FRENCH 17

ABRAHAM, CLAUDE. "Comment peut-on être femme?" PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 135–140.

Study of the literary portraits "au féminin", where what matters is "l'art de plaire," defined as the skill necessary to contribute in a positive way to everything that presents itself, to contribute to her milieu "de façon à le laisser meilleur qu'avant. . ."

ADAMS, ALISON and STANTON J. LINDEN, eds. Emblems and Alchemy. Glasgow: Glasgow Emblem Studies, 1998.

Review: R. Ganim in CdDS 8.1, 212–16. Ten interdisciplinary essays that "explore the relationships between text, image, and alchemical practice." "A significant contribution" examining subjects such as mnemonics, gender, architecture, spirituality, frontispieces, and alchemical allusions in Shakespeare, Milton, and Goethe.

ARTIGAS-MANANT, GENVIEVE AND ANTHONY MCKENNA, eds. Tendences actuelles dans la recherche sur les clandestins à l'âge classique. (La lettre clandestine 5). Paris: Presse de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 1997.

Review: M.-O. Sweetser in FR 75, 1 (2001), 162–63: Examines the role played by Gassendi in the history of thought of the seventeenth century. The goals of the editors "consiste à établir des 'liens entre la pensée religieuse, la pensée philosophique et l'histoire clandestine des idées à l'Age classique'." Part One includes information on clandestine philosophical literature and a detailed bibliography; Part Two contains the texts of papers given at a conference on the topic held at Paris XII-Créteil. Introduction by Robert Darnton.

ASSAF, FRANCIS B. La mort du roi. Une thanatographie de Louis XIV. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1999.

Review: B. Chédozeau in IL 52.4 (2000), 46: Using the concept of the king's ceremonial body, author studies the complex discourses surrounding the death of the king. "On lira avec intérêt cette étude érudite, révélatrice, sur le plan littéraire, de l'évolution des mentalités en un domaine éminement symbolique."

Review: P. Ronzeaud in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 602–603. ". . .F. Assaf, alliant érudition et originalité interprétative, explore le croisement des déterminations historiques, idéologiques et culturelles dans un corpus de textes consacrés à la mort, aux obsèques et à la célébration posthume de Louis XIV."

Review: J. Sole in DSS 208 (2000), 552–553: A somewhat lukewarm review that faults Assaf's over-dependence on "maîtres à la mode" (Barthes, de Certeau, Marin, Apostolidès). First part of book, devoted to body of the king, follows in the line of Kantorowicz's work and is clear but not new. The second part examines the funeral orations themselves; distinct chapters focus on funeral orations in French and in Latin, religious and secular. The analyses of foreign funeral orations "témoignent de beaucoup d'intelligence historique et de finesse littéraire." Another chapter studies "vitupérations"—contemporary works, serious and humorous, that are hostile to "la mémoire du soi." The reviewer concludes: "Un fort intéressant appendice contenant différents textes du temps et notamment les plus irrespectueux, donc les plus savoureux. . .complète ce travail. Je persiste à penser qu'il [Assaf] aurait pu mieux le traiter en nous faisant davantage grâce des méthodes théoriques d'approche et en se plongeant plus dans le trésor documentaire d'époque, abordé avec moins de respect pour les autorités à la mode.. et plus de confiance en ses propres moyens d'analyse."

Review: M.-C. Canova-Green in MLR 96.3 (2001), 822: Study of the two-fold public image of Louis XIV following his death—triumphalist official commemorations and popular derision. "What sets this book apart from other works concerned with the image of Louis XIV, is Assaf's purpose in analysing his abundant material in the light of the notion of the king's two bodies as propounded by Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz, in The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, NJ: Princieton University Press, 1957)."

AUERBACH, ERIC. Le Culte des passions. Essais sur le XVIIe siècle français. Introduction et traduction parDiane Meur. Paris: Macula, 1998.

Review: F. Sick in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000), 604–605: " . . .des études qui peuvent être considérées comme des études de base sur l'époque. . ."

BALLESTRA-PUECH. Les Parques. Essai sur les figures féminines du destin dans la littérature occidentale. Toulouse: Editions Universitaires du Sud, 1999.

Review: E. Skad in E Cr 40 (2000), 97–98: Judged "une riche contribution aux études comparistes et mythocritiques", Ballestra-Puech's able study (Skad compliments "la souplesse et a dextérité avec lesquelles textes, images et bibliographie critique sont maniés") treats four symbolic "composantes" of the myth throughout Western literature. La Belle au bois dormant receives particular attention.

Le Baroque en question (s). Littératures classiques 36 (1999).

Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 130 (2000), 149–151: This important number of Littératures classiques is of great value as a point of reference for all future studies of the baroque. Subdivided by themes and geography, the rich essays by distinguished scholars treat subjects as diverse as religion, the body, the baroque and Italy, music, genres, rhetoric and so forth. A final essay invites critics to respond to numerous questions and suggests possible perspectives for future inquiry.

BEAULIEU, JEAN-PHILIPPE, AND DIANE DESROSIERS-BONIN, eds. Dans les miroirs de l'écriture. La Réflexivité chez les femmes écrivains d'Ancien Régime. Montreal: Université de Montréal, 1998.

Review: G. Samson in RHL 101 (2001), 343–44: Summary review contains brief mentions of contributions on Marie de Gournay, Sévigné, and Madeleine de Scudéry.

BERTAUD, MADELEINE, ed. Architectes et architecture dans la littérature française. Paris: Klincksieck, 1999.

Review: C. Skenazi in BHR 62.2 (2000), 479–81: Trente-deux études d'un colloque organisé par l'ADIREL les 23–25 octobre 1997. M.-O. Sweetser "esquisse enfin la fortune des métaphores architecturales, de Du Bellay à Saint-Amant en passant par Malherbe pour dégager divers aspects politiques, sociaux, moraux d'une pratique qui valorise l'ordre, la mesure et la raison."

Review: L. Sabourin in RHL 101 (2001), 366–68: Brief mentions of several contributions on the seventeenth century (d'Urfé, La Fontaine, M. de Scudéry), containing information on "l'usage symbolique que la littérautre peut faire de l'architecture" and "la relecture des architectures au fil des générations et des besoins littéraires."

BERTAUD, MADELEINE. Le dix-septième siècle. Littérature française. Nouvelle édition augmentée. Collection Phares. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1998.

Review: B. Chédozeau in IL 52.3 (2000), 64. "[C]et ouvrage très classique" is aimed mainly at a general audience of beginning students. "Une synthèse récapitulative rapide et sûre," complemented by a bibliography and several "tableaux synoptiques."

Review: M.-O. Sweetser in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 606–607: "On ne saurait trop recommander cet excellent ouvrage aux enseignants et à leurs étudiants. . ."

Review: J.-P. Collinet in DSS 209 (2000), 745–746: Revised, and containing an updated bibliography, Bertaud's synthesis of 17th-c. literature continues to be a valuable tool for students and the general reader, according to Collinet (who reviewed the original edition eight years ago). Organized chronologically and divided into two parts covering the first and second half of the century, each part contains general introductory chapters followed by chapters devoted to poetry, theatre, and the novel.

Review: C. Rizza in SFr 132 (2000), 585: Particularly recommended to students and the general public for the clarity of its exposition and richness of information. Ample discussion of the baroque and manierist.

BERTRAND, DOMINIQUE, ed. Poétiques du burlesque. Actes du Colloque international du Centre de Recherches sur les Littératures Modernes et Contemporaines de l'Université Blaise Pascal. Paris : Champion, 1998.

Review : R. Horville in RSH 259.3 (2000), 275–278 : This collection of thirty-seven presentations contains an informative introduction, which constitutes an overview of the ambiguous term "burlesque", and a useful index of terms and names. The third section, "Le Siècle d'or du burlesque" covers literary manifestations in the second half of the sixteenth century and in the seventeenth. Authors studied include Rémy Belleau, Gongora, Charles Sorel, Saint-Amant, Scarron, Boileau, and La Bruyère. This is a collection whose "la richesse, la diversité et la qualité sont, comme on l'a vu, impressionantes."

BESSIERE, JEAN et DANIEL-HENRI PAGEAUX, eds. Formes et imaginaire du roman: Perspectives sur le roman antique, médiéval, classique, moderne et contemporain. Paris: Champion, 1998.

Review: L. Milne in MLR 95.4 (2000), 1169: "Organized in three parts of increasing length, the essays address, first, the 'genealogy' of the novel in Greek antiquity (in a fascinating article by Sophie Rabau), the Libro del Pelegrino (1508) and Mme de Lafayette; second, some novelistic genres in the nineteenth century; third, some innovations of the twentieth century. The principal focus of the second and third sections is French, but they include material that transcends national boundaries . . .." Expressed aim of the editors is to contribute to "a 'poétique historique' by consistently setting the literary analysis of texts in the appropriate socio-historical and intellectual context." Reviewer cites uneven quality of this collection of presentations to the Séminaire de Littérature générale et comparée de la Sorbonne Nouvelle.

Review: P. Andrès in S Fr 132 (2000), 660–61: Includes seven studies on the problematics of genres and eight on the problems of the novel, all reflections of the Centre d'Etudes du Roman et du Romanesque de l'Université Jules Verne de Picardie. In general clear and well documented, the articles focus on limits and boundaries between genres. 17th C. Scholars will especially appreciate the essay on the "croisement entre romanesque et poétique" in La Fontaine's Les Amours de Psyché, by Alain Génetiot.

BLUM, PASCALE and ANNE MANTERO, éds. Poésie et Bible de la Renaissance à l'âge classique 1550–1680. Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: R. Arab et al. in Ren Q 53 (2000), 302: Diverse and highly useful, with indices, an appendix on music, bibliography, the volume is organized into sections on: "Une Nouvelle Poétique," "Mises en Scène Bibliques," "Libertés, Constraintes, Polémique," and "Formes du Lyrisme."

BOILLET, DANIELLE and DOMINIQUE MONOCOND'HUY, eds. Discontinuité et/ou hétérogénéité de l'oeuvre littéraire. Les Cahiers FORELL, no. 8.

Review: C. Torelli in S Fr 132 (2000), 656: The acts of a "journée d'études" (1996) on the concept of heterogeneity in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian literature during the 15–17th C. Scholars of the "grand siècle" will appreciate the essays on Père Le Moyne's Peintures morales and on l'Astrée of Honoré d'Urfé.

BOTS, HANS, ed. Critique, savoir et érudition à la veille des Lumières. Le Dictionaire (sic) historique et critique de Pierre Bayle (1647–1706). Amsterdam: APA-Holland UP, 1998.

Review: P. Fuchs in H Z 271 (2000), 201–03: Some 24 essays round out these erudite Acts of an international colloquium celebrating the tricentenary of Bayle's dictionary. Fuchs comments on the original spelling with one "n" (Dictionaire). Essays treat a wide-range of themes from the organization of the dictionary to its reception, alterity, the dictionary as "magasin et protocole de la République des Lettres" (205), entries and subjects treated in the dictionary (Descartes and animals for example).

BOUVIER, MICHEL. La Morale classique. Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: M. Hawcroft in FS 55.2 (2001), 240–41: "[Bouvier] has tracked down some four hundred works written by authors he calls 'moralistes' during the first part of Louis XIV's personal reign and he has distilled their view of mankind into two parts (man and society) with chapters on self-knowledge, the different ages of man, the difference between the sexes, the passions (especially love), the virtues, social status, politics, government, the King, the court, the nobility, war, justice, and the church...This is a learned and dense work of reference in which readers will find an intellectual backdrop against which better-known writers can be more fully appreciated." The reviewer regrets, however, that the author provides "little sense of the formal differences between the writers considered."

BRODY, JULES. Lectures classiques. Charlottesville: Rockwood Press, 1996.

Review: H. Phillips in FS 55.1 (2001), 86–87: A collection of previously-published but updated articles by "one of the best readers of seventeenth-century texts in the academic domain." Among these "classics" of literary criticism are essays on Racine's tragedies, "brilliant accounts of Molière's comedies, which highlight the tension between ethics and aesthetics in the France of Louis XIV," and "an absolutely stunning exploration of Pascal's fragment 'Disproportion de l'homme.'" The reviewer concludes: "Read this volume, and see what can be done with words."

BURY, EMMANUEL. Littérature et politesse: l'invention de l'honnête homme 1580–1750. Perspectives littéraires. Paris: PUF, 1996.

Review: B. Norman in FR 74.2 (2000), 363–364: A "convincing" and "erudite" analysis of the evolving relations between literary representation and morality from the late Renaissance to the Enlightenment. Drawing upon the work of Montaigne, d'Urfé, Scudéry, Pellisson, Sarasin, Corneille, Balzac, Molière, La Rochefoucauld, Rousseau, Voltaire, and others, Bury argues that "literature becomes a source for moral education as modern works begin to replace ancient ones as key elements in the formation of taste and values."

Cahiers Maynard 20 (2000), 198 pages.

Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 132 (2000), 586–87: Highlights the diverse contribution of this issue, such as on "Maynard et la mort", Spanish culture in Maynard, "phrase et métrique. . .", punctuation, Maynard's encomiastic odes, etc. Useful bibliography of last 20 years by William Roberts.

CANEPA, NANCY, L., ed. Out of the Woods: The Origins of the Literary Fairy Tale in Italy and France. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1997.

Review: C. R. Montfort in FR 74.5 (2001), 995–996: A collection of essays that examines the Italian and French origins of the fairy tale, demonstrating that it is a genre "firmly entrenched in cultural history." Essays treat the role of Italian tradition in the transformation from "oral" to "literary" tales and its influence on early modern French writers, the baroque elements of Perrault's Contes, the representation of gender and the forces of ideology, the place of nostalgia, utopia, and subversion, the relation of the merveilleux and the vraisemblable in the seventeenth century, the textual evolution of "Puss in Boots" over the centuries, and cross-dressing in d'Aulnoy. A last section focuses on parodic fairy tales in the eighteenth century. Canepa's "multidisciplinary view of the early history of the genre is an excellent read which hopefully will entice future scholars to fill the unavoidable gaps."

CARLIN, CLAIRE, ed. La Rochefoucauld, "Mithridate," Frères et sœurs, "les Muses sœurs:" Actes du XXIXe Congrès annuel de la North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1998.

Review: S. Ferrari in DSS 210 (2001), 175–176: A collection of thirty-seven articles "d'une richesse exceptionnelle, non seulement par sa grande variété, mais aussi par l'originalité de certains des sujets abordés."

CASALS, MARIE-NOELLE. "La vérité comme indice dans trois poétiques du premier XVIIe siècle: Jean Vauquelin, Pierre de Deimier, Jean Chapelain." DSS 210 (2001), 19–33.

Studies the place of truth, understood as the result of an intellectual process, in the poets' choice of subject, representation, and allegorical interpretation.

CAYUELA, ANNE,trad. Jorge de Montemayor. Les sept livres de Diane. Paris: Klincksieck, 1999.

Review: A. Sancier-Chateau in BHR 62.3 (2000), 782–783: ". . . l'intérêt majeur de cette tradution est bien, selon nous, d'éclairer la naissance d'un genre et de permettre l'étude précise des influences de La Diane sur L'Astrée, roman qui connut au seuil du XVIIe siècle en France un succès comparable à son modèle espagnol."

CHAMAYOU, ANNE, ed. Les lettres ou la règle du Je. Artois Presses Université, 1999.

Review: B. Beugnot in DSS 210 (2001), 172–173: Three of the six essays are devoted to seventeenth-century authors: "Une figure de la désunion: le rapport je/vous" (F. Calas on Guilleragues' Les Lettres portugaises); "Guez de Balzac, 'Narcisse' épistolier: problèmes d'analyse" (H. Merlin); "Correspondance et succès littéraire: la politique des lettres de Guez de Balzac" (C. Jouhaud). The reviewer concludes: "En prolongeant les travaux existants et en ouvrant plusieurs voies, ce fascicule fait espérer de nouvelles explorations."

CHAUVEAU, JEAN-PIERRE, GÉRARD GROS and DANIEL MÉNAGER, eds. Anthologie de la poésie française. Moyen Ħge, XVIe siècle , XVII siècle. Paris: Gallimard, 2000.

Review: P. France in TLS 5108 (Feb 23 2001), 28: Finds this and companion volume, covering the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, to be something of a "national warehouse." Wider range, but less coherence than Gide's one volume anthologie of 1949. The early seventeenth century benefits from the interest in the baroque. Libertins and Jesuits are both well-represented.

Review: BCLF 626 (2000), 2399–2400: "Une occasion perdue de donner une oeuvre de référence, une oeuvre qui dresse le bilan de la poésie française et de son rôle dans la littérature mondiale." On reproche à cette anthologie (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade) "des déséquilibres absurdes: à l'évidence, on a voulu représenter toutes les périodes à égalité." Pour le XVIIe siècle, on traite les poètes baroques mais "ne mentionne que trop rarement des poèmes licencieux."

CHOLAKIAN, PATRICIA FRANCIS. Women and the Politics of Self-Representation in Seventeenth-Century France. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2000.

Review: C.E. Campbell in Choice 38, 9 (2001), 1634: A study of six writers of mémoires, Marguerite de Valois, Mlle de Monpensier, Hortense and Marie Mancini, Jeanne Guyon, and l'Abbé de Choisy. In order to examine how women writers represented themselves in the seventeenth century, the author deals as much as possible with the writers' original texts rather than the altered versions created by male editors.

CLOSSON, MARIANNE. L'Imaginaire démoniaque en France (1550–1650): Genèse de la littérature fantastique. Genève: Droz, 2000.

Review: BCLF 628 (2001), 97: "Ce gros ouvrage remarquablement aisé à lire, placé sous l'invocation de Lovecraft, revendique la naissance de la littérature fantastique pour les récritures des démonologies, qui peuplent le XVIe et le XVIIe siècle de récits étranges, parfois éloignés de la stricte théologie mais pleins des fantasmes et des peurs des lecteurs de tous les milieux."

CONNON, DEREK, AND GEORGE EVANS. Anthologie de pièces du Théâtre de la foire. Surrey, England: Runnymede Books, 1996.

Review: J. Vos-Camy in CdDS 8.1, 198–200. "Connon and Evans do not wish to give an historical overview of the development of the théâtre de la foire so much as to provide a variety of examples of the genre in order to give the reader a general impression of the types of plays making up the repertory of the foires." Collection foregrounds plays dealing with restrictions placed upon this theater by established theaters and plays whose themes were typical of the repertory. An excellent tool for students and scholars.

CONROY, JANE. Terres tragiques. L'Angleterre et l'Ecosse dans la tragédie française du XVIIe siècle. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1999.

Review: E. Minel in RHL 100 (2000), 1213: Examines representations of British history in both well- and lesser-known tragedies. Author examines the question of whether religious or Classical schemas were imposed on ostensibly English subject matter, and of if such plays might be said to constitute some sort of theatrical innovation. Reviewer lauds author's style and complementary matierials (tableaux, bibilographie, index), while regretting an over-reliance on "la problématique coutonienne de l'oeuvre miroir (ou écho) de la politique" which occludes consideration of "les enjeux esthétiques de la tragédie française."

COURCELLES, DOMINIQUE DE, éd. Littérature et exotisme: XVIe–XVIIIe siècle. Etudes et rencontres de l'Ecole des Chartes, I. Paris: Champion, 1997.

Review: W. Williams in FS 54.4 (2000), 503: This collection of four lectures on the theme of exoticism in early modern European writing includes Frank Lestringant's "brief but persuasive account of the bleak journey of the term 'exotique' from Rabelais to Léry," Barbara Vinken's presentation of "gender anxiety" in Rousseau's writings on the seraglio, and Michèle Longino's "fine, broad-ranging, and carefully argued reading of Le Cid in relation to French texts about the Ottoman Empire."

CSUROS, KLARA. Variétés et vicissitudes du genre épique de de Ronsard à Voltaire. Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: C. Jomphe in BHR LXIII,2 (2001), 436–38: Excellent outil de travail qui "envisage d'un même souffle quelque 350 oeuvres littéraires françaises et 130 écrits théoriques français et étrangers, ce qui lui permet de saisir le poème historique dans toute la variété et la mouvance de ses formes." Deux mises en garde: la synthèse théorique ne porte que sur le XVIIe siècle; et le 'Tableau chronologique et typologique des poèmes' "ne peut être dissocié des passages correspondants dans l'ouvrage, sous peine d'engendrer des erreurs d'interprétation quant à l'appartenance générique de certaines oeuvres."

Review: S. Macé in DSS 211 (2001), 355–356: The author begins by raising key questions of a historical and generic nature, thereby identifying the specificity of the corpus and interrogating the "boundaries of the genre." Included are analyses of the discrete but related forms poème historique and poème encyclopédique, and finally the poème sacré. The third section explores the causes for the failure of the épopée à la française. Csuros rejects previous explanations and argues that "l'abondance (excessive) des réflexions théoriques sur le sujet . . .est une des causes majeures de l'échec du genre." The "vast panorama" provided by this book makes it a required starting point for further research.

DAGEN, JEAN, ed. La Morale des moralistes. Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: F. Briot in RSH 260.4 (2000), 257–258: "Ces actes du colloque du même nom tenu à la Sorbonne les 9 et 10 novembre 1994 sous la responsabilité de Louis Van Delft et Jean Dagen sont pour une très large part centrés autour d'une triade magique (Pascal, La Rochefoucauld et La Bruyère), et les commmunications privilégient tantôt des questions de contenus, tantôt des questions de formes et de genres. Autant donc tout de suite préciser que ce sont celles qui problématisent et articulent ces deux approches qui paraissent les plus riches et les plus fructueuses."

Review: N. Hammond in FS 54.4 (2000), 506: "In spite of the fact that this volume has not made a smooth transition from conference hall to published proceedings. . . this is a hugely satisfying collection of essays." "Of the seventeenth-century papers, those by Mesnard, Bury (on humanism and anti-humanism), Bernard Beugnot (on poésie morale), André Tournon (La Fontaine), Oskar Roth (on honnêteté and retraite), and Philippe Sellier (characteristically perceptive on pictural and literary vanités) are all valuable pieces of scholarship."

DANDRY, PATRICK. "De l'imaginaire du jardin classique." DSS 209 (2000), 563–600.

Argues for the harmonious convergence of two conceptual frameworks (mimetic and hermeneutic) underlying notions of the garden; scrutinizes the multiples ways in which "le jardin s'est modelé sur les formes du discours et réorganisé, à la Renaissance, sur les modèles d'ordre et de régulation d'éloquence."

D'ANGELO, FILIPPO. "La follia del tiranno nella tragedia francese del Seicento." S Fr 130 (2000), 3–24.

Detailed examination of nine plays of the early 17th c. (before Andromaque) featuring scenes of madness demonstrates the ample use of this theme (contrary to the general view of critics). Highlights dramatic, psychological and ideological constraints as well as variants in the particular tragedies. Plays are examined in relation to literary and medical theories, both of Antiquity and the 17th c.

DAY, SHIRLEY JONES, ed. Writers and Heroines: Essays on Women in French Literature. Berne: P. Lang, 1999.

Review: G. Samson in RHL 100 (2000), 1221: A collection whose theme is the image of women in literature; contains several contributions on the seventeenth century, including treatments of Guilleragues, Lafayette, and D'Aulnoy.

Review: P. Bousquet in DSS 210 (2001), 173–175: Collection of nine essays, three of which bear specifically on seventeenth-century authors (Guilleragues, Lafayette, d'Aulnoy), but all of which will interest specialists of the period, notes the reviewer, because of the omnipresence of the Princesse de Clèves. The theme of female heroism, its definition and expression, runs through all the articles. Other chapters examine Christine de Pizan, Challe, Crébillon fils, Tencin, Beaumont, and Charrière. "Ce recueil, malgré quelques analyses centrées autour de grilles de lecture parfois trop exclusivement féministes, psychologiques, voire psychanalytiques, qui délaissent quelque peu, par moments, l'analyse littéraire, contient des articles de bonne qualité, soulève des questions fort pertinentes et attire notre attention, de façon originale, sur des œuvres parfois méconnues."

Review: F. Piva in S Fr 132 (2000), 596–97: Praiseworthy treatment of often neglected women authors: Mlle Bernard, Mme d'Aulnoy and Mlle de la Force. Piva appreciates Day's rigors, balanced treatment and intelligent critical reflections.

DEBAISIEUX, MARTINE, ed. Le Labyrinthe de Versailles. Parcours critiques de Molière à La Fontaine. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998.

Review: R. Racevskis in SYM 54.3 (2000), 197–198: Two-part volume dedicated to Alvin Eustis "uses the metaphor of the Minotaur's shadow to evoke the murkiness and uncertainty that lurk beneath the magnificence and apparent symmetry of the 'Grand Siècle'. . . ." Molière is the subject of the seven articles (Goodkin, Sweetser, Hubert, Spencer, Gaines, Abraham, Greenberg) that constitute the first part of the work. The second part presents articles on Louis XIV (Boursier), Descartes (Tobin), Descartes and Scarron (Debaisieux), Préfontaine (Assaf), Mme de Guyon (Bruneau), Jeanne des Anges (Bryson), and La Fontaine (Rubin). All the analyses "touch on some element of disorder, ambiguity, or divergence from the norms that have traditionally defined seventeenth-century French culture."

Review: H. Stone in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 613–614: "These articles. . .offer a fitting tribute to a beloved professor and colleague."

Review: P. Shoemaker in CdDS 8.1, 189–90. A collection of essays in memory of Alvin Eustice, organized around the topics "autour de Molière" and "les égarements du Grand Siècle," "most of the contributors share a common goal: a critical reevaluation of our understanding of seventeenth-century culture that privileges notions such as conflict, contradiction, and contestation rather than the traditional "Classical" categories of simplicity and normative order." Essays are representative of a broad variety of critical approaches; a "a thoughtfully edited, coherent, and rich collection."

DEBAISIEUX, MARTINE and GABRIELLE VERDIER, eds. Violence et fiction jusqu'à la Révolution. Travaux du IXe colloque international de la Société d'Analyse de la Topique Romanesque (SATOR), Milwaukee-Madison, septembre 1995. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1998.

Among the seventeenth-century contributions are M. Bertaud on Gomberville's Polexandre; M. Laugaa on Desmaret's l'Ariane; D. Riou on Le Roman comique; H. Goldwyn on Le Grand Cyrus and R. Nunn on Clélie; C. Marin on "plaisir et violence" in d'Aulnoy's fairy tales.

DENIS, BENOIT. Littérature et engagement: de Pascal à Sartre. Paris: Seuil, 2000.

Review: BCLF 623 (2000), 1764: Selon Denis, il existe "une littérature engagée" et "une littérature d'engagement": "Sur cette base, Benoît Denis entreprend une recherche qui fera le bonheur de ceux qui souhaitent relire les classiques sous un nouvel éclairage."

DENIS, DELPHINE. "Du Parterre aux Promenades: une scène pour la littérature au XVIIe siècle." DSS 209 (2000), 655–670.

Metonym for the authority of the monarch, parks and gardens legitimize the new and contested genre of littérature galante and serve as locus for critical discussions of literature and its effects. Texts considered include La Promenade de Versailles (Scudéry), La Promenade de Saint-Cloud (Guéret), and La Promenade de Saint-Germain (Le Laboureur).

DENNIS-BAY, LAURA L. "Silent object or speaking subject? Variations on the theme of la vieille in early seventeenth-century French texts." DAI 61/11 (2001), 4407.

Examines the figure of the old woman in the first half of the century, opposing representations in which the vieille speaks to others in which she does not. Argues that in some cases woman's speech can have a "potentially nefarious effect on the male-dominated world." Treats works by Théophile de Viau, the Sieur de Sigogne, Maynard, Saint-Amant, Régnier, and Sorel.

DIDIER, BEATRICE,dir. Précis de littérature européenne. Paris: PUF, 1998.

Review: M. Rossi in S Fr 132 (2000), 656–57: Offers a panorama of recurrent themes and indicates specificities according to national differences. Part one, "Méthodes", indicates possible methodologies for the study and teaching of literatures of European culture; part two, "Espaces", reconstructs national traditions and influences (including, for example, hebraïque; part three, "Le Temps", traces the history of movements. For example C.G. Dubois's article on "La Renaissance en Europe"; part four, "Les formes", furnishes a detailed and precise panorama along with a complex chronology of the great dates of European literature.

DONOVAN, JOSEPHINE. Women and the Rise of the Novel, 1405–1726. New York: St. Martins' Press, 1999/2000.

Review: R. Arab et al. in Ren Q 53 (2000), 618: Brief review only indicates focus of Donovan's study, the early modern period, and scope, from Christine de Pizan to Jane Austen (countries included are Italy, Spain, France and England).

DUBOIS, ELFRIEDA. "Quelques aperçus sur l'épître spirituelle au XVIIe siècle." TL 13 (2000), 101–111.

Nuanced presentation of several diverse and remarkable bodies of correspondence, including those of Bérulle, François de Sales, P. Hercule Audiffret, Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, Gaston de Renty, saint Jean Eudes, saint Vincent De Paul, Jean Mabillon, Marie de l'Incarnation and Agnès Arnauld. Instructive as to historical and social conditions as well as revelatory of the mind of letter writer and recipient, there are, at times, comments on the genre itself (P. Hercule Audiffret offers seven conditions of a religious letter, 104).

DUCHENE, ROGER. Mon XVIIe siècle: de la marquise de Sévigné à Marcel Proust.

Cent articles parus entre 1961 et l'an 2000; Extraits de biographies et autres ouvrages; Six cent lettres de femmes; Mémoires du CMR17. Diffusion Klinksieck.

EKMAN, MARY C. "Opening the Account: Initiatory Strategies and Noble Identity in Early Modern Women's Memoirs." FLS 26 (1999), 27–35.

Examines how women legitimized their participation in the traditionally male genre of memoirs. Using principally the example of Marguerite de Valois, concludes that women memorialists foreground their nobility while also maintaining a gendered space of difference.

EMELINA, JEAN. Comédie et tragédie. Nice: Publications de la Faculté des lettres, arts et sciences humaines, 1998.

Review: H. Allentuch in FR 74.3 (2001), 565–566: A collection of thirty-one articles published by Emelina over several decades that treat comedy and tragedy in a wide variety of contexts. Divided into several categories — "esthétique," "thèmes," "auteurs divers," Molière, and "au-delà du dix-septième siècle" — the essays examine the "painful pleasure" offered by tragedy, the themes of the child, the sea, the exotic, geography, and death in seventeenth- century theater, the work of Robert Garnier, Weber's 1990–91 staging of Le Misanthrope, and Flaubert's play Le Candidat. The volume also contains four pieces published in Nice-Matin, including a commemoration of Beckett. A "fine collection of a senior scholar's papers" that displays "much intelligence and openness of spirit."

Review: M. Hawcroft in FS 54.4 (2000), 507: "Anyone with an interest in seventeenth-century theatre will be delighted that a substantial proportion of Jean Emelina's articles published over the last three decades have been brought together in this one volume." Subjects covered include aesthetic issues, general themes in seventeenth-century theater, and individual dramatists; among these, the articles on Molière "reveal Emelina's acute sensitivity to Molière's comic art, and in particular to his verbal wit."

FAYE, EMMANUEL, ed. Descartes et La Renaissance. Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: R. Arab et al. in Ren Q 53 (2000), 950: Collection of essays from the 1996 Colloque de Tours examines Descartes' works in the context of Renaissance humanism and the history of ideas. Hermeneutic and doctrinal studies complement examinations of rhetoric, medicine, representation, and so forth.

Femmes savantes, savoir des femmes. Du crépuscule de la Renaissance à l'aube des Lumières. Genève: Droz, 1999.

Review: S. Poli in S Fr 132 (2000), 588–89: The acts of the September 1999 Colloque de Chantilly is dedicated to the memory of Linda Timmerman and contains 19 contributions and a useful index. In three sections: "Réalités / Savoirs", "Regards d'hommes", and "Discours de femme: portraits", the theme of the volume is examined in rich and diverse essays on subjects ranging from law and fiction, education, rhetoric, demonology, subversion of savoir, painting, journalism, and so forth.

FERREYROLLES, GERARD,dir. Littérature et religion. Littératures classiques 39. Paris: Champion, 2000.

Review: A.M. Mazziotti in S Fr 132 (2000), 598–99. Important issue focuses on the expression of religious culture in 17th C. : the essays are structured in three sections: 1) the presence of religious themes in profane literature, 2) specific genres such as apologetics and sacred eloquence and 3) mystical writings. Extremely rich and varied essays ranging from considerations of theater and opera to the novel, poetry, Pascal's pari, Bossuet's homiletics and so forth.

FINN, THOMAS P. "Reputation and Imaginary Identity in Le Menteur and La Verdad sospechosa." CdDS 8.1, 44–57.

Examines how liars fashion identities different from those normally assigned them in Corneille's and Alarcón's comedies.

FLAMARION, EDITH, ed. P. Charles Porée, De Theatro (1733), avec la traduction en regard du P. Brumoy, Discours sur les spectacles. Présenté et annoté parEdith Flamarion. Toulouse: Société de Littératures Classiques, 2000.

Review: P. Gethner in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 189–190: "This is a thoughtful and serviceable edition that belongs in every university library."

FREDERIC, MADELEINE et SERGE JAUMAIN, éds. La Relation de voyage. Bruxelles: Université libre de Bruxelles, 1999.

Review: W. L. Chew III in RBPH 78.2 (2000), 617–619: Volume resulting from a seminar for philology and history students organized by Belgian and Canadian scholars "specializing in the study of both factual and fictional travel accounts on (and/or written in) Canada, from the early 17th century to the present." Contributions "situated at the intersection of historical and literary scholarship."

GARNIER, BRUNO. Pour une poétique de la traduction. L'Hécube d'Euripide en France de la traduction humaniste à la tragédie classique. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999.

Review: B. Halévy in IL 52.3 (2000), 62–63: Using translation theory, author shows how versions of Euripides's Hecuba performed from the 16th to the 18th centuries modified the original. Argues that the "traduction poétique" of the humanists was in fact richer than the increasingly philological treatment dispensed by the 18th century.

GENETIOT, ALAIN. "Fonctions du dialogue dans quelques genres lyriques au XVIIe siècle." PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 9–30.

Study of some of the functions and goals of dialogues in 17th Century French lyrical poetry. The author focuses on the eglogue (Frénicle, Pellisson, Deshoulières), satire (Angot, Boileau) and the fable (La Fontaine).

GETZLER, PIERRE et JACQUES ROUBAUD. Le Sonnet en France des origines à 1630. Matériaux pour une base de données du sonnet français. Supplément à Vaganay. Paris: Inalco [Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales], 1998.

Review: A. Gendre in BHR LXIII, 2 (2001), 417–19: Supplément à l'ouvrage de Hugues Vaganay, Le Sonnet en Italie et en France au XVIe siècle, essai de bibliographie comparée (Lyon, Facultés catholiques, 1902–03; Slatkine, 1966. "Le nouvel ouvrage contient en effet tout 'Vaganay' (partie française) . . . mais il l'enrichit de manière significative. . . . Quant à la partie complètement nouvelle (les trente premières années du XVIIe siècle), elle comprend 1218 entrées."

GODWIN, DENISE, THERESE LASSALLE and MICHELE WEIL, eds. Actes du Dixième Colloque International, SATOR, Johannesburg, 1996. Montpellier: Université Paul Valéry-Montpellier III, 1999.

Essays by D. Kuizenga, "Cherchez l'artiste: artistes et objets d'art dans l'œuvre de Mme de Villedieu"; N. Boursier, "Fonctions romanesques du portrait dans Zaïde et La Princesse de Clèves"; A. DeFrance, "Objets d'art et artistes dans les contes de fées de Mme d'Aulnoy."

GOLDSMITH, ELIZABETH C. Publishing Women's Life Stories in France, 1647–1720: From Voice to Print. Ashgate, 2001.

Review: C.E. Campbell in Choice 39, 3 (2001), 515: A study of Marie de l'Incarnation, Jeanne des Anges, Jeanne Guyon, Hortense and Marie Mancini, and Mme de Villedieu that examines the role played by women in the development of new genres of writing — from memoirs to private letters to fictionalized autobiographical narratives. Attributes the proliferation of women writers in the period to the enclosed carrosse and the state postal system.

GOLDSTEIN, CLAIRE B. "Building the Grand Siècle: The Context of Literary Transformations from Vaux-le-Vicomte to Versailles (1656–1715)." DAI 61/10 (2001), 4017.

Contests prevailing views of Versailles as a materializations of Louis XIV's particular absolutism by looking at Fouquet's Vaux-le-Vicomte as Versailles' model. Author gives special consideration to "the dynamic of erasure and reinscription that characterized Versailles's artistic reappropriations." Considers texts by La Fontaine, M. de Scudéry, Félibien, and Molière, as well as the garden design of Le Nôtre.

GOODKIN, RICHARD. Birth Marks: The tragedy of primogeniture in Pierre Corneille, Thomas Corneille and Jean Racine. U of Pennsylvania P, 2000.

Review: M. Slater in TLS 5120 (May 18 2001), 26: Goodkin "draws on psychological and social explications of family relationships" to demonstrate that primogeniture is "important on stage even if whole families aren't portrayed." Family members all display characteristics of birth position. Slater finds this a promising line of approach but says author "seduced by his thesis into cavalier disregard for factual accuracy." Some of Goodkin's sibling figures seem far-fetched. Book makes "stimulating reading" but shows "disregard for texts under discussion, misrepresenting them again and again."

Review: A. Wygant in FS 55.3 (2001), 385–86: "In this study, Richard E. Goodkin argues that the social, legal and psychological practice of primogeniture provides a template for reading seventeenth-century French tragedy. The attendant questions of birth order and inheritance, moreover, may be used as a wedge to separate a first generation of tragedy writing, exemplifying feudal values and favouring the first-born, from a second generation, exemplifying market values and favouring younger siblings." The reviewer finds the focus of the analysis "productive" and views "this grand plot-thematic reading" as "a valiant negotiation between the transcultural and the historically specific [...]."

Review: C.E. Campbell in Choice 38, 5 (2001), 912: Examines the two Corneilles and Racine in the context of sibling rivalries for power and/or influence. The author reveals the role played by primogeniture in the seventeenth century "by comparing the siblings presented in the play [and] contrast[ing] the portrayal of them by the Corneille brothers, especially when they have dramatized the same story."

GOULBOURNE, RUSSELL. "The Bacchic Sign: Wine in Seventeenth-Century French Comedy." CdDS 8.1, 143–156.

Observes that the seventeenth century marked the first time alcohol abuse was seen as a major problem, and examines representations of drunkenness in Molière, Regnard, Rotrou, and others.

GRANDE, NATHALIE. Stratégies de romancières. De Clélie à La Princesse de Clèves (1654–1678). Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: D. Denis in RHL 100 (2000), 1211–12: Book tries to answer the question of why so many women were drawn to a genre as criticized as the novel, and whether an "écriture féminine," bearing specific characteristics, can be discerned in this production. Author examines a corpus of 31 novels, which illuminate the status of the romancière; both the representation of women in women's works and indivdual careers of the authors are considered. A. Viala's "sociopoétique" is combined with "la problématique américaine du 《 genre 》 (genre/gender), ici abordée avec autant de solidité que de prudence." Very favorable review (despite occasional unnamed "réserves") that welcomes especially "l'intérêt des pistes ouvertes, la richesse des propositions et le souci constant d'apporter nuances et correctifs aux thèses avancées."

Review: D. Kuizenga in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 191–193: "Stratégies de romancières constitue une contribution importante au dialogue critique sur le roman au XVIIe siècle."

Review: B. Piqué in S Fr 132 (2000), 595: Treats not only well known women authors such as Mme de Lafayette, Mlle de Scudéry, Mlle de Montpensier and Mme de Villedieu but less known ones as well in this period: Mme de La Roche — Guilhen and Mme de Campan. Grande's examination is guided by a sociopoetic methodology and sheds much light on a period important for the quantity of its production and for the emergence of a "scrittura narrativa al femminile" Piqué praises Grande's perspicacious analyses and the richness and coherence of the study. Useful annexes.

Review: D. Denis in IL 53.1 (2001), 43–44. A work that takes its place in a growing body of scholarship on women novelists, concentrating on texts between Clélie (1654) and Clèves (1678), including the production of little-known novelists. Grande's analysis is organized as 1) close readings of the works' representation of women and the world; 2) a sociological look at the condition of the woman writer, and 3) a reflection on the viewpoints that the novel permitted women to advocate. Aside from the study's documentary value, reviewer appreciates especially the author's ideological moderation (on say the "feminism" of Scudéry) and her concern with the tensions presiding over the woman novelist. Reviewer regrets, however, "la dimension parfois systématique d'une démarche tentée d'appliquer mécaniquement les outils sociopoétiques d'Alain Viala."

GRASSI, MARIE-CLAIRE. "Introduction". E Cr 40 (2000). 3–6.

This preface by the editor of the Winter issue of E Cr not only summarizes and highlights the several contributions of the special number but sets forth the "ambitieuse question" which guided the authors: "Dans son rapport avec la littérature, peut on saisir l'évolution de la lettre du XVIIe au XXe siècle?"(3). Reminds the reader that "une histoire littéraire de la lettre. . . reste à écrire" and suggests various "pistes de recherche" (5–6).

GRASSI, MARIE-CLAIRE. Lire l'épistolaire. Paris: Dunod, 1998.

Review: J.G. Altman in E Cr 40 (2000), 97–98: Intended audience of Grassi's volume is French university students but Altman finds it "of considerable value to all students and scholars" because of its broad range of references. Sections treat of historical perspectives (Pascal, Guilleragues and Sévigné receive particular attention), rhetoric, style (some five types of style are illustrated—"natural" style of Sévigné, for example, letters and literature (Lafayette is treated here) and finally a section of excerpts from recent scholarship "opens up their critical perspectives on the relationship between epistolary literature and political history, art history and literature theory."

Review: M.-O. Sweetser in FR 75, 1 (2001), 162–63: A useful introduction to the problem of epistolarity aimed at beginning university students. The author carefully lays out technical terms related to letter-writing and gives a diachronic history of epistolary practice from antiquity to the modern period before examining different genres such as the "lettr[e] d'amour, lettre-confession, lettre polémique et pamphlétaire, curieuse et 'exotique' . . . didactique enfin."

GREENBERG, MITCHELL. Baroque Bodies: Psychoanalysis and the Culture of French Absolutism. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2001.

Review: C.E. Campbell in Choice 39, 1 (2001), 124: Argues that absolutism in seventeenth-century France was closely related to images of the body. Examines works by Molière, pornography (L'Ecole des filles and L'Académie des dames), the cross-dressing l'Abbé de Choisy, mysticism and Marie de l'Incarnation, and Racine.

GREINER, FRANK. Les Métamorphoses d'Hermès. Tradition alchimique et esthétique littéraire dans la France de l'âge baroque (1583–1646). Paris: Champion, 2000.

Review: A. Arrigoni in SFr 132 (2000), 585: of interest to students/scholars of medicine and philosophy as well as literature, Greiner's work reviews the alchemic tradition, analyzes its representatives, illustrates its literary fortune, examines style and discourses. Influences on literature are investigated, in particular on Camus and Gomberville.

Review: N. Heather in FS 55.3 (2001), 380–81: Greiner traces the influence of the alchemical tradition on prose and poetic works of the baroque period; he shows how the discourse of alchemy "challenged readers to enter the world of deciphering texts in a way which might bring them closer to deciphering mysteries of the universe." The section on poetry considers the work of Nuysement, Gamon and Beauvallet; the part of the study dealing with prose examines the writings of Dom Belin, Gerzan de Soucy, Domayron, and Camus, and presents as well an "enlightening" analysis of Béroalde de Verville's Le Voyage des princes fortunez [...]."

GRODEK, ELZBIETA, ed. Ecriture de la Ruse. Publication de la SATOR, Société d'Analyse de la Topique Romanesque, XIIIe colloque, Toronto, mai 1999. Amsterdam-Atlanta, GA: Editions Rodopi, 2000.

D. Maher on le travestissement in the 17th c.; C. Rolla on "les romanciers 'rusés'" in the first part of the 17th c.; N. Arbach on L'Astrée; D. Kuizenga on "les ruses des Annales galantes."

HANNON, PATRICIA. Fabulous Identities: Women's Fairy Tales in Seventeenth-century France. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998.

Review: M. Longino in E Cr 40 (2000), 111: Praised as "finely documented and well-written", attentive to both "primary materials and secondary sources", sensitive, erudite and suggestive for future studies. Methodology is that "of a well-grounded feminist persuasion". Argument is grounded in history, stylistics, ideology and close literary analysis. The authors were not engaging in "escapist activity" but claimed " for themselves Cartesian subjectivity" and broke with "confining prescriptions" (Reviewer).

HASELER, JENS and ANTHONY McKENNA, eds. La Vie intellectuelle aux Refuges protestants. Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: D. Monda in S Fr 132 (2000), 597: The acts of a colloque at Münster (25 July 1995) which began an impressive scholarly investigation of the intellectual life of Huguenots in 17th and 18th C. Essays are diverse and wide ranging from a consideration of Bayle's history of Reformed churches to studies of history of the Francophone public in Prussia, and so forth. Important interdisciplinary contributions on history, philosophy, literature, and ideas.

HAUTCOEUR, GUIOMAR. "La nouvelle espagnole en France au XVIIe siècle : traduction et évolution du roman." RLC, 294.2 (avril-juin 2000), 155–174.

The author studies the reception of the Spanish novela of the Golden Age in France during a period when French writers were distancing themselves from the long chivalric and heroic romances and were adopting the format of the short novel. The author argues that French novelists followed the Spanish model for its length and its examination of psychological motives.

HERMAN, JAN and PAUL PELCKMANS, eds. L'épreuve du lecteur. Livres et lectures dans le roman d'ancien régime. Actes du VIIIe colloque de la Société d'Analyse de la Topique Romanesque, Louvain, mai 1994. Louvain-Paris: Editions Peeters, 1995.

The essays devoted to the seventeenth century cover a wide range of authors. Included are A. Niderst on "Le danger des romans dans les romans du XVIIe siècle"; D. Maher on "Lecture et écriture au XVIIe siècle: le cas de La prétieuse"; D. Kuizenga on reading and books in Villedieu's Mémoires de la vie d'Henriette-Sylvie de Molière; G. Verdier on "Grimoire, miroir: le livre dans les contes de fées littéraires."

HODGSON, RICHARD G. "Etat présent des études sur le roman français du dix-septième siècle en Amérique du Nord." IL 52.4 (2000), 3–8.

An annotated bibliography of recent (1995–1998) North American work (including unpublished theses) on D'Urfé, Madeleine de Scudéry, Sorel, Scarron, Villedieu, and Lafayette.

HOFFMANN, KATHRYN. Society of Pleasures: Interdisciplinary Readings in Pleasure and Power During the Reign of Louis XIV. New York: St. Martin's, 1997.

Review: T.P. Finn in CdDS 8.1, 178–181. "Hoffmann confidently guides the reader through a wide variety of seventeenth-century texts, deftly untangling their points of intersection and tracing the creation and subsequent crumbling of Louis XIV's reign as a kingdom of pleasure built on words." Book examines the power myths of Louis's memoirs, the erotics of subjugation in Racine, desire in Molière, the democratization of knowledge in Pascal's Provinciales, and the satires, burlesques and unauthorized works that saw to it that "Louis XIV's reign would ironically be consumed in the dreamscape of desire, pleasure and power it created, but could no longer control." Entertaining and educational, according to reviewer.

HOWARTH, WILLIAM D., et al., eds. French Theatre in the Neo-Classical Era: 1550–1789. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997.

Review: J. Pallister in SCN 58.3 (2000), 268–269: A "browser's paradise," this reference tool contains "an abundance of documents," arranged by date and by subject, and a thorough index. Divided into four sections, Part I: 1550–1630, Part II: 1630–1680, Part III: 1680–1715, Part IV: 1715–1789. Covers such rubrics as "Humanist Drama," "Theatre in the Provinces," "Actors and Acting," "Mise en scène and Costume," "Authors and their Critics," among many others. The reviewer writes: "The whole contains excellent illustrations of commedia dell'arte and the like, as well as diagrams of theater architecture. An immense, annotated bibliography, divided into source-references for documents and secondary sources and studies accompanies the work. This book comes highly recommended as a resource and reference tool, and should be in every university and college library in the country."

JOLIBERT, BERNARD. La Commedia dell'arte et son influence en France du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1999.

Review: BCLF 623 (2000), 1755–56: "Cet ouvrage, d'un style alerte et bien informé, brosse un tableau clair des composantes de la comedia dell'arte, de son évolution sur trois siècles et des hypothèses principales relatives à son origine et à sa nature. Le dernier chapitre renouvelle la lecture du théâtre classique comique français."

JOUHAUD, CHRISTIAN. Les pouvoirs de la littérature. Histoire d'un paradoxe. Paris: Gallimard, 2000.

Review: A. Arrigoni in S Fr 132 (2000), 590: Dense examination of key figures — Chapelain, Sorel, Desmarets de Saint — Sorlin among others — sheds light on relation between politics and 17th c. literature. Focus is on the second decade of the 17th c. with its several impertant querelles. Also studied at length are political texts and the figure of Guez de Balzac.

KELLER, EDWIGE and THÉRÈSE LASSALLE, eds. Histoire et narrativité. L'Europe en représentation dans la littérature du XVIIe siècle. Lyon : Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1999.

Review : B. Vanhouck in RSH 262.2 (2001), 277–279 : "Avouons-le: cette orientation donnée au recueil est décevante et, aussi bien, regrettable. Non que la poétique des genres ne nous intéresse pas — elle constitue bien une question cruciale pour toute étude du roman au XVIIe siècle; mais il est facile, s'agissant des rapports entre roman et histoire, de s'engager dans d'infinies redites qui tiennent parfois d'un fâcheux égarement. [. . .] Les conclusions de la plupart des articles ont de quoi laisser sceptique, tant il est vrai que les problématiques adoptées sont désormais des classiques, qui reprennent sans les renouveler les analyses antérieures de Claude Dulong et d'Andrée Mansau." Treated in this volume are Jean-Pierre Camus, Mlle de Scudéry, d'Assoucy, Mme de Lafayette, Saint-Réal, and Fénelon.

KELLER, EDWIGE. Poétique de la mort dans la nouvelle classique (1660–1680). Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: G. Giorgi, in IL 52.4 (2000), 45: Author uses the theme of death to demarcate the "roman héroique" from the "nouvelle classique," showing how death in these years becomes more and more of a structuring principle. The hero of the nouvelle is more vulnerable than his or her baroque counterpart, thus producing a Jansenist, rather than Stoic, worldview. Giorgi commends the author for interdisciplinary methodology and the breadth of the corpus chosen.

Review: C. Cagnat in DSS 211 (2001), 362–363: Part I is a quantitative description of the presence of death in the corpus, embellished with numerous charts and graphs, indicating, for example, "the sex of the deceased by the sex of the author" and "the sex of the deceased by the date of the work." The second section examines the role of death in narrative structure, and the third looks at the representation of death in esthetic, rhetorical and symbolic terms.

KINTZLER, CATHERINE. "L'opéra, révélation et trahison du théâtre." Racine et/ou le classicisme. Actes du colloque conjointement organisé par la North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature et la Société Racine." Ed. Ronald Tobin. Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, Biblio 17 (2001), 73–89.

Kintzler examine "le rapport de familière étrangeté qu'entretiennent le théâtre classique et son opéra. L'opéra est une partie intégrante du théâtre classique dont il présente la face cachée, ou plutôt les faces cachées. En un mot, l'opéra accuse le théâtre" en montrant "ce qui est à l'extérieur du théâtre, extériorité de marginalité, extériorité de cosmologie."

KRAMER, MICHAEL. "La Comédie des Proverbes et les Curiositez françoises d'A. Oudin: un lieu privilégié." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 490–499.

Study of the link between Oudin's 1640 work and the earlier Comédie des proverbes.

KRONEGGER, MARLIES, ed. Esthétique baroque et imagination créatrice. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1998.

Review: E. Minel, RHL 100 (2000), 1209–1210: 20 articles organized around baroque topics such as the theater of the world and movement. Insists that the baroque is not limited to the first half of the 17th century, but has a "vocation universelle."

LABIO CATHERINE. "Woman Viewing a Letter." E Cr 40 (2000), 7–12.

Focuses on an often neglected area of epistolary scholarship, the letter as object (its physical properties, in part). Labio treats Lafayette's La Princesse de Clèves, comparing the letter's "literary representation with the six works by Vermeer that focus on a woman reading, writing or receiving a letter." Labio cites Donna Kuizenga's 1976 study of narrative strategies (French Forum) and concludes:"Generic, unreadable, and heuristically unreliable, the letter as text and icon poses a threat that keeps its interpreters guessing—and moving"(II).

LAFOND, JEAN. Lire, vivre où mènent les mots. De Rabelais aux formes brèves de la prose. Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: M. Escola in DSS 211 (2001), 360–361: A collection of previously published essays that explore the poetics of formes brèves and the esthetic of discours discontinu, among other topics. Lafond's wide-ranging corpus includes the prologue of Gargantua, the third book of the Essais, the dream of Francion, and the Lettres portugaises. A recent article is entitled "De la morale à l'économie politique: La Rochefoucauld, les moralistes jansénistes et Adam Smith." The reviewer concludes "ces essais se lisent comme autant de leçons de méthode dont la réunion fait sens."

LAVOCAT, FRANÇOISE. Arcadies malheureuses. Aux origines du roman moderne. Bibliothèque et littérature générale et comparée, vol.12. Paris : Champion, 1997.

Review : U. Schulz-Buschhaus in ZRP 117.1 (2001), 111–115 : This is a comparative study of Italian, Spanish, and French pastoral romances. Among the French romances studied are Honoré d'Urfé's L'Astrée, Nicolas de Montreux's Bergeries de Juliette, Belleforest's Pyrénée, Du Croset's Philocalie, Henry du Lisdam's Histoire ionique, and Vital d'Audiguier's Flavie. The author studies the development of the pastoral romance and the heroic romance. According to the reviewer, this study can be recommended as the best one on the topic to date and as a model of historical-literary scholarship.

LEBRAVE, JEAN-LOUIS et ALMUTH GRESILLON, éds. Ecrire aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Paris: CNRS, 2000.

Review: BCLF 630 (2001), 496: "Ce recueil participe donc du développement de la critique génétique, en fournissant des outils méthodologiques pour s'y initier en même temps que des études concrètes de manuscrits jusque-là peu ou pas étudiés sous cet angle. . ."

Littérature classiques. "La périodisation de l'âge classique" no. 34, automne 1998.

Review: D. Venturino in DSS 209 (2000), 731–732: The seventeen articles adopt various subjects and critical perspectives: less-frequently studied genres (the emblem), genres considered "minor" (short stories and tales), religion, culture and its institutions. Taken together, the articles suggest that the traditional and accepted parameters are somewhat less than useful, "mais on s'efforce de contenir la fluidité des événements et des pensées spécifiques à l'intérieur de cadres chronologiques construits sur mesure. . .."

LOUVAT, BENEDICTE. La Poétique de la tragédie classique. Paris: SEDES, 1997.

Review: M.-F. Hilgar in FR 74.3 (2001), 570–572: A well-articulated study that is "indispensable à tout lecteur de tragédie classique." Intended for both secondary and more advanced students, the book's three sections ("Analyse et synthèse," "Texte et méthodes," and "Repères et outils") "présent[ent] la mécanique de la tragédie classique." Louvat carefully summarizes the consitutent parts of tragedy, larger esthetic principles necessary to the comprehension of seventeenth-century theater, such as la vraisemblance, and more specific dramatic procedures having to do, for example, with the invention of the subject or the political dimension of the genre. Louvat provides useful textual examples to illustrate tragedy's basic elements: "le lyrisme tragique dans Les Juives, l'exposition de Nicomède, le récit dans Iphigénie, la structure judiciaire du Cid, le quiproquo tragique de Venceslas, la catastrophe dans Phèdre et la récriture de Corneille pour Œdipe."

LYONS, JOHN D. Kingdom of Disorder: The Theory of Tragedy in Classical France. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 1999.

Review: J. Campbell in FS 55.2 (2001), 242–43: In this "invigorating reappraisal," "it is [Lyons's] achievement not only to elucidate the different twists and turns of seventeenth–century poetics, but so clearly to expose the failure of the attempt to impose a theoretical discourse on practising dramatists." Lyons "reminds us that the so-called 'classic' doctrine ... did not exist as such in the seventeenth century," and he demonstrates that "there was an underlying assumption, shared by dramatists and pundits alike, that tragic form is shaped by and for the needs of its audiences [...]."

Review: D. Clarke in MLR 96.2 (2001), 496–497: Four-part study intended "to dispel the notion that the 'classical doctrine is a monolithic set of formulae later executed in the brilliant tragedies of the reign of Louis XIV'." The first section on "Regularity" provides "a particularly sharp analysis of Corneille's pragmatism"; the second section on "Passion in the Age of Reason" argues that "'passionate feeling rather than careful reasoning is the theoretical aim of [seventeenth-century French] tragedy'"; the third section on "The Tragic Story" treats "'incoherences and disagreements sufficient to justify what he terms the 'non-formation of French classical doctrine'"; and the final section on "The Unities and the Classical Spectator" explores "poetic limitations on action, place, and time as the means to effecting a compromise between the independent reality of the tragic scene and the dramatist's concern with matters of audience reception." Reviewer would have appreciated a "clearer historical and socio-political framework" in this otherwise "penetrating" study.

Review: E. M. Zimmerman in FR 75, 1 (2001), 163–65: Examines the writings of d'Aubignac, La Mesnardière, Corneille, Scudéry, Chapelain, and the authors surrounding the Querelle du Cid on tragedy. Revises the notion that classical "rules" were rigid formulas that restrained all authors after 1640. Lyons analyzes the role played by "catharsis" in the theater, and slippages in the meaning of "plaisir" during the century. Discussions of "la vraisemblance," "la bienséance," and the unities contribute to a more general reassessment of received critical doctrines about theories of the tragic in the classical period.

MAITRE, MYRIAM. Les Précieuses: naissance des femmes de lettres en France au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999.

Review: A. R. Larsen in FR 74.4 (2001), 799–801: Premised on the notion that there is no critical consensus on the existence and literary importance of the précieuse since no seventeenth-century woman ever lobbied for the term or even defined it, Maître's study examines contemporary statements about la préciosité. She argues that the phenomenon is less a body of characteristics common to all précieuses than "'un jeu de forces, un lieu d'affrontement et de réglage mutuel de certaines des tensions qui traversent le siècle, la cour et le champ littéraire'." Beginning with the construction of a myth of preciosity in Louis de Roederer's 1838 Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la société polie en France, Maître treats seventeenth-century satires of and paeans to the précieuse, the ambiguous position of the précieuse in the literary field, and contributes to a redefinition of la préciosité "à travers une analyse des rapports entre préciosité et idéal galant, mettant en jeu tous les aspects de la vie mondaine... et de la question de l'amour." An exhaustive and impressive book "qui joint l'agrément à l'utilité."

* MANDELBROTE, SCOTT. "Représentations bibliques et édéniques du jardin à l'âge classique." DSS 209 (2000), 645–654.

Argues that reformers in England, seeking to improve agricultural output—"de ramener la terre à sa fertilité première"—turned to the Bible for a conceptual framework and even technical advice. "Choisir les bonnes plantes et les bonnes méthodes de culture était indispensable pour le perfectionnement tant matériel que spirituel."

MARINER, FRANCIS. Histoires et autobiographies spirituelles: Les Mémoires de Fontaine, Lancelot et Du Fossé. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag (PFSCL/Biblio 17), 1998.

Review: N. Paige in CdDS 8.1, 182–84. Author examines a number of memoirs written by Port-Royalistes, as well as other texts where one finds a Jansenist theory of the use of the "I." Book concentrates on the various justifications proposed for the transgressive act of writing autobiographically when the self is supposedly "haïssable" (Pascal). A clear an elegant study, which reviewer feels might have had wider appeal had it attempted to place such texts within a broader history of autobiography and subjectivity.

MARTEL, JACINTHE ET MELANÇON ROBERT, éds. Inventaire, Lecture, Invention: mélanges de critique et d'histoire littéraire offerts à Bernard Beugnot. Montréal: Université de Montréal, 1999.

Review: J. Lafond in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 631–636: "Ces Mélanges témoignent d'une richesse de thèmes, de points de vue et de pratique qui répond à la diversité des approches critiques, mais aussi à l'étendue du domaine couvert par la recherche de Bernard Beugnot, au double versant des XVIIe et XXe siècles tout spécialement."

Review: M. Hawcroft in FS 55.1 (2001), 85: Bernard Beugnot's wide-ranging interests are represented in this collection of twenty-nine essays, offered as a tribute to the distinguished scholar on the occasion of his retirement. The contributions include five pieces on Guez de Balzac, "including erudite bibliographical essays by Zuber, Arbour, and Jehasse." Of the five essays dealing with literary history, Emmanuel Bury's "subtle account" of the uses of rhetoric is particularly "impressive." The ten essays on seventeenth-century writers include "an intelligent and sympathetic account of d'Aubignac's Pratique du théâtre by Forestier, a philological reading by Brody of the Discours de la méthode, and suggestive remarks by van Delft on the theatricality of Les Caractères."

MATHIEU-CASTELLANI, GISELE. La Rhétorique des passions. Paris: PUF, 2000.

Review: M. Hawcroft in MLR 96.3 (2001), 813–14: Author explores rhetoric and the passions in early modern France. The first half of the study provides an account of rhetorical theory, "stressing always how the passions insinuate themselves into the various parts of rhetoric." The second half "aims to show the influence of rhetorical theory, and particularly of the passions" in texts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

MAZOUER, CHARLES, éd. Recherches des jeunes dix-septiémistes. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2000.

Review: BCLF 626 (2000), 2397–98: ". . . il s'agit d'offrir une tribune à de jeunes doctorants ou à des docteurs tout frais émoulus, travaillant tous sur un matériau commun, la littérature française du XVIIe siècle, plus particulièrement celle du 'siècle de Louis XIV' qui se taille la part du lion." Cette vingtaine de contributions constitue "un véritable coup de sonde dans les études classiques."

MCMAHON, ELISE NOËL. Classics Incorporated: Cultural Studies and Seventeenth-Century French Literature. Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1998.

Review: E. McClure in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 636–637: "Unfortunately, McMahon's creative approaches to these familiar texts often promise more than they deliver."

Review: N.M. McElveen in CdDS 8.1, 185–188. A cultural materialist reading of texts by Corneille, Molière, Racine and La Fontaine "against less familiar contexts: dance manuals, cookbooks and shopping guides, and medical discourses of seventeenth-century France." Author concentrates especially on representations of the body in seventeenth-century culture, showing how the issues involved in canonical works are similar to those addressed in ephemera. Reviewer, though positive, maintains that the author is occasionally distracted by the interest of her popular sources and sometimes fails to link the latter to the literary texts.

Review: H. Phillips in FS 55.2 (2001), 242: "The claims of the book are to integrate the literary work back into culture, essentially by reading literary discourse through more or less familiar texts or contexts, like medical discourse in the case of Racine or cookbooks in that of La Fontaine." The reviewer, however, finds that the book promises a great deal more than it delivers, and that only one of the essays is truly "revealing": this piece, on "monstrosity in Racine as related to views of women in childbirth," "reveals what a sensitive commentator McMahon really is."

MELVILLE, GERT and PETER VON MOOS, eds. Das Öffentliche und das Private in der Vormoderne. Köln: Böhlau, 1998.

Review: P. Schuster in HZ 270 (2000), 697–99. Some twenty-four authors treat the public and the private referring to Habermas's work as point of orientation and/or tension. Dimensions include: religious, philosophical, literary, and social. An inspiring and ingenuous collection.

MILKOVITCH-RIOUX,CATHERINE. "Ecritures féminines de la guerre; Feminine Representations of War." E Cr 40 (2000), 3–8.

Although this number of E Cr on war focuses on its modern representations, the opening article by its editor sends the interesting reader, quite properly, to two works by the distinguished dix-septiémiste Philippe Sellier (his essay "Le modèle héroïque de l'imagination" in Pierre Brunel's Dictionnaire des mythes littéraires, 1988 and his own volume Le Mythe du héros, 1990).

MOMBELLO, GIANNI,dir. Albert Bailly, La correspondance. Vols. I et II. Aoste: Académie Saint-Anselme, 1999.

Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 130 (2000), 152: Valuable correspondence from the years 1643–1650 relating to politics and literature alike, is transcribed by Luca Giachino (vol. I) and Paola Cifarelli (vol. II). Highly useful historical and philological introductions and notes.

NATIVEL, COLETTE, ed. Femmes savantes, savoir des femmes. Du crépuscule à l'aube des Lumières. Genève: Droz, 1999.

Review: C. Hampton in MLR 96.2 (2001), 495–496: Collection of nineteen papers on feminist epistemology from the colloquium held at Chantilly (September 22–24, 1995) is divided into three sections: "'Réalités/Savoir', 'Regards d'hommes' and 'Discours de femmes/Portraits'. Encounters between women and learning/knowledge, are thus situated in a number of clearly delineated contexts: skills, erudition and professional competencies displayed by early modern women; male acknowledgement of, and interaction with, 'savoirs' proper to women; and the complex relationship of women writers with the world of texts in its many forms."

Review: D. Denis in RHL 100 (2000), 1218–20: Contains three sections, treating: 1) "le contexte historique et culturel dans lequel peut se développer un savoir féminin"; 2) praise or hostility directed towards the femme savante by men; 3) individual portraits of women of learning (Marguerite de Valois, Scudéry, Villedieu, Dacier, Guyon, Du Noyer). A "riche ensemble" reflecting the influence of L. Timmermans.

Review: L. Leibacher-Ouvrard in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000), 641–643. "Par la diversité des situations, des prises de position et des réactions qu'il évoque, ce livre illustre excellemment que les femmes ont accédé au savoir par des trajets multiples et souvent détournés, pour faire entendre des voix originales et toutes différentes, quoique de plus en plus volontaires et affirmées."

Review: J. Conroy in FS 55.2 (2001), 234: "This authoritative collection brings important specific contributions...to our knowledge of the limitations placed on women's intellectual development and how they transcended that handicap." These nineteen studies range from essays on exceptional women such as Marguerite de Valois, Elisabeth de Bohème, Mlle de Montpensier, Mme Dacier, Mlle de Scudéry, Mme de Villedieu and Elena Cornaro Piscopia, to pieces on the status of widows in law and in the world of publishing. Contributors include Colette Winn, Philippe Salazar, Emmanuel Bury, Christian Biet, Nathalie Grande, Jean-Charles Darmon, Henriette Goldwyn and René Démoris.

NEEMAN, HAROLD. Piercing the Magic Veil: Toward a Theory of the Conte. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1999.

Review: F. Ringham in FS 54.4 (2000), 509–10: "Harold Neeman's work offers an impressive overview of the complexity of the genre and of its critical reception. The study approaches its subject from two angles, considering first synchronic and diachronic definitions and then contemporary systems of interpretation...Throughout this work, Neeman unites attention to socio-cultural history with discussion of individual critical theories." Though thorough and informative, however, the work "lacks rigour and promised coherence."

NIDERST, ALAIN. "L'Enjouée Plotine, Madame de Maintenon, Madeleine de Scudéry et Ninon de Lenclos." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 501–508.

The author proposes the idea that "l'enjouée Plautine" whom Madame the Maintenon invites to dinner is none other than Ninon de Lenclos.

NIDERST, ALAIN. Essai d'histoire littéraire: Guilleragues, Subligny et Challe. Des "Lettres portugaises" aux "Illustres françaises". Paris: Nizet, 1999.

Review: BCLF 623 (2000), 1761: Niderst remet en cause que Guilleragues est bien l'auteur des Illustres françaises et propose Subligny. "Quant aux Lettres portugaises, elles seraient bien de Mariana Alcaforado, et Subligny en aurait été le traducteur."

Review: T. Lassalle in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 212–213: "Ce bref ouvrage a le décousu d'une oeuvre de délassement. . ."

NORTON, GLYNN P., ed. The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Vol. III, The Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.

Review: R. Arab et al. in Ren Q 53 (2000), 294–95: When this collection is complete, all of Western literary history from antiquity to the present will be surveyed. Volume 3 covers the period from the late Middle Ages to the late 17th c. and is highly useful for its "emergent discourse of poetics," "contexts of criticism" (socio-political factors), challenging "voices of dissent," and formative trends and national developments. Extensive bibliography and index.

PAIGE, NICHOLAS. D. Being Interior: Autobiography and the Contradictions of Modernity in Seventeenth-Century France. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2001.

Review: D.A. Collins in Choice 38, 11/12 (2001), 1966: Study of the "autobiographical mentality" that underlies the work of Augustine, Montaigne, and the mystics Teresa of Avila, Jean de Labadie, Antoinette Bourgignon, Jeanne Guyon, and Jean-Joseph Surin. Although it identifies differences between these writers, the study "ascribes to them an overarching preoccupation: their self-consciousness about self-consciousness." The author "discusses with finesse and sensibility the evolution of an ever-growing irrepressibility of self-representation, of 'being interior' culminating in the unabashed (figurative) nuditarianism of J.J. Rousseau."

PAVESIO, MONICA. Calderón in Francia. Ispanismo ed italianismo nel teatro francese del XVII secolo. Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2000.

Review: F. Sick in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 218–219: " . . .on regrette (. . .) que Pavesio se contente de noter seulement les données. On aurait aimé avoir des commentaires plus explicites sur les rapports entre l'évolution de la dramaturgie et celle de la mise en scène. . ."

PICCIOLA, LILIANE. "Traduire Don Quichotte au début du XVIIe siècle." RDM (avril 2000), 137–147:

L'auteur analyse les traductions françaises de Don Quichotte par César Oudin en 1614 (la première partie du roman) et de François Rosset (deuxième partie du roman) en 1618 et note "un désappointement certain dû tantôt à une réception timide du traducteur tantôt à sa réaction réformatrice devant un roman complexe."

PIGEAUD, JACKIE. "Les quatre livres des Jardins du Père René Rapin." DSS 209 (2000), 601–626.

A comparative study of Rapin's poem, originally written in latin, that situates it with regard to several authors of Antiquity, notably Virgil, and emphasizes the poem's "modernist" elements.

PLANTE, CHRISTINE. L'épistolaire, un genre féminin? Paris: H. Champion, 1998.

Review: D. Denis in DSS 208 (2000), 553–554: A highly favorable review of fifteen essays first presented as conference papers. Planté's clear introduction juxtaposes the question of the literary status of correspondance and that of the relationship between the sexes. Rather than adopting quantitative or qualitative approaches ("immanentistes"), considered naïve and duplicitous by the reviewer, the authors propose historical studies grounded in representations and cultural models. The four articles devoted to the 17th c. feature studies of Scudéry (M. Maître); "l'imaginaire stylistique de la lettre féminine" (I. Landy-Houillon); la lettre féminine and its the penetration into the public and political sphere (D. Hasse-Dubosc); and a synthesis that looks at masculine theories of the letter and the pratique mondaine of correspondance (R. Duchêne). Other chapters cover the Enlightenment through Romanticism.

POISSON, JEAN-MARC. Introduction to the 1998 MLA Convention Session on Libertines and Homosexuality. PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000), 417–419.

POLI, SERGIO. "Vendetta e pena capitale nella narrativa francese del primo seicento," in de Romanis, Roberto and Rosamaria Loretelli, eds. Il Delitto narrato al popolo. Palermo: Sellerio, 1999.

Review: M. Rossi in S Fr 132 (2000), 586: Poli reconstructs, through able analyses of 17th c. histoires tragiques, the evolution of the concept of the criminal of the time along with heterogeneous themes and topoï, Poli makes certain structural constraints. Important not only for light it sheds on a "tormented culture, but also on a society in full transformation."

POMPEJANO, VALERIA. Seduzioni e follie. Forme della presenza italiana e spagnola nell'elaborazione del classicismo francese. Fasano : Schena, 1995.

Review : M. Pavesio in RLC 294.2 (avril-juin 2000), 243–244 : The four studies in this volume analyze plays and a preclassical text, all composed before 1660, which have as a common thread an interest in the amorous and cultural "elsewhere" extending to the extreme limit of madness and which illustrate the passage from Baroque to Classicism and the formation of Classical taste. Authors studied include de Beys, Cervantes, and Guillaume Colletet.

RAMSDEN, MAUREEN A. "The Play and Place of Fact and Fiction in the Travel Tale." FMLS 36 (2000), 16–32.

As it "focuses on the different levels at which fact and fiction constantly and necessarily interact in life and in discourse" (16), Ramsden's study complements studies which limit themselves to particular levels or genres as well as those studies which examine differences between the use of fact and fiction, such as in the latter case, Georges May's L'Autobiographie en France (1970) (16). Ramsden's treatment is in two parts, first, from an historical perspective, including the etymological, and second, focusing on travel literature as a particular area of discourse. 17th c. French references include: Lafayette, Descartes, Gabriel Foigny. Short but helpful bibliography includes Philip Stewart's Imitation and Illusion in the French Memoir-Novel, 1700–1750.

RANUM, OREST. "Documenting a Document: Desmarests de Saint-Sorlin, Scarron, and Christine of Sweden." FLS 28 (2001), 1–11.

Looks at three letters addressed to Christine of Sweden in an attempt to ascertain how contemporaries understood the documentary status of letters.

RAPLEY, ROBERT. Witchcraft. The Trial of Urbain Grandier. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.

Review: M. Greengrass in DSS 211 (2001), 338–339: "Interprétant l'affaire de Loudun comme un procès judiciaire plutôt que comme une possession diabolique, Rapley nous conduit à mieux apprécier à quel point ce procès pouvait accumuler les éléments disparates-rivalités ecclésiastiques, juridictions controversées, et factions politiques au niveau national." The reviewer praises the representation of the historical and juridical context but finds fault with the author's portrayal of the religious backdrop, which, according to the reviewer, is too infused with twentieth-century skepticism. Destined for a popular audience, the book adopts alternately a novelistic and historical style.

RAUSEO, CHRIS. Moeurs et maximes: personnifications, représentation et moralisation théâtrales du "Gran teatro del mundo" au "Malade imaginaire". Heidelberg: C. Winter Verlag, 1998.

Review: M. Baschera in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 644–646: ". . .cette étude aurait sans doute nécessité une conclusion générale et approfondie où l'auteur aurait ramassé les fils dispersés ici et là pour en former un tissu argumentatif convaincant, capable de fonder l'hypothèse formulée au début du livre."

REVAZ, GILES. "La 《 veuve captive 》 dans la tragédie classique." RHL 101 (2001), 213–26.

Reads Mairet's Sophonisbe as a "tragédie 《 exemplaire 》", since it is founded on a mariage that cannot take place because of a political obstacle. Traces this component of tragedy in works of Corneille, Racine, and others.

REYFF, SIMONE DE. L'Eglise et le théâtre. L'exemple de la France au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1998.

Review: L. Thirouin in DSS 211 (2001), 345–347: The reviewer begins by identifying several of the book's weaknesses, notably its "hybrid" form; it attempts to address both scholarly and popular audiences (hence the absence of notes and references). Nonetheless the reviewer finds strengths in the even-handed and condensed overview of the main elements of the quarrel as well as in the author's suggestive personal interpretations. The author's religious "convictions" and "préoccupations spirituelles" are at once a limit and a richness of the work.

ROLLA, CHIARA. "Stratégies narratives, XVLLe XIXe siècles." S Fr 131 (2000), 245–254.

Rolla's analysis of Le Tombeau des romans by Francois Dorval-Langlois sieur de Facan (1626) sheds light on the "statut de genre narratif naissant " (254). Rolla places a good deal of importance on this text in conjunction with the numerous "paratextes" of the some 1200 short stories and novels in the first forty years of the century. Facan considers the novel superior to other literary genres, in particular as the novel establishes a relation with history. Reminding us that Plato had recommended les " mensonges profitables", Facan insists on the aptness of the novel to " passer un message sérieux. . . snas demander au lecteur trop d'efforts" (R. 250). Rolla indicates a number of points on which Facan anticipates Huet and Segrais.

ROYE, JOCELYN. "La figure du pédant et le pédantisme de Montaigne à Molière." IL 52.4 (2000). 30–36.

Summary of author's thesis (Paris X-Nanterre), which shows the figure of the pedant to be at the heart of a "mutation profonde de la nature et de la fonction du savoir." Argues that the critique of pedantry is situated at the moment in which humanist learning, based on the accumulation of knowledge, gives way to the new criterion of "discernement," thus paving the way for the philosophes of the Enlightenment.

RUBIN, DAVID LEE and ALICE STROUP, EDS. EMF: Studies in Early Modern France, vol. 4: Utopia I: 16th and 17th centuries. Charlottesville: Rockwood Press, 1998.

Review: D. Duport in RHL 100 (20002), 1209: Volume explores the specificity of French utopias, neglected because of the achievement of More. "Plus qu'un genre, le voyage utopique révèle le fonctionnment d'une pensée dissidente."

SCHRODER, VOLKER. "Entre l'oraison funèbre et l'éloge historique: l'hommage aux morts à l'Académie française." MLN 116,4 (2001), 666–88.

Esquisse du développement de l'éloge funèbre à travers le 17e siècle et ses avatars au 18e siècle. Schröder s'intéresse aux "pratiques commémoratives en usage sous l'Ancien Régime, et les différentes notions de 'grandeur' qu'elles impliquent." Trois parties: L'Académie à l'église: l'impasse de l'oraison funèbre; L'Académie au Louvre: l'invention des séances de réception; D'un siècle à l'autre: l'Académie face à l'éloge historique.

SHOEMAKER, PETER. "'Mentir (pas très) subtilement': Hyperbolic Discourses in Early-Modern France." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 527–549.

Study of hyperbole, from the Renaissance to the Classical period, showing that this figure "provides key insights into understanding the status of rhetoric during this complex and transitional period in modern thought."

SPICA, ANNE-ELISABETH. "Le motif horticole dans la symbolique humaniste et l'emblématique." DSS 209 (2000), 627–644.

Identifies the uses to which the garden is put in emblem books and argues that the garden is a "mirror" of emblem book itself, both composing in a similar manner "dans un espace bien délimité et humainement maîtrisé l'ordonnance visible d'un discours en images."

SPIELMANN, GUY. "Le Mariage classique, des apories du droit au questionnement comique" Littératures Classiques 40, "Droit et Littérature," p. 223–258.

SPIELMANN, GUY. "Pour une syntaxe du spectaculaire aux XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles." Les Arts du spectacle de la fin du Moyen-Age au début du XVIIIe siècle. Paris, Champion, 2000

STILL, JUDITH. "Genlis's Mademoiselle de Clermont: a Textual and Intertextual Reading." AJFS 37.3 (2000), 331–347:

Argues that important intertextual connections to La Princesse de Clèves and La Nouvelle Héloïse may be detected in Mademoiselle de Clermont (1802) by Caroline Stéphanie Félicité de Genlis (Mme de Genlis) (1746–1830). Though she inherits from Lafayette and Rousseau several familiar themes, including love blocked by social obstacle, marriage based on rational choice rather than passion, critique of social class through criteria other than class, Genlis "rewrites her predecessors by introducing a number of pointed plot shifts, by reframing certain key episodes, and by her use of language." Concludes that Genlis's historical novel warrants reading and analysis in the critical context of canon formation since it examines issues of sex and class as these relate to the feminist recognition of literary genealogies based on the work of women.

STONE, HARRIET. The Classical Model: Literature and Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century France. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Review: M.C. Ekman in CdDS 8.1, 210–11. Traces the classical episteme and the making of knowledge in a variety of literary and scientific texts. Readings of Racine, Molière, Descartes, Lafayette and others tend to emphasize, in the reviewer's phrase, "the circular and destabilizing process of the search for knowledge in representation." "Well argued and well written," study is a model of discursive analysis.

SOULIER, DIDIER, ed. Le Baroque en question(s). Paris: Champion, 1999.

Review: E. Minel, RHL 100 (2000), 1209–10: Containing "une belle et nette introduction" as well as "une copieuse bibliographie de synthèse," the collection of 19 articles leads the editor to the conclusion that "le classicisme ne doit plus être considéré comme une limite, mais comme un moment à l'intérieur de l'histoire baroque," and that its trademark mixing of genres requires a pluridisciplinary criticism.

SWEETSER, MARIE-ODILE. "Avatars du couple, in l"Histoire littéraire, ses méthodes et ses résultats: Mélanges d'Histoire offerts à Madeleine Bertaut, ed. Luc Fraisse, Genève, Droz, 2001, pp. 315–25.

TERNAUX, JEAN-CLAUDE. Lucain et la littérature de l'âge baroque en France: citation, imitation et création. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2000. BCLF 629 (2001), 300–301:

Ternaux "propose une étude des procédés de citation et d'imitation de la Pharsale de Lucain dans la littérature française de l'âge baroque (dont il repousse les limites jusqu'en 1664!)." Ouvrage érudit; "lecture fine des textes."

THILL, ANDREE, ed. La Lyre jésuite. Anthologie de poèmes latins. Genève: Droz, 1999.

Review: M. Fumaroli in CRa (novembre-décembre 1999), 1372–1373: "Cette anthologie présente une partie de l'abondante production des plus célèbres poètes latins jésuites du XVIIe siècle: Hermann Hugo, Mathias Casimir Sarbiewski, Jacob Balde, Denis Petau, François Vavasseur, René Rapin auxquels a été joint un pape élève du Collège romain, Urbain VIII Barberini."

THIROUIN, LAURENT. L'aveuglement salutaire. Le réquisitoire contre le théâtre dans la France classique. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997.

Review: B. Guion in DSS 211 (2001), 344–345: The reviewer notes that the "grand mérite" and "originalité" of this book lie in its serious approach to the theories and arguments of the anti-theatre camp. Rather than dismissing them as anachronistic, Thirouin analyzes the historical, literary, religious, and anthropological underpinnings of the opposition to the theatre. The reviewer concludes with unabashed praise: "L'ouvrage, on le voit, est riche de perspectives stimulantes qui vont à contre-courant de nombre d'idées reçues sur la querelle du théâtre. Quand on la croit anachronique et fastidieuse, Laurent Thirouin s'emploie à ruiner ces deux préventions en montrant la complexité de l'argumentation mise en jeu. . .ainsi que l'actualité de plusieurs de ses enjeux pour notre 'société de spectacle.'"

TORTORELLO-ALLEN, JAMIE ELIZABETH. "The Scepter in Her Hand: Dangerous Queens in French Seventeenth-Century Tragedy." DAI 61/02 (2000), 631.

Examines how dramatists used the figure of the dangerous queen to explore issues of sovereignty, tyranny, and the transfer of power. Argues that although "the dangerous queen is ultimately defeated by a stronger man," one cannot conclude that plays "offer a straightforward condemnation of women who attempt to transcend the roles assigned to them," since the portrayals "contain esthetic elements that undermine the political exemplum." Treats plays by Corneille, Rotrou and Racine, as well as Mazarinades and treatises by Richelieu, Bossuet and others.

TRAUB, VALERIE with assistance fromTHERESA BRAUNSCHNEIDER. "Recent Studies in Homoeroticism." ELR 30 (2000), 284–329.

Comprehensive descriptive bibliography of recent studies ranging from "initiating studies" such as John Boswell's 1980 Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality and Adrienne Rich's theoretical "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" Signs 5 (1980), 631–60, to "General Studies" (Anthologies, Monographs and Reprints), "Gender-Specific Studies", "Studies of Individual Writers", and "State of Criticism." An appendix features a non-descriptive bibliography of "English Renaissance Texts and Histories", "Performance and Film Criticism", and, of particular interest to 17th c. scholars, "Studies in Related Fields" such as Katharine Park's "The Rediscovery of the Clitoris: French Medicine and the Tribade, 1570–1620" in The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe, ed. David Hillman and Carla Mazzio (1997).

TRZEBIATOWSKI-ELIOT, PEGGY DANIELLE. "Madame de Lafayette and Marguerite de Navarre: A particular attachment." DAI 62/3 (2001), 1048.

Examines the structural and narrative parallels between Lafayette's Princesse de Clèves and the Heptaméron's tenth novella. Through circumstantial and internal evidence (especially comparison of the protagonists and the narratives' endings), Trzebiatowski-Eliot argues that Lafayette uses Marguerite de Navarre as a maternal literary model.

Utopie 1 (16th and 17th centuries), EMF, vol. 4. Ed. David Lee Rubin. Charlottesville: Rockwood Press, 1998.

Review: P. Gauthier in DSS 211 (2001), 356–357: A collection of essays that has the merit of studying "works generally absent from specialized bibliographies." A. Stroup identifies the need to study utopia as a genre and a critical frame of mind. T.J. Reiss juxtaposes la Boétie's Discours sur la servitude volontaire and the works of Hobbes. Other articles consider works by Foigny, Veiras, Poussin, and d'Urfé. "Au total, une livraison stimulante, notamment par l'ouverture des œuvres étudiées," concludes the reviewer.

VAN DELFT, LOUIS, ed. Les Moralistes. Nouvelles tendances de la recherche. XVIIe siècle Janvier-Mars 1999 no. 202, 51e année.

Review: B. Piqué in S Fr 130 (2000), 154: Rich and welcome issue devoted to new tendencies of research on the moralists, coordinated by an eminent specialist. Themes and methodological approaches include: le monde, l'honnête homme, la conversation, socio-politics, linguistics, orality, dialogue, classical models, spirituality, medicine, science and emblematics.

VAN ELSLANDE, JEAN-PIERRE. L'Imaginaire pastoral du XVIIe siècle: 1600–1650. Paris: PUF, 1999.

Review: J. Mallinson in FS 55.3 (2001), 382–83: "This important study casts new light on the world of pastoral and its immense popularity in the early seventeenth century. Drawing not only on d'Urfé's canonical novel, but also on material in other forms (theatre, poetry, painting), Dr. van Elslande argues that pastoral does not just represent a haven of moral optimism in a France riven by religious conflict and debate, but that it serves too as a way of articulating and exploring...the dilemmas raised by Counter-Reformation spirituality and free thought. [...] At the centre of this world (and of van Elslande's argument) is the metaphor of the game" as "a defining feature of pastoral life."

VERSINI, LAURENT. Le Roman épistolaire. Littératures modernes. Deuxième édition corrigée (première version 1979). Paris: PUF, 1998.

Review: M.-O. Sweetser in FR 75, 1 (2001), 162–63: After several introductory chapters on the history of the epistolary genre, the author examines the role played by women and the novelist Richardson on European traditions of romans épistolaires. Includes analyses of Guilleragues, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Laclos, as well as many nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors. This study "constitue une somme en tous points remarquable, un modèle du genre."

VUILLERMOZ, MARC, ed. Dictionnaire analytique des œuvres théâtrales françaises du XVIIe siècle. Paris: H. Champion 1998.

Review: C. Triau in DSS 209 (2000), 739–740: For each of the 166 dictionary entries, five rubrics are analyzed: type of play ("les morceaux de formes diverses qui peuvent orner la pièce—stances, lettres en vers. . .—sont également précisés"), characters ("liste, schéma relationnel. . .et tableau de présence scène par scène de chacun des personnages"), structure of the plot, place, and time ("nombre de vers par scène, schéma des liaisons des scènes, durée totale de l'action et données temporelles"). Reviewer points out limitations of this "rigid" analytical framework yet identifies its value as a research tool particularly for quantitative studies.

Review: C. Berrone in S Fr 130 (2000), 149: Vuillermoz's team of scholars examines 166 plays, all those of Pierre Corneille, Molière, and Racine as well as certain plays of Reynard, Rotrou, Thomas Corneille, Du Ryer, Quinault, Scarron, Georges de Scudéry, Tristan and Chappuzeau. The notices concern themselves with genres intérieurs, characters, plot, the bienséances, time and place, etc. Highly useful to scholars and students alike, the volume complements and modernizes Lancaster's standard study of theatre.

Review: J. Clarke in FS 55.1 (2001), 86: An alphabetical listing of 166 seventeenth-century plays, each described by use of a grid with the following headings: "Type," "Personnages," "Structure de l'intrigue," "Lieux" and "Temps." The volume also includes various charts and indexes, as well as summaries of the plays. The reviewer finds the author's use of pictograms to illustrate relationships between characters "one of the most interesting aspects of this approach." The reviewer's main criticism concerns the author's criteria for selecting these 166 plays from the body of over one thousand dramatic works published during the seventeenth century.

VUILLERMOZ, MARC. Le Système des objets dans le théàtre français des années 1625–1650: Corneille, Mairet, Rotrou, Scudéry. Genève: Droz, 2000.

Review: BCLF 628 (2001), 101–102: Analyse détaillée de 83 pièces de théâtre du deuxième quart du XVIIe siècle: "l'objet théâtral est à comprendre au sens large de 'matériel manipulable', certains éléments du décor ou des costumes étant susceptibles de conquérir le statut d'objet dans un espace scénique déterminé où l'objet a une fonction de caractérisant ou de surdéterminant." Une bibliographie imposante mais qui "recèle des légertés . . . des oublis, et des erreurs incompréhensibles dans un travail de qualité..."

WAGNER, M-FR and P.-L. VAILLANCOURT, eds. De la grâce et des vertus. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1998.

Review: B. Chédozeau in IL 52.4 (2000), 44: A collection of articles covering the subjects of grace and virtue from the Middle Ages to the seventeenth century. An ambitious work on frequently overlooked issues, which could have done more to link the title categories, "qui en fait sont étudiées séparément."

WILKIN, REBECCA MAY. "Feminizing Imagination in France, 1563–1678." DAI 61/10 (2001), 4020.

Argues that literary, philosophical and medical texts of the early modern period demonstrate a changing conception of the nature and function of the imagination, specifically with respect to gender ideology. Shows that most male thinkers, concerned with issues such as witchcraft, epistemology and the influence of the novel, tended to disparage the imagination by branding in feminine, whereas Lafayette was able to appropriate the category to different ends. Other authors include Ronsard, Descartes, Pascal, Malebranche, Boileau, Huet and Sorel.

WOLFZETTEL, FRIEDRICH. Le Discours du voyageur. Le Récit de voyage en France, du Moyen Age au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: PUF, 1996.

Review: F. Lestringant in RHL 101 (2001), 364–365: Reviewer remarks the necessity of a panoramic work on travel literature before Romanticism, while noting the danger in amalgamating works of different genres on the pretext they contain travel: this "illusion téléologique" underlies much of Wolfzettel's perpective. While noting many inaccuracies in the portions of the work trating the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the reviewer is considerably more favorable to the treatment of the seventeenth ("quand la prétendue supériorité française fait reculer en définitive la compréhension des autres civilisations") and eighteenth centuries.

WORTH-STYLIANOU, VALÉRIE. Confidential Strategies: The Confident in French Tragic Drama. Genève: Droz, 1999.

Review: E. Minel in RHL 100 (2000), 1214: "très belle" analysis of the "rôle génétique du confident dans l'élaboration d'une structure d'action dramatique." The work, whose theoretical perspecitive is that of J. Scherer and G. Forestier, "montre que le Confident ne tend pas seulement à devenir un protagoniste 《 ouvert 》 des héros (et à s'abolir en tant que simple convention théâtrale), mais qu'il se stabilise en une figure intermédiare de traître: conseiller machiavélique, rival caché, mauvais conseil."

Review: H. Phillips in FS 55.1 (2001), 87–88: "This book...enters into the world of what at first appears mere functionality in order to reveal a rich seam of interest and variety" as the author "move[s] away from the perspective of character" to analyze the confident "in terms of strategy." This study's strengths include its "historical breadth" and "the number of examples used to illustrate the evolution of the confident...Many individual analyses stand out, but none more so than a discussion of the issues surrounding Mithridate, a good instance of the use or absence of the confident underlining important aspects of meaning."

WOSHINSKY, B. and R. HEYNDELS. L'autre au XVIIe siècle. Tübingen: Gunter Narr (Biblio 17), 1999.

Review: C. Rollain S Fr 132 (2000), 590–92. Detailed review of this volume — the acts of the fourth CIR 17 meeting (Miami, 1998) — gives an idea of the very rich and diverse presentations in section on "Voyages et cartographie", "Droit et Théâtre", "Les Moralistes", "Rhétoriques", "Genre et sexualité", "Philosophie," "Religion er mysticisme" and "Literature". The conference was further "assaisonée" by major lectures by C. Biet, Ph. -J. Salazar and Ph. Sellier. B. Woshinsky and R. Heyndels are to be congratulated for the excellence of both conference and acts.

WYGANT, AMY, ed. New Directions in Emblem Studies. Glasgow, Glasgow Emblem Studies, 1999.

Review: A. Saunders in BHR 63.1 (2001), 139–40: Innovative collection of essays: ". . .in its resolutely theoretical and cross-disciplinary approach it does make a significant contribution to the field of emblem studies, opening up new directions, as its title suggests." See L. Hinds article, "From emblem to portrait: early modern notions of selfhood in novels by Honoré d'Urfé and Charles Sorel."

ZIMMERMANN, MARGARETE, and ROSWITHE BÖHM, eds. Französische Frauen der Frühen Neuzeit (Dichterinnen, Malerinnen, Mäzeninnen). Darmstadt: Wuissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1999.

Review: J.-F. Kosta in RHL 100 (2000), 1220: A group of "monographies en miniature" of women of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who had an impact on the domains of literature, history, painting, and patronage. Not a simple catalog, the book comprises entries that attempt to answer questions about the conditions that made it possible for women to exercise such a cultural role.

Review: P. Fuchs in HZ 271 (2000), 740–42: Wide-ranging volume whose essays treat French women of the early modern era. Numerous entries on the 17th C., from rulers to writers. Fuchs would have appreciated more of a role for Huguenot women and a deeper treatment of the others.

ZOBERMAN, PIERRE. Les Cérémonies de la parole: l'éloquence d'apparat en France dans le dernier quart du XVIIe siècle. Paris: Champion, 1998.

Review: P. Shoemaker in CdDS 8.1, 204–207. Though the late seventeenth century has generally been viewed as a bleak time for public eloquence (due in part to the rise of print and the declining prestige of print), this study shows how public oratory took on a new social context and function. "[E]xamines the ritual function of eloquence in five distinct social milieux: the Académie Française, the provincial academies, the parlement de Paris (and related institutions in the capital), provincial parlements, and municipal institutions." Reviewer feels that the work, though a meticulous and clear "documentary achievement," would benefit from a more solid theoretical apparatus concerning ceremony and ritual, and broader comparisons (with other types—notably sacred—of oratory).

Review: Ph.-J. Salazar in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 661–662. ". . .un ouvrage à ranger dans sa bibliothèque et à compulser souvent."