.
Intertextuality in the theater of the Seventeenth-Century: already widespread in the period 1630–1660, it is also a constant of Racine's theater, who looks back on the previous generation as much as on the Greek models.
SWEETSER, MARIE-ODILE. "Corneille et Racine dramaturges, au-delà de la polémique et de la rivalité." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 251–267.
Beyond rivalry, common ground between the two authors in the defense of their art, and of the status of writers, in a society where bias against the theater and the writer still flourished.
TRETHEWEY, JOHN. '"Chimène's Dissembling and its Consequences." Romance Studies 17.2 (1999), 105–114.
Article "examines why Corneille felt it necessary to change the 1637 version of the first scene of Le Cid to the post-1660 one. Chimène's tolerance of deception must . . . be made clear in the play exposition where the aim is to deceive her imperious father the Comte and obtain his consent for her marriage to Rodrigue. It then follows logically that, after Rodrigue has killed the Comte, she is ready to deceive for almost the opposite purpose. The King's Act IV attempt to trick her into betraying her true feelings publicly is consequently bound to be counterproductive, making her determined to resist marriage indefinitely. Hence Corneille's post-1660 modification of Chimène's final speech which makes her declared aversion to the marriage seem an eternal one."
WAGNER, MARIE-FRANCE, ed. La Conquête de la Toison d'or. By Pierre Corneille. Paris/Geneva: Champion/Slatkine, 1998.
Review: A. Wygant in MLR 95. 2 (2000), 506–07: The play "participates in the fascinating problematics of the baroque as a conceptual category, the machine used to stage an anti-mechanistic plot, the reception history of the figure of the ancient witch Medea, and the fragile, shifting relationship of representation to its own time and place. The materials brought to the study of these problems by the new critical edition of Marie-France Wagner are exceedingly welcome."
Review: E. Minel in RHL 100 (2000), 143–44: Among the highlights of this edition are its references to the play's various premieres, its staging, as well as its association of how Jason represents a hero figure of Louis XIV's France. The play is indicative of the "machine theater" of the seventeenth century, and exemplifies Corneille's aesthetic of surprise.
GOODKIN, RICHARD E. "Thomas Corneille's Ariane and Racine's Phèdre: The Older Sister Strikes Back." ECr 38 (1998), 60–71.
Goodkin carefully analyzes two plays that exemplify "the clash between two rights or two conflicting ethics" (Hegel, as cited by Goodkin, 60). Birth order, the dynamics of the sibling relationship, heroism, inheritance, and legitimacy are crucial concepts in these plays which mirror socioeconomic shifts in 17th c. France.
PAIGE, NICHOLAS. "L'affaire des poisons et l'imaginaire de l'enquête: de Molière à Thomas Corneille." Littératures Classiques 40, 2000, 195–208.
Study around "l'Affaire des poisons", which takes place at a historical moment when what the author calls "l'imaginaire de l'enquête" is being put into place, in its main literary inscription, the play by Thomas Corneille and Donneau de Visé titled "La Devineresse ou les faux enchantements" in which the authors replace thECrime of murder by poison by "escroquerie et superstition."
HARRISON, HELEN L. "Slaying Sovereigns: Tyrannicide in Thomas Corneille's La Mort de l'empereur Commode." RomN 40 (2000), 287–94.
Argues that T. Corneille uses absolutist theory and fragmentation of character to defuse a potentially explosive topic, the murder of a legitimate western ruler.
HARRY, PATRICIA. "L'altérité cyranienne: le jeu de cache-cache esthético-idéologique d'un marginal fieffé" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 441–451.
Study of otherness in Cyrano's novels and Lettres, in order to ascertain whether the symbiosis between believer and non-believer (the oppressor defines what it means to be against) does not put into question the pretense to absolute freedom Cyrano claims in his work.
SANKEY, MARGARET, ed. Cyrano de Bergerac: L'Autre Monde; ou, les empires et estats de la lune. Paris: Lettres modernes, 1995.
Review: J. Mallinson in FS 54.3 (2000), 359–60: This edition makes accessible for the first time a third manuscript of Cyrano's novel, bought by the Fisher Library, University of Sydney, in 1977. S. compares this manuscript both with the other two known to survive, and with the first published edition of 1657. "Her edition scrupulously reproduces orthography and punctuation, without seeking to impose 'correct' readings. The result is of great interest and importance, not only to Cyrano scholars, but to all those who work on seventeenth-century fiction."
VAN ELLS, PAULA HARTWIG. "Alchemical Metaphor and Cyrano de Bergerac's Apology of the Imagination." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 13–22.
States the basic conflict in Cyrano criticism in which some readers view the novelist as "rational and scientific," while others see him as relying on "imagination." Argues that the discourse of alchemy synthesizes these two points of view.
HAMON-PORTER, BRIGITTE. "Le narrataire, signe de la mauvaise conscience de l'autobiographe: Le Page disgracié de Tristan l'Hermite et Les Aventures de Dassoucy." RomN 39.2 (1999), 203–214.
Argues that the narrataire in Tristan's 1642 text is necessary to justify the narration. In 1667, Dassoucy has no need of any narrataire other than his reader. Speculates that autobiography has "franchi un interdit."
HAMMOND, NICHOLAS et MICHAEL HAWCROFT, eds. Dissertations contre Corneille. Exeter: U of Exeter P, 1996.
Review: n.a. in FMLS 34 (1998), 295: Editors Hammond and Hawcroft believe that d'Aubignac's judgments were based on the stageworthiness of plays. D'Aubignac's dissertations were first published in 1663 and criticize Corneille as well as three of his plays: Sophonisbe, Sertorius, and Oedipe. Main point of contest is "le vrai vs. le vraisemblable."
LAZARD, MADELEINE. Agrippa d'Aubigné. Paris: Fayard, 1998.
Review: G. Banderier in BHR 61. 3 (1999), 864–66: "Mme Lazard nous donne, et pour longtemps, ce qui faisait défaut: une biographie attentive, informée, de 'l'un des plus grands écrivains de notre littérature' (p. 10), tenant compte des plus récents travaux. C'est à la fois une biographie et un ouvrage sur l'histoire de cette époque, tant sont imbriquées les réalités religieuses, familiales et politiques."
Review: F. Lestringant in RSH 254.2 (1999), 189–191: A biography of the poet. "Dans un style alerte, les quatorze chapitres de cet itinéraire mouvementé nous mènent des 《 tourments et orages de l'enfance 》 (ch. Ier) au 《 chevet de sa vieillesse et de sa mort 》, en passant par le 《 printemps de péchés 》 (II), les combats par l'épée et par la plume, le long et douleureux compagnonnage avec le futur Henri IV, Henri de Navarre (IV et VII), les amours, les deux mariages, les vraies et fausses retraites d'un 《 Bouc du Désert 》 jamais las ni longtemps solitaire, malgré la légende qu'il a lui-même accréditée (VIII et XIV)."
Review: F. Roudaut in DSS 206 (2000), 154: A biography of that masterfully contextualizes the life of this écrivain-soldat and interprets his works in view of that life. "Grâce à une écriture vive, claire et précise, Madeleine Lazard a réussi à proposer une biographie qui montre combien cette vie et cette œuvre sont si tumultueuses et si complexes qu'il semble parfois que l'on commence à peine à les découvrir.
SMET, INGRID A.R. DE. "Perspectives de l'oubli dans la poésie d'Agrippa d'Aubigné." RSH 256.4 (1999), 65–78.
The author retraces the literary career of d'Aubigné to find that the poet of Les Tragiques dismisses the young soldier of Printemps as a dissolute adolescent.
DEFRANCE, ANNE. Les Contes de fées et les nouvelles de Madame d'Aulnoy (1690–1698). Geneva: Droz, 1998.
Review: M. Slater in FS 54.1 (2000), 83–4: This full-length study begins by examining the tales of Mme d'Aulnoy in their contexts, discussing the often-neglected "récits-cadres". Next, Magné's analysis of the role of myth in fairy tale is convincingly applied to the Contes. The book concludes with a Freudian exploration of the fantasies underlying the tales. Defrance makes, however, little attempt to distinguish between the elements traditional to the fairy-tale genre and those particular to Mme d'Aulnoy. This drawback is most evident in her use of psychoanalysis.
Review: R. Howells in MLR 94. 4 (1999), 1107–08: "Anne Defrance offers a broadly semiotic and psychoanalytic account of d'Aulnoy's early tale and the eight volumes she published in 1697–98." Four-part study treats "figures of the storyteller and listeners in the frame narratives"; "character-types in the tales"; "allusions to classical mythology"; "expression of various 'fantasmes,' notably oral and scopic." H. particularly appreciates first and final parts of the analysis, as well as the "judicious synthesis" afforded by the Conclusion.
Review: R. Godenne in LR 53 (1999), 213: Appreciates the critical sensitivity and originality of Defrance who situates the stories in their original frameworks— conversations or reflections, for example. Highlights D'Aulnoy's capacity for subversion.
THIRARD, MARIE-AGNES. "Le féminisme dans les contes de Mme d'Aulnoy." DSS 208 (2000), 501–514.
Thirard describes d'Aulnoy's tales as instances of "écriture féministe" based on her analysis of the predominance of female narrators in both frame and embedded narratives, of the topos of forced marriages, and finally claims for women's real political power. Surprisingly, Thirard cites none of the existing feminist scholarship devoted to d'Aulnoy's œuvre, notably that of Seifert, Longino-Farrell, or Verdier, among others.
LEIBACHER-OUVRARD, LISE. " 'Ni de ce monde ni de ce siècle': Michel de Pure et la science-fiction des salons" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 293–304.
Study of Epigone, Histoire du siècle futur by the author of La Prétieuse, l'Abbé de Pure, which shows that in that work De Pure has combined various modes referring to otherness ("exotisme du voyage imaginaire, utopie, uchronie, allégorie et parodie") in order to turn certain salons and their production into the marginalized Other.
ARIEW, ROGER, JOHN COTTINGHAM, and TOM SORRELL, eds. Descartes' Meditations: Background Source Materials. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Review: E. Moles in MLR 95. 1 (2000), 212–13: "This chronological compilation of translated sources, some made available for the first time, contains admirably pertinent introductions to each writer, and the wide-ranging selections are judicious." M. concludes: "In all, this valuable volume greatly enriches our contextual understanding of the Méditations."
BOSS, GILBERT. "La figure de la philosophie. L'idéal de Descartes." ECL 68 (2000), 191–213.
Examines the relationship between rhetoric and philosophy in the dedication to Princess Élisabeth in Principes de la philosophie. Concludes that this text was meant to be read on several levels, for example as a circumstantial piece, as an allegory, and as a masterful rhetorical display.
GARBER, DANIEL. La Physique métaphysique de Descartes. Trad. de l'américain parStéphane Bornhausen. Paris: PUF, 1999.
Review: BCLF 671 (1999), 266: "Dans un premier temps, l'auteur dessine les figures de base de sa réfléxion. Elles sont simples: biographie, oeuvres, références. Dans un deuxième temps, il reprend et commente le projet global de Descartes, question de la méthode comprise. Dans un troisème temps, il s'attache à mettre au jour le commentaire cartésien de la question du corps, ce qui exige évidemment de grands détours, pertinents au demeurant, par les travaux scolastiques relevant du même domaine. Puis, il fait l'étude des lois du mouvement." L'ouvrage "constitue une très belle synthèse des travaux les plus récents sur les questions de ce type."
GAUKROGER, STEPHEN. Descartes, an intellectual biography. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1995. Cottingham, John, ed. Descartes. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.
Review: J.-P. Cavaillé in RP 124.4 (1999), 559–60: According to Cavaillé, the first of these two volumes is "la meilleure biographie intellectuelle de Descartes disponsible à ce jour." It is followed by 42 "petites fiches biographiques", a "very selective" bibliography and an index of proper names. The second volume is a collection of articles (by M. Williams, P. Markie, A. Gerwith, J. Van Cleve, A. Kenny, J. Bennett, M.D. Wilson, G. Rodis-Lewis, S. Gaukroger, J. Cottingham, D. Garber, D.M. Clarke, and C.G. Hartflied) covering the principal aspects of Descartes' philosophy. Cavaillé notes that both works owe very little to (they "disdain") continental scholarship.
GUERY, FRANÇOIS. "Descartes et la 《 méditation 》: ce que méditer veut dire." RPFE 1137 (2000), 169–174.
Defends the thesis that for Descartes, meditation goes beyond cogitatio, which is merely feeling or imagining. Defines meditation as thought that comes from both body and soul, ponders on itself, and becomes metaphysical as it tests true thought and overcomes doubt.
HINTIKKA, JAAKKO. "Cogito ergo quis est?" RMM no.1 (janvier-mars 2000), 13–28.
The author poses two main questions: 1. What sort of entity did Descartes hope to prove to exist by means of his argument concerning the Cogito? 2. What forms of Aristotelian logic did Descartes use to prove the existence of the thinking subject? H. answers the first question in saying that Descartes set out to prove the existence of the res cogitans, whose demonstration is witnessed as a performance through introspection (Descartes witnessing the proof of the res cogitans in his own thought.) He answers the second question by highlighting the Aristotelian "atomic" inference in the following syllogism: "tout être qui pense existe; or, je pense; donc j'existe."
HINTIKKA, JAAKKO. "Cogito ergo sum, comme inférence et comme performance." RMM no.1 (janvier-mars 2000), 3–12.
In response to Julius Weinberg and James Carney, the author restates his argument that Descartes founds the Cogito by both inference and performance. Sum is inferred from the verb form Cogito; Descartes also states in the Responses to the Second Objections that the major proposition "Tout ce qui pense est ou existe" is inferred in the statement Cogito ergo sum. Moreover, the latter statement is performative as an act of thought that verifies the existence of the thinking subject.
JANOWSKI, ZBIGNIEW. Cartesian Theodicy: Descartes' Quest for Certitude. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1999.
Review: L. Kolakowski in TLS 5081 (Aug 18 2000) 26: Demonstrates the ways in which Descartes' writings build on Augustinian thought. Ideas on sovereignty of God and on human freedom seen as particularly indebted to Augustine's De libero arbitrio. Janowski argues that Descartes never mentions Augustine because he does not wish to become embroiled in the approaching battle between Jesuits and Augustinians. A book that shows "that we cannot understand Descartes's texts without referring them to their cultural context."
LEDUC-FAYETTE, DENISE. "Descartes et la contemplation." RPFE 1137 (2000), 175–192.
Uses the vocabulary surrounding "contemplation" in Descartes and the evolution of this concept in pertinent texts to demonstrate that "contemplation" leads to the idea of God, which in turn takes one to a limit which both separates and links reason and faith.
LYONS, JOHN D. "Descartes and Modern Imagination." p&L 23 (1999), 302–312.
Argues that imagination, for Descartes, is an active component of the will rather than a passive receptor of the outside world, and that as such it is crucial to understanding Descartes' originality.
MELEHY, HASSAN. Writing Cogito: Montaigne, Descartes, and the Institution of the Modern Subject. Albany: State U of New York P, 1997.
Review: T.W Reeser in ECr 39 (1999), 92–93: Breaks with traditional views that "Montaigne's skepticism clears the way for Descartes' certainty and that the cogito is stable and coherent whereas Montaigne's moi is fragmented and incoherent" (92). Melehy treats metaphor, representation, the tensions in Montaigne, Montaigne as both implicit and explicit intertext and considers that the cogito is not "unified and coherent" but must "dissimulate and attempt to exclude many of the elements of discourse that Montaigne highlights"(reviewer 92).
ONG-VAN-CUNG, KIM SANG, ed. Descartes et la question du sujet. Paris: PUF, 1999.
Review: BCLF 618 (2000), 507: "Une journée d'étude organisée en 1988 a rassemblé six spécialistes de Descartes aux fins d'aider les étudiants déjà lecteurs de cet auteur à aborder la question de la nature du cogito et celle de la manière dont Descartes définit le sujet pensant."
RENAULT, LAURENCE. Descartes ou la Félicité volontaire: l'idéal aristotélicien de la sagesse et la réforme de l'admiration. Paris: PUF, 2000.
Review: BCLF 621 (2000), 1232–33: Thèse soutenue en 1997 sous la direction de J.-L Marion dont l'objet est "d'analyser le discours cartésien portant sur la félicité (Descartes parle parfois de béatitude), et d'en montrer les éléments constitutifs (admiration, générosité et parfois magnanimité, pour reprendre le terme utilisé par Saint Thomas d'Aquin). La démonstration consiste à suivre la confrontation organisée par Descartes entre son option propre et l'idéal aristotélicien de la félicité théorique (autrement dit, la sagesse grecque)."
REVEL, JEAN-FRANÇOIS. Pourquoi des philosophes? Pour l'Italie. Sur Proust. La cabale des dévots. Contresens. Descartes inutile et incertain. Paris: Laffont, 1997.
Review: J.-P. Catonné in RPFE 124.3 (1999), 407–8: A collection of philosophical and literary essays and newspaper articles published between 1957 and 1979. The last of these, "Descartes inutile et incertain", a title borrowed from the Pensées and referring to a commentary by Léon Brunschvicg, "constitue une réfutation globale du cartésianisme." According to Revel, Descartes' metaphysics is essentially a rephrasing of scholasticism using a new vocabulary, and is [récusé] by the physics of Galileo and the experimental method of Bacon. Catonné criticizes Revel's lack of development of this idea in particular, and points out at least one counter-example to the argument, but praises in general this weighty volume for its continued relevance to the history of philosophical ideas.
SHIOKAWA, TETSUYA. "Une lecture 'moraliste' de Descartes: pourquoi le bon sens est–il la chose du monde la mieux partagée?" DSS 206 (2000), 111–119.
An intertextual reading of the celebrated opening of Discours de la méthode and excerpts from Montaigne's essay "De la présomption" that foregrounds the irony and moralistic intent of both writers.
SOUAL, PHILIPPE andMIKLOS VETÖ,dir. Chemins de Descartes. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1997.
Review: S. Monturey in RPFE 1136 (2000), 131: Papers from a conference on Descartes held at the Université de Poitiers in November 1996. Selections include a new interpretation of the "songes" (1619), a study of the religious and political context of the time Descartes spent in Poitiers, an analysis of Cartesian physics and metaphysics in their scientific context, "une nouvelle herméneutique du cogito," an attempt to explain the relative lack of political thought in Descartes, and a description of "la morale parfaite" in the Cartesian corpus.
STAQUET, ANNE. "Normativité et narrativité de l'éthique: la fable de Descartes." ECL 68 (2000), 215–225.
First half of the article describes a quest for a non-prescriptive, non-normative system of narrative ethics. Second half concludes that such a system exists in the Discours, for they present one man's personal journey towards truth and emphasize the distinction to be made between prescription and narration.
TIMMERMANS, BENOIT. "The Originality of Descartes's Conception of Analysis as Discovery." JHI 60 (1999), 433–447.
Points to Descartes's unique view of analysis, rather than synthesis, as a means of discovering new things, rather than as a means of judging findings after the fact, as in Scholastic tradition. Views this originality as part of a larger seventeenth-century movement where analysis changed meaning and thereby grew in prestige as a method.
SERVIN, MICHELINE B. "Classiques, vous avez dit classiques. . ." TM 605 (1999), 227–239.
Review of a production of "Les Visionnaires" (1637) of Desmarest de Saint-Sorlin, directed by Christian Schiaretti for the Comédie de Reims; and of "L'École des femmes" directed by Eric Vignier for the Comédie-Française. The Molière production ". . .relève du détournement d'oeuvre, du rapt du sens, de la variation personnelle. Une telle opposition entre le texte et la mise en scène devient exemplaire."
PAIGE, NICHOLAS. "L'affaire des poisons et l'imaginaire de l'enquête: de Molière à Thomas Corneille." Littératures Classiques 40, 2000, 195–208.
Study around "l'Affaire des poisons", which takes place at a historical moment when what the author calls "l'imaginaire de l'enquête" is being put into place, in its main literary inscription, the play by Thomas Corneille and Donneau de Visé titled "La Devineresse ou les faux enchantements" in which the authors replace the crime of murder by poison by "escroquerie et superstition."
VINCENT, MONIQUE, éd. Anthologie des nouvelles du Mercure Galant, 1672–1710. Paris: S.T.F.M., 1996.
Review: R. Godenne in LR 53 (1999), 198–99: These stories, first published by Donneau de Visé in Le Mercure Galant (without attribution of author) are varied, ranging from the serious to the amusing, from the realistic to the romanesque, from the noble to the bourgeois. Highly agreeable to read, the stories contrast with those of the "nouvellistes" of the 17th c. V. has organized the texts (with annotations) in 6 categories: "Anecdotes et descriptions"; "La Galanterie"; "Le Roman"; "Etudes psychologiques"; "Evénements contemporains"; "Prose et vers".
ARMSTRONG, BRIAN. Bibliographia Molinaei. An alphabetical, chronological and descriptive bibliography of the works of Pierre du Moulin (1568–1658). Genève: Droz, 1997.
Review: A. Cullière in DSS 205 (1999), 776–777: An "excellent" bibliography, notes Cullière: "c'est pratiquement toute l'histoire de la théologie au XVIIe siècle qui se trouve ainsi concrètement analysée." A brief introduction includes biographical data and a survey of current research. A chronology of works follows, and the bulk of the text is devoted to an alphabetical catalogue of works. The reviewer identifies some needless repetition and recommends greater annotation to clarify the context of certain polemics.
REYNOLDS-CORNELL, RÉGINE. Fiction and Reality in the Mémoires of the Notorious Anne-Marguerite Petit Du Noyer. Tübingen: Narr, 1999 (Biblio 17, vol. 115).
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 330–332: "Les amateurs de mémoires et du genre épistolaire, les historiens et sociologues trouveront ici une introduction utile aux péripéties d'une femme qui avait cherché le succès par la plume. . ."
POLI, SERGIO, ed. L'Enfer d'amour. Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Publicazioni dell'Università degli Studi di Salerno, 1995.
Review: A. Génetiot in RHL 100 (2000), 139: Volume constitutes a new edition of one of Dupont's lesser-known works. Contains a useful summary of the genre which mocks the sentimental novel in order to show the agonizing, transgressive nature of passion.
MILLER, M., ed. Saül, de Du Ryer. Etablissement du texte, introduction et notes parM. Miller,préface deG. Forestier. Toulouse: Société de littérature classique, 1996.
Review: M. Lombardi in DSS 204 (1999), 560–561: A critical edition of this 1642 play, the first modern religious tragedy in terms of content and form, according to Forestier. Miller's introduction asserts "la valeur autonome qui ressort de la double qualité de ce Saül, roi et père, due à une christianisme de la personne du roi." The reviewer disagrees, however, with Miller's interpretation of the play as a moral and psychological "miroir du prince," describing it instead as "bien plus nettement politique."
BURY, EMMANUEL. "Fénelon pédagogue." DSS 206 (2000), 47–56.
The originality of Fénelon's pedagogical œuvre lies in his defense of narrative fiction and his use of ancient Fable, an approach all the more unique because it diverges from pervasive pedagogical practices dominated by Cartesian thought and the Catholic revival following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
CUCHE, FRANÇOIS-XAVIER. "Fénelon. Une politique tirée de l'Evangile?" DSS 206 (2000), 73–96.
Less concerned with the Bible and Christian history as sources of political maxims and models, Fénelon draws instead upon History and pagan fable. Indeed his Evangelical inspiration derives from a multitude of sources and takes the form of figures: "les grands récits, les grands thèmes, les grandes images évangéliques et plus précisément christiques, structurent les représentations de Fénelon."
DEREGNAUCOURT, GILLES. "Fénelon à Cambrai (1695–1715): remarques sur un épiscopat et perspectives de recherches." DSS 206 (2000), 97–110.
A brief outline of Fénelon's conception of pastoral duties and some of his episcopal failures. Author reviews the existing scholarship on this topic and identifies certain gaps, noting, for instance, that Fénelon's political ideas have not been studied in light of his pastoral responsibilities nor his political and diplomatic activities scrutinized on the local level.
LANAVERE, ALAIN. "L'imagination de Fénelon dans ses premiers écrits de fiction." DSS 206 (2000), 11–26.
An analysis of the 48 texts comprising Fables et opuscules pédagogiques. Author categorizes these by genre (fairy tale, fable, short story, etc.) and then discusses the significant thematic and stylistic differences between the opuscules and Télémaque.
LAUDE, PATRICK. "Fénelon vu par Madame Guyon: une dialectique mystique du masculin et du féminin." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 43–56.
Rather than repeat the traditional view that Madame Guyon's influence corrupted Fénelon's rigor and rationality, author looks at how Madame Guyon's life and work add subtlety to Fénelon's writings.
NOILLE-CLAUZADE, CHRISTINE. "La morale du Télémaque: pour une poétique platonicienne de la fable." RSH 254.2 (1999), 85–106.
"Le premier cycle [du Télémaque] réfléchit sur l'apprentissage de l'éthique privée, commune aux rois et à leurs sujets. Le deuxième cycle apporte la preuve que la loi morale doit déterminer les lois civiles, tant intérieures qu'extérieures, pour instaurer le bonheur des peuples: la morale y est établie à la fois comme origine et comme finalité de la politique. Le dernier cycle enfin expose une définition chrétienne de la vertu spécifiquement royale comme respect du divin, sacrifice de soi et dévouement à sa fonction ('amor altrui')" (pp.87–88).
PAPASOGLI, BENEDETTA. "Espace intérieur et vie spirituelle chez Fénelon." DSS 206 (2000), 57–72.
Author deploys spatial metaphors to illuminate Fénelon's spiritual system, an approach authorized, Papasogli writes, by the moralists' use of topological imagery to describe human nature and the nascent "culture de l'intériorité." Papasogli demonstrates that Fénelon rejected traditional figures of the Christian's spiritual journey in favor of "une dérive immobile dans la largeur" and "l'image de la hauteur dans la profondeur."
TREMOLIERES, FRANÇOIS. "Fénelon et les beaux arts." DSS 206 (2000), 27–45.
Examining select passages from a range of Fénelon's work, Trémolières discerns and articulates what can be called Fénelon's "poetics" of painting.
TREMOLIERES, FRANÇOIS. "Rhétorique profane, rhétorique sacrée: les Dialogues sur l'éloquence de Fénelon." Littératures Classiques 39, 237–250.
Reading of Fénelon's Dialogues, where the question : "Qu'est-ce que l'éloquence?" is central. The focus is of course the question of the compatibility of rhetoric and true religion.
BOSQUET, MARIE-FRANÇOISE. "Altérité et rêve d'unité, ou le féminin dans l'utopie hermaphrodite de Foigny" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 277–292.
Jung-inspired reading of Foigny's utopia, La Terre australe connue, inhabited by a society of hermaphrodites who, having almost destroyed their feminine otherness, find that this regained unity breeds boredom and aggression. Utopia becomes Tragedy ". . .avec au bout, la mort comme seule expression de la liberté."
STROUP, ALICE. "Foigny's Joke." EMF: Studies in Early Modern France 4 (1998), 165–193.
In her study of Gabriel de Foigny's Terre australe connue, the author examines the role of the European hermaphrodite in a utopia of similar creatures. While the Australians espouse a strict control of the passions, the European hermaphrodite cannot adopt their system. Foigny thus underscores the inapplicability of neo-Stoic values in his representation of sexuality.
MELLINGHOFF-BOURGERIE, VIVIANE. François de Sales (1567–1622), un homme de lettres spirituelles: culture, tradition, épistolarité. Genève: Droz, 1999.
Review: BCLF 618 (2000), 635–36: "Fruit d'une décennie de recherche, ce volume s'organise en deux grandes parties, associant pour la première les acquis de travaux déjà publiés de 1987 à 1997, des conférences données à Wolfenbüttel en 1990, 1991, 1994, des participations au séminaire d'homilétique de Bonn, au Jahrbuch für Salesianische Studien d'Eistatt, au colloque international consacré à saint François de Sales (Metz, 1992), tous textes parfois antérieurement publiés ayant été remaniés, enrichis pour le présent ouvrage, la seconde partie offrant un précieux outil de travail et de référence avec le 'Registre des lettres autographes de François de Sales classées par ordre alphabétiques des destinataires'."
Review: B. Petey-Girard in BHR 62. 1 (2000), 224–25: Ouvrage divisé en deux parties. "La première est une étude des 'lettres spirituelles' de saint François de Sales qui rassemble, fond et approfondit la matière d'un ensemble d'études parues depuis une dizaine d'années." Dans la seconde partie de l'ouvrage, on trouve "un 'Registre des lettres autographes de François de Sales classées par ordre alphabétique des destinataires', outil de travail fort précieux pour les études salésiennes; en tête des rérérences épistolaires, une brève bio-bibliographie de quelques lignes pour chaque correspondant."
MACE, STEPHANE, ed. L'Entretien des Illustres Bergers. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: A. Genétiot in RHL 100 (2000), 143: Editor stresses Frénicle's libertine ties to Théophile, as well as to the Ronsardian and Malherbian traditions. Although not a critical edition in the strictest sense of the term, the volume does add to the study of the seventeenth-century pastoral.
Review: E. Dubois in FS 54.3 (2000), 358: "A scholarly edition of the Entretien adds a useful illustration to the widely practiced pastoral genre of the period." Book I is dominated by Anaximène, Guillaume Colletet. Love stories of a somewhat erotic character continue in Book II, until the celebration of Ronsard in Séjour du repos et des Muses.
ROY-GARIBAL, MARINE. "Le Dictionnaire universel de Furetière ou la définition mise en procès" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 101–115.
Study of the tension present in the definitions in Furetière's Dictionnaire universel, between two models: the "philosophical model" drawn by Furetière from the fusion of two traditions, logical and encyclopedic; and the legal model, which ". . .dégage la notion de pertinence qui allie justice et justesse dans le maniement éclairé des mots et des choses."
ROY-GARIBAL, MARINE. "Furetière et le droit bourgeois de la langue." Littératures Classiques 40, 2000, 103–118.
Reading of Furetière's "factums" against the Académie, which develop the idea of a legal and esthetic autonomy of language which reveals the injustice and artificial character of "academic" authority.
VIALA, ALAIN. "Le statut de l'écrivain à l'Âge classique: notes et remarques." Littératures Classiques 40, 2000, 77–86.
Reading of Furetière's definition of the term "autheur" (". . .en fait de littérature, se dit de tous ceux qui ont mis en lumière quelque livre. Maintenant, on ne le dit que de ceux qui en ont fait imprimer.") The "fonction-auteur" is both constructed in the course of the century and remains precarious (practice of "patronage", disorder caused by pirated editions, dependency of the dramatic authors who work as "poètes de troupes".) The rights of the authors are only asserted when enough "force" is manifested: "Les droits des auteurs ne leur étaient pas dûs, mais des conquêtes."
BOUYER, CHRISTIAN. Gaston d'Orléans: séducteur, mécène et frondeur. Paris: Albin Michel, 1999.
Review: BCLF 618 (2000), 708–09: "Le titre est prometteur, manifestement inspiré par l'ancienne biographie de G. Dethan, parce qu'il semble insuffler un peu d'action positive pour un personnage réputé indécis et fuyant. Las, le livre tient peu ses promesses, malgré un certain agrément de lecture, et Gaston d'Orléans restera jusqu'au bout un prince mal aimé et mal servi."
TEYSSANDIER, BERNARD. "La Doctrine des moeurs: d'un exercice de l'intuition à une rhétorique de l'intention" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 175–185.
Why Gomberville's transfiguration of the Quinti Horatii Flacci Emblemata into the Doctrine des moeurs is neither servile imitation nor a breakthrough but rather a transformation of an old conception of the emblème, intuitive and open, into a new one, "moralisée et close."
BEAULIEU, JEAN-PHILIPPE and HANNAH FOURNIER, eds. Les Advis; ou, les presens de la Demoiselle de Gournay 1641. Volume I. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1997.
Review: V. Worth-Stylianou in FS 54.2 (2000), 212–3: "Certainly it is good to find in one modestly produced volume treatises on the education of a prince, moral essays, pièces de circonstance and the essay Du langage français." However, "the absence of a full table of contents and of running page headings makes it unnecessarily difficult to locate items." The Introduction is well pitched for the general reader, but "there is little here that is new or challenging for the specialist."
VENESOEN, CONSTANT (ed.) Marie de Gournay, Textes relatifs à la calomnie. Textes établis, annotés et commentés parConstant Venesoen. Tübingen: Narr, 1998 (Biblio 17, vol. 113). 193p.
Review: Alain Niderst in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 337–338. ". . .Constant Venesoen a eu raison d'exhumer ces pages si curieuses et finalement si intéressantes."
BEUGNOT, BERNARD (éd.) Fortunes de Guez de Balzac. Littératures classiques, 33 (printemps 1998). Dirigé parBernard Beugnot. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: M. Peterson in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 296–300: "Les textes issus de ce colloque s'emploient à déplier l'oeuvre de Balzac, à fêter son inévitable entrée au temple du temps. Plus ses vestiges nous deviendront familiers, plus confortable sera son éternité couchée sur le transitoire."
BOMBART, MATHILDE. "Guez de Balzac et Rome." RSH 256.4 (1999), 115–140.
Balzac defines the writing of history as a process of forgetting. He strives to maintain a personal and anachronistic dialogue with antiquity.
BOMBART, MATHILDE. "Représenter la distinction: comédie et urbanité chez Guez de Balzac." Littératures Classiques 37 (1999), 117–140.
Study of Balzac's "Réponse à deux questions, ou du caractère et de l'instruction de la comédie", which insists on the ideas of "illusion comique" and "vraisemblable". This "discours" is compared to "De la conversation des Romains" by the same author.
MC ALPIN, MARY. Poststructuralist Feminism and the Imaginary Woman Writer: The Lettres Portugaises. RR 90.1 (2000), 27–44.
Article re-opens the debate on the significance of the Author in this work, which can be attributed either to the male writer Guilleragues, or to the female narrator Mariane. M's goal is to focus on the second of these potentialities, in which "Mariane-Marianna's marginal corporeality...makes her the ideal poststructuralist woman writer...allow[ing] her a free-floating status still lightly grounded in ontological reality."
CARIOU, PIERRE. "Sur quelques poèmes de Mme Guyon." RPFE 1137 (2000), 157–168.
Describes the sacred songs composed by Mme Guyon during her imprisonment at Vincennes. Includes her various ways of naming the divinity, her concept of proper womanly conduct, and the reactions of some of her readers (Bossuet, Malebranche, Désiré Roustan, Jean-Jacques Rousseau).
PLANTIE, JACQUELINE (ed.) Claude Hopil, Les divins élancements d'amour exprimés en cent Cantiques faits en l'honneur de la Très-Sainte Trinité. Texte établi, présenté et annoté parJacqueline Plantié. Paris: Champion, 1999 (Sources Classiques, 14). 368p.
Review: N. Négroni in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 327–330. "J. Plantié va plus loin que Jean Rousset et que Michèle Clément puisqu'elle semble résoudre leurs difficultés, et notamment leurs hésitations, concernant l'aspect mystique et à la fois baroque du poète."
RICORD, MARINE. "Les Caractères de La Bruyère ou les exercices de l'esprit." Paris: PUF, 2000.
Review: G.-A. Goldschmidt in QL 784 (du 1er au 15 mai 2000), 26: "Sans jamais tenter de déborder le texte ou de le 'tirer' à elle, sans jamais tenter de l'utiliser à des fins d'interprétations personnelles, Marine Ricord se livre à une simple 'explication de texte', mais dont la discrétion et la précision font aussi la force. Les Caractères... montre comment La Bruyère se sert du langage pour suivre un fil de plus en plus ténu mais dont le tracé est chaque fois plus net, plus impérieux."
ROUKHOMOSKY, BERNARD. L'Esthétique de La Bruyère. Paris: SEDES, 1997.
Review: R. Parish in FS 53.4 (1999), 470: "Roukhomosky considers the Caractères from three related angles, appealing in turn to the aesthetics of the salon, the fairground and the theatre, often illustrating his hypothesis from one or two carefully chosen and centrally enlightening fragments, and convincingly establishing thereby the status of the fragment as a microcosm of the text as a whole." This study proposes overall a lively, modern and convincing interpretation of La Bruyère.
VAN DELFT, LOUIS, ed. Les Caractères. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1998.
Review: J. Parkin in FS 53.4 (1999), 469: Alongside the Caractères, the book includes La Bruyère's text of and on Theophrastus, plus his speech to the Académie, with Préface. The source edition is respected in terms of capitalization, punctuation and paragraphing. "Van Delft concentrates on producing a tome, which is, as La Bruyère intended, a pleasure to read and handle, prefaced by an editorial Présentation which, if slightly over-generalized in its cultural conspectus, not to say over-generous to its subject, certainly avoids rebarbative pedantry." The text is "laudably free of visible intrusion": only twelve commentaires which reward close attention.
Review: B. Roykhomovsky in RHL 100 (2000), 147: Goal of the edition is to "reconstituer les conditions de la première réception du livre." Work features original punctuation and "presentation" of La Bruyère's work, and liminary texts emphasize the theatricality of the Caractères.
GANIM, RUSSELL. Renaissance Resonance: Lyric Modality in La Ceppède's Théorèmes. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998.
Review: B. Roussel in FR 73. 6 (2000), 1219-20: A "strongly argued" study that reverses "the predominant critical interpretation of the Théorèmes" by demonstrating how literary subgenres such as the blason, the baiser, the pastoral, and the emblem are appropriated by La Ceppède. Ganim describes the structure of each genre and shows how each redefines the devotional tradition.
QUENOT, YVETTE. Bibliographie des Ecrivains Français. Jean de La Ceppède. Paris/Rome: Editions Memini, 1998.
Review: F. Rouget in BHR 61. 3 (1999), 783–85: Quenot "propose de retracer l'historique des études sur ce poète et de présenter les perspectives actuelles de la recherche. Son enquête se révèle féconde et se concrétise par un beau volume qui s'avérera utile, voire indispensable, pour tous ceux que la poésie spirituelle intéresse."
Review: B. Bonhomme, et al. in RenQ 52 (1999), 584: Some four hundred entries demonstrate wide ranging criticism on this devotional poet. Also sections on manuscripts, editions, translations and bibliographies. Introduction and indices.
BEASLEY, FAITH E. and KATHARINE ANN JENSEN,eds. Approaches to Teaching Lafayette's 'The Princess of Clèves'. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1998.
Review: J. Campbell in MLR 95. 2 (2000), 509–10: Collection of eighteen essays attempts "to provide unity and focus with an array of introductions (to the volume contents, to the seventeenth-century novel, to editions, translations, and critics, and again to the volume contents), and with a prefatory declaration of aims: 'to give colleagues [. . .] a sense of seventeenth-century France and show how the novel is a product of this milieu'."
Review: W. Cloonan in SoAR (2000) 171–73: Each of the eighteen essays in the volume "is of high quality and easily accessible." These essays include, among others, L. MacKenzie on Jansenist resonances, M. Longino on the mother-daughter subtext, F. Beasley on teaching the text in translation, and J. Gaines on teaching anthologized versions of the work. Cloonan praises "richness and utility of this volume."
Review: H. Allentuch in FR 73.4 (2000), 740–41: A collection of essays that "succeeds in presenting material useful for instructors along with some stimulating and controversial interpretations" of Lafayette's text. In essays that examine the social, historical, and moral background of the novel, and that offer advice on helping students get past the opening section, examine the structure of novel, and understand terms like "bienséance," "repos," etc., the volume "serves its designated audience well."
GEVREY, FRANÇOISE. L'esthétique de Madame de Lafayette. Paris: SEDES, 1997.
Review: C. Morlet Chantalat in DSS 206 (2000), 159–160: In three principal chapters, Gevrey examines structures and style in Lafayette's novelistic production and notes their evolution over time. "Esthétique du roman moderne à ses débuts, par l'évocation des débats sur les aventures et les bienséances, par la pratique consciente d'une narration simple en rupture avec la rhétorique héroïque ou galante et d'une nouvelle forme de fiction romanesque entre le vrai de l'histoire et le vraisemblable de l'épopée." The reviewer concludes that this work of synthesis will be useful for students. Book includes a selected bibliography and a brief anthology of the principal critical texts written during the 17th century.
GRANDE, NATHALIE. "Faut-il parler? Faut-il se taire? Silence et roman dans La Princesse de Clèves et Les Désordres de l'amour." DSS 207 (2000), 185–198.
Juxtaposing texts by Lafayette and Villedieu, Grande argues that silence proliferates in narrative fiction and analyzes three distinct types: "le silence originel de l'écrivain au travail, . . . du lecteur déchiffrant le texte, . . . des moments où les personnages ou l'action se taisent."
GRANDE, NICOLE. Stratégies de romancières: De Clélie à La Princesse de Clèves. Paris: Champion, 1999.
Review: J. Campbell in MLR 95.3 (2000), 833–34: Useful four-part work of reference examines the life and work of thirty-one women novelists in an attempt to identify "what is specifically female." Grande treats images of women in varied social situations, "analyzes the type of world-picture," "looks at the social origins of the novelists," and "asks whether these women novelists managed to produce a new type of novel, and this through an analysis of their treatment of moral questions, their reading of history, and their attitude to the contemporary religious, legal and medical discourses." Grande "rejects the idea that women qua women invented the female novelist, revolutionized the genre, or were seriously subversive of anything." Reviewer challenges her unquestioned acceptance of Lafayette's authorship of all of Zaïde, La Princesse de Clèves, and the Mémoires de la Cour de France.
GREEN, ANNE. Privileged Anonymity: The Writings of Madame de Lafayette. Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre, 1996.
Review: J. Mallinson in FS 54.2 (2000), 215–6: Taking a group of texts attributed to Lafayette, Green examines how they adopt a stance of anonymity to question conventional attitudes to gender. She analyses, for example, how different voices of historian and protagonist, female and male, blend and interact. More problematic, though, is the attribution of this analysis to Mme de Lafayette. "Relations between a writer's life and works are always difficult to define, but the problem is particularly acute with the corpus of texts whose authorship is, in several cases, conjectured. . . Nevertheless, this study offers many fresh insights. . ."
KIM, SUNG. Les récits dans La Princesse de Clèves: tentative d'une analyse structurale. Saint-Genouph: Librairie Nizet, 1997.
Review: F. Gevrey in DSS 207 (2000), 362–363: The theories of Benveniste, Barthes, and Genette, among others, provide thECritical framework for this re-interpretation of the heroine's ultimate withdrawal from the world. Examining what she calls primary and secondary imbedded narratives, the author demonstrates how the princess, audience to various récits about the conflicts of duty and passion, "refuse de se construire une histoire et d'être un 'personnage issu de l'affabulation de ses pairs.'" The reviewer faults Kim's failure to distinguish systematically between digression and récit secondaire, mentions other lacunae in the critical apparatus, and laments the presence of numerous typographical errors.
LETTS, JANET. Legendary Lives in La Princesse de Clèves. Charlottesville, VA: Rookwood Press, 1998.
Review: N. Grande in RHL 100 (2000), 320: Book examines the novel's "histoires intercalées," and focuses on their historical and narrative significance. Key sections of the work emphasize Marie Stuart's narrative role, as well as the representations of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, and other royal figures such as Henri II and Diane de Poitiers.
Review: D. Clarke in FS 54.2 (2000), 216–7: This study explores the meaning and functions of the historical narratives and figures in La Princesse de Clèves, and how their presentation was likely to interest seventeenth-century readers. Some confusion, however, is caused by the use of undated references and undated quotations, not to mention numerous typographical errors. "Given Lett's purpose, dates are of the essence in a century across which, as Orest Ranum has shown, attitudes to history changed considerably."
LYONS, JOHN D., ed. The Princess of Clèves. Ed.John D. Lyons.Tr.Thomas S. Perry,revised byJohn D. Lyons. New York: Norton, 1994.
Review: D. Kuizenga in CdDS 7.2 (2000), 263–65. "The arrival of this Norton Critical edition of La Princesse de Clèves, perceptively and intelligently edited by John D. Lyons, should be cause for rejoicing for all of those of us who have had occasion to teach the novel in English translation." Greatest strength of the edition lies in its ability to "introduce an English-speaking audience" to the text.
SALAZAR, PHILIPPE-JOSEPH. "Des aristotéliciens de l'autre: Corneille et Mme de Lafayette" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 213–222.
Autre as Foucaldian "dispositif", as discursive strategy, in two examples: La Princesse de Clèves and Polyeucte, read in the light of Aristotle's Topics and Metaphysics.
BACCAR, ALIA, éd. La Fontaine et l'Orient. Actes du colloque de Tunis (28–29 avril 1995). Tübingen: PFSCL, 1996.
Review: A-M. Bassy in RF 111 (1999), 711–12: The joint project of the French department of the Faculté des Lettres de la Manouba and the Société tunisienne d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le XVIIe siècle, the 1995 colloque examined three major themes: "Représentation et écriture", "Récriture, conception du monde", and "L'Orient, l'histoire et ses images". Reviewer appreciates the appeal of the subject, the informative quality of the volume, but objects to what editor terms "une analyse quasi-scientifique et pour ainsi dire 'positiviste'". Singles out Jürgen Grimm's contribution on "évasion orientale" as particulary illuminating: "elle. . . domine et éclaire l'ensemble du colloque".
BIRBERICK, ANNE L. Reading Undercover: Audience and Authority in Jean de la Fontaine. Cranbury, NJ: Bucknell UP, 1998.
Review: R. Runte in FR 73. 6 (2000), 1220–22: Birberick's "deftly argued and gracefully written" study analyzes several proposed readerships of La Fontaine's work: the academic reader, the Aesopic reader, the female reader, and the sovereign. Birberick demonstrates how La Fontaine invokes the literary "'paradigms' of his day," reconfiguring them strategically for each readership in an effort to dissimulate, disperse, or misdirect their rhetorical effect.
Review: L. Grove in FS 54.3 (2000), 365: This study examines the different levels of reading that the works of La Fontaine can sustain. Birberick bases her analysis on five categories of the reader — 'academic', 'Aesopic', 'writerly', 'female' and 'sovereign'. Birberick concludes with the notion of 'écriture circulaire' whereby the reader participates in generating meaning so as to circumvent the various restrictions on what can be said. Such circumvention involves "reading undercover." Birberick explores the opposing readerships in a manner that is "clear, stimulating and, more often than not, convincing."
Review: M. Slater in MLR 95.3 (2000), 832: New approach to La Fontaine classifies his work according to the type of readers: the academic reader, the Aesopic reader, the "writerly" reader, the female reader, and the "sovereign" reader. Exemplary clarity, argumentation, "lively insights."
BIRBERICK, ANNE, ed. Refiguring La Fontaine: Tercentenary Essays. Charlottesville, VA: Rookwood Press, 1996.
Review: R. Runte in FR 74, 1 (2000), 138–39: A celebration of the three-hundredth anniversary of La Fontaine's death, the ten papers assembled in this volume demonstrate that La Fontaine studies are "not only alive and well in North America but that they are, like the very works of the fabulist, lively, vital, intellectually innovative, creative, and challenging." The papers treat La Fontaine's position as a "Moderne," the question of the unity and order of the Fables, the preface to "La Vie d'Esope," and offer close readings of several individual fables, as well as of "Les Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon," and an analysis of three translations of "Le Deux Mulets."
Review: M. Houle in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 300–304. ". . .there is certainly a wide range of approaches and interests represented in these essays, and everyone in the field is sure to find something new to ponder and perhaps explore further."
COLLINET, JEAN-PIERRE. "La Fontaine et ses châteaux". TraLit 12 (1999), 365–78,
Detailed consideration of seven châteaux (of which two are fictional) in Le songe de Vaux, le Voyage en Limousin and Psyché leads Collinet to conclude: "Il existe donc bien. . . une poétique de l'architecture. . . découverte miraculeusement. . . Les chefs-d'oeuvre. . . peuvent. . . nourrir et vivifier son inspiration. . .L'architecture de pierre. . . se mue. . . en cette architexture des oeuvres littéraires" (377).
Le Fablier, Revue des amis de Jean de La Fontaine. no. 7 (1995), no. 8 (1996).
Review: J.-P. Landrey in DSS 204 (1999), 570–572: Volume 7 consists of a chronological inventory of documents studying La Fontaine's life and works, expanding on previous collections of this type, and reprints some articles previously seen in the journal. Volume 8 includes papers presented at a colloquium celebrating the tricentennial of La Fontaine's death and is divided into two sections, "Bilan d'un siècle d'études et de recherches" and "Perspectives nouvelles." The reviewer concludes "[l]a qualité de ce colloque est à la hauteur de l'événement commémoré."
GRIMM, JURGEN. Le Pouvoir des fables. Etudes lafontainiennes. Paris-Seattle-Tübingen: Biblio 17 1994.
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in CdDS 7.2 (2000), 273–76: Favorable review of a volume which assembles 17 of Grimm's previously published articles on La Fontaine. Grimm's emphasis is on a socio-cultural approach to the Fables, with the Fouquet affair, as well as the courtly life and Louis XIV's numerous military campaigns serving as a historical backdrop. Reviewer states that all "dix-septiémistes et amateurs de La Fontaine y trouveront profit."
GRISÉ, CATHERINE M. Cognitive Space and Patterns of Deceit in La Fontaine's 'Contes'. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 1998.
Review: M. Slater in FS 54.3 (2000), 363–4: Grisé explores the different types of deceit in La Fontaine's Contes. Chapters examine, for instance, sexual commerce, disguise, misidentification, lies and false promises. While the tricks and tricksters are exhaustively analyzed, the dupes are, unfortunately, accorded much less attention than the deceivers. Grisé summarizes her findings in a diagram form which, for reviewer, does "nothing to clinch the points under discussion."
LANDREY, JEAN-PIERRE. Présence de La Fontaine. Actes de la Journée La Fontaine (21 octobre 1995). Paris: Champion, 1996.
Review: C. Nédélec in DSS 206 (2000), 158–159: Familiar topics are revisited in this collection of essays: "la femme, le voyage, la retraite et le songe, les relations de pouvoir au cœur du discours . . . la morale et la moralité, enfin la modernité des choix stylistiques de La Fontaine." The reviewer notes with regret that the essays deal exclusively with the Fables thereby missing the opportunity to enrich some of the analyses with insights drawn from La Fontaine's other writings.
LEPLATRE, OLIVER. Jean de La Fontaine: 'Fables'. Paris: Gallimard, 1998.
Review: M. Slater in FS 54.3 (2000), 364: "An intelligent and lively book." According to Leplatre, the Fables give a clear insight into La Fontaine's philosophy, ideas, and his moral outlook. Leplatre's format shows up the bare bones of La Fontaine's structures in a clear and coherent light. The book ends with a useful short anthology of extracts from La Fontaine's theoretical writings, critical comments on the Fables through the ages, and some examples of his predecessors.
RUBIN, DAVID LEE. Rewriting a Heuristic Profile. FrF 24.1 (1999): 21–32.
Applies Richard McKeon's philosophical pluralism to the comparative analysis of source and targets texts in adaptation and translation, with attention to La Fontaine's adaptation of Phaedrus in "Le Geai pare' des plumes du paon" and Marianne Moore's translation of La Fontaine, both containing radical shifts of perspective, method, and principle.
TANGHE, JO. Fablargo: Fables de La Fontaine en argot; suivis du glossaire de la langue verte. Saint-Jean-de-Val: GabriAndré, 1999.
Review: BCLF 622 (2000), 1568–69: "La traduction intralinguale reformule un message dans le même code avec essentiellement deux variantes: un terme est explicité au moyen d'une séquence d'autres termes sans changer le sens ou le niveau de langue, ce qui est le type même de définition du dictionnaire; ou bien un terme est remplacé par un autre terme (ou une expression par une expression équivalente) en conservant le sens mais en changeant de registre. C'est là que réside toute l'originalité, toute la difficulté de la démarche." On note "l'effet amusant."
BELGRADO, ANNE MINERBI, ed. Discours anatomiques. Explication méchanique et physique des fonctions de l'âme sensitive. Paris/Oxford: Universitas/Voltaire Foundation, 1996.
Review: E. Mehl in RdS 121.1/2 (2000), 201–2: Parus en 1675, "les Discours anatomiques de Lamy exposent les grandes lignes d'une anatomie informée — A. Minerbi Belgrado le montre — par les théories scientifiques contemporaines, en même temps qu'ils concentrent les thèmes classiques d'une philosophie matérialiste et athée, Lamy combinant de manière inégalement heureuse les sources où il puise: Epicure, Gassendi, Descartes."
GHEERAERT, TONY, ed. Nouvelles réflexions sur l'art poétique. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: A. Génetiot in IL 51.4 (1999), 61–62: Critical edition is a complement to Lamy's Rhétorique, and deals with Jansenist views on representation. Lamy's treatise appears less a discussion of poetics than an examination of the aesthetic and moral pleasures of literature.
NOILLE-CLAUZADE, CHRISTIANE, ed. La Rhétorique ou l'art de parler. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: M. Le Guern in IL 51.4 (1999), 64: Le Guern prefers Noille-Chauzade's critical edition to that of Benoît Timmermans (see below), arguing that it more clearly demonstrates the influence of Aristotle, Descartes, and Malbranche on Lamy.
Review: N. Négroni, in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 322–325: ". . .elle réussit à dresser un tableau syncrétique de l'évolution des Rhétoriques, de Cicéron. . .à la fin du XVIIe siècle."
TIMMERMANS, BENOIT, ed. La Rhétorique ou l'art de parler. Paris: PUF, 1998.
Review: M. Le Guern in IL 51.4 (1999), 64: Le Guern finds fault with Timmermans' choice of the 1741 edition as the texte de base, saying that the changes made to this edition owe nothing to Lamy, who last worked on the 1715 edition. In general, reviewer agrees with Timmermans' handling of the variants, but says that in some cases, the use of other editions would have yielded more accurate results. Le Guern prefers Noille-Chauzade's critical edition, arguing that it more clearly demonstrates the influence of Aristotle, Descartes, and Malbranche on Lamy.
DESPLAS, MARYVONNE. Une énigme: Bertrand Larade, poète pyrénéen du début du XVIIème siècle. CM 20 (2000), 136–42.
Author announces her doctoral thesis on this Gascon poet. Forgotten until our time, this "véritable précurseur des "félibres" is both baroque and pétrarquiste, burlesque and libertine.
CAMERON, KEITH and PAUL WRIGHT, eds. Pierre de Larivey: Les Tromperies. University of Exeter Press, 1997.
Review: J. Braybrook in FS 54.3 (2000), 354: "This well-presented and informative edition contains one of the nine plays the prolific Larivey adapted from an Italian original." Larivey's comedy (1611) is based on Gl'Inganni by Nicolò Secco. The introduction provides a useful analysis of Larivey's prose and the notes make use of a number of dictionaries, notably Cotgrave. In general, this work provides a very useful insight into Italian and French comedy.
CHARBONNEAU, FRÉDÉRIC. "Ambivalences d'un duc et pair" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 229–239.
The author goes back to the field of study of his thèse (Les Mémoires du XVIIe siècle, Les silences de l'Histoire) to suggest that La Rochefoucauld's Mémoires served as a model for the genre (half of the Mémoires published in the 17th century were written between 1660 and 1680) and took up ". . .au plan de l'invention, le relais des Commentaires de César et de Commynes."
HODGSON, RICHARD G. "Le 'commerce des honnêtes gens': le Moi, l'Autre et les autres chez La Rochefoucauld" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 185–192.
The Self and the Other—and their near-impossible reconciliation, except within precise rules and limits—in the Maximes and Réflexions diverses of La Rochefoucauld.
HODGSON, RICHARD C. Falsehood Disguised. Unmasking the Truth in La Rochefoucauld. (Purdue Studies in Romance Literature,7) West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1995.
Review: L. Déchery in Romance Quarterly, 47.1 (Winter 2000). Déchery finds the two general chapters dealing with the Baroque world view "relevant and significant." He feels however that "Hodgson's book would have benefited from an inquiry into the principles of his study by making his methodology explicit."
LA FOND, JEAN, ed. La Rochefoucauld. Maximes. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1998.
LA FOND, JEAN. La Rochefoucauld. L'Homme et son image. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Reviews: M. Escola in RHL 100 (2000), 144–46: Edition provides useful information concerning the historical context in which the Maximes are situated. Also includes letters, as well as portraits of key literary and political figures. La Fond's book examines issues such as the "Maximes and their times," the application of Augustinian criticism to the Maximes, as well as in-depth study of the "opposition cardinale du fait et du droit," in La Rochefoucauld's work.
REQUEMORA, SYLVIE. "L'amitié dans les Maximes de la Rochefoucauld." DSS 205 (1999), 687–728.
A comprehensive study of amitié in La Rochefoucauld's œuvre (not limited to the Maximes). "[P]lus psychologue que moraliste," concludes the author, La Rochefoucauld "s'attache . . . davantage à repérer les différentes mises en situation de l'ami . . . qu'à développer une éthique de l'amitié, afin que le lecteur dégage lui-même une morale sociale et un art de vivre."
SCHAPIRA, CHARLOTTE. La maxime et le discours d'autorité. Paris: SEDES, 1997.
Review: E. Rassart-Eeckhout in LR 53 (1999), 145–47: Praised for its contribution to modern criticism's more open and elastic conception of the different "formes brèves", Schapira's study argues convincingly for a "nouvelle voie pragmatique, sémiotique et stylistique" (reviewer). Excellent analysis illuminates the "poids rhétorique" of the maxim and its effect on the reader/hearer (reviewer).
TOFFANO, PIERO. Poétique de la maxime. La figure de l'antithèse chez La Rochefoucauld. Claire Bustarret,trans. Orléans: Paradigme, 1998.
Review: M. Escola in RHL 100 (2000), 146–47: Book applies psychoanalytical and formalist criticism to the Maximes, while also comparing La Rochefoucauld's rhetoric to that of Pascal and Voltaire.
FRAGONARD, MARIE-MADELEINE, ed. Par Ta colère nous sommes consumés. Jean de La Taille auteur tragique. Orléans: Paradigme, coll. 《 Références 》, 1998.
Review: M. Rappoport in RSH 255.3 (1999), 216–219: Collection of essays on the tragic drama of the Renaissance and more specifically Jean de La Taille (1533–1614), author of L'Art de la tragédie. "Vengeance divine, déchéance royale, folie du corps ... Ce recueil, qui mêle à des lectures inédites des études anciennes devenues introuvables, parvient à ressusciter la vision tragique du théâtre de Jean La Taille dans son questionnement douleureux...."
CHERBULIEZ, JULIETTE. "The Outlaw's Itinerary: Identity and Circulation in Eustache Le Noble's La Fausse Comtesse d'Isamberg." FR 73. 3 (2000), 475–85.
Reassesses Viala's definition of the seventeenth-century author by arguing that "the emergence of the social category of author depended on and must be categorized by the marginalization of its first members." The characters of Le Noble's novel replace virtue with industrie as a marker of social value and status, thereby revealing the manipulable contingency of social identity.
LEON, MECHELE. "La Finance et la fiction: Turcaret d'Alain-René Lesage" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 107–115.
Study of Lesage's Turcaret, and of the circumstances surrounding its first production. The author reads recent studies on the financial world of the Ancien Régime to show that Turcaret's character is an accurate reflection of the popular idea of the financier, an idea which is itself a fiction.
MARTIN, ISABELLE. "Usage et esthétique du miroir dans une pièce orientale: La Statue merveilleuse de Lesage". ECr 39 (1999), 47–55.
Close analysis of Lesage's oriental trilogy demonstrates the complexity of this "opéra-comique" with an "acte à tiroirs" and a variety of themes: love and politics, challenge of courage, etc. The mirror can add a distant reality to the décor, bring an erotic dimension, or create important spatial illusion (50–51). Martin finds the mirror to be "à la fois objet de manipulation et "manipulateur" (52).
ANDRES, BERNARD. "Le Théatre de Neptune (1606), ou l'entrée royale en Nouvelle France". ECr 39 (1999), 7–16.
Investigates this "jeu dramatique" characterized as auto-parodic and as an archetype of future representations of "communication" between the old and new worlds. Lescarbot presents the Amerindiens as more civilized and virtuous than the Europeans (7–8).
HENIN, EMMANUELLE. "Le Cabinet de Loménie de Brienne: une poétique de la curiosité." DSS 208 (2000), 407–441.
A detailed study of De Pinacotheca (1662), Brienne's description of his art collection, a genre known as the "galerie de tableaux." A contribution to the study of ekphrasis, this article meticulously traces Brienne's technique and tastes. Hénin includes the full Latin text and her French translation as well as a list of the works organized by title, name of the artist, school and subject.
BEAUSSANT, PHILIPPE. Louis XIV artiste. Paris: Payot, 1999.
Review: BCLF 671 (2000), 460: "Dans le domaine des arts et des lettres, nul prince n'a mieux compris son devoir que Louis XIV. Il savait qu'il ne relevait nullement de son 'métier de roi' de discourir et de trancher de l'esthétique, ni de tracer leur chemin aux artistes, ni de leur imposer son goût, mais de susciter, de protéger et d'aider la création." On regrette que Beaussant "veuille à toute force inclure Versailles dans 'l'art baroque' et affirmer qu' 'en dépit de Colbert, la royauté de Louis XIV est une forme de baroquisme'."
COURSE, DIDIER. "Dans le sillage doré de l'enchanteur: la mise en scène royale sous Louis XIV." ECr 39 (1999), 17–25.
Royal representation is the focus of this study which develops the important role of jewels (Course demonstrates that it is during Louis XIV's reign "que le bijou va connaître son apothéose" 19). Course considers numerous examples from Racine's poetry welcoming Marie-Thérèse to Mme de Motteville's Mémoires.
ROY, PHILIPPE et RAYMOND TROUSSON. Louis XIV et le second siège de Vienne (1683). Préface deJean Béranger. Paris: Champion, 1999.
Review: BCLF 618 (2000), 711: "Cette étude "fondée principalement sur les correspondances diplomatiques conservées au Quai d'Orsay, est consacrée à un événement d'une importance européenne: le siège de Vienne par les Turcs, en 1683."
TALMANT, PIERRE. "La Devise du roi: un véritable portrait." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 23–41.
Deals with Louis XIV's decision to employ Nec pluribus impar as his motto. As explained in the king's Mémoires, the choice is a function of royal "bienséance." However, author argues that the "devise" also expresses a desire for universal domination.
VONGLIS, BERNARD. "L'Etat, c'était bien lui." Essai sur la monarchie absolue. Paris: Editions Cujas, 1997.
Review: R. Abad in DSS 207 (2000), 344–346: Vonglis seeks to articulate the king's political philosophy and, in so doing, offers a revisionist challenge to the orthodoxy about the primacy of the state over the king. Vonglis contends that the celebrated formula "L'état, c'est moi," falsely attributed to Louis XIV, describes precisely the king's own understanding of his relationship to the state. His argument rests primarily on his reading of Louis' Mémoires. The reviewer finds the demonstration only partially convincing and raises a series of questions about the author's underlying assumptions and his conclusions.
DE BRUYN, OLIVIER. Film review of Saint-Cyr, mise en scène de Patricia Mazuy (Cannes 2000). Le Point 1443 (2000), 126.
"Un des plus beaux films de l'année. . . une réussite majeure. Un film historique intimiste mais ouvert sur le monde, sombre mais jamais complaisant, sensible et maîtrisé." Adapté du roman d'Yves Dangerfield, Saint Cyr: la maison d'Esther.
LE ROY, PIERRE-E. Mme de Maintenon, Mme de Caylus et Mme de Dangeau. L'estime et la tendresse. Correspondances intimes réunies et présentées parPierre-E. Leroy etMarcel Loyau,préface deMarc Fumaroli. Paris: Albin Michel, 1998.
Review: A. Walch in DSS 205 (1999), 777–778: A collection of letters exchanged between Maintenon, Caylus, and Dangeau, those of the latter two never before seen in print, according to Walch. The selected correpondance is organized around the theme of the women's mutual affection and the evolution of their relationships. Composed during the last years of Louis XIV's reign and the first years of the Regency, the letters also present a chronicle of courtly society. "On se doit de saluer cette entreprise parfaitement aboutie qui permet de saisir, de l'intérieur, les sentiments complexes de trois figures de la fin du Grand Siècle." Includes a biographical index.
TOMLINSON, PHILIP, ed. Mairet. Le Marc-Antoine; ou, la Cléopâtre. Tragédie. Durham: University of Durham, 1997.
Review: V. Worth-Stylianou in FS 54.2 (2000), 214: "The specialist could not have asked for a better informed or more judicious editor than Philip Tomlinson." Tomlinson "stops short of claiming to offer a forgotten masterpiece, but his full introduction makes a persuasive case for the interest of Le Marc-Antoine both in its own right and within the history of French classical tragedy."
Review: C. Triau in DSS 205 (1999), 778–779: Reviewer praises the substantive introduction devoted in part to analyzing how, at a transitional moment in the history of theatre esthetics, Mairet reconciles "un certain nombre d'influences et de procédés de la tragi-comédie romanesque . . . et la poétique nouvelle de la tragédie régulière." A valuable critical edition.
BAUSTERT, RAYMOND. L'univers moral de Malherbe. Etude de la pensée dans l'œuvre poétique. Bern-Berlin-Frankfurt/Main-New York-Paris-Wien: Peter Lang, Publications universitaires européennes, 1997. 2 vols.
Review: J. Hennequin in DSS 207 (2000), 360–361: Divided into three sections, this book analyzes Malherbe's conception of love, his religious and philosophical orientations, and his political thought. The reviewer characterizes it as an example of "la bonne tradition de l'histoire littéraire classique: richesse de l'érudition, précision de l'analyse, fécondité des synthèses."
HAGENBERG, CLAUS-DETLEF. Der unbekannte Malherbe. Untersuchungen zur Übersetzung des 33. Buches des Titus Livius. Bonn: Romanisticher Verlag, 1994.
Review: P. Stein in Archiv 236 (1999), 229–231: Judged meritorious and convincing, Hagenberg's work sheds light on the evolution of the French languge as it closely examines a neglected area of Malherbe criticism, his translation. Includes an analysis of the historical situation, a conception of the reception of Malherbe and the modernity of Malherbe's language in comparison with that of previous translators.
SWEETSER, MARIE-ODILE. "Les Pierres et les mots: Du Bellay, Malherbe, Saint Amant". TraLit 12 (1999), 351–64.
Admirably demonstrates the multi-faceted function of architecture in Du Bellay, Malherbe and St.-Amant (illustrating and remembering the power and glory of great civilizations, presenting monuments in a vision at once humanistic, artistic, French and Christian, comparing nostalgia and the excellence of poetry itself (Malherbe's to that of architecture, expressing nostalgia, praising the sovereign and so forth).
VIENNOT, ELIANE, éd. Marguerite de Valois. Correspondance, 1569–1614. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: B. Nicollier in BHR 62. 1 (2000), 221–24: "regroupée pour la première fois en un fort volume, celle-ci comporte 470 lettres, sur une période qui s'étale de 1569 à 1614. Il s'agit là bien entendu d'un ensemble qui n'a pu être reconstitué que de manière lacunaire: l'essentiel, sans aucun doute, des lettres de et à Marguerite de Valois est perdu. . . Grâce à cette publication, on dispose désormais d'une série chronologique solide, apportant près de 130 pièces inédites. Comme toutes les séries, celle-ci permet des rapprochements, des datations précises et des éclaircissements que la consultation des lettres en ordre dispersé rendait impossible. On relèvera tout particulièrement le grand et difficile travail fourni par l'éditeur pour restituer une date à des pièces qui en sont pour la plupart dépourvues."
SALLENAVE, DANIÈLE. L'Amazone du grand Dieu. Paris: Bayard/Rencontre, 1997.
Review: B. Thibault in ECr 39 (1999), 93: Highly recommended as "lucide et vivante" the study distinguishes three key figures of the century and three key traits of Marie's "singularité". Importance of Marie's role in France's response to the Council of Trent. Sallenave underscores the unity chez Marie of action and contemplation. Useful analysis of the concept of time in Marie's correspondance.
BATEROWICZ, MAREK. Maynard: Hispanité à rebours. CM 20 (2000), 39–48.
Tempers the conclusions of his predecessors regarding Spanish influences on Maynard The inspiration for Maynard's earlyPhilandre was due primarily to the general vogue of pastorals then prevalent in Europe, and only secondarily to Montemayor's famous Diana. Maynard's temperament was more open to the mainstream of French classical tastes, and to Italy, than to the baroque excesses of Spanish imagination. Title formula might translate as "Hispanicity against the grain," or "indirect hispanicity."
BAUSTERT, RAYMOND. Maynard et la Mort. CM 20 (2000), 14–38.
In this heavily annoted, erudite study Baustert wonders to what point Maynard relied on ancient philosophy rather than on religion—a legitimate question, considering his libertine writings. Despite these, he was not pursued by the inquisitorial Garasse. Death for Maynard was expressed as an oblivion, somewhat reversible by literary survival. Despite his efforts to escape through humor, ridicule, and the pleasures of love, food and drink, the mortis horror constantly returned to haunt him. Shocked by the deaths of his children, he reacted, adopting late 16th c. macabre imagery, like Chassignet's and Ronsard's, and also the vocabulary of 17th c. conventional mythology. In the sonnets, he appears to develop an orthodox spirituality: "le christianisme vient compléter l'humanisme pour transformer l'angoisse en fermeté et ouvrir, finalement, des perspectives d'ascension."
GARRETTE, ROBERT. Phrase et métrique dans les sonnets de Maynard, essai de méthodologie appliquée. CM 20 (2000), 49–79.
The uncertainties of early 17th C. punctuation have led to erroneous theories of versification and misreadings; hence a new methodology is needed. Borrowing from recent studies on "ponctuométrie" and "syntacticométrie," Garrette proposes and tests his own hypothesis. His close analysis of Maynard's macrotexts—specifically, the sonnets from the Gohin edition which are written in alexandrines—permits the sprightly determination that "la phrase était l'esclave du mètre." The two kinds of poetic structure—"métrique et phrastique'—show a high degree of interdependence. Comprehensive definition of a "Maynard style" would require comparison with other types of his poetry.
KALMAR, ANIKO. Maynard dans le recueil des Nouvelles Muses. CM 20 (2000), 112–18.
Studies Maynard's contribution of two pindaric odes to this "Malherbian" recueil collectif of 1633. Both pieces of encomiastic poetry, whose sincerity is questioned, are dedicated to Richelieu, and also praise Louis XIII. Article treats background, composition, poetic techniques, noble themes—"tout l'arsenal du genre"—and Maynard's subsequent disillusionment. Mazarin eventually rewards the poet's diligence.
LE GUEN, YVES. Une étude de la ponctuation dans 68 sonnets de Maynard. Comparaison de l'Edition de Ferdinand Gohin et de l'Edition de base de 1646. CM 20 (2000), 80–111.
Attacking the thorny problem of editing an older text, the author restricts his discussion to the sonnet form. Proposes a strictly metrical schema which he finds applicable to all 68 poems of Maynard, and whose integrity should be preserved. Concedes that coquilles and other flagrant errors may have crept into an original printing, but stresses that the early 17th c. had "un autre code de ponctuation," as did individual authors. Excessive "correction" to modern standards could seriously harm a text. Garrisson edition of Maynard is "dans l'ensemble beaucoup plus fidèle à l'édition de base," but even this is "d'une fidélité toute relative."
ROBERTS, WILLIAM. Twenty Volumes of the Cahiers Maynard (1971–2000). A Descriptive Analysis. CM 20 (2000), 143–88.
Also issued separately, as CM, pp. 1–46 + 4 ff. Records and summarizes 215 articles, notes, reviews and illustrations of every number of CM, in chronological order. Contributors include scholars from many countries, institutions, and backgrounds. Cahiers contain general and specialized studies — sometimes controversial— discussions of poetic techniques, affective influences, critical reception, iconography, life, genealogy, library and environment of Maynard and certain contemporaries. Followed by a Summary Table of Reviews, and by Author/Subject Indexes.
DULONG, CLAUDE. Mazarin. Paris: Perrin, 1999.
Review: BCLF 620 (2000), 1191–92: Etude concentrée sur la Fronde. "On retrouve dans cet ouvrage les qualités maîtresses de Claude Dulong: son talent littéraire, allié à sa rigueur d'historienne formée à l'Ecole des chartes. Cette biographie—la première qui soit valable depuis les deux livres du regretté Georges Dethan—opère la synthèse des articles et des livres que Claude Dulong a consacrés à cet étonnant personnage et à sa fortune. On appréciera en particulier l'étude d'une question fondamentale": 'Pourquoi la reine [Anne d'Autriche] fit-elle le choix de Mazarin?'"
GUELLOUZ, SUZANNE. "Souci de l'autre et culte de soi: l'honnêteté selon le chevalier de Méré" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 192–203.
In the works of Méré, the problematic relation to the Other, and its impact on the formation of the ideal of "honnêteté".
ALBERT-GALTIER, ALEXANDRE. "Un Comédien en colère: masques et grimaces de Molière dans La Querelle de l'Ecole des femmes." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 91–104.
Deals with Molière's interpretation of Arnolphe, but also touches upon the controversy surrounding L'Impromptu de Versailles. In both cases, Molière must justify himself in terms of "bienséance."
BASCHERA, MARCO. Théâtralité dans l'oeuvre de Molière. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1998.
Review: C.E.J. Caldicott in FS 53.3 (1999), 329–30. "This is an invigorating new examination of the function of mask in Molière's theatre." One of the most positive aspects of the book is the way in which it manages to marry a corpus of new critical material with older work on the subject. Unfortunately the study is restricted to too few plays and lacks an index. "Rich, suggestive, but incomplete, this study deserves systematic completion."
Review: D. Shaw in MLR 94. 4 (1999), 1105: "This work examines the relationship between Molière's plays and the conflicting demands of the two major theatrical modes of his day: the commedia dell'arte, with its physicality, absence of author, and taste for improvisation, and the classical ideal, verbal, poetic, and author-based." Shaw acknowledges value of the study of Dom Garcie de Navarre in the development of Molière's aesthetics but feels that overall organization could have been better.
Review: Ch. Mazouer in DSS 206 (2000), 157–158: Baschera adopts a semiotic approach to the study of métathéâtralité and discerns "une forme de théâtre qui, réfléchissant à la propre production d'illusions, se met lui-même en crise" (reviewer citing Baschera). The author studies pre-1664 comedies and Le Misanthrope but fails to justify this limited corpus. The author's approach sheds little new light on the plays, according to the reviewer, and the book lacks a general conclusion. Mazouer concludes "[s]i le livre de Marco Baschera n'enrichit pas grandement l'herméneutique de Molière—mais ce n'était pas directement son projet d'interpréter l'univers fictif que propose ce théâtre—, il braque à juste titre la lumière sur la métathéâtralité . . . et nous livre à ce propos, en se servant de thème directeur du masque, d'intéressantes et subtiles variations, qu'on aimerait seulement plus limpides . . ."
CALDICOTT, C.E.J. La Carrière de Molière: entre protecteurs et éditeurs. Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998.
Review: H. Phillips in FS 53.3 (1999), 328–9: "This is a refreshing and original look at an old and much misunderstood story." It definitively lays the ghost of Molière as a reluctant court entertainer; reveals the complexity of an artistic development; offers a more subtle picture of the relation of "la cour et la ville"; examines Molière's artistic ambitions; and gives us a little-known side of Molière's later career.
Review: R. Parish in MLR 95. 1 (2000), 214–15: Caldicott's "authoritative study of Molière is principally devoted to the successive parts played by his aristocratic, and subsequently royal, protectors and by his (bourgeois) printers. Caldicott starts from the familiar but, as he shows, highly partial view of Molière as at once the scourge and victim of the ancien régime, and goes on convincingly to demonstrate that his connection with the court was both financially advantageous and dramatically fertile."
CANOVA-GREEN, MARIE-CLAUDE. "Je, tu, il. . .ou le dédoublement du moi dans le George Dandin de Molière." Littératures Classiques 38, 91–101.
Multiplication of the figures of the self, and of its images in George Dandin, in which the eponymous character loses himself. The play as reflection on the construction, or rather the deconstruction of the self.
COCULA, ANNE-MARIE. "Regards d'historiens sur le temps de Molière." Littératures Classiques 38, 41–49.
The author reminds us that Molière is contemporary of the "premier XVIIe siècle" and that he lived only through the first 10 years of the "siècle de Louis XIV"; that he never knew Versailles, except as a promise, that of the "rencontre d'un jeune souverain encore libre avec des artistes au sommet de leur art dont il a fait partie."
CONESA, GABRIEL. "Le Misanthrope ou les limites de l'aristotélisme." Littératures Classiques 38, 19–29.
The author wishes to answer the following questions: did MolièrECreate Le Misanthrope under the inspiration of the "modèle sérieux"? What elements in this play manage to come close to that model? Up to what point does Le Misanthrope "s'accomode des principes aristotéliciens régissant ce genre?"
CUCHE, FRANÇOIS-XAVIER. "Simple note sur la structure dramatique du Bourgeois gentilhomme." Littératures Classiques 38, 31–39.
The author argues against the received opinion that this play is built with mathematical rigor: "Molière a donc mis en scène une véritable combinatoire de possibilités qu'offrait l'oxymore 'bourgeois gentilhomme' pour en tirer l'action de sa pièce."
DANDREY, PATRICK. La Médecine et la maladie dans le théatre de Molière. Tome I: Sganarelle et la médecine ou De la mélancolie érotique. Tome 2: Molière et la maladie imaginaire ou De la mélancolie hyponcondriaque. Paris: Klincksieck, 1998.
Review: G. Jucquois in LR 53 (1999), 174–77: Praised as a "somme sur les origines historiques de pathologies psychiques et sur leurs éventuelles utilisations" (reviewer), Dandrey's volumes make a masterful contribution (the bibliography of nearly 100 pages in volume 2 is itself an exceedingly valuable tool). Political and anthropological considerations complement medical and literary ones. Reviewer calls for a future study which would take into account the period after Molière.
DE JEAN, JOAN, ed. Molière. Le festin de Pierre (Dom Juan). Edition critique du texte d'Amsterdam (1683). Genève: Droz, 1999 (Textes littéraires français, 500).
Review: J.-P. Collinet in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 308. "Au total, ce volume offre un excellent instrument de travail, dont la publication comble une lacune et réjouira tous les moliéristes, auxquels il va rendre de grands services."
DUCHENE, ROGER. Molière. Paris: Fayard, 1998.
Review: B. Chédozeau in IL 51.3 (1999), 63: Volume continues Duchêne's long line of biographical contributions. Duchêne's goal is to substitute legend with fact by compiling and analyzing Molière's private and public documents. Among the strengths of the book are Duchêne's discussion of Molière's relationships with Madeleine and Armande Béjart, as well as his examination of Molière's royal pensions and subsidies.
EMELINA, JEAN. "Les comiques de Molière." Littératures Classiques 38, 102–115.
Study of the various forms taken by comedy in Molière's Le Misanthrope ("peinture de moeurs raffinées en alexandrins"), George Dandin ("farce en prose venue du Moyen-Age") and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme ("comédie-ballet carnavalesque bâtie à la diable").
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's L'Avare, mise en scène d'Andrei Serban, Comédie Française, printemps 2000. Le Point 1435 (2000), 121.
Serban "alterne le pathétique, le bouffon, le romanesque avec une vitalité, une santé presque brechtienne. Il obtient surtout le meilleur des comédiens de la troupe."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's Dom Juan, mise en scène de Brigitte Jaques, Odéon, mai 2000. Le Point 1441 (2000), 129.
"Brigitte Jaques instaure un suspense dans une sorte de cosmos allégorique et vénéneux; elle spécule sur des symboles, des ombres, des fascinations, des fumées. On a beau être un peu sur ses gardes—Molière n'est pas un auteur romantique!—on est finalement séduit, irradié, vaincu par ces lueurs d'outre-monde.
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's L'école des femmes, mise en scène d'Eric Vignier, Comédie Française. Le Point 1412 (1999), 144.
"Le décor, les costumes, la dramaturgie allient l'emphase et l'anémie, le luxe et l'insignifiance, le simplisme et le chichiteux."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's L'école des maris et Le mariage forcé, mise en scène par Thierry Hancisse et Andrzej Sewerin, Comédie Française, automne 1999. Le Point 1415 (1999), 153.
"Les deux metteurs en scène dépaysent hardiment Molière, qui non seulement résiste mais s'épanouit grâce à la formidable santé burlesque des comédiens."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's George Dandin, Comédie Française, summer 2000. Le Point 1446 (2000), 152.
"Il y a dans 'Dandin' une âpreté sans remède, une frénésie de soumission atroce et suicidaire, une violence de cauchemar. La mise en scène de Catherine Hiegel aggrave cela. . . l'excès semble justifié."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's Le Misanthrope, Vieux Colombier, février 2000. Le Point 1428 (2000), 105.
"Un 'Misanthrope' prudent, un peu raide, un peu mondain, et très habille."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière and Corneille's Psyché, mise en scène de Yann Duffas, Théâtre Louis-Jouvet, jan-fev. 2000. Le Point 1427 (2000), 111.
"Duffas a remplacé les violes et les hautbois de Lully par la kora et le bongo. . . on s'interroge, n'y a-t-il pas une frontière infime entre le cucul et le sublime? A vous de juger."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's Le Tartuffe, mise en scène de Jean-Marie Villégier, Athénée-Louis Jouvet, automne 1999. Le Point 1412 (1999), 144.
"Villégier situe la pièce sous Pétain. . . il libère la pièce, qui acquiert, avec des significations multiples, une rare proximité; il délivre la momie Grand Siècle de ses bandelettes."
GOODE, WILLIAM O. "Reflections in a Bourgeois Eye: Noble Essence in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme." RomN 39.2 (1999), 163–71.
Questions how Dorante, despite vices, can confirm superiority of noble essence. Answer found in Jourdain's admiration.
GRIMM, JÜRGEN. "Le Misanthrope, portrait du siècle." Littératures Classiques 38, 51–61.
Socio-historical study of Le Misanthrope: more than a play on the a—historical conflict of "types," this play is seen as a manifestation of the ideological conflict between norms, and between generations.
HILGAR, MARIE-FRANCE. Onze Mises en scène parisiennes du théâtre de Molière (1989–1994). Paris-Seattle-Tübingen: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 1997 (Biblio 17, vol. 107).
Review: C. B. Kerr, in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000) 316–318: "Tout ce livre est fait d'opinions: les opinions de l'auteur et les opinions des critiques. Personne ne prétend être objectif. D'où l'intérêt de ce volume."
KOWZAN, TADEUSZ. "Identité du personnage théâtral: de l'anonymat à l'autoréférence." Semiotica 130.3–4 (2000), 269–282.
Use examples from Corneille and Molière to demonstrate character identification and authorial self-reference in lines.
LANDRY, RÉMY. "George Dandin et Le Bourgeois gentilhomme: le mariage de la comédie et du ballet." Littératures Classiques 38, 159–177.
Study of the relationship of text, music and danse in the two comedies of Molière.
MALANDAIN, PIERRE, ed. Molière: Théâtre complet, I. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1996.
Review: M. Canova-Green in FS 53.3 (1999), 327–8. Cette édition "déçoit quelque peu." La présentation risque de rebuter le public de non-initiés auquel elle prétend s'adresser par le format lourd et encombrant du volume. Il y a une absence de références bibliographiques sur l'histoire des éditions de base du texte moliéresque, ainsi que sur les sources de la présente édition. On trouve aussi un manque de renseignements sur le vaste corpus des études critiques consacrées au dramaturge.
MAZOUER, CHARLES. "Le Misanthrope, George Dandin et Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme: trois comédies écrites pour la scène." Littératures Classiques 38, 139–158.
The author imagines the scenography of Molière's comedies: Molière's direction, as suggested by the use of space and the actor's "jeu"; Molière's acting; music and dance in the Bourgeois gentilhomme.
MAZOUER, CHARLES. "Présentation" to issue 38 of Littératures Classiques, devoted to "Molière, le Misanthrope, George Dandin, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme." 5–8.
MCBRIDE, ROBERT. "Le Misanthrope ou les mobiles humains mis à nu." Littératures Classiques 38, 79–89.
Study of Molière's play as ". . .rien de moins qu'un petit traité du coeur humain écrit sur le mode comique." Molière as explorer and discoverer in the field of "la science de l'homme."
Molière mis en scène. Oeuvres et critiques. 22: 2 (1997). Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Review: J. F. Gaines in ECr 38 (1998), 146–147. Praised for its "wide range of information on the theory and practice of staging Molière, the 15 essays treat staging in countries from Wales to Israel, from the U.S. to Slovakia. Of particular interest are treatments of Tartuffe, Don Juan, and L'Ecole des femmes, with Noël Peacock's study of some 50 years of the latter singled out for praise. Includes two essays on translation.
NABLOW, RALPH A. "Voltaire, Molière and La Guerre civile de Genève." RomN 40.1 (1999).
Sees La Guerre civile de Genève as one of the most significant examples of Molière's influence on Voltaire. Finds in this satire many echoes of Le Malade Imaginaire and especially of Le Tartuffe.
NEDELEC, CLAUDINE. "Galanteries burlesques, ou burlesque galant." Littératures Classiques 38, 117–137.
Study of the relationship between "burlesque" and "galanterie" in comedy, the "ballet de Cour" and the "Fête de Cour."
NEPOTE-DESMARRES, FANNY. "Jeux de parole et jeux de vérité dans Le Misanthrope, George Dandin et Le Bourgeois gentilhomme." Littératures Classiques 38, 63–77.
How Molière shifts in these three plays the usual reflection on the ethical value of theater, by interrogating the value of speech: ". . .la vérité semble d'autant plus échapper que la parole utilisée pour l'atteindre se revendique davantage comme parole de Vérité."
NORMAN, LARRY F. "Le nom dit: Molière, satire et diffamation." Littératures Classiques 40, 2000, 209–221.
Through a reading of L'Ombre de Molière, play attributed to Brécourt, a study of the relation between the legal question of libel and Molière's comedy. The author focuses on literary satire, libel, and Molière's comedy, particularly in Les Femmes savantes and Le Misanthrope.
NORMAN, LARRY F. The Public Mirror: Molière and the Social Commerce of Depiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Review: D. Potts in TLS 5065 (Apr 28 2000), 25: Study focuses on spectators who are in the uneasy position of confronting unflattering portraits. Examines the problem of how Molière pleases the guilty. Potts finds analysis of Misanthrope the most interesting part of book. "This is very much a book for those who like to ponder Molière in an academic context. Experiencing the plays in a good performance on the other hand, provides effortless answers to the kind of problems the author raises."
PROUD, JUDITH K., ed. Le Philinte de Molière. University of Exeter Press, 1995.
Review: J. Dunkley in FS 54.2 (2000), 224–5: The Introduction opens with an outline of Fabre's political and literary career. This is followed by an analysis of the play; a glimpse of Molière's fortunes in the 18th century; an account of the 18th-century controversy surrounding Le Misanthrope; a page on "Fabre et Molière"; and a summary of the play's reception. The summary bibliography is interesting but inconsistently presented and certain footnotes should have figured as full sections in the Introduction. "It is useful to have a modern edition of this text, but the editorial work is disappointing."
REY-FLAUD, BERNADETTE. Molière et la farce. Paris: Droz, 1996.
Review: R. Runte in FR 73.5 (2000), 961–62: In this "well-organized" study, Rey-Flaud examines the influence of the commedia dell'arte on Molière. Rey-Flaud distinguishes between Molière's farces and comedies by arguing that in the former, "the trick is the mechanism through which the characters are introduced and identified," while in the latter, "the hero's destiny is not dependent on a ruse or trick." By demonstrating that the differences are based on structural elements of the plays, Rey-Flaud reverses thECritical notion that Molière's farces and comedies are to be distinguished simply through evaluation of their literary quality.
ROHOU, JEAN. "Le Misanthrope, pièce de théâtre." IL 51.3 (1999), 8–13.
Article deals with the play's "vérité référentielle" as it is expressed in the work's themes, events, characters, and style. Rohou explores the regressive structure of the play, as well as the intrinsically "scenic" quality of the action and dialogue.
SERROY, JEAN. "Tartuffe ou l'autre" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 153–162.
Who is Tartuffe? Serroy answers that he can only be the other, another, since the hypocrite is always double, necessarily so. He is the other in the domestic, personal, spiritual and political spheres "qui séduit ou qui révulse, et par rapport auquel en tout cas on se révèle."
SERROY, JEAN. " 'Vous a-t-on point dit comme on le nomme?' Alceste, Dandin, Jourdain, entre titrologie et onomastique." Littératures Classiques 38, 9–17.
Study of the value of the title and of the name in comedy. "Le nom de théâtre. . .est cette première opération vaguement magique par laquelle un dramaturge fait passer du monde de la réalité à celui de l'illusion comique, comme le baptiste fait passer du monde temporel au sacré."
SERVIN, MICHELINE B. "Classiques, vous avez dit classiques. . ." TM 605 (1999), 227–239.
Review of a production of "Les Visionnaires" (1637) of Desmarest de Saint-Sorlin, directed by Christian Schiaretti for the Comédie de Reims; and of "L'École des femmes" directed by Eric Vignier for the Comédie-Française. The Molière production ". . .relève du détournement d'oeuvre, du rapt du sens, de la variation personnelle. Une telle opposition entre le texte et la mise en scène devient exemplaire."
SIMKOVA, SONA. "Tartuffe. Les liaisons dangereuses." RHT 51.3 (1999), 215–232.
Simkova examine les mises en scène du Tartuffe (celles de Milos Pietor, Vladimir Strnisko et Blaho Uhlár) montées en Slovaquie et au Théâtre National de Prague dans les années 80.
VENESOEN, CONSTANT. Quand Jean-Baptiste joue du Molière: Essai. PFSCL/Biblio 17,94 (1996).
Review: D. Shaw in MLR 95. 2 (2000), 507–08: "The Venesoen volume, building on Mauron's psychoanalytical approach to literary criticism, seeks to read between the lines of Molière's comedies in order to build up a picture of the playwright's innermost feelings on what the author sees as the twin poles of his life, the theatre and his relationship with women." Shaw cites "some genuinely useful comments," but finds that the study also "contains a number of very questionable critical comments."
VERDIER, ANNE. "Pour une autre lecture de la législation somptuaire: du statut juridique du vêtement à sa fonction symbolique dans le théâtre de Molière." DSS 206 (2000), 121–135.
Diverging from traditional beliefs about the role of costume in theatre, Verdier demonstrates Molière's symbolic use of costume, drawing in part on evidence found in bequeathal inventories.
WILBUR, RICHARD. "Molière's The Bungler, Act I." YR 88.2 (2000), 39–61.
W. translates Act I of Molière's l'Étourdi, the first verse comedy of the playwright.
ZEBOUNI, SELMA. "L'Amphitryon de Molière ou l'autre du sujet" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 347–355.
The author wants to show that in Molière's play the "statut/liberté" of the Cartesian subject is questioned by using the "autre/objet" as a contestation of the "même/sujet". Molière thus opposes inter-subjectivity to the independence of the subject.
THIROUIN, LAURENT, ed. Traité de la comédie et autres pièces d'un procès du théâtre. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: H. Phillips in FS 54.2 (2000), 214–5: Thirouin adds an important edition of a number of key texts concerning the anti-theatrical campaign of the 1660s. Prominent among them is a "scientific" edition of Nicole's pamphlet. Thirouin brings out the text's originality, particularly in relation to Bossuet's Maximes et réflexions sur la comédie (1694). Other texts include the prince de Conti's Traité de la comédie et des spectacles (1666). In particular, Thirouin's "introductions help the reader to restore the overall historical perspective to the stage controversy."
GUILLOT, ROLAND, éd. Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement: Les oeuvres poétiques. Livre III et dernier. (Textes Littéraires Français 464). Genève:Droz, 1996.
Review: V. Mecking in Archiv 236 (1999), 447–51: Demonstrates admirably and in detail Nuysement's importance for the history of the French language. Completes the edition of Nuysement's work (livres I et II, T.L.F 446, Genève: Droz, 1994). An introduction and a bibliography complete Guillot's exemplary abundantly annotated edition.
BROOKS, W. S. & P. J. YARROW. The Dramatic Criticism of Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orléans. With an Annotated Chronology of Performances of the Popular and Court Theatres in France (1671–1722). Reconstructed from her Letters. Lewiston/ Queenston/ Lampeter: Edwin Mellen (Studies in French Civilization 9), 1996.
Review: n.a. in FMLS 34 (1998), 288: Praised for its success, the volume "throws light not only on the opinions and tastes of the Duchess, but also on French theatrical life between 1671 and 1722" (288). Details Madame's observations and the performances she refers to in her copious French and German correspondence. Appendices and an index add to the usefulness of this volume as a reference tool.
Review: P. Gethner in CdDS 7.2 (2000), 255–56. Favorable review of a volume which brings together letters, diaries, and memoirs relating to theatrical performances Elizabeth-Charlotte witnessed at court or at the Palais-Royal during Louis XIV's reign. Reviewer notes authors' "spectacular feat of erudition."
ANSART, GUILLAUME. "Le concept de figure dans les Pensées." Poétique 121 (2000), 49–59.
Argues that it is through the figure — the mechanism that causes the dissimulation of absence to appear as a natural and transparent substance — that Pascal is able to think through and associate religion and society. The structural similarities of the theological and the social are superficial, however, since they "se distinguent l'un de l'autre par la force, le désir qui les produit: concupiscence d'un côté, charité de l'autre. La différence de nature et d'origine entre ces deux formes de désir fonde l'opposition entre l'inauthenticité du discours mondain et la vérité du discours religieux."
BLANCHARD, JEAN-VINCENT. "Optique et rhétorique au XVIIe siècle: de l'ekphrasis jésuite au fragment pascalien" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 149–159.
Re-examination of the opposition between the Rhetoric of the Jesuits during the reigns of Henri IV and Louis XIII, and Pascal's concept of persuasion, in order to show that this rhetorical enmity must be reconsidered "sous l'aspect de la disposition."
BOITANO, JOHN. "'Horror Vacui' and Pascal's Expériences nouvelles touchant le vide." CdDS (2000), 121–30. CdDS 7.2 (2000), 121–30.
Examines "the historical framework into which [the] seventeenth-century scientific debate over l'horreur du vide inscribes itself." Also discusses how the Pensées "refute occult explanation of natural phenomena."
CARTER, ALAN. "On Pascal's Wager, or Why All Bets are Off." PhQ 50 (2000), 22–27.
Argues that Pascal's wager depends on belief in a good God, and that nothing in the wager itself prevents belief (on the contrary, it may be more logical) in an evil God.
CRUMP, JUSTINE. "'Il faut parier': Pascal's Wager and Fielding's Amelia." MLR 95. 2 (2000), 311–23.
"In this article I consider the operation of probability and uncertainty in Amelia, using the model of Pascal's Wager, which illustrates both the necessities and the problems of this paradigm. Though Fielding makes no specific reference to Pascal's Wager in Amelia, the logic exercised in the Wager tacitly informs every debate over value and every explanation of causation made in the novel. I suggest that Fielding's investigations of epistemology, morality, and religion in Amelia reflect his familiarity with Pascal's argument."
DESCOTES, DOMINIQUE. "Le vide dans le vide." DSS 207 (2000), 257–272.
A study of what motivated Pascal's relative silence on "l'expérience du vide dans le vide." "[D]ans la querelle du vide, c'est Pascal lui-même qui s'est trouvé dans l'embarras; et que, pour échapper à cette situation difficile, il a le premier été obligé d'opérer un tel changement radical des termes du problème qu'il avait initialement posé."
ERNST, POL. Les Pensées de Pascal. Géologie et stratigraphie. Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1996.
Review: R. Parish in MLR 95.3 (2000), 835: Two-part, meticulously researched study. Ernst begins with an exhaustive analysis of the paper on which Pascal wrote the Pensées. In the first part (géologie), he then attempts "to establish the existence of twelve 'strates rédactionnelles', and in particular of four 'strates majeures', which he then goes about the equally exacting business of reconstructing." In the second part (stratigraphie), the author "attends to the evolution of the apology, based on his previous research, but supported and amplified by both external and terminological evidence introduced to date the successive stages." A tabulation of the material presented sequentially and an album of illustrations completes the work. Reviewer praises establishment of evidence indicating that Pascal's anthropological and theological concerns emerged simultaneously at an early date.
FERREYOLLES, GERARD. Les Reines du monde. L'imagination et la coutume chez Pascal. Paris: Champion, 1995.
Review: H. Michon in RHL 100 (2000), 141–42: Author describes the concept of "coutume" in terms of social justice, truth, and stability. More spiritual in nature, ideas of "imagination" touch upon human redemption, with both notions suggesting the idea of human perfectibility.
FORCE, PIERRE. "Conditions d'efficacité du discours apologètique dans les Pensées." Littératures Classiques 39, 197–206.
Can Pascal's Pensées be at the same time aporetic and effective in their apologetic dimension? The answer is that the aporias which caracterize Pascal's discourse are "au service de l'intention apologètique et non pas en conflit avec elle."
KOLB, KATHERINE. "Pascal and the Personal in French." FR 73.2 (1999), 266–80.
Examines the cultural significance of academic unease about and critiques of the emergence of "the personal in French Studies," and traces their origins to Pascal's disparagement of Montaigne's project of self-analysis in the Essais. Argues that personal writing is "doubly alien to French traditions that. . .scorn identity-based strategies of liberation and. . .retain the defensive pudeur. . .linked with Pascal."
LAPAQUE, SEBASTIEN. "Lire les Pensées de Pascal." RDM (avril 2000), 147–51.
"Il est essentiel de redécouvrir Pascal dans une édition qui [présente] . . . le texte à lire dans ses discontinuités, ses ruptures, son inachèvement. Une édition qui rappelle la déchirure, le découpage, l'éparpillement de la page écrite et renonce au dérisoire projet de mettre du continu à la place du discontinu." Selon l'auteur, c'est grâce aux éditions modernes de Lafuma (1951), de Sellier (1976), et de Le Guern (1998–2000) que l'oeuvre de Pascal "redevienne mobile, baroque, plein de fulgurances intimidantes . . . ."
LE GUERN, MICHEL, ed. Œuvres complètes. Paris: Gallimard, 1998.
Review: N. Hammond in TLS 5068 (May 19 2000), 7: Hammond judges volume "invaluable" in some respects, especially for inclusion of original 1670 edition of Pensées produced by Port-Royal. Notes have been updated since 1977 edition and are largely excellent. Hammond regrets that Le Guern has based his numbering of the Pensées on the scheme he devised for the 1977 edition, a system Pascal scholars have largely disregarded.
Review: BCLF 620 (2000), 993: Edition critique qui contient les Ecrits sur la grâce, les Oeuvres mathématiques d'Amos Dettonville, les Carrosses à cinq sols, les Pensées, des Lettres, et des Opuscules.
MAGNARD, PIERRE. "Un corps plein de membres pensants." RPFE 1137 (2000), 193–200.
Discusses Pascal's attempt to explain politics by using a new hypothesis supported by mysticism. Suggests that by using Montaigne as a starting point, Pascal attempts to resolve the relationship(s) between community, communication, and communion.
MAGNARD, PIERRE. Pascal ou l'art de la digression. Paris: Ellipses, 1997.
Review: T. More Harrington in RP 124.4 (1999), 565–6: This volume is part of a collection ("Philo-philosophes") and it gives an "exposé de la pensée [du] philosophe, ainsi qu'un ensemble de ses textes, assortis de commentaires et un lexique de ses mots-clés". More Harrington praises Magnard for the subtlety and detail of his analyses, but notes with surprise the absence of a commentary of certain fragments (L512–S670 and L513–S671) that deal explicity with the concept of philosophy, and points out that Magnard may have exaggerated the importance of the Fall in Pascal's writings (and therefore may overemphasize the depths of "la nature humaine déchue" and the uselessness of philosophy in his commentary).
MAGNIONT, GILLES. "La voix de Salomon de Tultie" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 139–147.
In order to refute the idea that Pascal's voice is heard in the Pensées, the author studies two essential characteristics of his écriture: "le déictique comme figure de présence" and "la question comme figure de communion."
MAZAHERI, HOMAYOUN. "L'apologétique et le mythe du juif dans les Pensées de Pascal." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 131–40.
Discussion of Jews in the Pensées opposes Christianity and Judaism. Author claims that for Pascal, Jews are "le symbole du Mal," and are beyond conversion. While Pascal cannot be called a strict antisemite, his attitude toward Jews mirrors traditional antisemitism.
ROGERS, BEN. "The Realist of Port-Royal." TLS 5053 (Feb 4 2000), 11–12.
A wide-ranging discussion of Pascal's realism, "a deep, nuanced and far from negative engagement with the world."
SHIOKAWA, TETSUYA. "Le pari de Pascal: de l'apologètique à la spirtualité." Littératures Classiques 39, 207–218.
The question asked by the author can be formulated thus: does the fact that the "pari" seems to be couched in strictly rational terms preclude all spiritual value and meaning for this argument? Is Pascal's spiritual experience not reflected in the text?
STRAUDO, ARNOUX. La Fortune de Pascal en France au XVIIIe siècle. Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1997.
Review: N. Hammond in MLR 95. 1 (2000), 215: "Straudo charts with subtlety such stages in the eighteenth century as early anti-Catholic clandestine manuscripts, the rise of Christian rationalism, Voltaire's original reading of the Pensées and the subsequent positive re-evaluation of amour-propre, the contrast between Condorcet's belief in social progress and Pascal's scepticism, and the different positions of religious apologists of the day."
TOCZYSKI, SUZANNE. "Performative Tension: Parabolic Resistance in the Pensées of Pascal." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 141–48.
Examines lack of parabolic form and language in the Pensées. While Pascal rejects the "uncontainable figure of the parabola" for "the more reassuring image of the spiral," he does incorporate "parabolic language" into his apologetic discourse.
GHEERAERT, TONY. "Une allégorie de la civilité: Cendrillon ou l'art de plaire à la cour." DSS 208 (2000), 485–499.
This article demonstrates the relevance of péritextes for interpreting Perrault's fairy tales. Gheeraert also examines the multiple ways in which the tales stage and defend the values of court and salon society: "l'auteur des Contes n'est pas un folkloriste: la fidélité envers le matériau oral lui importe peu, il compose une œuvre littéraire ... expression des valeurs modernes dont il est le champion et dont l'honnêteté fait partie."
LEWIS, PHILIP. Seeing Through the Mother Goose Tales: Visual Turns in the Writings of Charles Perrault. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1995.
Review: D. Course in RenQ 51 (1998), 643–644: Judged both pleasurable and convincing, the volume succeeds in presenting Perrault's role as "courtisan" and his production [the founding of aesthetic philosophy] as "the most formidable undertaking of interpretation and re-appropriation of the ideas of . . . three literary figures of the Grand Siècle [Descartes, Boileau, Racine]." Part two is an analysis of Perrault's literary production; Lewis successfully demonstrates Perrault's "two eras of production." Unlike most critics who separate the two periods, Lewis links them: "the point of intersection resides . . . in the culture of visual representation that he extensively evaluates in the first part of the book" (644). Reviewer appreciates the multiplicity of approaches; Lewis's ideas are informed by methods including deconstruction, literary history, semiology and psychoanalysis.
Review: L. Seifert in FrF 23 (1998), 373–375: Praised for its "rarely equaled breadth, rigor and intelligence," Lewis' book examines in part one Perrault's writings on aesthetics, historiography, philosophy and science; and offers, in part two, "detailed and penetrating" analyses of a number of tales.
SAUPE, YVETTE. Les "Contes" de Perrault et la mythologie. Rapprochements et influences. PFSCL/Biblio 17, 104 (1997).
Review: J.-P. Collinet in DSS 204 (1999), 569–570: Based on the premise that myths and fairy tales "ne représentent que les deux faces d'un même genre narratif," this book shows the primordial place of ancient mythology in the Contes. Author studies meticulously the significant paratextes (titles, illustrations, dedications) but, according to the reviewer, loses sight of the very mythology "dont la présence dans une œuvre de ce type ne va pas sans poser problème et que devrait rester l'objectif principal . . . de cette étude." Reviewer finds the section on burlesque the most persuasive.
CHEVALLIER, MARJOLAINE, ed. La Paix des bonnes âmes. Geneva: Droz, 1998.
Review: R. Whelan in FS 54.1 (2000), 82–3: "This edition — whose apparatus criticus is often derivative and exclamatory rather than original and expository — has the merit of restoring to prominence a voice from the margins." It reproduces Poiret's reflections on religious practice, mystical spirituality, and the Eucharist, published in 1687.
WILDBERDING, ERICK. "Poussin's Illness in 1629." Burlington Magazine 1170 (2000), 561.
Provides evidence, largely based on correspondence, that Poussin suffered from venereal disease from the 1620s to the end of his life, thereby refuting N. Turner's argument that the artist was not ill around 1630, but rather only some years before, then nine years later.
PIVA, FRANCO, éd. Catherine Bernard/Jacques Pradon: Le commerce galant ou Lettres tendres et galantes de la jeune Iris et de Timandre. Fasano: Schena, 1996.
Review: U. Jung in Archiv 236 (1999), 451–57: Edition crucial to a reconsideration of this work and its place in the history of the French epistolary novel. Text is based on original edition of 1682; Piva's introductory essay and notes offer important insights into Bernard's work and life, considerations of verse and prose, and aesthetics of love (tranquillité, raison, passion, désordre, etc.).
BERRONE, CARLO. "Du théâtre parlé à la tragédie lyrique: Médée, héroïne noire de Quinault" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 75–87.
Study of the Medea character in Quinault and Lully's third collaboration in the genre of lyrical tragedy, dating from 1675, in order to illustrate "les caractéristiques saillantes d'un type féminin que Quinault évidemment chérit. . .et de montrer incidemment la dette du librettiste envers d'autres dramaturges dont l'imagination fut hantée par la troublante petite-fille du Soleil."
CORNIC, SYLVAIN. "Ad limina templis Polymniae: les fonctions du prologue d'opéra chez Quinault" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 47–62.
Study of the links —organic and thematic—between the prologue and the tragedy in Quinault's lyrical works. Quinault writes prologues which are both explanatory and pedagogical, to serve the new genre of the opera, and as such they are new theatrical objects which sketch the "Art poétique" Quinault never wrote.
ELTHES, ANGES. "Réminiscences juridiques dans les oeuvres de Quinault pour le théâtre." RBPH 76. 3 (1998), 802–15.
Analyse de références juridiques explicites et implicites: "Toute une gamme d'ordre juridique se dégage de l'ensemble de ses oeuvres pour le théâtre, entre autres: illégitimité, usurpation du trône, mariage, et surtout la problématique de l'hérédité, celle-ci étant la plus marquante."
NAUDEIX, LAURA. "Par où commencer une tragédie lyrique?" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 63–73.
Study of the prologues of lyrical tragedies, to show that they constitute an essential moment in the elaboration of the genre. The prologue organizes the extra-ordinary universe summoned by the genre: it establishes the legitimacy of lyrical tragedy "avec une ostentation toute précautionneuse. . ."
NORMAN, BUFORD. "Opera as Drama, Opera as Theater: Quinault's Isis in a Racinocentric World." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 57–72.
Claims that Isis is the inverse of the tandem's previous opera, Atys. Isis is unique because it places "plot at the service of music and dance." In so doing, Isis must be considered a highly innovative work which "reflect[s] on the origins of opera."
NORMAN, BUFORD, ed. Philippe Quinault, Livrets d'opéra. Présentés et annotés parBuford Norman. Toulouse: Société de Littératures classiques, 1999.
Review: P. Gethner in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 326–327. " By providing the first critical edition of the entire corpus of eleven libretti. . .Buford Norman has done a great service for the history of both literature and music."
PESQUE, JEROME. "Renaud et Armide: opéra des princes, opéra des peuples" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 89–87.
Study of the nachleben of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, in particular Quinault and Lully's last lyrical tragedy, Renaud et Armide, dating from 1686.
ACKERMAN, SIMONE. "Les Bérénices." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 116–125.
The author asserts that Racine with his Bérénice has given France, a country deprived of myths according to Giraudoux, a myth: that of the transformation of defeat into renunciation.
ALEMANY, VÉRONIQUE, ed. Le Choix de l'absolu, Racine, Phèdre. Paris: Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999.
Review: G. Boquet in RHT 51.3 (1999), 281–2: Le Musée des Granges de Port-Royal fait précéder le catalogue de l'exposition sur Phèdre d'études sur "la plus fameuse de ses tragédies." Contributions diverses: on analyse, par exemple, la mise en image de Phèdre par les peintres; l'évolution du costume; la violence; les sources iconographiques, etc.
BARNETT, RICHARD-LAURENT. "Les enjeux du schisme. Essai d'herméneutique racinienne." RHT 52.2 (2000), 166–176.
Examines the schism and what is at stake in Athalie. Between the hemistich outlining the context of the play and the threatening injunction, there takes place the part in which is decided the fate of the old, blood-covered woman at grips with the Almighty. Joas's ephemeral triumph cannot wipe out the memory of a pure monstrosity.
BATTESTI, JEAN-PIERRE et JEAN-CHARLES CHAUVET. Tout Racine. Dictionnaires: l'homme, l'oeuvre, la postérité. Paris: Larousse, 1999.
Review: J. Filée in ECl 67 (1999): 423: A three-part "dictionary" published for the tricentenary of Racine's death. It covers Racine's life, his contemporaries, and the society in which he lived; his works (summaries, analyses, interpretations and performances); and an analytical survey of Racine's critical reception by authors and critics over time. Also includes a chronology, genealogical trees of his ancestors and descendents, a repertory of proper names from the tragedies and tables illustrating the number of performances given at the Comédie Française, with a list of the principal actors in leading roles.
Review: BCLF 611–612 (1999), 1694–95: "Il s'agit de trois dictionnaires. Le premier 'L'homme et son siècle', s'appuyant essentiellement sur les travaux de Raymond Picard et se limitant le plus possible aux faits connus . . . . Le deuxième présente les différentes oeuvres de Racine, qui y sont résumées, les personnages qui en sont les protagonistes, des comptes rendus de spectacles, les thèmes et notions qui peuvent éclairer la lecture de son théâtre. Le troisième s'incrit dans le droit fil des Lectures de Racine, de Jacques Roubine, proposant des articles sur l'oeuvre après une présentation chronologique de l'évolution de la critique et de la réception de l'oeuvre de Racine . . . ."
BLANC, ANDRÉ. "Britannicus à la scène." GILDAS BOURDET, "Britannicus à Versailles ou La prise du pouvoir par Néron"; TOLA KOUKOUI, "Un Britannicus d'Afrique Noire"; ALAIN BÉZU AND JOSEPH DANAN, "Britannicus chez Corneille." RHT 51.4 (1999), 347–376.
L'histoire des mises en scène de Britannicus par Blanc précède le regard porté sur la tragédie par Bourdet, le Béninois Koukoui et Bézu/Danan. Britannicus est l'une des pièces le plus souvent mises en scène depuis 50 ans. Ce foisonnement montre l'intérêt porté aujourd'hui à une pièce dont le sens s'applique facilement à notre temps.
BLANC, ANDRÉ. "Un effort de résurrection: La Thébaïde et Alexandre." RHT 51.4 (1999): 299–306.
Blanc conte le retour des deux premières tragédies, abandonnées depuis deux siècles.
BOQUET, GUY and JEAN-CLAUDE DROUOT. "Le parcours racinien de Silvia Monfort." RHT 52.2 (2000), 147–154.
Discussion of Monfort's roles. She played the role of Phèdre six times before becoming a burning Roxane, a fiery Agrippine, and a radiant and quivering Clytemnestra giving young actors the sense of Racine's word and poetry.
CAMPBELL, JOHN. Performance review of a new version of Phèdre directed by Edwin Morgan, Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, April, 2000. TLS 5067 (May 12 2000), 8.
Performance was in stylized, Glasgow-based, Scots, sometimes difficult for Edinburgh audience. C. praises vigor of translation but finds that actors were not always up to the language.
CAMPBELL, JOHN. "Racine and the Augustinian Inheritance: The Case of Andromaque." FS 53.3 (1999), 279–291.
Explores the "many reasons which should make us hesitate to stick the label 'Jansenist' on Racinian tragedy." Considers Andromaque, the first of the mature tragedies. Discusses the importance of imitation and pleasure.
CARLIN, CLAIRE. "Chimène et Phèdre mélancoliques: la féminisation de la mélancolie." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 163–175.
Chimène and Phèdre as two moments of the denigration of melancholy in 17th century France, denigration accomplished through the feminisation of the "tempérament mélancolique."
CHRISTOUT, MARIE-FRANÇOISE. "Phèdre, tragédie chorégraphique de Jean Cocteau et Serge Lifar." RHT 52.2 (2000), 177–179.
Discusses the choreographic version of Phèdre. Cocteau conceived of a movie-like adaptation organizing the play in 21 scenes, and imagined suggestive setting and costumes in a bold stylization of ancient classical Greece. Helped by Auric's lyrical score, Lifar gave a triumphant "action ballet."
COUPRIE, ALAIN. "De l'usage de l'histoire dans les tragédies de Corneille et Racine: deux visions différentes de la tragédie politique." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 225–234.
Writing of history in Corneille and Racine, which uses a constant strategy of "faithful infidelity": historical tragedies are both "récriture et réinvention de l'histoire"; in the same way, political tragedies, paradoxically, cannot aim at providing an "art de gouverner".
DEPRUN, JEAN. "Les 'noms divins' chez Corneille et Racine: le cas des 'noms ontologiques' ". PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 269–276.
The study of "ontological names" in both authors shows that Racine might be "moins métaphysique" que Corneille.
DUBU, JEAN. "De Corneille à Racine: La Thébaïde de 1664 à 1697." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 15–27.
Study of the corrections Racine made to the text of his first tragedy.
DRYHURST, J. Racine. Athalie. London: Grant & Cutler, 1994.
Review: J. Peters in ECr 38 (1998), 95: Judged "a valuable resource for those readers new to Racine's literary universe in general and to this challenging and beautiful play in particular," this number 102 of the series Critical Guides to French Texts treats rules of Classical French theatre, historical circumstances, Jansenism, and language (95). Bibliography contains no Racine scholarship after 1974.
EMELINA, JEAN. Racine infiniment. Paris: Sedes, 1999.
Review: BCLF 611–612 (1999), 1876: "Partant du constant que: 'écrivain mythique, Racine est un monument national de moins en moins visité', désaffection qui n'affecte ni l'oeuvre de Molière ni celle de Shakespeare pourtant aussi éloignées—voire plus—dans le temps, Jean Emelina aimerait faire 'redécouvrir Racine' à un public plus vaste que celui des facultés de lettres, et combler le fossé de plus en plus large qui sépare une pratique universitaire aux ambitions scientifiques, de la culture vécue'." Un ouvrage "où l'érudition devient culture vivante et occasion de prendre parti."
Review: R.W. Tobin in ECr 39 (1999), 162–163: Emelina treats Racine's actuality, his place in our civilization, examining modern theatrical representations as well as the study of Racine in the schools over the past 150 years. Tobin appreciates Emelina's nuanced treatment of Racine; his attention to statistics underlies his discovery of the secret of Racine's style, "l'arrangement de sons, de sens, et de rythmes" (Tobin 163).
Review: A. Niderst, in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 311–312: "Racine fut-il dominé par une vision tragique de l'humanité? Jean Emelina refuse les synthèses un peu simplistes de Thierry Maulnier, de Lucien Goldmann, de Jean Rohou."
FORESTIER, GEORGES, ed. Oeuvres complètes. T. I, Théâtre-Poésie. Paris: Gallimard, 1999.
Review: R.W. Tobin in ECr 39 (1999), 91–92: T. predicts that F's edition "will be the standard consulted by Racine scholars for decades to come"(92). Focusing on Racine's "imitation créatrice"(T.,91), Forestier analyzes the dramatist's sources and readings; minor texts as well as major sources contribute to Racine's rewriting of history. Forestier presents Racine's works diachronically and chooses original versions of each play. Tobin underscores Forestier's rejection of the notion of an evolution in Racine's theatre and the advancement of "tragédie à crise" as a key structural principle (91).
Review: BCLF 613 (1999), 2136: ". . . les oeuvres présentées le sont suivant l'ordre chronologique de leur écriture, mêlant les oeuvres poétiques et théâtrales, et, surtout permettant d'observer le parcours intellectuel et littéraire de Racine. De plus, et c'est sans doute le point le plus original de cette édition, les oeuvres ne sont pas données selon la dernière publication du vivant de l'auteur, mais selon leur première édition." On trouve que cette édition des Oeuvres complètes de Racine "est destinée à remplacer, comme valeur de référence, celle de Raymond Picard. Ses choix historiques favorisent en effet une lecture plus juste de Racine tel qu'il fut réellement."
Review: M. Slater in TLS 5051 (Jan 21 2000), 26–27. An "exciting, characterful and scholarly volume." Notes are "helpful to specialist and general reader alike." Volume includes guide to probable pronunciation as well as contemporary responses to each play. Racine's output is presented in "proper chronological order." Arguing that "many of Racine's late revisions are distinct improvements," Slater takes issue with editor's decision to present first published version of each play rather than Racine's 1697 texts.
Review: R. Zuber in RHL 100 (2000), 148–49. Favorable review which highlights Forestier's Introduction, the reproductions of original editions, as well as the emphasis on dramatic diction.
Review: G. Defaux in RHL 100 (2000), 149–52: Defaux celebrates both Rohou's edition (see below) and Forestier's saying that the first offers Racine's texts "dans leur dernière version," while the second presents the plays "dans leur version primitive."
Review: M. Hawcroft in FS 54.3 (2000), 365–6: "This edition ought to be the standard point of reference for all future scholarship on Racine." It is a work of "monumental scholarship" that is "refreshingly provocative." There is a substantial introduction; extensive notices for each play; lists of variant readings on the plays; and a generous reproduction of seventeenth-century polemical texts that Racine's works provoked. Furthermore, Forestier has reproduced the first edition of each play, preserving the original punctuation and capitalization, significant for both the delivery of the lines and the precise sense of the words. "In short, Forestier's edition offers us a new Racine."
Review: B. Norman in FR 74, 1 (2000), 137–38: For scholars who "want a wealth of material and a trust-worthy guide for understanding" the work of Racine, this "remarkable edition. . .is easily the best one-volume tool we have." The primary goal of the edition is to demonstrate the workings of Racine's creative process. It therefore publishes the works in the order in which Racine wrote them, and in the form in which each work first appeared. Forestier describes the origins of the tragedies by working backward from their dénouement, and presents a poet who revised his work with his own place in history in mind.
Review: P. Ronzeaud in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 313–316: ". . .un Racine plus parisien que grec, dont le style se caractérise avant tout par son adaptabilité à chaque sujet, dont le théâtre se définit plus par son pouvoir émotif que par sa nature poétique ou tragique. . . non pas un Racine classique, mais un Racine moderne en son temps et pour le nôtre, remis à jour par un vrai chercheur de l'an 2000."
GEARHART, SUZANNE. "Racine's Politics: The Subject/ Subversion of Power in Britannicus." ECr 38 (1998), 34–48.
Successfully demonstrates the significant role of psychoanalytic theory for the critique of the subject, as against the older historicists and the new-historicists. Gearhart analyzes Racine's "depiction of Néron and also of Junie in terms of [a] . . . more complex model of subjectivity, one that accounts both for the emperor's sadism—or rather sado-masochism—and the heroine's resistance to his power" (37–38).
GREENBERG, MITCHELL. "Racine's Oedipus: Virtual Bodies, Originary Fantasies." ECr 38 (1998), 105–117.
Explores the paradox of present passion and the absent body, except at death. Reflects on "the importance of the 'voice' in its role as an 'intermediary object,' mediating between the body and the world"(107). Informed by Freud, Laplanche, Pontalis, Barthes, Greenberg avers that "the Racinian tragic world . . . obsessively repeats how . . . absolutist political construction must be coterminous with the mise-en-place of the Oedipal sexual configuration"(111). Special attention is given to Thésée, as "the most exemplary (for the Oedipus legend) of . . . Racinian fathers" (111–112).
GRIMM, JÜRGEN. "Suréna et Phèdre ou l'abdication du héros." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 177–186.
Parallel of the two plays, the last of Corneille's long career, and Racine's last tragedy before his retirement from the theater. Both plays present ". . .des héros qui ont renoncé à la réalisation des pulsions les plus intimes de leur for intérieur, et qui de ce fait ont abdiqué. . ."
GRISÉ, CATHERINE. "Fausses espérences dans Britannicus." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 159–68.
Author uses "frame analysis" to look at how "false hope" in Racine's drama is created by a combination of "self-deception" ("illusion volontaire") and "wishful thinking" ("un monde impossible"). Both concepts are based on various notions of "amour-propre."
GUELLOUZ, SUZANNE. "《 Le chef d'oeuvre 》 《 le plus tragique 》 《 de l' Antiquité. 》 L'Oedipe de Corneille et La Thébaïde de Racine." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 29–43.
Study of the links between the two tragedies, both structured by the theme of "parricide", "la substance même de l'intrigue de La Thébaïde" et "le moteur de l'action chez Corneille," as well as of the rewriting of the myth accomplished by both authors.
GUTLEBEN, MURIEL. "Faste et pompe, monstres et sublime dans Médée de Corneille et Phèdre de Racine. PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 153–161.
Comparison of the two tragedies, emphasizing "le faste et la pompe, la présence fascinante des monstres et le surgissement du sublime." Two diverging esthetics are contrasted, in Médée an esthetic of "pompe" and "somptuosité", in Phèdre, of "dépouillement."
HEPP, NOÉMI. "Perspectives cornéliennes et raciniennes sur Rome ennemie: autour de Nicomède et de Mithridate." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 143–151.
Beyond the basic similarities between the themes of the two tragedies (Roman imperialism seen as unbearable tyranny, political and amorous rivalry of the two sons of the reigning king, etc.) the author pinpoints the differences between the two plays.
HOROWITZ, LOUISE K. "The Second Time Around." ECr 38 (1998), 23–33.
Focusing on the structuring concept of "antériorité" for Racine's theatre, Horowitz demonstrates the relevance of the representation of the past. Attentive to lexical elements and the circularity of time, Horowitz has much praise for Georges Poulet's "formidable contribution to understanding Racinian time and memory"(Etudes sur le temps humain, 1953) (Horowitz 32–33), but insists that "the play's initial moments unambiguously counter the type of optimistic critical views of Roland Barthes and Leo Bersani, eager to fixate on a 'free' Pyrrhus" (25).
LACK, ROLAND-FRANÇOIS. "'Les replis tortueux de l'intertextuel': Racine and Lautréamont. Prosody and Prose". FrF 23 (1998), 167–178.
Close examination of Racine's situation with regard to Lautréamont-Ducasse, as classical archetype, pretext. Appealing, rich in possibilities.
LASSERRE, FRANÇOIS. "Corneille et l'Alexandre de Racine." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 45–55.
The author explains Corneille's condemnation of Racine's Alexandre by the latter's moving away from his predecessor's theatrical principles: the function of the Cornelian author is to free the exchange between the characters in order to allow the spectator to exert his/her own judgment, and draw his/her own conclusions; Racine in Alexandre moves systematically away from these principles.
LOEHR, JOËL. "Le spectacle spéculaire (Racine à la lumière d'une mise en scène de Mesguich)." RHT 51.4 (1999), 329–346.
Loehr décrypte le travail de Mesguich. Pour Andromaque, Mesguich interroge dans le cadre de cette boite d'illusions qu'est le théâtre à l'italienne, les jeux de miroir d'un spectacle.
LONGINO, MICHELE. "Bajazet à la lettre." ECr 38 (1998), 49–59.
Argues persuasively that issues of communication, not the authenticity of Racine's depiction of the seraglio, comprise the value of the play. Close analysis treats Racine's prefaces, Le Mercure galant and letters (both in the play and in the society of the time) and demonstrates a circulating credulity. "Bajazet and Atalide . . . have been blinded . . . by their class bias that led them to believe in their moral superioroty and in the gullible nature of the people. Here is not a factual or fictional representation of a historical moment in an exotic setting, but a lesson on the 'détours' of communication for all times and all people"(58).
MASLAN, SUZANNE. "Fémininité juive et le problème de la représentation au dix-septième siècle" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 305–312.
Study of Racine's Esther which attempts to show that the recurrence of the theme of the "belle juive" in French classical theater reflects ". . .le caractère hautement problématique de la représentation dramatique pour la culture de la Contre-Réforme". Religious denigration of the theater is a phenomenon proceeding from a wide-spread anguish toward idols and idolatry. However, these feminine representatives of the "peuple anti-représentatif" are themselves cast into theatrical idols.
MAZOUER, CHARLES. "Corneille et Racine dramaturges comiques." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 237–249.
"Impossible" parallel of Corneille and Racine as authors of comedies, whose esthetics in the comic genre appear far apart. Yet the comparison is attempted through the study of "procédés comiques", "cibles comiques" and "personnages ridicules" in both authors, as well as through the question of laughter.
MELZER, SARA E. "Myths of Mixture in Phèdre and the Sun King's Assimilation Policy in the New World." ECr 38 (1998), 72–81.
Provocative and fascinating argument tests relevance of the "mythic structure of Phèdre in terms of cross-breeding" as it reflects "key political issues of assimilation and national identity" issues as relevant to France today as in the 17th c. (73–74).
MESGUICH, DANIEL. "A propos de Racine." RHT 51.4 (1999), 322–328.
Pour Mesguich, l'étrangeté de Racine vient de trois siècles et le jeu du temps se retrouve dans l'intrigue. Ses textes tirent leur origine d'un mythe, et ses personnages sont des forces peu visibles mais vivantes, comme le montrent ses notes de mise en scène de Mithridate.
MINEL, EMMANUEL. "Trois parallèles de Corneille et Racine dans les années 1680–1690: Longepierre (1686), La Bruyère (1688–89–91) et Fontenelle (1693)." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 189–200.
Study of the three "parallèles" which give form to the debate and rivalry between Corneille's and Racine's partisans. Minel argues that this literary exercise becomes an arena where the diverging conceptions of literary history and literary modernity held by the "Anciens" and the "Modernes" are played out.
MURRAY, TIMOTHY. "'Animé d'un regard': ThECrisis of Televisual Speed in Racine." ECr 38 (1998), 11–22.
M. asks "What will become of Racine in the new digital age?" and proposes that both speed itself and "the contemporary visual apparati of entertainment . . . will play a vital role in the study of Racine for the next millennium"(11). Demonstrates, focusing on Andromaque, the usefulness of numerous critical approaches —for example "as animated by vision, in one context, and as caught up in the fantasy of telepathic and moving pictures, in another" (14).
PEACOCK, NOEL. "Perspectives d'Outre-Manche" and DECLAN DONNELLAN "L'Andromaque du Cheek-By-Jowl." RHT 51.4 (1999), 307–321.
Peacock analyse les mises en scène françaises et anglaises de Racine en Angleterre. Une idée reçue veut que Racine soit intraduisible pour la culture britannique mais cela change grâce à ses mises en scène sur des traductions académiques, celles de poètes, de dramaturges ou d'acteurs. Andromaque est présentée par le metteur en scène anglais Declan Donnellan.
PLANCHE-TOURON, MARIE-CLAIRE. "De Chauveau à Guérin: le théâtre de Racine source d'inspiration pour les arts visuels" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 27–44.
Study of the "corpus iconographique racinien" in the works of Pierre-Narcisse Baron Guérin, Charles Coypel, Hubert-François Bourguignon D'Anville, Anne-Louis Girodet Trioson, etc.
"Quatre regards sur Bérénice." FRANCINE BERGÉ, "Avec Roger Planchon: Bérénice à Versailles ou Le reflet des amours de Louis XIV et Marie Mancini"; LUDMILA MIKAEL, "Avec Karl-Michaël Grüber: une Bérénice égyptienne"; JACQUES LASSALLE, "Monstres Innocents"; and JACQUES KRAEMER, "Extrémiste dans la nuance. . .Bérénice." RHT 51.4 (1999), 377–390.
A deux comédiennes qui ont incarné Bérénice, Bergé avec Planchon en écho aux amours de Louis XIV et Marie Mancini, et Mikaël dont Grüber faisait l'Orientale face au Romain, succèdent deux metteurs en scène, Lassalle et Kraemer.
RACEVSKIS, ROLAND. "Time, Space and Power: A Foucaultian Reading of Britannicus." RomN 40 (2000), 279–85.
Examines Néron's strategic use of time and space and finds that his "calculating approach to maintaining political authority through acts of discipline" makes him stand out as a sign of things to come in practices of punishment and incarceration.
REVAZ, GILLES. Représentation de la monarchie absolue dans le théâtre racinien. Analyses sociodiscursives. Paris: Kimé, 1998.
Review: P. Zoberman in DSS 208 (2000), 550–551: Speech act theory is used to discern the characteristics of the monarch in Racine's theatre. Initial chapters outline the book's theoretical and methodological framework; subsequent chapters explore each of the plays. The author's theoretical approach "a tendance à analyser les motivations des personnages comme si c'étaient de véritables personnes." As for the political dimension of the plays, Revaz refutes the commonplace opposing Corneille, "dramaturge du politique" and Racine, "dramaturge du passionnel." Instead, Corneille advocates the lingering feudal order, whereas Racine heralds the absolute monarchy. Although hECriticizes some of the book's claims, Zoberman concludes "Notre intelligence de Racine autant que de la représentation monarchique s'en trouve enrichie."
ROHOU, JEAN, ed. Album Racine. Paris: Livre de Poche, 1998.
Review: J. Dubu in RHL 100 (2000), 152–53. Volume is dedicated to the tricentenary of Racine's death, and consists mainly of visual images that have been associated with Racine's work over the last three centuries.
ROHOU, JEAN. "De Pertharite à Andromaque: les enseignements d'une comparaison historique." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 57–84.
The similarities and differences between the two plays are examined to emphasize two diverging "visions de la condition humaine, deux dramaturgies et deux moments du XVIIe siècle."
ROHOU, JEAN, ed. Théâtre complet. Paris: Livre de Poche, 1998.
Review: G. Defaux in RHL 100 (2000), 149–52: Defaux celebrates both Rohou's edition and Forestier's (above) saying that the first offers Racine's texts "dans leur dernière version," while the second presents the plays "dans leur version primitive." Racine's edition modernizes the orthography but retains the original punctuation. Also of note are Rohou's distinctions between Racine the poet and Racine the man.
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in OeC 25.1 (2000), 181–82: "Dans [sa] dense et significative introduction à son excellente édition, Jean Rohou s'emploie à dégager ce qui, pour lui, est l'essentiel dans cette oeuvre inépuisable, caractérisée par 'la profondeur de la transparence'." Rohou s'attache "à replacer Racine, poète tragique plutôt qu'auteur de tragédies, dans le cadre des idées et des mentalités qui se développent en Europe occidentale à un tournant décisif, début de l'âge moderne. . ."
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in DSS 207 (2000), 353–354: This affordable edition of Racine's plays is highly recommended to general readers, specialists, and teachers at all levels. The editor uses the 1697 edition, the last reviewed by Racine. The introductory essay revisits the thesis elaborated in by Rohou in his Evolution du tragique racinien (1991) and situates Racine "dans son contexte socioculturel, philosophique et moral." This edition includes a bibliography, a record of performances at the Comédie-Française, a glossary of terms, and substantial notices for each play.
RONSE, HENRI. "Les trois tragédies orientales." FRANÇOISE SEIGNER, "Le retour d'Esther; MICHELE MARQUAIS, "Athalie chez Roger Planchon ou le pouvoir et la religion." RHT 51.4 (1999), 405–411.
Ronse, directeur du Festival d'Anjou, a mis en scène les trois tragédies "orientales", Bajazet, Esther, que Seigner a monté avec un chœur, et Athalie, incarnée par Marquais pour Planchon.
SCHRÖDER, VOLKER (ed.) Présences de Racine. Oeuvres et critiques XXIV, 1. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1999. 328p.
Review: R. W. Tobin in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 332–335: "Que faut-il conclure de ce recueil de tentatives visant à construire un état présent de Racine au seuil de l'an 2000? (. . .) Que, de façon générale, malgré tous les obstacles, les études raciniennes se portent mieux aujourd'hui qu'il y a 50 ans."
SICK, FRANZISKA. "Etranger et aimé: l'autre dans les tragédies de Racine" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 426–439.
Study of otherness in Racine, who links in his tragedies the experience of foreignness to the topic of "amour-passion" and "communication intime".
SOARE, ANTOINE. "L'intertexte cornélien d'Alexandre à Bajazet." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 85–113.
Intertextuality in the theater of the seventeenth-century: already widespread in the period 1630–1660, it is also a constant of Racine's theater, who looks back on the previous generation as much as on the Greek models.
STONE, HARRIET. "Marking Time: Memorializing History in Athalie." ECr 38 (1998), 95–104.
Emphasizes the arbitrariness of memory and the power of history. In his final tragedy "all of Racine's earlier plays continue to echo"(95). Stimulating application of Pierre Nora's concept, "lieu de mémoire," includes pertinent reflections on memory and the mise en scène. For Stone, "Racine presents to us a unique opportunity . . . because he celebrates the power of memory at the same time that he marks this memory as a fiction, a cultural artifact"(101).
STONE, HARRIET. "Racine for the Next Millennium." ECr 38 (1998), 5–10.
Introduces this volume of ECr which is devoted to Racine, a response to the challenge of the October 1996 conference at Washington University: "making Racine . . . engaging to future generations of students"(5).
SWEETSER, MARIE-ODILE. "Corneille et Racine dramaturges, au-delà de la polémique et de la rivalité." PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 251–267.
Beyond rivalry, common ground between the two authors in the defense of their art, and of the status of writers, in a society where bias against the theater and the writer still flourished.
THOMAS, DOWNING. "Racine Redux?: The Operatic Afterlife of Phèdre." ECr 38 (1998), 82–94.
Thomas considers Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie "an homage to the monstrosity that Racine's Phèdre so brilliantly evoked"(92). As Thomas examines "what was at stake for Rameau, Pellegrin [the librettist], and their public in revisiting Racine's tragedy in 1733, "he argues that the resulting opera both embodies and erases Phèdre, and "even tragedy itself"(82).
TOBIN, RONALD W. Jean Racine Revisited. TWAS 87. New York: Twayne, 1999.
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in FR 73, 5 (2000), 963–64: An "excellent reappraisal" of the life and work of Racine, this book provides a "wealth of stimulating views" on each play for the beginning English-speaking student. The analyses of the plays "give not only all necessary for the uninitiated — plot, structure, characterization — but also all the basic information to understand source material, modifications, and the reasons that motivated Racine to make such changes."
"Variations sur Phèdre." GUY BOQUET, ed. "Antoine Vitez face à Racine: Phèdre aux Quartiers d'Ivry (notes de travail); ANNE DELBÉE, "Métamorphoses de Phèdre"; ANGELA DE LORENZIS, "La Phèdre de Ronconi ou 'la longue vue à rebours'"; GUY BOQUET, "Une Phèdre japonaise à Chaillot"; CECILE GARCIA-FOGEL, "Trézène-Mélodies." RHT 51.4 (1999), 391–404.
Des notes de travail de Vitez précèdent la réflexion de Delbée sur ses sept métamorphoses de Phèdre et des regards italien de Ronconi et japonais de Watanabé à l'adaptation chantée de Fogel.
WYGANT, AMY. "Medea, Poison, and the Epistemology of Error in Phèdre." MLR 95. 1 (2000), 62–71.
"In what follows, I shall be testing the possibilities and the limits of this powerful and durable notion that Phèdre is the figure of tragedy and that in her suicide we may read Racine's dying to the tragic stage (his professional suicide, that is), and his contrition and confession before his Jansenist fathers. In order to put somECritical pressure on this allegory, I shall be reading the methodology of Phèdre's dying, 'Un poison que Médée apporta dans Athènes'. The question will then become: what is the nature of the error, or as Racine himself put it, the 'scandales' of his greatest tragic theatre?"
EL-MARSAFY, ZIAD. "Regnard and Post-Classical Theatre." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 169–84.
Highlights Regnard's "use of allusion...theatricality and role-playing." Regnard's last play, Le Légataire universel, reflects a Cornelian sensitivity to genre and acknowledges the void left by Molière's death by dealing as much with literary tradition as the "pecuniary" legacies of the plot.
HILDESHEIMER, FRANÇOISE, ed. Testament politique de Richelieu. Paris: Société de l'histoire de France, 1995.
Review: O. Chaline in DSS 208 (2000), 531–532: Unlike previous editions of the Testament, this one draws upon the manuscript found in Richelieu's papers and not those of his secretary, Le Masle. In the introduction, the editor carefully addresses the important questions of authenticity surrounding this text. The reviewer describes this "scholarly" edition as manageable, useful, and well-documented. It includes an index of proper names.
PIRSON, ROSELYNE. "Du champ de la perception à la fracture du doute: la représentation de l'autre dans Le Véritable St-Genest" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 339–345.
Study of Rotrou's play, which attempts to show that the dramatic representation of Genest's conversion is "la face cachée ou l'autre face du doute qui traverse tout le dix-septième siècle."
VUILLEMIN, JEAN-CLAUDE, ed. L'Hypocondriaque ou le Mort amoureux: tragi-comédie. De Jean Rotrou. Genève: Droz, 1999.
Review: BCLF 611–612 (1999), 1888: "L'édition qu'en propose Jean-Claude Vuillemin corrige non seulement les omissions et imperfections des deux seules éditions modernes existantes (celle de Dexer en 1820, réimpriméee par Slatkine reprints en 1967, et celle de Garnier en 1924), mais aussi, elle présente un appareil critique extrêmement riche.
NEGRONI, NATHALIE. "Poète, poésie et altérité dans l'oeuvre de Saint-Amant" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 403–423.
The polymorphous nature of the "Je" in Saint-Amant's work, within a baroque poetry of metamorphosis, displacement, and substitution.
PEUREUX, GUILLAUME. "Le caprice, ou l'esthétique du spectacle chez Saint-Amant" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 293–307.
Between 1632 and 1651, Saint-Amant is in France the only poet producing "caprices", inheriting the rich Italian tradition of "capricci". The author views the poet's "caprices" as a poetry of the look, of spectacle, where ". . .le moi s'épanouit sous le regard de l'autre. . ."
BENSOUSSAN, DAVID (éd). Saint-Evremond, Entretiens sur toutes choses. Paris: Editions Desjonquères, 1998.
Review: A. Niderst in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 295–296: ". . .l'élégant volume que nous offrent les Editions Desjonquères permet un contact facile et agréable avec ces ouvrages, qui, chaque fois que nous les relisons, paraissent plus riches, et qui, au delà de l'analyse morale, ressemblent souvent à des poèmes traversés à la fois de sourires et de mélancolie."
HOPE, QUENTIN M. Saint-Evremond and his friends. Genève: Droz, 1999 (Travaux du Grand Siècle, XIII).
Review: A. Niderst in PFSCL XXVII, 52 (2000), 318–319: ". . .Quentin M. Hope a été victime d'une sorte d'objectivisme. Il s'est voulu historien. (. . .) Sage méthode, mais qui finit par tout égaliser, par tout fondre dans un discours trop calme et trop régulier."
JASPERS, MICHAEL. "Le moraliste et l'histoire: Saint-Evremond à l'aube des Lumières" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 241–252.
Analysis of a specific characteristic of Saint-Evremond's work, its "modernity", that is of the commonalities between the author and the "courants modernistes qui s'imposent lentement entre 1680 et 1715 et préparent le XVIIIe siècle éclairé."
SERMAIN, JEAN-PAUL. "Figures du sens: Saint-Évremond et le paradigme de la fiction au XVIIIe siècle." RSH 254.2 (1999), 13–22.
Saint-Évremond points out a paradigm of fiction that persists into the eighteenth century: a doubling of enunciation calls for a hermeneutics of narrative discourse that always means something other than it says.
CARASCO, CHANTAL. "L'imaginaire tacitéen de Saint-Réal dans Dom Carlos" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 207–217.
Presence of "l'imaginaire de l'Antiquité" in Saint-Réal's theoretical works, where it takes the form of a Humanist history lesson, and in his short story Dom Carlos, where Tacitus' narration of Seneca's death has been transfigured into the suicide-murder of its hero.
LADURIE, EMMANUEL LE ROY, avec la collaboration deJean-François Fitou. Saint-Simon ou le système de la Cour. Paris: Fayard, 1997.
Review: G. Sabatier in DSS 207 (2000), 351–352: A comprehensive interpretation of the pensée and œuvre of Saint-Simon, covering both the "système de la Cour" and the "système de la Régence" as articulated by the memorialist. Chapters examine Saint-Simon's preoccupation with rang and its signs and with those factors disrupting the social hierarchy based on inherited nobility: money, mésalliance, conspiracies led by those of diverse social ranks, and the legitimation of royal bastards. The reviewer, notes, however, that "[l]'ambiguïté du livre vient de ce que l'exposé des fantasmes de Saint-Simon se donne comme l'analyse de la société elle-même."
NORTON, LUCY, ed. and trans. Memoirs. 3 vols. London: Prion, 1999–2000.
Review: M. Slater in TLS 5068 (May 19 2000), 6. An abridged translation that omits much of the minutiae of protocol and etiquette while retaining most of the best anecdotes. Slater finds this edition pleasant to read and praises lively and informative notes.
STEFANOVSKA, MALINA. Saint-Simon, un historien dans les marges. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: N. Grande in RHL 100 (2000), 321. Stefanovska examines the social and political roots of Saint-Simon's subjectivity. Work focuses on Saint-Simon's concepts of history and theology, as well as his role as a portraitist.
Review: Y. Coirault in DSS 207 (2000), 352–353: The five chapters of this book confirm "l'image d'un Saint-Simon indomptable, épris d'ordre (homo hierarchicus...) et de pureté, courroucé par les mille corruptions du siècle...." The author draws on representative anecdotes to illustrate her main argument: Saint-Simon, in her words, "ne fait qu'amplifier, en vérité, un cadre qui lui préexiste." The reviewer imputes to the thesis a certain lack of originality but concludes "[m]ême en faisant la part des études antérieures, on lira avec intérêt et sympathie une synthèse en soi stimulante. Ce que Malina Stefanovska avance, elle le dit comme sien. De toute évidence, sa 'lecture' a valeur d'engagement."
MERRY, BARBARA L. Menippean Elements in Scarron's Roman comique. New York: Peter Lang, 1991.
Review: J. Carson in CdDS 7.2 (2000), 237–39: Mixed evaluation in which reviewer questions application of "Menippean satire" to Scarron's narrative technique and his use of the burlesque. Reviewer concludes, " a fair quantity of sound criticism is made...[but] the attempt to reinvent the burlesque wheel by giving it another name simply leads to the reader becoming occasionally confused and often frustrated."
PARISH, RICHARD, ed. Scarron. Le Roman comique. Valencia: Grant & Cutler, 1998.
Review: J. Carson in MLR 95.3 (2000), 834–35: Wide-ranging, ambitious analysis moves "from an exposé of the literary context in Chapter 1 and a consideration of the realities of the fictional troupe and the theatre in Chapter 2" to a consideration of the burlesque (Ch. 3), an analysis of structures, aesthetics, and interplay between author persona and narrator (Chs. 4–5–6). Parish's conclusion imposes "moral, narrative, and tonal" unities on the text.
WEST-SOOBY, JOHN. "Albert Glatigny et Les Héritiers de Scarron." AJFS 36. 3 (1999), 351–60.
Examines the influence of Scarron's Roman comique on nineteenth-century French writers in general and the poet Albert Glatigny (b. 1839) in particular. Argues that in his collection of novellas, Les Héritiers de Scarron, Glatigny expressed a politically disillusioned nostalgia for "l'image d'une vie ouverte aux aléas du chemin et d'une époque où toutes les illusions n'étaient pas perdues."
WINN, COLETTE H., ed. Jeanne de Schomberg. Règlement donné par une dame de haute qualité à M*** sa petite fille, pour sa conduite, et pour celle de sa maison: avec un autre règlement que cette dame avoit dressé pour elle-mesme. Paris: Champion, 1997.
Review: D. P. McKay et al. In RenQ 51 (1998), 724: Schomberg's (the Duchesse de Liancourt 1600–1674) treatise is crucial for students of culture, mentality, religion and philosophy. This edition is based on the 1698 posthumous one and includes Winn's introduction, appendices, index and bibliography.
Review: D. Course in DSS 207 (2000), 361–362: Course universally recommends Winn's critical edition of this once successful work, later obscured by literary history. The reviewer signals the vital interest of the book for those doing research on devotion, the status of women, marriage and the family, the body and sexuality, and pedagogy during the Grand Siècle. He also points to the quality of the critical and bibliographical apparatus. In short, he finds it "un excellent apport aux travaux concernant la femme au XVIIe siècle...."
ARRIGONI, ANTONELLA. "Itinéraire géographique, itinéraire métaphorique dans l'Ibrahim de Georges de Scudéry" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 47–56.
Analysis of Ibrahim's travels in Georges de Scudéry's novel, in order to draw "une cartographie 'réelle' d'un voyage imaginaire de l'Europe au pays du Levant."
BERNAZZOLI, CRISTINA. "Voyage réel, voyage imaginaire, voyage initiatique dans le pays de l'Autre: l'itinéraire du héros dans Alaric, ou Rome vaincue" in L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Ed. Ralph Heyndels and Barbara Woshinsky. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 117 (1999) 57–67.
Analysis of the hero's itinerary in Georges de Scudéry's Alaric, ou Rome vaincue, itinerary seen as the key which allows the hero to achieve an identity, through rebirth and regeneration, and the mediation of the Other.
GALLA PELLEGRINI, ROSA and CRISTINA BERNAZZOLI. Georges de Scudéry. Alaric, ou Rome vaincue. Introduction and notes to the Préface byRosa Galli Pellegrini,critical edition, summary and notes byCristina Bernazzoli. Fasano-Paris: Schena-Didier érudition, coll. Biblioteca della Ricerca, Testi Stranieri 27, 1998.
Review: F. Briot in RSH 255.3 (1999), 219–220. "...on déplorera cependant que l'appareil de notes de l'introduction soient si sages, si convenus, et se limitent à des commentaires de langue ou à des références geographiques et historiques, que les usuels des bibliothèques pallient largement, alors que les intertextes poétiques largement annoncés par Scudéry dans sa préface, sont superbement ignorés. On déplorera encore plus le nombre de coquilles sans cette édition...."
DENIS, DELPHINE, ed. "De l'air galant" et autres conversations (1653–84). Pour une étude de l'archive galante. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: A. Genétiot in RHL 100 (2000), 142: Contains nine conversations on the "esthétique galante." Among the topics included are politeness, letter-writing, and the invention of the fable. Questions of style and versimilitude also shape the thematic focus of the volume.
Review: R. Godenne in LR 52 (1998), 394–395: Praised for its axes of stylistic analysis, linguistics, rhetoric, and aesthetics, and the admirable result: a heightened awareness of the quality of Scudéry's discourse. Argues against the accepted opinion that conversation is a genre in itself.
GRANDE, NATHALIE. "Stratégie d'écriture: la carrière de Madeleine de Scudéry" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 189–196.
The author pursues her reflection on "stratégies féminines d'écriture" (reflection which led to her Stratégies de romancières: de Clélie à La Princesse de Clèves) by studying the career and the works of Scudéry.
KROLL, RENATE. Femme poète. Madeleine de Scudéry und die "poésie précieuse". Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1996.
Review: R.U. Lukoschik in RF 111 (1999), 307–08: Welcome treatment of Scudéry's poetry : lyric, love, salon and poésie de circonstance. Distinguishes Scudéry's poetry from accepted norms and places it in the aesthetic system of its century. Considers conflicting themes and principles auch as reason and sentiment, literary conventions and personalized mark, concluding that Scudéry is the representative par excellence of the literary phenomenon of poésie précieuse.
LALLEMAND, MARIE-GABRIELLE. "Deux ornements du récit: lettres et poésies dans l'oeuvre de Mlle de Scudéry" in Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Ed. Ch. Mazouer. Tübingen: Biblio 17 121, 2000, 197–206.
Study of the function of the letters and the poems inserted in Scudéry's novels.
LANGER, ULLRICH. "De l'amitié à la complaisance: réflexions autour d'une 'conversation' de Madeleine de Scudéry." DSS 205 (1999), 679–686.
Author delineates the unique properties of complaisance, contrasted with amitié, flatterie, and amour, and situates complaisance within the larger context of codes of civilité at work in salon and court life.
MORLET-CHANTALAT, CHANTAL. Madeleine de Scudéry, Bibliographie des Ecrivains Français. Paris-Rome: Memini, 1997.
Review: D. Denis in IL 51.3 (1999), 59–60: Book is part of the "critique scudérienne" which emerged in the 1990s, and situates Scudéry's life and work within the literary and political context of her time. Work focuses on the concepts of "préciosité," "galanterie," and the semiotic process of "figuration."
Review: V. Worth-Stylianou in FS 54.3 (2000), 359: This is a well-researched and clearly presented bibliography on Scudéry with 566 entries for both primary texts and secondary criticism (plus a list of reviews). "The pioneering studies of Nicole Aronson, Alain Niderst and recent American feminist critics such as Joan DeJean dominate, but Chantal Morlet Chantalat highlights other key studies... One of the potentially most exciting sections of each volume in the series is the chapter 'Desiderata', where the author is invited to identify gaps in current research."
Review: R. Godenne in LR 52 (1998), 389: This volume presents along with the other eight so far in the collection "Bibliographie des écrivains français", an état présent of Scudéry, including manuscripts, editions, translations, bibliographies, general studies, sources, reception, keys to reading, preciosity, "le tendre", society, novels and short stories and miscellaneous. Valuable as a "mine de renseignements" (389).
EUROPE, no 801–802 janvier-février 1996. Madame de Sévigné.
Review: A. Génetiot in RHL 100 (2000), 153: Deals with magazine issue dedicated to Sévigné on the three-hundredth anniversary of her death. Article focuses on the aesthetics of epistolary literature, as well as the cultural, religious, and psychoanalytical context in which Sévigné's work is situated.
SOLTE-GRESSER, CHRISTIANE. "Von Muttern und Mythen". RF111 (1999), 587–99.
The myth of Cérès and Proserpine informs S.G's socio-historical interpretation of the letters. Analyzes parallels between a repressed feminine genealogy in traditional philosophy and a dialogic subjectivity.
TUCKER, HOLLY. "'une autre de vostre ventre': Parodic Musicality in Charles Sorel's Histoire comique de Francion and Le berger extravagant". FrF 24 (1999) 303–14.
Argues convincingly against prevalent criticism, that reference to Sorel's work in term of parody is problematic" (304). First, Sorel refers to his work as "satire" not "parody", and secondly the term parody was not widely used until the end of the 17th century. Reminds that Sorel is working for l'utilité publique"; and demonstrates that a certain "'harmonious dissonance'. . . reveals [the genre's] self-consciousness in regard to the musical and generative nature of parody" (304).
LARDON, SABINE. L'Ecriture de la méditation chez Jean de Sponde. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: R. Crescenzo in RHL 100 (2000), 312–13: Analysis focuses on two aspects of Sponde's work: 1) his adaptation of meditative technique to the lyric genre, and 2) his use of rhetoric. Reviewer praises Lardon's attention to detail, as well as her discussion of narrative voice.
SABA, GUIDO. Fortunes et infortunes de Théophile de Viau. Paris: Klincksieck, 1997.
Review: E. J. Campion in FR 74, 1 (2000), 136–37: A history and analysis of the critical reception of the work of Théophile de Viau from the seventeenth century to the present, this book suggests that French literary history ignored the baroque poet up until after World War II because Boileau considered him unworthy of critical attention. Demonstrating how nineteenth-century critics such as Sainte-Beuve and Lanson followed Boileau's lead until Adam, Raymond, and Rousset took Gautier's 1834 appreciation of Théophile de Viau seriously, Saba has produced a "learned and thorough" study of a long-neglected artist.
Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 127 (1999) 127–128: Chronologically ordered and divided into two parts, part one covering 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and part two covering the 20th. Sabatier's own heavy investment in Viau (critical editions, bibliography and criticism) gives authority to his evaluations, both extremely helpful and rich in perspectives.
Review: L. Godard de Donville in DSS 207 (2000), 359–360: Father Saba offers an exhaustive study of the critical reception and influence of de Viau. "Par les éclairages nouveaux qu'il apporte, cet ouvrage si informé (signalons encore la vaste bibliographie) contribuera assurément à accroître le rayonnment légitime d'une œuvre qui doit déjà tant à G. Saba."
SABA, GUIDO. Œuvres complètes. Tomes I, II, and III. Paris: Champion, 1999.
Review: J. DeJean in FS 54.3 (2000), 354–5: "Saba's is the only complete edition of Théophile's work currently available: he provides readers today with their only access to the full range of Théophile's accomplishments, in prose and in verse." Saba offers information on Théophile's life and the history of the publication of his collected works. He also includes a useful glossary and thorough bibliography of commentary and scholarship on Théophile. Unfortunately the author "a adapté aux exigences d'aujourd'hui la ponctuation fantaisiste de l'époque." According to reviewer, this editorial policy "will not be well served by twentieth-century interpreters of these texts."
PARMENTIER, BÉRENGÈRE. "L'espérance dans Le Page disgracié: une 'fable incertaine.'" RSH 254.2 (1999), 23–31.
Analysis of the narrative staging in autobiography of the moral problem of hope that the system of enunciation renders ambiguous by delegating the point of view of the narrator to that of the hero in the past.
GREGORIO, LAURENCE. The Pastoral Masquerade. Disguise and Identity in L'Astrée. Stanford: Amna Libri, 1992.
Review: P. Cholakian in CdDS 7.2 (2000), 241–44: Reviewer praises Gregorio for his analysis of disguise in the novel, but criticizes author for failing to situate L'Astrée in its proper historical and aesthetic context. In addition, reviewer states author should have provided greater insight into "the construction of gender and class in d'Urfé's day." Despite its "limited perspective," however, the book does "offer much food for thought."
GREGORIO, LAURENCE. "Silvandre's Symposium: The Platonic and the Ambiguous in L'Astrée. RenQ 52 (1999), 782–804:
The ambiguous in L'Astrée is masterfully elucidated in Gregorio's study which focuses on structure and ideological context. Gregorio argues that "Plato's philosophy of love. . . does not end with the opposition of soul and body,. . . its further complexity served as an inspiration to d'Urfé in the construction of a highly complicated thematic of love" (788). Extensive notes and bibliography.
HENEIN, EGLAL. Protée romancier: les déguisements dans l'Astrée d'Honoré d'Urfé. Paris: Schena-Nizet,1996.
Review: L.K. Horowitz in Fr F 23 (1998), 119–121: Praised for its "remarkable scholarship and penetrating analysis," Henein's work is a "definitive contribution" (119,121). "Déguisement" is understood in its largest sense, including the entire "thematic and structural process" of d'Urfé's work. Chapters treat theories of perception and knowledge, iconography, hidden identities, vestimentary and behavioral disguises. This "self-confident" work integrates masterfully previous scholarship and supporting texts from d'Urfé.
MEDING, TWYLA. "Diana's Domain: The Displaced Center of Feminine Utopia in Honoré d'Urfé's L'Astrée." EMF: Studies in Early Modern France 4 (1998), 84–124.
The author finds that the Forez of d'Urfé's L'Astrée is founded on a utopia established by the goddess Diana, and she traces the narrative's constant return to this origin in her analysis of episodes of mural paintings and of Céladon's transvestism.
MEDING, TWYLA. "Pastoral Palimpsest: Writing the Laws of Love in l'Astrée". RenQ 52 (1999), 1087–1115.
Rich and stimulating essay demonstrates how the work itself (through the "collective composition," 1114) is an effective response to the prefatory epistles in which the author propounds his distrust of writing" (1087). Argues, as a complement to recent scholarship which focuses on the "inscribed word," that d'Urfé "proposes a new paradigm for writing based on a model which overtly appropriates the vicissitudes of speech" (1093).
SANCIER-CHATEAU, ANNE. Une esthétique nouvelle: Honoré d'Urfé, correcteur de l'Astrée (1607–1625). Genève: Droz, 1995.
Review: L. Wolf in ZRP 115 (1999), 184–86: Includes history of Astrée's publication (each part has several versions, corrected by d'Urfé— part two has eight !), concise introduction with socio-historical and linguistic contexts, and bibliographical research. Both grammatical and stylistic aspects are considered.
ZUERNER, ADRIENNE. "Neoplatonism, Gender and Disguise: Rereading d'Urfé's l'Astrée." CdDS 7.2 (2000), 207–229.
Argues that, "Far from being effeminized by his temporary transvestism, Céladon is virilized through fetishistic cross-dressing and the symbolic fulfillment of the neoplatonic ideal it represents." This "ideal" is the quest for the "originary whole."
MARTIN, CAROLE F. "L'Utopie, le souverain et l'individu: le cas des Sévarambes." EMF: Studies in Early Modern France 4 (1998), 194–214.
The author characterizes Denis Veiras's Histoire des Sévarambes as a political novel pitting utopia against dystopia. In a comparaison between the emerging utopia of the Sévarambes and the absolutist state of Louis XIV, Veiras suggests lines of future development of the French regime.
GRANDE, NATHALIE. "Faut-il parler? Faut-il se taire? Silence et roman dans La Princesse de Clèves et Les Désordres de l'amour." DSS 207 (2000), 185–198.
Juxtaposing texts by Lafayette and Villedieu, Grande argues that silence proliferates in narrative fiction and analyzes three distinct types: "le silence originel de l'écrivain au travail, . . . du lecteur déchiffrant le texte, . . . des moments où les personnages ou l'action se taisent."
KLEIN, NANCY D., ed. Selected Writings of Madame de Villedieu. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.
Review: P. Gethner in CdDS 7.2 (2000), 257–58. Reviewer praises Klein's choice of texts (plays, novellas, fables), and states that Klein "does an excellent job in showing how Villedieu's innovations in genre and theme relate to an overriding concern with subverting male authority and giving expression to a specifically female perspective." However, book is not to be recommended as a classroom text "because of numerous errors in editing."
LALANDE, Roxanne., A Labor of Love: Critical Reflections on the Writings of Marie-Catherine Desjardins (Madame de Villedieu). Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 2000.
© 2007 University of Nebraska–Lincoln. All Rights Reserved.
Sonoma State University |
Modern Language Association |
UNL Center for Digital Research in the Humanities