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2001 Number 49
MOREAU, DENIS,trans. Antoine Arnaud. Textes Philosophiques. Paris: PUF (collection "Epiméthée), 2001.
Review: J. Lacoste in QL 811 (du 1er au 15 juillet 2001), 20–22: "Défenseur intransigeant de la conception augustinienne de la grâce efficace, qui seule peut sauver et vient de Dieu seul—il est l'auteur d'un ouvrage sur De la nécessité de la foi en Jésus-Christ pour être sauvé—Arnaud se plaît également à s'engager dans les disputes philosophiques de son époque, qui sont étroitement liées à ces problématiques religieuses. Ce qui le conduit à discuter par lettres et par opuscules avec Malebranche, Leibniz et surtout Descartes, aux Méditations duquel il a adressé vers 1640 des 'Objections'—les Quatrièmes—que leur destinataire jugea être 'les meilleures de toutes.'" As for the edition, the reviewer qualifies Moreau as "le savant éditeur de ces textes."
GIACHINO, LUCA, PAOLA CIFARELLI, et ANTONELLA AMATUZZI, éds. La Correspondance d'Albert Bailly. Vol. I, Années 1643–48; Vol. II, Années 1649–50; Vol. III, Année 1651. Aosta: Valdôtaine, 1999.
Review: P. Rickard in FS 55.2 (2001), 236–38: During the period covered by this "extremely if not excessively thorough" edition, the Savoyard Albert Bailly served as Superior of St-Eloi in Paris, and as confidential secretary to "Madame Royale," the dowager Duchess of Savoy, Marie-Christine de France, daughter of Henri IV. "The subject matter [of the correspondence] itself, a running commentary on contemporary events and prominent personalities, is fascinating. The reader...can [also] appreciate... the elegance of the style, the lively presentation, the skilful analysis of events and their background, the perceptive diagnosis of France's misfortunes and, a far from negligible ingredient, the sheer sparkle and wit." The editors "have shown clearly that Bailly's name deserves to be added to the short list of such other great correspondents of the age: Voiture, Guez de Balzac, Pascal and Mme de Sévigné."
MONTOYA, ALICIA C. "Caesar the Father in Marie-Anne Barbier's La Mort de César (1709)," in K.A.E. Enenkel, J.L. de Jong et J. de Landtheer, eds., Recreating Ancient History: Episodes from the Greek and Roman Past in the Arts and Literatures of the Early Modern Period (Intersections 1), Leiden, Brill, 2001, pp. 319–337.
ABEL, O. et P.-F. MOREAU, eds. Pierre Bayle: la foi dans le doute. Genève: Labor et Fides, 1995.
Review: H. Savon in RBPH 77.5 (1999), 1216–1217: "Ce volume renferme six communications présentées lors de la 'journée Bayle' qui eut lieu à l'Ecole Normale Supérieure de Fontenay le 20 mai 1994. Le titre montre déjà le chemin parcouru depuis l'époque où l'on regardait les affirmations 'fidéistes' de Bayle comme des formules prudentes dissimulant mal un septicisme [sic] presque radical."
LABROUSSE, ELIZABETH et al., eds. Correspondance de Pierre Bayle. Vol. I: 1662–1674. Lettres 1–65. Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1999.
Review: J. Charnley in MLR 96. 2 (2001), 500–501: "Impeccably produced" research tool "seeks to correct the errors, deliberate or otherwise, that crept into earlier editions, and aims, with the eventual publication of almost 2000 letters several years from now, to put at our disposal a more accurate vision of Bayle's letter-writing than was previously possible."
Review: The first of a series of volumes promised by the team of specialists who are collecting some 2000, often as yet unedited, lettres from numerous libraries and collections. The letters and editors' important notes permit us insight into Bayle's early life, difficult economic situation, education, and family relationships.
LENNON, THOMAS M. Reading Bayle. Toronto: U of Toronto, 1999.
Review: J. C. Morrison in UTQ 70.1 (winter 2001/2002), 373–375: Lennon's main purpose is "to indicate 'how anyone might read Bayle,' to offer 'a reading of Bayle,' and to record 'thoughts upon reading Bayle.'" His second chapter is devoted to showing why Bayle is so hard to understand. Lennon then applies the concept of "polyphonic thinking" modeled on Bakhtin's work on Dostoevsky. Reviewer states that this approach throws a new light on the themes of authority, toleration, idolatry, and Providence in Bayle's works and "helps the reader to penetrate, even if not completely reveal, the meaning of this complex and elusive thinker. The book is a major contribution to Bayle scholarship: it is thoroughly researched, philosophically subtle and insightful, stylishly written, and a pleasure to read."
Review: Joy Charnley in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 626–627: ". . .a comprehensive, generally reliable introduction to this fascinating writer."
MORI, GIANLUCA. Bayle philosophe. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999.
Review: J. Lagrée in DSS 211 (2001), 368–369: This collection of essays, some previously published, focuses on three main topics: the interpretation of Bayle's philosophy, the relationship between Bayle's thought and that of Malebranche and Spinoza; and principally, Bayle's religious affiliations and "la question de la tolérance." Mori diverges from the standard latter-day view of Bayle as a "protestant déchiré, sceptique fidéiste" and argues for Bayle as "un vrai philosophe, cohérent, original, dont les investigations et les positions philosophiques. . .conduisent inéluctablement à un athéisme de rigueur, vertueux et socialement inoffensif."
ROSENBERG, PIERRE. "Did Jacques de Bellange go to Italy? Notes on the Exhibition in Rennes." Burlington 1183 (2001), 631–634.
Critiques an exhibition of the works of Jacques de Bellange, considered one of the great artists of his time, particularly in his engravings. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue by Jacques Thuillier, which is, according to Rosenberg, "the guarantee of exceptional quality" for its "seriousness, depth of scholarship and clarity. . ."
AULOTTE, ROBERT, ed. Jean Benech de Cantenac, Les Marguerites. Edition critique parRobert Aulotte. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1999.
Review: N. Négroni in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001), 179: ". . .le critique accorde une place importante aux remarques génériques concernant la pastorale, en y ajoutant des éléments iconographiques."
PIVA, FRANCO, ed. Oeuvres. Vol. 2. Fasano and Paris: Schena and Didier Erudition, 1999.
Review: N. Ekstein in FR 74.3 (2001), 572–573: The second and final volume of Piva's "excellent" edition of Bernard's complete works. Treating Bernard's theater and poetry (volume 1 encompasses her prose fiction), Piva reveals this little known author's importance: a highly decorated dramatist and poet, Bernard wrote poems in a wide variety of genres — occasional verse, poésie galante, bouts-rimés, religious poetry, fables in verse, and royal encomia — and was one of very few women in the period to have written tragedies and to have seen them succeed on the stage. Piva provides a "balanced and informative" introduction to Bernard's life and work, "clear, illuminating, and substantial introductions" to the literary moment in which Bernard wrote, sources, production history, and analysis for the tragedies, an appendix of primary documents, "a glossary of terms, a comprehensive bibliography, and an index of names." An "important addition to any scholarly library."
Review: B. Papa Sogli in S Fr 132 (2000) 595–96: Concluding volume of Piva's critical edition of Bernard's work (see his 1993 edition of her Romans et nouvelles and the 1996 edition of Le Commerce galant. Reviewer is highly appreciative of Piva's critical sensitivity, the ample critical and philological apparatus of the volume, two long introductions treating theatre and poetry, abundant notes and an exhaustive bibliography.
CORUM, ROBERT T. Reading Boileau: an Integrative Study of the Early "Satires". West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1998.
Review: J. Peters in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 609–610: ". . .the many strengths of this important book lie precisely in the discovery that Boileau's early satires cohere in the matter of their self-referring language."
BUCHER, GÉRARD. "Les Oraisons funèbres de Bossuet : Scénographie du langage et de la mort à l'âge classique." EFr 37.1 (2001), 23–32.
Examines "la scénographie du deuil" by establishing links between language and death, and by placing these in the context of the tensions between faith and science that existed in French classicism.
CAGNAT-DEBOEUF, CONSTANCE. Bossuet. Sermons. Le Carême du Louvre. Ed. établie et annotée parConstance Cagnat-Debœuf. Paris: Gallimard (Folio-Classique), 2001.
Review: E. Pieiller in QL 812 (du 16 au 31 juillet 2001), 29: A new edition of Bossuet's Lenten sermons of 1662. "Bossuet a trente-cinq ans, lorsqu'il prononce devant le Roi et la Cour ces Sermons de Carême à la chapelle du Louvre. (...) Les Sermons de Carême sont un événement mondain, et ceux qu'écoute le Roi sont particulièrement 'glorieux' et... risqués. Bossuet ne manque certes pas d'audace, et le Roi, qui n'aime guère les reproches, se dispensera des derniers Sermons. Aujourd'hui encore, ce courage dans l'accusation voilée est parfaitement perceptible, même si ce qui nous touche plus particulièrement, c'est la rhétorique de l'effroi, c'est la mise en scène de 'l'homme déchu', c'est la vigueur d'une culpabilisation systématique, où l'orateur lui-même se met en cause, et en jeu, et en crise."
FIORINO, FULVIA, éd. Dominique Bouhours: Doutes sur la langue françoise proposez à Messieurs de l'Académie Françoise par un gentilhomme de province (1674). Introduction parGiovanni Dotoli. Fasano: Schena-Didier Erudition, 1998.
Review: W. Ayres-Bennett in FS 55.3 (2001), 387–88: "In this work Bouhours adopts the persona of a Bas-Breton who knows his Vaugelas but has found in his reading usages which he finds problematic and about which he wishes to consult the French Academy. While the Introduction provides a good summary of Bouhours's views on good usage and of his anti-Jansenist stance...it is less successful in contextualizing the work of Bouhours." The reviewer finds the notes "useful" and deems the list of editions of Bouhours's works and the indexes "valuable tools for future research."
Review: P. Rickard in MLR 96.1 (2001), 181–182: Welcome critical edition of Bouhours's Doutes (1674) reproduces "the text of the princeps edition (Paris, chez Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy, 1674)," but incorporates "corrections made by the author in the second edition (1675)." Bouhours's "doubts" are presented under five headings: "vocabulary, phrases and collocations, grammatical constructions, clarity, and stylistic consistency." Excellent five-part bibliography prepared by Fiorino: "Bouhours's complete works, books and articles about him and his works, studies relevant to the French language viewed historically, and authors and titles referred to both in Bouhours's text and in Dotoli's introduction."
THUILLIER, JACQUES,dir.,avec la collab. deC. Maisant et M. Hilaire. Sébastien Bourdon (1616–1671): catalogue critique et chronologique de l'oeuvre complet. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2000.
Review: BCLF 627 (2000), 2603–04: ". . . le premier catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre du peintre, mais également, il faut le noter, du dessinateur et du graveur, est le fruit d'une érudition parfaitement maîtrisée. Il constitue une somme incomparable du point de vue de la précision historiographqiue, conduisant de la biographie à la bibliographie, en passant par des considérations sur les rôles de Montpellier et de l'Espagne dans la conception et la postérité de cette oeuvre."
WIDAUER, H. "Sébastien Bourdon at the Musée Fabre (Montpellier) and the Musée des Beaux-Arts (Strasbourg)." Burlington 1173 (2000), 795–797:
Organized by Jacques Thuillier, a leading expert on Bourdon, and Michel Hilaire, with accompanying book by Thuillier (Sébastien Bourdon, 1616–1671. Catalogue critique et chronologique de l'œuvre complète, Paris 2000). "[Thuillier's] book goes well beyond the exhibition in its aim to be both monograph and catalogue raisonné, and will provide a sound basis for future research, while neither effort nor expense was spared to assemble major works for the exhibition from Berlin, Budapest, Munich, Madrid, New York, Paris, and Washington. These were complemented by lesser-known paintings and drawings from French provincial museums."
ROUGET, FRANÇOIS et COLETTE H. WINN, eds. Louise Boursier. Récit véritable de la naissance de messeigneurs et dames les enfants de France. Fidelle relation de l'accouchement, maladie et ouverture du corps de feu Madame. Rapport de l'ouverture du corps de feu Madame. Reonstrance à Madame Bourcier, touchant son apologie. Instruction à ma fille et autres textes. Droz, 2000.
ROBIC-DE BAECQUE, SYLVIE. Le salut par l'excès. Paris: Champion, 1999.
Review: C. Rolla in S Fr 132 (2000), 587: Interesting volume examines Jean-Pierre Camus' "histoires dévotes", published between 1620–1644. Through these stories Camus prolongs his role as pastor and spiritual director. Robic- De Baecque demonstrates Camus' techniques, cultural qualities and so forth. Bibliography and useful indices.
VERNET, MAX. Jean-Pierre Camus: Théorie de la contre-littérature. Paris-Sainte-Foy (Québec): Nizet-Les Editions Le Griffon d'Argile, 1994.
Review: A. Wallis in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 659–660: "Cette étude de Camus constitue un beau livre à tous les points de vue."
DELOFFRE, FREDERIC et FRANCOIS MOUREAU, éds. Robert Challe. Difficultés sur la religion proposées au père Malebranche. Genève: Droz, 2000.
Review: BCLF 626 (2000), 2438–39: Challe dresse cette lettre de six cent soixante pages à Malebranche après avoir lu sa Recherche de la Vérité. Le texte se base sur le manuscrit de la Staatsbibliothek de Munich. "Avec ce cinquième volume s'achève la publication des oeuvres complètes de Robert Challe..."
POPIN, JACQUES and FREDERIC DELOFFRE, eds. Robert Challes. Journal du Voyage des Indes Orientales. Relation de ce qui est arrivé dans le royaume de Siam en 1688. Geneva : Droz, "Textes littéraires français," 1998.
Review : J.-M. Moura in RLC 297.1 (janvier-mars 2001), 169–170 : "Voici une belle édition de l'ouvrage d'un auteur dont on tend de plus en plus à reconnaître les mérites. Selon l'expression de F. Deloffre, la biographie de Robert Challes est "une biographie éclatée," mais ce journal, à mi-chemin du journal de bord et du journal intime, tenu pendant les dix-neufs mois de son voyage aux Indes (1690–1691), l'enrichit singulièrement."
BERTRAND, ANNE. "Art and Politics in Counter-Reformation Paris: The Case of Philippe de Champaigne and his Patrons(1621–1674)." DAI 61/12 (2001), 4585.
Contesting typical readings of Champaigne's oeuvre as Jansenist, author shows how the painter's patronage reveals Counter-Reformation political and religious agendas; Champaigne's "work fulfilled the pictorial needs and requirements of this movement in France."
KOSMAN, JOSHUA. "Beauty of Charpentier Illuminated." Performance review, San Francisco Chronicle, December 3, 2001, D2.
Details Les Arts Florissants' performance of Charpentier's Christmas music, led by William Christie. Kosman notes the "luminous beauty of the composer's sacred music" made manifest during this particular performance.
BAKER, SUSAN READ. "Sounds of Silence: Faltering Speech in Racine's Bérénice and Corneille's Tite et Bérénice." 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), 223–232.
Article examines the relationship between speech and silence in Corneille's and Racine's competing works as a fundamentally aesthetic problem which each solved in a unique way, Corneille through the "sterilizing dialectic" between love and self-love, and Racine in the more elegant form of tragic misunderstandings in simple love triangles.
CARLIN, CLAIRE L. Women Reading Corneille: Feminist Psychocriticisms of Le Cid. New York: Peter Lang, 2000.
Review: V. Desnain in FS 55.3 (2001), 385: In this study, Carlin applies the theories of Jessica Benjamin as well as those of Irigaray, Gilligan, Mitchell and Kristeva to her analysis of various aspects of Le Cid: these include the idea of gloire, the play's "open-ended denouement," the querelle du Cid, and, perhaps most important, Corneille's innovative characterization of Chimène. The reviewer concludes, "by concentrating on the problem of identity formation for women (and, to a large extent, men) in patriarchal society, Carlin shows both the relevance of Corneille to modern audiences and that of feminist psychocriticisms to classical studies."
CERASI, CLAIRE. Pierre Corneille à l'image et semblance de François de Sales: la générosité, fille de la foi. Paris: Beauchesne, 2000.
Review: BCLF 631 (2001), 709: Malgré l'originalité de cette lecture de Corneille fondée sur l'influence de François de Sales, il s'agit d'"un travail besogneux qui se fonde sur une bibliographie sommaire et datée, qui se livre à des simplifications très scolaires au sujet d'un univers spirituel d'une très grande complexité."
EKSTEIN, NINA. "Le change in Corneille and Racine." 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), 209–221.
Article examines the figure of le change in Racine, that is, the abandonment of the object of one's affections for a new lover. Offering numerous comparisons to Corneille, Ekstein conceives of change as fundamental to the œuvre of both dramatists, despite its traditional association with the heroic or the tragic, albeit with very different motivations in each playwright.
ELMARSAFY, ZIAD . "Love and Anarchy in 1666: The Case of Corneille's Agésilas." CdDS 8.1, 29–44.
Reads Agésilas as a critique of the eroticization of politics, and as a representation of "the negative effects of the commodification of the crown and its bearer." Maintains that the play can be read a subversive tragédie à clef having Louis XIV as its subtext
FORESTIER, GEORGES. Corneille: le sens d'une dramaturgie. Paris: Sedes, 1998.
Review: H. Allentuch in FR 74.2 (2000), 365–367: In this "brilliant and deliciously hubristic" continuation of his Essai de génétique théâtrale: Corneille à l'oeuvre (1996), Forestier argues that "politics, ethics, psychology, and rhetoric were to Corneille mere ballast with which to anchor a dramatic structure or embellishments [broderie] to adorn the logic of a plot." Suggesting that form generates meaning, that previous Cornelian interpreters may be simply dismissed, Forestier wants to show that Corneille's concerns were purely esthetic and dramatic. Forestier's analysis may be unnecessarily reductive, but it makes a "landmark contribution to the study of French classical playmaking."
FRASER AMONOO, REGINALD. La Rome de Corneille: mythes et réalités. Paris: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1997.
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 601–602: "L'auteur présente donc à travers ces diverses étapes une Rome et des Romains offrant toute une gamme de caractéristiques très variées. Il illustre ainsi la richesse de la création cornélienne. . ."
GOSSIP, CHRISTOPHER J. Corneille: "Cinna". London: Grant & Cutler, 1998.
Review: J.-P. van Elslande in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 619–620: "A tous ceux qui se proposent d'enseigner Cinna de Corneille, aux étudiants qui veulent se familiariser avec ce texte, aux honnêtes gens qui s'intéressent au théâtre classique, le livre de C.J. Gossip sera, à n'en point douter, d'une grande utilité."
Review: C. Carlin in DSS 209 (2000), 738–739: Six chapters discuss a wide range of topics that enhance our understanding of the play: its initial performance and success, its literary context, characterization, and its relationship to Corneille's other tragedies. Also included is a discussion of tragic theory as defined by Corneille and d'Aubignac. Destined for English-speaking students, the text can be read profitably by specialists as well. The reviewer also praises the extensive and up-to-date bibliography.
Review: C. Bernazzoli in S Fr 130 (2000), 153: Practical and universally useful critical guide by expert of French classical tragedy. References are to the Couton edition. Chapters treat structure, rhythm, mise en scène, characters, the concept of tragedy and sources. Ample bibliography.
GREGORIO, LAURENCE. Their Mean Task: Women and the Classical Ideal in Corneille's Theater. PFSCL 26, no. 51 (1999), 371–387.
Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 130 (2000), 153: Focus is on "the classical quest of moderation" (g. 372) for Corneille's women in this article developed "con molta abilità et finezza".
GREWE, ASTRID. Vertu im Sprachgebrauch Corneilles und seiner Zeit. Heidelberg: Winter, 1999.
Review: C. Rolla in S Fr 130 (2000), 152–53: Judged an interesting study of the theme of virtue in Corneille's theatre, Grewe's volume is valuable for its linguistic and political perspectives. Virtue is analyzed in relation to generosity, gloire, humanité. Underscores affinities with Racine, Lafayette and Molière. Rich bibliography and thematic concordance.
KERR, CYNTHIA B. Corneille à l'affiche. Vingt ans de créations théâtrales, 1980–2000. Biblio 17, 123 (2000).
Review: "Ce que nous avons voulu faire, c'est donner un aperçu de la remarquable variété de spectacles signés par les praticiens du théâtre qui connaissent le mieux Corneille. . .Ce livre donne la parole aux professionnels de la scène, leur permettant, dans une série d'entretiens, d'expliquer leurs méthodes de travail ainsi que leur lecture des pièces. Rassemblant une dizaine d'articles publiés dans différentes revues aux Etats-Unis et en Europe, il offre une analyse détaillée de huit spectacles produits à Paris depuis 1980."
LOUVAT, BENEDICTE & MARK ESCOLA. Corneille. Trois discours sur le poème dramatique. Paris: Flammarion, 1999.
Review: H. Baby in DSS 211 (2001), 347–348: This paperback edition makes readily available a major œuvre of classical theatre. It is richly embellished with essays that contextualize and elaborate Corneille's dramatic esthetic and principles. It contains as well extensive secondary materials by Chapelain, Scudéry, d'Aubignac, among others, so readers can grasp the significance of the trois discours within the context of the debates about dramatic theory. A glossary, bibliography, and three indexes complete the volume which receives high praise from the reviewer: "tous les publics, du plus ignorant spectateur au plus averti spécialiste. . .sauront trouver véritable matière à mieux penser et regarder le théâtre classique."
LYONS, JOHN D. "Race and Merit: The Dilemma of Corneille's 'Carlos'." FLS 26 (1999), 15–25.
Examines Don Sanche d'Aragon as a meditation on the problematic links between individual and family origin, merit and race. Partially taking issue with Doubrovski's reading of the play, according to which the Corneille demonstrates the triumph of race over merit, Lyons maintains that "the performance of princely valor allows the hero to merit his race, and allows his race to reclaim the merit that has been performed."
MINEL, EMMANUEL. Stratégies de séduction dans le théâtre cornélien: dynamisation de l'action et caractérisation problématique du héros. Paris: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1998.
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 601–602. ". . .l'auteur procède à une analyse très détaillée du corpus, mettant en valeur les variations et combinaisons opérées par le dramaturge."
RIGGS, LARRY W. "The Sovereign Eye and the Empty Throne: Chimène Silent, Junie Invisible." 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), 233–245.
Article applies several critical or theoretical models to the treatment of the nation-state and of absolutism in Le Cid and Britannicus. Riggs demonstrates how both plays essentially undermine absolutism's "theater of power" by staging multiple, contradictory voices, thereby denying the possibility of a single utopian political model.
SERROY, JEAN, ed. Pierre Corneille. Le Menteur. La Suite du Menteur. Paris: Gallimard, 2000.
Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 132 (2000), 587–88: Important preface underscoring key characteristics of Corneille's theatre, a galant tome derived from the pastoral, and the influence of the Spanish theatre. Pertinent analysis on Corneille's verbal invention. Rizza highly recommends the dossier focusing on chronology and genesis of the two works, as well as an extremely rich critical apparatus regarding history and linguistics in particular.
WAGNER, MARIE-FRANCE (éd.) Pierre Corneille, La Conquête de la Toison d'or. Edition critique parMarie-France Wagner. Paris: Champion, 1998
Review: M. R. Margitic in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 660–661: "It should be welcomed and studied by anyone seriously interested, not just in the great playwright's half a dozen chefs-d'oeuvre, but in tout Corneille."
Review: B. Louvat in DSS 209 (2000), 737–738: This new edition incorporates the spelling and punctuation of the 1661 edition; it contextualizes the play's creation and highlights its political and theatrical currency. The reviewer points out, however, that this critical edition devotes insufficient attention to situating this play within the larger scheme of la tragédie à machines in Corneille's œuvre.
Review: A. Howe in FS 54.4 (2000), 505–6: "Marie-France Wagner's introduction provides a useful study of the play's genesis, sources and themes, of its interrelated use of machinery and rhetoric, and of its accompanying prologue, an allegorical and almost equally spectacular celebration of peace with Spain and the King's marriage." Among the useful features of this edition of "one of [Corneille's] most neglected works" is its documentation of stage sets and machine effects used in seventeenth-century productions of the play.
ZAISER, RAINER. "Struktur und Bedeutung des Metatheaters in Pierre Corneille's Illusion comique " [Structure and Meaning of Pierre Corneille's Metatheater in Pierre Corneille's Illusion comique], RJ 50 (1999), 110–26.
NIDERST, ALAIN, éd. Thomas Corneille. Le Festin de Pierre. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2000.
Review: BCLF 631 (2001), 753–54: Rédition qui "permet de reconsidérer la pérennité d'un mythe littéraire, celui de Don Juan, illustré en France au XVIIe siècle par les versions de Dorimond (1658), de Villiers (1661), de Molière (1665), et enfin de Thomas Corneille."
PETEY-GIRARD, BRUNO. "De l'oraison mentale au sermon intérieur: la petite rhétorique méditative du révérend-père Coton." PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001), 45–60.
Analysis of the rhetoric of meditation in Coton's Sermons sur les principales et plus difficiles matières de la foy.
ALCOVER, MADELEINE, éd. Cyrano de Bergerac: Œuvres complètes, I. L'Autre Monde; ou, les états et empires de la lune. Les Etats et empires du soleil. Fragment de physique. Paris: Champion, 2000.
Review: R. Parish in FS 55.3 (2001), 384: "The editorial apparatus which accompanies Cyrano's eccentric and often allusive text bears witness to Alcover's massive erudition; it is meticulous and exhaustive...and covers lexical, syntactical, scientific, philosophical and biographical details, with a particularly welcome acknowledgement of the parallels with Sorel, and the pre-echoes of Diderot." The reviewer also points to "major new evidence incorporated in the section on biography, with an emphasis throughout on Cyrano's homosexuality" as a key to understanding his work.
PETRIS, LORIS. "Figures, fonctions et sens de l'inversion dans Les Estats et Empires de la Lune de Cyrano de Bergerac. DSS 211 (2001), 269–283.
Far from creating an utopian space, inversion refuses "le prêt-à-penser," permits a critical appraisal of the present, and fosters "l'émergence d'un idéal de liberté d'une pensée que se cherche constamment. . .."
VILLENEUVE, JOANNE. "Résistance narrative et utopies: L'Art de la "gouverne" au XVIIe siècle." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 587–598.
Study of the links between narrativity and utopia in Campanella's Civitas Solis and Cyrano's L'Autre Monde.
BANDERIER, GILLES. "Agrippa d'Aubigné et la Valteline: un texte inédit." PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 141–151.
Presentation of an unpublished text by d'Aubigné: Raisonnement d'estat sur la guerre de la Valteline.
BANDERIER, GILLES. "A la France délivrée d'Agrippa d'Aubigné: Quelques variarantes inédites." BHR 62.3 (2000), 647–651.
Etude de quelques variantes du texte A la France délivrée apparu en appendice aux Tragiques dès l'édition originale de 1616.
LAZARD, MADELEINE. Agrippa d'Aubigné. Paris: Fayard, 1998.
Review: J. Delumeau in CRa (janvier-mars 1999), 68–69: "Riche et pénétrante biographie" qui "constitue une somme et contient tout ce que l'on peut savoir sur l'auteur des Tragiques..."
Review: J.-C. Margolin in RBPH 77.3 (1999), 799–801: "Ce gros livre, réparti en 14 chapitres, où se mêlent sans effort le récit des faits historiques, l'analyse des situations personnelles, la critique littéraire, se lit comme un roman: pour une destinée aussi romanesque que celle d'Agrippa d'Aubigné, l'auteur a su adopter le ton qui convenait à un roman . Le spécialiste n'en trouvera pas moins une bibliographie très riche et un index fort utile."
POT, OLIVIER, ed. Poétiques d'Aubigné. Genève: Droz, 1999.
Review: P. Sharratt in MLR 96.2 (2001), 494–495: "This collection of essays contains the Acta of a conference on Aubigné (now, apparently the preferred name) held in Geneva in May 1996. The essays are usefully grouped under four headings, 'Dire la violence', 'Le texte et l'image', 'De la stylistique à la poétique' and 'Une poétique de la vérité'."
Review: G. Banderier in BHR 62.2 (2000), 488–492: Actes du colloque organisé à Genève en mai 1996 qui "sont d'une haute tenue et feront date" malgré les réserves de Banderier que "plusieurs études donnent une impression de complication inutile." Le volume est divisé on quatre sections: "Dire la violence," "Le texte et l'image: poétiques du tableau," "De la stylistique à la poétique," et "Une poétique de la vérité."
Review: S. Junod in MLN 116.4 (2001), 925–30: "Au total, ce premier colloque international consacré à d'Aubigné a confirmé l'essoufflement du recours au biblicisme strict comme clé de lecture de l'oeuvre du poète protestant."
Review: OeC XXVI.1 (2001), 170–72: Elégant volume de quinze contributions qui se concentrent sur le texte des Tragiques.
THIERRY, ANDRE, éd. Agrippa d'Aubigné. Histoire universelle. T. X, 1620–1622. Genève: Droz, 1999.
Review: BCLF 626 (2000), 2439–40: "Ce dernier volume de l'Histoire universelle qui couvre les années de campagne du règne de Louis XIII, décidé à ramener les protestants à plus de respect de l'édit de Nantes, manifestement transgressé par les assemblées illégales des protestants à La Rochelle en 1620, est composé de fragments inachevés d'une sorte de brouillon."
THIERRY, ANDRE, éd. Agrippa d'Aubigné. Histoire universelle. Index général des dix tomes. Genève: Droz, 2000.
Review: BCLF 631 (2001), 757–58: Cet index "rendra de grands services à tous les chercheurs, ainsi qu'aux étudiants qui pourront gagner un temps précieux à le consulter. Il convient de préciser que cet index, en sus des noms, comporte aussi, en italique, des thèmes et des titres d'ouvrages."
DUFOUR, ALAIN, éd. René de Lucinge. Oeuvres. T. II: Les Occurences de la Paix de Lyon (1601). Genève: Droz, 2000.
Review: BCLF 628 (2001), 142: Relations diplomatiques laissées par le principal négociateur du traité qui imposa la paix après les conquêtes des régions francophones savoisiennes par Henri IV.
DE LA FORGE, LOUIS. L'Homme de René Descartes. Paris: Fayard, 1999.
Review: R. Texier in DSS 211 (2001), 365–366: This text includes two treatises and a commentary: L'Homme, La Formation du fœtus and Remarques de Louis de La Forge on L'Homme. All are concerned with l'homme-machine and focus on the body.
FAYE, EMMANUEL. "Dieu trompeur, mauvais génie et origine de l'erreur selon Descartes et Suarez." RPFE 1140 (2001), 61–72.
Responds to Emanuela Scribano as to whether and to what degree Descartes borrowed from Suarez ideas concerning the nature of God and the origin of error. Concludes that Descartes knew of Suarez but remains original in that of the two, only Descartes sought "un fondement de la science."
RAGLAND, CLYDE PRESCOTT, JR. "Descartes' conception of freedom." DAI 62/03 (2001), 1056.
Examines the problem how Descartes reconciles free will and Divine Providence. Maintains that inconsistencies arise because "God is able to create essences with properties (for eternal truths, necessity; for human choices, contingency and freedom) that would seem to be ruled out by their created status."
SOWAAL, ALICE. "Cutting It Up, Cartesian Style: Individuation and Motion in Descartes's Ontology of Body." DAI 62/03 (2001), 1058.
Argues that the contention (supported by Kenny, Prendergast, and Garber, and others) regarding Descartes's circular definition of motion and body is artificial. "In contrast to interpretations of Descartes as committed to many individual extended substances, I argue that Descartes is committed to only one individual extended substance—the whole extended universe."
REYNOLDS-CORNELL, REGINE. Fiction and Reality in the Mémoires of the Notorious Anne-Marguerite Petit du Noyer. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1999.
Review: R. Parish in FS 55.1 (2001), 91–92: This study treats the Mémoires of Anne-Marguerite Petit du Noyer, an early journalist (and, incidentally, a friend of the young Voltaire) responsible for "a scandalous news sheet," La Quintessence des nouvelles. The brief review states that the book contains "virtually no literary analysis, and far too much paraphrase."
BABY, HELENE. "Pierre Du Ryer et la tragi-comédie. 1628–1638: le tournant d'un genre?" Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 101–120.
Study of Du Ryer's 11 tragi-comedies. The author concludes that it is only because Du Ryer wrote at the same time splendid tragedies that his tragi-comedies could remain pure of "toute tentation tragique."
BLOCKER, DEBORAH AND RIBARD, DINAH. "Du Ryer ou l'écriture indirecte." Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 67–97.
Why Du Ryer went from the writing of theater to translation. The authors study mainly Du Ryer's affinity for didactic speech, "les leçons de la philosophie et de l' histoire" in order to show how he turns the "langue commune" of 17th Century writers into a language if not of dissidence, at least of distance.
BOUSQUET, PHILIPPE. "Pierre Du Ryer dramaturge: une stratégie de l'oubli?" Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 29–65.
Bousquet seeks to explain why an author as succesful as Du Ryer in his time was so quickly forgotten. His analysis follows three main tracks: esthetic considerations, social and political thought, and the "stratégie d'écrivain elle-même."
CHAOUCHE, SABINE. "Alcionée: une tragédie du pathétique tendre?" Littératures Classiques, 42 (2001), 221–244.
Study of Du Ryer's tragedy as "tragédie du pathétique tendre," a specific form which announces the coming of the "tragédie galante."
CHAUVEAU, JEAN-PIERRE. "Deux générations de poètes: Isaac Du Ryer, père de Pierre." Littératures Classiques, 42 (2001), 13–28.
The author searches in Isaac Du Ryer's work for reflections of his time, as well as for its "singularité. . .elle-même déjà représentative d'un temps singulier."
CONESA, GABRIEL. "Comique et enjouement dans Les Vendanges de Suresnes." Littératures Classiques, 42 (2001), 137–144.
Study of Du Ryer's comedy from its poetic aspects, as they echo the "changements profonds de la civilisation mondaine de ce premier XVIIe siècle."
DUROUX, ALICE. "Lucrèce, ou le renouveau de la tragédie. Éléments pour une dramaturgie de la tragédie des années 1630–1640." Littératures Classiques, 42 (2001), 167–179.
Study of Du Ryer's first tragedy, dating from 1636, compared to Chevreau's Lucrèce romaine, in order to put into perspective its esthetic specificity.
ESCOLA, MARC. "Simplicité d'Alcionée: notes sur une notion difficile." Littératures Classiques, 42 (2001), 197–219.
The author questions the possibility of reading Du Ryer's tragedy "comme si elle n'était pas de Racine", of a reading which could avoid granting a "brevet de classicisme par anticipation" to the play.
GARRETTE, ROBERT. "Méthodes en phraséométrie. Application à des fragments de l'Esther de Du Ryer et de celle de Racine." Littératures Classiques, 42 (2001), 295–325.
Confrontation between two methods of sentence analysis, the first a description of the stylistic variations in the tragic verse ("étude stylistique et stylométrique") the second a syntactic analysis ("syntacticométrie") in two large passages from Du Ryer's Esther and Racine's own treatment of the topic.
GUILLOT, CATHERINE. "Les éditions illustrées du théâtre de Pierre Du Ryer: image et contexte éditorial." Littératures Classiques, 42 (2001), 329–345.
Study of the function of illustrations in the illustrated editions of Du Ryer's dramatic works. The illustration is seen as a protocole to be followed, which orients the understanding of the text: "L'image contribue à la réception de l'oeuvre de l'auteur, à condition de bien savoir la lire."
LOUVAT-MOLOZAY, BENEDICTE. "Saül de Du Ryer: entre La Taille et la Bible, le double défi d'une tragédie biblique moderne." Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 257–276.
Study of La Taille's tragedy, in order to understand what Du Ryer intended when he undertook to write a tragedy on the topic of Saül, what it meant for him to adapt this topic to the new tragic form, and what he was able to do "eu égard aux contraintes liées au sujet lui-même, mais surtout à l'autorité du texte sacré."
MONCOND'HUY, DOMINIQUE. "Thémistocle, tragédie désinvolte ou (dé)cousue?" Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 245–254.
Why is Du Ryer's tragedy so unbalanced (the last two acts are uncharacteristically longer than the others)? The author studies this "déséquilibre des actes et ce qu'il révèle quant à la composition de l'oeuvre et au dessein qui a prévalu dans sa conception."
MONCOND'HUY, DOMINIQUE. Bibliography of the works by and on Du Ryer. Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 347–354.
NARCISSE, VÉRONIQUE. "Alcionée ou le théâtre de la soumission." Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 181–196.
The author shows that Du Ryer's play negotiates the middle ground between submission to a Machiavellian political ideology, and the subversion or this ideology implied in the spectator's reaction of pity for the misfortunes of Alcionée.
PAPAPETROU-MILLER, MARIA. "Esther, ou de l'Obscurité à la Lumière." Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 277–294.
Study of Du Ryer's second Biblical tragedy, after Säul, which shows the movement from shadow to light, from legend to sacred history, from a Hebrew version to a Greek version.
PICCIOLA, LILIANE. "L'adaptation scénique de l'histoire d'Argénis et Poliarque: les dramaturgies de Du Ryer et de Calderón." Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 121–136.
Comparison of Calderón's Argenis y Poliarco and Du Ryer's two tragi-comedies, Argénis et Poliarque, ou Théocrine and Argénis, first as dramatic adaptations of a novel, as comedies, and as poetic works.
STERNBERG, VÉRONIQUE. "Les Vendanges de Suresnes et la modernité comique." Littératures Classiques 42 (2001), 145–163.
Dual inspiration in Du Ryer's comedy: the influence of "une littérature discursive et néoplatonicienne" and the ambition to be a part of the renewal of the comic genre, by breaking away with the "rêve pastoral."
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.
DIONNE, UGO. "Félibien dialoguiste: les Entretiens sur les vies des peintres." DSS 210 (2001), 49–74.
Argues that Félibien shows a marked interest in the entretien as a form of oral transmission of knowledge. Identifies the unique features of the genre as practiced by Félibien as well as its similarities to entretiens written by others.
BRUN, CHRISTELLE. "De Fénelon à Prévost: La Jeunesse du Commandeur (1741)et Les Aventures de Télémaque." TL 13 (2000), 133–142.
Illuminating article analyzes Prévost's récriture of Télémaque, including numerous parallels of roles, adventures and organisation. Differences are noted as well, such as episodes chez Fénelon leading to wisdom and serenity opposite to the case chez Prévost where they lead to unhappiness and agitation (139).
DEREGNAUCOURT, GILLES et PHILIPPE GUIGNET, eds. Fénélon, évêque et pasteur en son temps. Villeneuve d'Ascq, Centre d'Histoire de la Région du Nord et de l'Europe du Nord-Ouest, 1996.
Review: J. Dugnoille in RBPH 77.5 (1999), 1217–1220: Un colloque au Centre Universitaire de Cambrai dont les communications s'orientent sur quatre axes de recherche: "'Un évêque au carrefour de diverses influences'"; la pastorale et l'ecclésiologie; les rapports de Fénelon avec "'les pouvoirs et la société de son temps'"; et "'Fénelon après Fénelon'."
CAGNAT-DEBOEUF, CONSTANCE. "Fléchier, lecteur de Pascal. Ou de l'art du plagiat." Biblio 17, 122, 115–125.
The author studies Fléchier's reading of Pascal.
CHARBONNIER, PIERRE. "Coupables ou adversaires? Les Grands Jours et les seigneurs d'Auvergne." Biblio 17, 122, 13–21.
Charbonnier's study of the nobility's status in Auvergne in 1665, through Fléchier's narration. It measures the anti-feodal and centralising signification of the Grands Jours.
CUCHE, FRANCOIS-XAVIER. "Le Panégyrique de Saint-Louis de Fléchier." Biblio 17, 122, 93–114.
The sacred orator, the "panégyriste" is presented in his singularity, contrasted with Bourdaloue and Massillon. Fléchier's meditation on the path to sainthood is studied, allowing the author to propose a definition of Fléchier's own theology.
DOMPNIER, BERNARD. "Clermont en 1665. Un diocèse à l'écart de la Réforme catholique." Biblio 17, 122, 33–51.
Dompnier studies the Clermont diocese during the period in which the Grands Jours took place. He shows the deformations and the mistakes at work in Fléchier's testimony.
FONTVIEILLE, AGNES. "La critique de la rhétorique dans les Mémoires sur les Grands Jours d'Auvergne d'Esprit Fléchier." Biblio 17, 122, 77–91.
Inscription of Fléchier's Mémoires in the contemporary debate on rhetorics, and study of this debate's effect on Fléchier's own style.
GARAPON, JEAN. "Les Mémoires sur les Grands Jours d'Auvergne, une promenade en littérature." Biblio 17, 122, 67–76.
Garapon studies the literary virtuosity of Fléchier's Mémoires sur les Grands Jours d'Auvergne.
LEBIGRE, ARLETTE. "Les Grands Jours d'Auvergne, un tournant dans l'histoire de la justice." Biblio 17, 122, 23–31.
The author emphasizes the function of the Grands Jours ordered by the king in 1665, and shows how they announce essential reforms of the justice system.
LESNE-JAFFRO, EMMANUELE (ed). Fléchier et les Grands Jours d'Auvergne. Biblio 17, 122 (2000).
Fléchier's Les Mémoires sur les Grands Jours d'Auvergne becomes the pretext of a cross-disciplinary reflection by specialists of 17th Century literary, political, religious and legal history.
LESNE-JAFFRO, EMMANUELE. "Le mauvais genre des Mémoires de Fléchier." Biblio 17, 122, 127–137.
The author, who is also the editor of this volume on Fléchier's Mémoires, ponders the meaning of Fléchier's silence on this youthful parenthesis, the Mémoires sur les Grands Jours d'Auvergne."
SAUZET, ROBERT. "Esprit Fléchier évêque de Nîmes (1687–1710) vu par son notaire." Biblio 17, 122, 55–63.
Fléchier bishop of Nîmes, viewed through his notaire's testimony.
TAVENEAUX, RENE. Saint Pierre Fourier. La Pastorale, L'Education, L'Europe chrétienne, Textes choisis et commentés. Paris: Messene, 1995.
Review: H. Savon in RBPH 77.5 (1999), 1216: Textes "classés selon les trois grandes préoccupations de leur auteur, qui fut en même temps curé de la petite ville drapière de Mattaincourt, fondateur d'une congrégation vouée à l'éducation des filles pauvres, et conseiller de la diplomatie ducale."
MELLINGHOFF-BOURGERIE, VIVIANE. François de Sales (1567–1622): Un homme de lettres spirituelles. Culture-Tradition-Epistolarité. Genève: Droz, 1999.
Review: R. Baustert in DSS 211 (2001), 337–338: "Le projet de Viviane Mellinghoff-Bourgerie est celui d'une évaluation, visant à dégager sur une base d'interrogation strictement scientifique des textes, le fonctionnement de la pensée salésienne, de son expression, de son substrat culturel." The first part investigates the cultural heritage and formation of de Sales. The second looks at his views on monastic life and lay membership, and a final section studies his correspondance. The text includes a vast bibliography. A highly favorable review.
Review: Ph. Legros in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 639–640: "Nous sommes donc face à un travail bien informé, intéressant pour les débats qu'il ne peut pas manquer de susciter, et qui appelle des prolongements ou d'autres approches critiques sur le sujet abordé."
Review: E. Dubois in FS 55.2 (2001), 234–35: "This is a thorough critical study of St. François as spiritual director in his correspondence, linked to his time and milieu." The work is divided into sections on civilité, spiritual direction, épistolarité, and the different editions of St. François's works, and it explores the sources of his spirituality and style. The reviewer notes that "a valuable part of the study contains the Régistre des Lettres autographes."
MACE, STEPHANE, ed. Nicolas Frénicle, L'Entretien des Illustres Bergers. Edité parStéphane Macé. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: N. Négroni in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 629–630: "Au total, le lecteur, tel Cérilas ou Alexis, goûte avec un grand plaisir l'analyse de Stéphane Macé, qui, pareil à Mélinte, semble avoir bu "neuf fois dans les eaux de Permesse."
ROY-GARIBAL, MARTINE, ed. Le Roman Bourgeois. Paris: GF, Flammarion, 2001.
Review: E. Pieiller in QL 808 (du 16 au 31 mai 2001), 26: New edition of Furetiere's novel from 1666. The reviewer gives a mixed review of the novel: "c'est un étrange plaisir que ce Roman bourgeois, sans doute trop occupé à se moquer du genre noble pour être entièrement entraîné par l'histoire qu'il conte, mais qui, quand même, préfigure Sterne avec bonheur." As for Roy-Garibal's contribution, the reviewer states, "si la préface est stimulante, qui cerne les enjeux et les limites du projet, si les notes sont un peu déroutantes—on nous explique qui sont les Sirènes, mais on ne nous dit rien de la 'rhétorique épidictique', le lexique quant à lui, est un bonheur: qui reprend les définitions que Furetière composa pour son fameux Dictionnaire, définitions malignes, rigolardes, réjouissantes."
TAUSSIG, SYLVIE, trans. et éd. Gassendi. Vie et mœurs d'Epicure. Editions ALIVE, 2001.
LASSERRE, FRANÇOIS, ed. N. Gougenot: La comédie des comédiens et le Discours à Cliton. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag (Biblio 17 #118), 2000.
Review: J.-M. Civardi in IL 53.1 (2001), 39–42. An annotated edition of two 1633 texts attributed to Gougenot, the first being one of the earliest comedies to include a play-within-a-play, the second (not published until 1637), a treatise on dramatic construction. Reviewer contests, however, the editor's attribution, based on what for the reviewer is weak evidence, of the latter text to Gougenot, as well as the links between the Discours and the Comédie des comédiens.
Review: J. Braybrook in FS 55.2 (2001), 239–40: "Lasserre provides a useful sketch of the context in which Gougenot was writing, emphasizing the role of Du Ryer, Rotrou and Corneille, and the contemporary concern with the exploration of dramatic illusion and artifice." The volume includes "a detailed examination of Gougenot's dramatic theory... The critical apparatus is detailed, and the whole volume is well structured." The reviewer notes, however, "a few gaps": "Greater knowledge of the sixteenth-century theatre would have been an asset... Above all, perhaps, a glossary is needed."
LASSERRE, FRANÇOIS, ed. N. Gougenot, Le Romant de l'infidelle Lucrine. Texte établi parFrançois Lasserre.Préface deJean-Pierre Collinet. Genève: Droz, 1995.
Review: F. Assaf in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 623–626: "Lasserre's analysis of the character's relationships, as well as his ability to synthesize for the reader their motivations and shades of sentiment, is both masterful and interesting."
Review: J. Pallister in SCN 58.3 (2000), 269–271: The editor's introduction discusses influences on Gougenot, literary themes, and his other works. A lengthy preface is "intended to show the qualities, technical aspects, and profundities" of the play. The editor also provides a useful introduction to Le Discours, which was one volley in the Querelle du Cid. Reviewer concludes: "It remains only for literary scholars and critics to decide whether they concur with Lasserre's enthusiasm regarding this minor figure of seventeenth-century French literature."
Review: I. Giovinazzo in S Fr 132 (2000), 587: Important volume includes two works of this theoretician and dramatic author as well as introductive chapters on dramatic techniques of the pre-classical, the history of the troupe of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, polemical intentions of Gougenot, formal characteristics of Gougenot's work, and so forth.
BEAULIEU, JEAN-PHILLIPE AND HANNAH FOURNIER, eds. Les Advis, ou, les Presens de la Demoiselle de Gournay, 1641. Atlanta: Rodopi, 1997.
Review: B. C. Bowen in FR 74.4 (2001), 798–799: An "impeccable edition" of the first part of Gournay's 1641 Advis, which revises the versions of 1626 and 1634. The text treats a wide variety of topics: the education of princes, the murder of Henri IV, religion, the French language, and the virtues and their place in society. In a style reminiscent of Montaigne, Gournay reflects upon the act of writing in interesting ways. The introductory "Discours sur ce livre" and the "Recueil de meslanges" are "a perceptive characterization" both of Montaigne's Essais and Les Advis themselves.
FORTUNATI, VITTORIO. Guilleragues autore epistolare: le "Lettres portugaises" e la Correspondance. Como: Edizioni New Press, 1999.
Review: B. Piqué in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000), 616. "A la suite de Jacques Rougeot, Vittorio Fortunati considère ainsi la Correspondance comme un roman épistolaire qui, de par le style et la sensibilité de son auteur, ne serait pas sans rappeler de près le roman par lettres de Mariane."
GUILLOT, CATHERINE. "Les illustrations du théâtre d'Alexandre Hardy." RHT 52.4 (2000), 293–306.
Classifies the title page illustrations of Alexandre Hardy's Œuvres complètes into two categories, both didactic in function: pictures drawn from the text, and allegory. Discusses the importance of these illustrations as communication with and guidance for the reader.
BECHERER, AGNES. Das Bild Heinrich IV. (Henri Quatre) in der französischen Versepik (1593–1613). Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1996.
Review: S. Ward in CdDS 8.1, 201–203. An "assiduous study of Henri IV's image in French epic poetry between 1593 and 1613, aims both to rehabilitate a belittled and frequently neglected sub-genre of epic poetry—the "Henriades" written during Henri's life and shortly after his death—and to analyze historically the statements the poems contain." Examines the Henriades' historical context and compares them to other epics and contemporary texts. Review finds the author disproportionately stresses historical context over readings of the poems themselves, and notes the absence of any theoretical or critical perspectives. "Detailed" and "conscientious," the study could have been cut down by half.
PLANTIE, JACQUELINE, ed. Claude Hopil. Les divins élancements d'amour . . . Paris: Champion, 1999.
Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 130 (2000), 151: Excellent indices and bibliography complete this welcome edition of Hopil. Notes situate Hopil's literary creation and debt to the Bible, St. Augustine and several other Church Fathers and saints (Teresa d'Avila and Catherine of Siena and of Genova, for example).
C. COSTE, ed. Jacques Jacques. Le faut mourir et les excuses inutiles qu'on apporte à cette nécessité. Le tout en vers burlesques. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: D. Bertrand in IL 52.4 (2000), 43–44: Salutes the republication and useful annotation of an important work of colportage literature, of interest to anthropologists and theologians as much as to literary scholars. Bertrand regrets, however, insufficient incorporation of secondary literature on the burlesque and on popular culture more generally.
ESCOLA, MARC, ed. Les Caractères. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999.
Review: E. J. Campion in FR 74.6 (2001), 1239–1240: Argues that La Bruyère himself "was responsible for all the changes between the first and ninth editions" of the Caractères, and demonstrates persuasively that La Bruyère's book "is much more problematic and ambiguous than earlier generations of readers and scholars had thought." Based on the posthumously published 1696 text, this "definitive edition of La Bruyère's masterpiece" includes an informative introduction by Escola, "insightful notes," a thorough concordance, a key to historical figures who may have inspired La Bruyère's portraits, and a "very useful" lexicon.
Review: L. Thirouin in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 187–189: ". . .les Caractères méritent un renouveau d'attention. Nul doute que cette nouvelle édition y contribuera."
Review: C.-D. Stiker-Métral in IL 53.1 (2001), 46–47. A critical edition that attempts an archeology of the work-in-progress that is Les Caractères. Escola is attentive to variants, punctuation and typography, changes in organization—all elements that aimed at constituting a new type of readability. Contains in annex a number of documents relating to the genre of the "caractère" and the reception of La Bruyère's work. An edition that reviewer feels will essentially change our view of Les Caractères and "la fonction morale du texte classique."
Review: R. Parish in FS 54.4 (2000), 509: A "hugely impressive achievement," this 936-page edition is deemed by the reviewer "the most significant scholarly presentation of the Caractères available." It includes "a substantial introductory study, devoted principally to the genèse of the work"; the footnotes are likewise "substantial," and the text is followed by "a wide-ranging dossier" that includes documents relating to the classical and rhetorical background and to posthumous and eighteenth-century reception of the text. "A full list of clés is then provided...and this in turn is followed by an exhaustive set of concordances"; a glossary is also included.
HABIB, CLAUDE. "Ecriture et défaveur: La Bruyère, écrivain moral." Esprit (mai 2000), 47–62.
"Le projet de La Bruyère oscille donc entre . . . le projet de recenser les moeurs et celui de les censurer. Cette deuxième dimension gêne le lecteur moderne, peut-être parce qu'elle le vexe, mais surtout parce qu'il ne la comprend plus."
RICORD, MARINE. "Les Caractères" de La Bruyère ou les exercices de l'esprit. Paris: PUF, 2000.
Review: J.-P. Dens in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 221–223: "Ouvrage bien conçu, reposant sur une abondante documentation critique et une thématique cohérente—l'esprit défini comme "le fil d'Ariane" des Caractères—, le livre de Marine Ricord apporte au débat sur La Bruyère une contribution marquante et solide."
ROUKHOMOSKY, BERNARD. L'Esthétique de La Bruyère. Paris: Sedes, 1997.
Review: E. J. Campion in FR 74.4 (2001), 801–802: Examines the esthetic theory and practice of La Bruyère through analysis of "an extremely arbitrary choice of texts." Although he understands the differences between the eight editions of Les Caractères, Roukhomosky "refers to criticism on La Bruyère without fully explaining the relevance of such critical interpretations to his own analysis of La Bruyère's esthetics." Roukhomosky cogently describes La Bruyère's "creative imitation of classical and modern writers as well as his place in seventeenth-century French literary criticism, but his analysis of La Bruyère's esthetics is neither clear nor insightful."
VAN DELFT, LOUIS, ed. Les Caractères. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1998.
Review: E. J. Campion in FR 74.2 (2000), 368: In this "superb edition," Van Delft situates Les Caractères in their historical context and successfully makes the text accessible to modern readers. In the "superb introduction and notes," Van Delft not only describes La Bruyère's originality within the moralist tradition, but also draws attention to La Bruyère's "insightful comments on classical theater and on sacred oratory, an aspect of Les Caractères which has generally been overlooked by modern scholars." An inexpensive edition that shows that La Bruyère "was much more than [a] social critic and creator of social types."
GANIM, RUSSELL. Renaissance Resonance: Lyric Modality in La Ceppède's Théorèmes. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998.
Review: J. Miernowski in BHR 62.2 (2000), 492–495: Analyse "détaillée et souvent fort étendue" qui "se concentre sur la tradition littéraire dans laquelle puisait La Ceppède et plus particulièrement sur les formes de la poésie lyrique qui résonnent à travers Les Théorèmes. Selon Russell Ganim, elles apportent à la contemplation du lecteur une mémoire culturelle dont la permanence égale celle fournie par la doctrine de l'Eglise et par l'exégèse biblique." Quelques réserves à propos de la notion de genre et du blason comme cadre interprétatif que Miernowski trouve contraignante.
Review: Y. Quenot in DSS 209 (2000), 735–736: Leaving aside its devotional aspects, traditionally studied by scholars, Ganim elucidates the fundamental role of the lyrical form in the Théorèmes. Ganim contextualizes the work, underscores the continuity between its two parts, and draws out the variety of poetic devices used. Despite these successes, the reviewer esteems the work unconvincing insofar as Ganim does not take into sufficient account La Ceppède's didactic intent and the religious underpinnings of the work.
Review: F. Gray in Ren Q 53 (2000), 582–84: Praised for its "perceptive appreciation" of La Ceppède's "intertextual complexity," Ganim's "insightful and generous" study privileges genre, subgenre and, in those contexts, literary analysis. Includes chapters on the blason, the kiss, the pastoral, emblematic writing and meditation. A final chapter treats perception and intent among La Ceppède, Sponde, Selve, Marguerite de Navarre and Georgette de Montenay. The reviewer would have appreciated more ample consideration of ideological concerns and aesthetic and contextual framework. Bibliography and index.
BEASLEY, FAITH E. and KATHERINE ANN JENSEN, eds. Approaches to Teaching Lafayette's 'Princess of Clèves.' New York: MLA, 1998.
Review: M.C. Ekman in CdDS 8.1, 208–209. Provides: 1) a chapter placing Clèves within the history of the French novel; 2) an overview of editions, background and critical studies 3) 18 individual essays on the novel's socio-cultural context, readings of the novel itself, and its possible uses in different classroom settings. Useful both as a teaching guide and a scholarly resource, volume contains essays providing "a variety of viewpoints that do not attempt to lock [the novel] into one fixed meaning."
BRADY, VALENTINI PAPADOPOULOU. "La Princesse de Clèves and the Refusal of Love: Heroic Denial or Pathetic Submission?" Neophil 84 (2000), 517–30.
Brady sheds new light on an oft-treated novel as he takes principles from Transactional Analysis "to propose a deeper understanding of the more hidden reasons for the heroine's decision to say no to love" (519). "Life scripts" in the system developed by Eric Berne, TA's founder, provides "an illuminating interpretative tool" as Brady examines onsets, courses and outcomes of the Princess's life in our text (519, 520). The role of the mother is crucial; she gives her daughter a "prescription" for happiness; the latter thus develops an "internal mechanism" which culminates in "an inevitable submission to a negative and ultimately tragic life script" (529).
GEVREY, FRANÇOISE. L'Esthétique de Madame de Lafayette. Paris: SEDES, 1997.
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 617–618: "En somme un ouvrage bien informé, très à jour, présenté de façon claire et méthodique, tout à fait à sa place dans une excellente et utile collection."
KIM, SUNG. Les Récits dans La Princesse de Clèves: tentative d'analyse structurale. Paris: Nizet, 1997.
Review: M.-F. Hilgar in FR 74.2 (2000), 367–368: Employing the critical language of Genette, Richard, and Benveniste, Kim examines the narrative structure of Lafayette's novel, and suggests that its primary stories may be usefully divided into primary and secondary categories. Primary narratives are organized into temporal categories ("discours parfait/discours-présent/discours-futur"); secondary narratives are distinguished by narrator (Genette's heterodiegetic or homo-autodiegetic). Although the bibliography is incomplete, the text includes some errors, and Kim's critical language is fraught with awkward metaphors, the author demonstrates the novel's fundamental unity.
LETTS, JANET. Legendary Lives in La Princesse de Clèves. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 1998.
Review: D. Kuizinga in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 627–628: ". . .la lecture très nuancée de la matière historique fait contraste avec une lecture peu nuancée de l'intrigue fictive. . ."
MONTIER, JEAN-PIERRE. "Arrêt sur image dans La Princesse de Clèves." Littérature 119, Septembre 2000, 3–20.
Does the rhetoric of the look in La Fayette's novel confirm or compete with what is enunciated discursively? What are the relations between the two types of "discours," visual and verbal, in the novel? The author states that these two systems, in subtle contradiction with each other, enrich the novel's overall meaning.
MURATORE, M. J. "Historical Impostors, Fictional Truths: La Princesse de Clèves." SYM 54.4 (2001), 245–258:
Muratore considers the novel "not merely born of absence but focused on it, a text in which it is the unsaid, the undone, the unexecuted, the unrealized that become the generators, if not the blatant glorification, of the fictional reality in which the author would have us engage."
PINGAUD, BERNARD, ed. Lafayette: La Princesse de Clèves. Paris: Galimard (Folio classique), 2000.
Review: A. Lesot in IL 53.2 (2001), 61–63. Part of a series of editions that aim at a public of lycéens while nonetheless incorporating details of interest to scholars. Editor looks to the novel for evidence about why Lafayette never acknowledged her authorship: the novelist and her heroine opt for silence when faced with their "bizarre" stories. To reason about love is to "accroître son mal dans l'espoir de le faire cesser," and thus both Lafayette and Clèves must choose silence.
SELLIER, PHILLIPPE, ed. Madame de La Fayette, La Princesse de Clèves. Présentation et notes parPhillippe Sellier. Paris: Librairie générale française, 1999.
Review: B. Chédozeau in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 223–224: "Des notes, une orientation bibliographique et un glossaire complètent ce remarquable travail, qui aide à la lecture du chef-d'oeuvre en même temps qu'il l'enrichit."
SMITH, KEREN M. "Towers and Mirrors: Aspects of Space in La Princesse de Clèves." Mosaic 31, I, March 2000, 113–132.
"Mme de la Fayette's La Princesse de Clèves creates an imaginative space at once lofty and confining where order is insured through the exclusion of what threatens. The novel's imposition of form on chaos is concretized in the architecture of Versailles as it is in Lacan's story of the fortress: each maps the subject's problematic desire for mastery."
YOSHIMURA, VALERIE NAO. "Permeable Boundaries: Secrecy, Gossip and Community in La Princesse de Clèves." CdDS 8.1, 68–84.
Discounting dismissals of gossip as insignificant, author aims "to demonstrate how the circulation of secrets creates and permeates seemingly solid social boundaries and further engenders new relationships that simultaneously reshape and affirm the fictive court community."
BIRBERICK, ANNE L. Reading Undercover Audience and Authority in Jean de La Fontaine. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1998.
Review: J.-P. Collinet in S Fr 132 (2000), 594–95: Judged "stimulant" and "suggestif," Birberick distinguishes five categories of La Fontaine's public. Collinet finds the categories somewhat artificial, perhaps move applicable to a later period and asks about the "personnes réelles" (La Fontaine's dédicataires for example).
CALDER, ANDREW. The Fables of La Fontaine: Wisdom Brought Down to Earth. Droz, 2001.
GAINES, JAMES F. "Molière, La Fontaine, and Authority." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000), 404–414.
Re-examination of the portrayal of authority, ethical and political, in the works of Molière and La Fontaine.
GRISE, CATHERINE M.. Cognitive Space and Patterns of Deceit in La Fontaine's Contes. Charlottesville VA,: Rockwood Press, 1998.
Review: J.-P. Collinet in DSS 209 (2000), 736–737: Informed by the critical approaches of narratology, Grisé's book examines "la répercussion des événements sur les personnages en fonction de ce qu'ils en savent ou qu'ils ignorent, comme de ce qu'ils pensent pouvoir en attendre ou parfois devoir en redouter." This novel approach allows the conteur to access the for intérieur of characters and to exploit fully the theme of deception. Grisé catalogues various forms of deception (magic, casuistry, disguise, falsehoods, etc.), and her examples persuasively demonstrate her thesis. Although the reviewer mentions the dangers of oversimplification inherent in such rigid categorization, he points out that Grisé is herself aware of them. Overall, however, the reviewer finds this book "parmi les plus importantes contributions nord-américaines" to studies of La Fontaine.
GRISE, CATHERINE . Ed.crit., Le Conte en vers gaillard: De Jean de La Fontaine à Guillaume Apollinaire (Toronto/New York: Legas, 2000, 260 pp.).
HONG, RAN-E. "La récriture de deux contes de La Fontaine et sa signification." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 473–487.
The tales as "révélateurs du clivage entre deux cultures populaire et élitiste (. . .) dont le divorce est consommé au Grand Siècle."
NEPOTE-DESMARRES. La Fontaine: Fables. Paris: PUF, 1999.
Review: M. Slater in MLR 96.2 (2001), 497: A "densely written book" that "makes an intelligent contribution to La Fontaine studies." Author views the Fables as a "coherent project" and explores them from multiple perspectives including the poet's life and early works, literary and cultural influences. She analyzes selected texts as "case histories, aimed at making his message accessible to the reader, each fable contributing to the overall picture."
Review: S. Hartwig in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 211–212: ". . .son livre ne tient pas compte de l'état des recherches déjà effectuées sur ce sujet. . .de plus, il ne fait pas de distinction nette entre la fable et les genres voisins. . ."
OUBRIER AUSTIN, MARITE. "Marianne Moore's Translation of the Term galand in the Fables of La Fontaine." PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 81–91.
How the translator succeeds in reflecting the many facets of La Fontaine's unique crystallization of the term galand in her translation of the Fables.
SHAPIRO, NORMAN,trans. Fifty More Fables of La Fontaine. Urbana/Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1998.
Review: T. Alliott in MLR 96.1 (2001), 186: Shapiro "eschews a simple line-for-line correspondence with his poetic source in order to focus particularly on the expression in English of its tone. Consequently certain details or some memorable turns of phrase in the French fables are lost. Such losses find their compensation in the attractively chatty style of these versions, which hold the reader's attention by witty tricks of language and rhyme."
SLATER, MAYA. The Craft of La Fontaine. London: Athlone Press, 2001.
Review: M. McGowan in TLS 5143 (Oct 26 2001), 26: Praises Slater's "surefooted, subtle and suggestive approach." Slater explores details of the fables, the manner in which La Fontaine enriches well-known tales and the "infinite care" in his writing. La Fontaine's reader relishes "frequent shifts in perspective" and recognizes "literary borrowing and contemporary references." Study stresses the "significance of hidden insertions and of determining exactly the nature and direction of the author's presence, of his speaking voice that frequently turns meaning upside down."
SWEETSER, MARIE-ODILE. Vaux et son goût: son exemplarite chez La Fontaine. Actes du Colloque de Nancy. PU de Nancy, 2001, pp. 173–88.
THIRARD, MARIE-AGNES. "Les Contes de Mlle de la Force: Un nouvel art du récit férique à travers un exemple privilégié." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 573–585.
Study of Plus Belle que fée by de la Force, example which reveals in this author's work "un nouvel art du conte", and asserts the "droit des femmes à l'écriture et à une gestion subversive du moule originel. . ."
GHEERAERT, TONY. Bernard Lamy, Nouvelles réflexions sur l'art poétique. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: G. Forestier in RHL 100 (2000), 1217–18: Reviewer proposes that Lamy's text, overshadowed by this earlier L'Art de parler, is nonetheless an important anticipation of "la naissance de l'esthétique moderne au XVIIIe siècle." Generally favorable review of the edition—"L'annotation semble irréprochable"—with several caveats regarding the introduction (lacking in material on early Classical poetics [Chapelain, Corneille]), the table of contents (neglects to break down Lamy's text for ease of reference), and the modernization of capital letters.
Review: Ph.-J. Salazar in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 618–619: "Cette édition sinon critique du moins sérieusement présentée des Nouvelles Réflexions est une joie de lecture (. . .) Dommage que la table des ouvrages cités par Lamy soit inutilisable faute de références conformes aux normes."
Review: M. Hawcroft in FS 54.4 (2000), 508–9: Gheeraert's "substantial introduction" provides an "admirably lucid and probing account of Lamy's ideas." Lamy's Nouvelles réflexions sur l'art poétique include a Cartesian examination of the sources of aesthetic pleasure as well as a virulent Augustinian attack on poetry. "Lamy is presented [by the editor] as a forerunner of the Moderns, though it must be said that no modern poets count amongst his acceptable reading matter."
NOILLE-CLAUZADE, CHRISTINE. Bernard Lamy, La Rhétorique ou l'Art de parler. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: G. Forestier in RHL 100 (2000), 1215–17: Very favorable review compares present edition, which takes as its base text the last to appear during Lamy's lifetime, that of 1715, to Benoît Timmermans's edition of the 1741 version (see below). Regretting only the editor's modernation of capital letters and "l'obscurité de quelques-uns de ses raisonnments," reviewer acclaims especially the introduction, which constitutes "un véritable démontage de l'argumentation de Lamy." "Bref, sur tous les plans, philologique, philosophique, rhétorique, linguistique, un travail hors pair au service d'un texte capital."
Review: M. Calder in FS 55.2 (2001), 245: "Lamy's thought is very much of the Port-Royalist school...[his] chief emphasis is on clarity of expression and the ordered formulation of ideas and their representation." The reviewer praises the editor's presentation of the work: "With a lengthy introduction and extensive notes and list of variants, Noille-Clauzade has undoubtedly produced a significant reference tool for future work on Lamy and on the emergence of the science of linguistics in the seventeenth century."
TIMMERMANS, BENOÎT, ed. Bernard Lamy, La Rhétorique ou l'Art de parler. Paris: PUF, 1998.
Review: G. Forestier in RHL 100 (2000), 1215–17: Negative review, comparing this edition (of the 1741 posthumous version) to Christine Noille-Clauzade's edition of the 1715 text (see above). The "genetic" potential of Timmerman's edition is undercut by numerous innaccuracies and infelicitous editorial choices such as the modernization of punctuation. Review also finds the introductory material, by the editor and M. Meyer, unequal to the complexity of Lamy's text.
CAMERON, KEITH and PAUL WRIGHT, eds. Pierre de Larivey: Les Tromperies. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997.
Review: M.-C. Canova-Green in MLR 96.3 (2001), 819: "The distinctive feature of Cameron and Wright's edition is the close reproduction of the original spellings and punctuation (with the exception of the standard normalization of u/v and i/j spellings). A wide-ranging critical apparatus accompanies the text of the play." Only regret: "this presentation of the play is both too short and too sketchy, with little of the in-depth analysis expected of a scholarly edition."
DANDREY, PATRICK (éd.) La Rochefoucauld: Maximes et Réflexions diverses. Actes de la Journée d'étude en Sorbonne du 5 décembre 1998. Sous la direction dePatrick Dandrey. Littératures Classiques, 35 (1999). Paris: Champion, 1999.
Review: J.-P. Collinet in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 611–612: "Cette gerbe de communications. . . mérite de compter parmi les meilleures livraisons que nous ait données la revue littéraire Littératures Classiques, jeune encore, et de plus en plus dynamique."
HODGSON, RICHARD. "La sagesse humaine face à une 'souveraine puissance': la prudence et la fortune chez la Rochefoucauld." DSS 211 (2001), 233–242.
Integral to La Rochefoucauld's moral philosophy is his understanding of the difficulties arising from the confrontation of human wisdom and the "caprices" and unlimited power of fate.
HOPE, QUENTIN M. "La Rochefoucauld and the Vicissitudes of Time." PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 105–120.
Study of the Maximes engagement with time, the ages of man, the journey of life, its "occasions and accidents", withdrawal and retreat.
LAFOND, JEAN, ed. Maximes. Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1998.
Review: S. Ferrari in DSS 209 (2000), 728–729: Reviewer points out interest of this new edition: "tout en donnant l'édition canonique de 1678, suivie de l'appendice, présent sur le manuscrit 325 bis des Réflexions et publié dès 1883 (il contient deux autoportraits, de Mme de Montespan et du cardinal de Retz, et deux réflexions sur l'Histoire), elle l'accompagne d'une série de textes éclairant considérablement la lecture de l'œuvre: le texte du manuscrit d'origine (le manuscrit de Liancourt) et celui de la première édition (1665)—ce qui permet d'avoir les états 'extrêmes' du texte, et ainsi de mieux apprécier l'évolution de l'ouvrage au cours des vingt années de son élaboration." Lafond's introduction brings some new perspectives to this much-studied author, and the reviewer characterizes it as a "précieux complément" to Truchet's critical edition (1967, 1983).
DESCIMON, ROBERT, OREST RANUM and PATRICIA RANUM, eds. Jean Le Boindre, Débats du Parlement de Paris pendant la minorité de Louis XIV. Paris: Champion, 1997.
Review: K. Mallettke in HZ 271 (2000), 756–57: Totally positive review of this remarkable edition of important sources for the power of the monarchy, the role of the parliament, the Fronde, and on the family Le Boindre (conseiller Jean Le Boindre had written the account for his son Jean-François Le Boindre, who was named in January 1689 to the Chambre des Enquêtes).
LOSKOUTOFF, YVAN. L'armorial de Calliope. L'oeuvre du Père Le Moyne S.J. (1602–1671): littérature, héraldique, spiritualité. Tübingen: Biblio 17, 126, 2000.
Review: "Cette étude sur le goût héraldique du poète et moraliste jésuite Pierre Le Moyne (1602–1671), replace l'auteur du Saint Louis dans la double tradition fondant sa poétique de la noblesse, celle de la Compagnie de Jésus et celle de l'Hôtel de Rambouillet. Elle analyse l'emploi de l'image armoriale, encomiastique ou satirique. Elle aborde enfin le regard d'un moraliste sur les fascinations du blason au XVIIe siècle."
Review: A. Riffard, in IL 53.1 (2001), 42–43. The author looks into the origins of Le Moyne's "héraldismes," which are not mere stylistic features but devices to "entraîner l'œil et l'esprit à la découverte des réalités invisibles"; Le Moyne thereby attempts to "transporter les formes galantes dans le genre héroïque." Reviewer regrets the lack of translations from the Latin and of a basic grammar of heraldry, but praises "[c]et ouvrage savant, rigoureusement construit."
GARNIER-PELLE, NICOLE. André Le Nôtre (1613–1700) et les jardins de Chantilly. Paris/Chantilly: Somogy/Musée Condé, 2000.
Review: BCLF 631 (2001), 686–87: "Ensemble, l'attention portée aux documents écrits et la lecture critique des documents iconographiques concourent à faire de la présente synthèse une monographie réussie que l'on souhaiterait voir réitérée pour d'autres grandes créations de jardins à la française."
CONNER, RANDY P.L. "Burning Desire: Claude Le Petit, Libertine Poet." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 421–433.
Reading of two poems by the author of Le Bordel des Muses: "La Grève" and the "Epitaphe de Chausson", on the death of Chausson who was arrested in 1661 for sodomy and eventually burned at the stake.
LEMOINE, SERGE, LAURENT SALOME, ALAIN MEROT, et al. Eustache Le Sueur. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2000.
Review: BCLF 626 (2000), 2361: "Cet ouvrage est le catalogue de l'exposition Eustache Le Sueur [1616–1655] présentée dans le nouveau musée de Grenoble du 19 mars au 2 juillet 2000."
WALCH, AGNES. "Du singulier à l'universel: La Perfection de l'amour selon Catherine Lévesque (1616–1693)." DSS 209 (2000), 703–718.
Inspired by marriage treatises penned by clerics, Lévesque's little-known devotional text discusses the ideal form of conjugal love. Walch identifies the singular nature of the text-secular and female-authored-and analyzes the theoretical and experiential underpinnings of Lévesque's marriage tract.
MINEL, EMMANUEL, éd. Longepierre: Médée, Tragédie. Suivie du Parallèle de Monsieur Corneille et de Monsieur Racine (1686) et de la Dissertation sur la tragédie de Médée par l'abbé Pellegrin (1729). Paris: Champion, 2000.
Review: A. Wygant in FS 55.3 (2001), 388–89: "This new edition...offers a welcome opportunity to both students and specialist readers to access Longepierre's important tragedy [...]." Minel's sixty-page introduction, "comparatist and character-based," sheds light on important questions, such as Longepierre's relationship to his great dramatic predecessors, and the reasons for his play's resounding success in the eighteenth century.
YOSHIMURA, VALERIE NAO. " 'Le bruit qui court à la cour': Gender and the Power of Secrecy at the Court of Louis XIV." DAI 61/03 (2000), 1011.
Argues that the discourse and practice of secrecy (mystification, dissimulation, discretion, etc.) was essential both "to monarchic and gender authority [as well as] to those members of the elite who sowed seeds of subversion." While many male authors appealed to purportedly feminine loquacity to justify women's exclusion from power, Lafayette's Princesse de Clèves "affirms the strategic utility of women's talk." Concludes that "the secret of power lies in the power of the secret." Texts treated also include Villedieu, Bussy-Rabutin, Bouhours, Le Noble, and La Mothe Le Vayer.
TOMLINSON, PHILIP. "Jean Mairet and Henri II de Montmorency, or What's a poet worth? Some new evidence." PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 31–44.
"Mairet's rapid social and material advancement under Montmorency bears a remarkable resemblance to that of Sorel's Francion, who, like Mairet, gets himself noticed by a grand seigneur. . ."
VIENNOT, ELIANE, ed. Marguerite de Valois. Mémoires et autres écrits, 1574–1614. Paris: Champion, 1999.
Review: B. Nicollier in BHR 62.2 (2000), 503–504: Nouvelle édition des Mémoires complétée par le Mémoire justificatif pour Henri de Bourbon (1574), le Discours docte et subtil dicté promptement par le reine Marguerite (1614), et douze poésies de la reine de Navarre. Annexes techniques, glossaire et index.
MARGUERITE DU SAINT-SACREMENT. Correspondance (Lettres reçues à son sujet). Présentée par Sœur Marie-Françoise Grivot. vol. I (1631–1648), Forelle, 1997.
Review: J. Deprun in DSS 211 (2001), 339: 360 letters or letter fragments, some never before published, all carefully annotated. An introduction outlines the extraordinary richness of this correspondance, and a preface underscores its cultural merit.
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.
ABRAHAM, CLAUDE. "The Role of Molière's Mothers." CdDS 8.1, 85–95.
Arranges the six mothers in Molière's works into three subgenres.
BORGSTROM, C. HENRIK. Performance review of Don Juan, directed by Mats Ek, Stockholm Royal Dramatic Theatre at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, August 15, 2000. TJ 53 (2001), 330–31.
Notes importance of dance and chilling use of pre-adolescent boy as phantom. Don Juan as "product of a self-centered and atheistic culture, where even the most innocent are tainted."
BOURQUI, CLAUDE. "Molière interprète de tragédies hagiographiques." RHL 101 (2001), 21–35.
Examines the evidence regarding the production of hagiographic plays by the Illustre Théâtre in the 1640s. Using intertextual echoes, as well as the 1984 discovery of an original poster, concludes that one of these plays must have been Desfontaines's L'Illustre Comédien ou le Martrye de Saint Genest. Argues more broadly that "réminiscence" of early plays produced by the troupe was an integral part of Molière's writing.
Review: A. Niderst in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 607–608: "L'ouvrage de Claude Bourqui paraît, malgré quelques passages un peu aventureux, un modèle de probité."
BROUN, RONALD. "'Le Malade': A Lean but Quite Healthy Dose of Fun." Performance review, Washington Post, October 29, 2001.
Broun calls this semi-staging of Molière's Malade imaginaire at Georgetown University a "not-to-be-missed revelation" at which the "music was exquisitely presented." The evening also included "a splendid performance of [Charpentier's] Les Arts florissants, and Broun lauds Catherine Turocy's dance performance, "whose geometric choreography followed the actual steps danced at the French court."
CAGNAT-DEBŒUF, CONSTANCE. "'Le tambour du petit Colin': les noms propres dans Dom Juan." DSS 210 (2001), 35–47.
A study of the intertextual, contextual, and metalinguistic references of proper names and their contribution to the production of meaning and ambiguity in the Molière's plays.
CHAOUCHE, SABINE. "A props de l'actio 'naturelle' prônée par Molière." RHLF nov-déc 1999, 1169–90.
Review: M. Lagier in S Fr 132 (2000), 593–94: Careful distinctions are made regarding declamation practiced in public and reading or singing. Emphasis in itself is not criticized by Molière, but in excess. Molière reforms focused on the articulation of letters and a concern to harmonize subject, style of writing and diction.
CHUPEAU, JACQUES, ed. Molière: Le Misanthrope. Paris: Galimard (Folio classique), 2000.
Review: A. Lesot in IL 53.2 (2001), 61–63. Part of a series of editions that aim at a public of lycéens while nonetheless incorporating details of interest to scholars, including information on mise-en-scène. Editor replaces the play in the current of "réflexion morale"—the condemnation of presumption, the advocacy of philosophical distance with respect to the world and one's self. Establishing links between Molière and Erasmus, Montaigne, Pascal and La Rochefoucauld, Chupeau sees the Misanthrope as the play of amour-propre.
CHUPEAU, JACQUES, ed. Molière, Les Précieuses ridicules. Paris: Gallimard, 1998.
Review: J. Serroy in DSS 210 (2001), 168–169: Favorable review of this new edition of Molière's "petite comédie," which, while it doesn't bring a "new vision" to the play, nonetheless "remet les choses à leur juste place." Editor discusses the concept of préciosité with "finesse" and "erudition." According to the reviewer, "Jacques Chupeau fait donc utilement le point sur une comédie qui. . .touche aux grandes questions du comique telles que Molière ne va plus, dès lors, manquer de les poser. Et les informations qu'il apporte, dans le dossier qui suit, sur la troupe et sur les conditions de la création, sur le succès et sur la querelle qui en découle, ainsi que les mises en scène. . .permettent de redonner à la comédie toute sa dimenesion théâtrale."
DANIELOU, CATHERINE. "Constance and inconstance: Le Misanthrope et la tradition moraliste." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 392–404.
Molière as a "moraliste" in Le Misanthrope, unmasking and observing at a remove, forces the spectator to examine the social mechanism as well as the mechanics of inter-personal relations.
DEJEAN, JOAN, ed. Le Festin de Pierre (Dom Juan): Edition critique du texte d'Amsterdam (1683). Genève: Droz, 1999.
Review: D. Shaw in MLR 96. 2 (2001), 498: "The Dejean volume reproduces, for the first time since the seventeenth century, the text published in Amsterdam in 1683" and constitutes "a useful and comprehensive study that throws considerable light on the early fortunes of a difficult text."
Review: J. Serroy in OeC XXVI.1 (2001), 174–75: "Il faut donc savoir gré à l'éditrice américaine non seulement de retracer dans le détail l'histoire compliquée de la publication de Dom Juan, mais surtout d'éclairer celle-ci par un choix éditorial qui a le double mérite de la cohérence et de la pertinence. L'édition qu'elle propose de la pièce, sous son titre d'origine—Le Festin de pierre—, reproduit en effet pour la première fois en France le texte d'Amsterdam de 1683."
FERNANDEZ, RAMON. Molière ou l'essence du génie comique. Postface deDominique Fernandez. Paris: Grasset (Les Cahiers rouges), 2000.
Review: E. Pieiller in QL 798 (du 15 au 31 décembre 2000), 26: First published in 1929, this is a new edition in the Cahiers rouges collection. Fernandez wishes to "rejoindre l'homme à travers l'œuvre". According to the reviewer, while the biography has limited interest, the work is more successful in its analysis of plays. "Car il repère la tension vers le tragique, un tragique qui va permettre une plus grande liberté de la comédie même. (...) Cet essai prendra tout son charme pour ceux qui y chercheront moins une vérité que des pistes, des détails, des rêveries: à goûter et prolonger." The reviewer adds that the edition is "affligé d'un avant-propos dithyrambique, caractéristique de la chaleureuse indulgence que notre époque réserve aux 'collaborateurs' quand ils ont des lettres."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's L'Avare mise en scène par Roger Planchon à l'Odéon, with Planchon and Anémone. Le Point.
"Tout cela s'accomplit à un bon rythme, dans une teinte musicale et dansante," although Ferney has a more reserved opinion of Planchon's Harpagon whom he describes as "cabotin et grimacier."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's L'Ecole des femmes au festival d'Avignon 2001, mise en scène par Didier Bezace. Le Point 1504 (2001), 98.
A good review of Arditi, "moins risible que pathétique." Didier Bezace "prête à cette comédie grave moins l'ampleur de l'épopée que la noirceur d'un songe."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's L'Ecole des femmes, mise en scène de Jacques Lasalle, Athénée-Théâtre Louis-Jouvet, automne 2001. Le Point 1518 (2001), 134.
"(Lasalle) insiste sur l'aveu initial d'Arnolphe, sur la gravité de l'interdit qu'il a bravé en 'achetant' une enfant pour en faire sa femme. Par endroits, c'est très brûlant, très beau."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's Le malade imaginaire mise en scène par Claude Stratz. Comédie Française, printemps 2001. Le Point 1489 (2001), 125.
"Claude Stratz a parfaitement traduit la note d'aveu inscrite dans la pièce, la peur intense, infantile, obsessionnelle" dans un spectacle "exacte et beau" caracterisé par "une harmonie parfaite des acteurs."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Molière's Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, mise en scène de Philippe Adrien, Vieux Colombier, automne 2001. Le Point 1516 (2001), 133.
"Adrien tire Molière du côté du fantastique. Un dévoiement? Non, la pièce apparaît soudain dans sa juste lumière, à mi-chemin entre le bouffon et le sacrificiel."
FINN, THOMAS P. "Contradictory Demands and Illusory Compliance: Women's Masks in Molière." Women in French Studies 8 (2000), 31–39.
"Shows how the heroines of La Princess d'Elide and Le Misanthrope adopt the mask of the "unattainable maiden" to remain single, frustrating a collectivity that seeks to make them dependent on men through marriage. Although created by the women, Finn argues that these masks are held in place with the complicity of the same communities of suitors that insist they be wed."
FINN, THOMAS P. "Comedia Contributions to a Molière Masterpiece,"in Echoes and Inscriptions: Comparative Approaches to Early Modern Hispanic Literatures, Bucknell, Lewisburg, PA, 2001.
Takes a cross-cultural perspective and examines possible links between Tirso de Molina's Don Gil de la calzas verdes and Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme".
FINN, THOMAS P. Molière's Spanish Connection: Seventeenth-Century Spanish Theatrical Influence on Imaginary Identity in Molière, Peter Lang, 2001.
"The idea of identity as a mercurial and resilient force is one Molière was able to expand and explore largely because of his knowledge of early 17th C. Spanish theater. An in-depth study of specific works and socio-historical evidence which shows how M. reworked and reinvigorated the Spanish process of identity construction and distribution."
GAINES, JAMES F. "Black Box and Multi-dimensional Grid: Two Historical Readings of Molière." CdDS 8.1, 96–106.
Criticizing Bourqui's Polémique et stratégies dans le Dom Juan de Molière for reading the play as a revenge for the censorship of Le Tartuffe, and maintains that Grimm's Molière en son temps provides a more satisfying account of the playwright's complex socio-political allegiances.
GAINES, JAMES F. "Molière, La Fontaine, and Authority." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000), 404–414.
Re-examination of the portrayal of authority, ethical and political, in the works of Molière and La Fontaine.
KINTZLER, CATHERINE. "Les Femmes savantes de Molière et la question des fonctions du savoir." DSS 211 (2001), 243–255.
Kintzler demonstrates that "la question de la stérilité féminine, subie (Bélise), décrétée (Armande) ou conquise (Philaminte) permet de décliner non seulement la position sociale de chacune des 'Femmes savantes'. . ., mais qu'elle permet de les situer en tant qu'elles se veulent savantes: elle détermine la relation que chacune d'entre elles entretient avec le savoir." Draws on Hegel's conception of the body.
KOPPISCH, MICHAEL S. Introduction to Kentucky Foreign Language Conference on "Molière and the Moralist Tradition." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000), 361–362.
KOPPISCH, MICHAEL S. "Dom Juan's Equal Opportunity Rivalry." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 385–392.
Dom Juan, like Tartuffe a leveller of differences, engaging in biological warfare and "attacking his rivals with the germs that Tartuffe carried."
MALACHY, THERESE. "Les 'monstres' de Molière." RHT 52.3 (2000), 235–40.
A Foucault-inspired approach to Molière's "madmen" (Mascarille, Arnolphe, Orgon, M. Jourdain, Georges Dandin are among those mentioned), seen as "monsters" in the cultural and ideological climate of his day.
MAZOUER, CHARLES, ed. Molière: Le Misanthrope, Georges Dandin, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Sous la direction deCharles Mazouer. Littératures Classiques, 38 (janvier 2000). Paris: Champion, 2000.
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 202–204. "On recommendera chaleureusement à tous les enseignants cet excellent volume aussi bien qu'aux lecteurs cultivés et aux amateurs de théâtre."
Review: L. Norci Cagiano in S Fr 32 (2000), 593: Rich and suggestive analysis focusing on Le Misanthrope, Georges Dandin and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. The world of the theatre is considered in its "polyfonic" aspects: recitation, music, dance. Original interpretation situates each of the players in Molière's oeuvre, treats his depiction of society, comic heroes, manners, and finally theatrical writing. Excellent notes and bibliography.
MAZOUER, CHARLES. Trois comédies de Molière : étude sur "Le Misanthrope", "George Dandin", "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme." Paris: SEDES, 1999.
Review: B. Munin in RSH 262.2 (2001), 275–277: "Cette volonté de trouver, voire de construire, une unité claire dans ces trois pièces entre l'homme et l'oeuvre entraîne un tiraillement constant entre l'analyse descriptive et la recherche d'une justification morale aux situations et aux personnages que propose Molière. [. . .] Dans la postface l'auteur nous fera part de son insatisfaction devant un choix de pièces qui n'est pas le sien, qui n'a "aucune sorte de justification intellectuelle de fond" et l'a amené à opérer une synthèse artificielle. On lira malgré tout avec intérêt les chapitre V (L'écriture dramatique) et VI (L'écriture scénique) qui offrent avec finesse des pistes d'interrogations sur les registres du langage, les interactions entre le corps de l'acteur et l'écriture du texte, et surtout, sur la spécificité de la comédie-ballet. L'ensemble ne manque pas de susciter la réflexion."
MCBRIDE, ROBERT. Molière, "L'Imposteur" de 1667, prédécesseur du "Tartuffe". Edition critique. Texte établi et présenté partRobert Mc Bride. Durham: University of Durham, 1999.
Review: R. Pommier in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 205–207: ". . .si, on l'aura compris, malgré toute l'estime et l'amitié que j'éprouve pour R. Mc Bride, je suis souvent peu convaincu par sa tentative, il s'en faut bien que je la trouve inutile."
NORMAN, LARRY F. The Public Mirror. Molière and the Social Commerce of Depiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Review: J. Gaines in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 214–215: "The great advantage of this book is not that it will establish "definitive judgments" or act as a sacred scripture of Molière criticism, but rather that it is a wonderful thinking machine. . ."
PARENT, BRICE. Variations comiques ou Les récritures de Molière par lui-même. Paris: Klincksieck, 2000.
Review: C. Mazouer in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 217–218. "Louons Brice Parent de la précision de ses analyses. . .menées en un style aisé, voire élégant."
PREST, JULIA, ed. Molière, Le Mariage forcé. Edition critique par Julia Prest. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2000.
Review: C. Mazouer in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 220–221: ". . .au total, s'il n'est pas sûr de la nécessité absolue de cette nouvelle édition, le recenseur aura été sensible à sa tonalité particulière!"
Review: BCLF 627 (2000), 2679: Edition critique "qui s'appuie sur les trois versions [1664, 1668, 1672] successivement travaillées et retravaillées par Molière."
RACEVSKIS, ROLAND. "Connaissance de soi et des autres dans Georges Dandin." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 375–384.
Study of the social relations in Molière's play, as well as of the tensions between Georges Dandin's "identité individuelle" and the characters which surround him.
ROUGET, FRANÇOIS. "Molière lecteur d'Etienne Pasquier? Réflexions autour du libertinage de Dom Juan." DSS 211 (2001), 257–267.
Rouget argues that Pasquier's Monophile, a philosophical dialogue about faithfulness and inconstancy, is an intertext for Dom Juan's celebrated monologue in Act I, scene 2.
SCHUMACHER, CLAUDE. "Would You Splash Out on a Ticket to Molière's Palais Royal?" ThR 25 (2000), 248–58.
Returns to question of composition of Molière's audience. Develops three arguments, economic, literary and sociocultural, to exclude most Parisians from the theatre. Only the rich can afford tickets, only the elite can understand literary and mythological illusions, and the playwrights are not courting simple folk.
SCOTT, VIRGINIA. Molière: a theatrical life. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000
Review: D. Potts in TLS 5110 (Mar 9 2001), 21: Book offers "useful access to documentary information" but "no coherent idea of how Molière renewed French comedy." Scott "deals capably with the vicissitudes of provincial touring and Molière's difficulties in keeping his Paris seasons solvent, while constantly having to leave the capital to provide entertainment for the court." But author says nothing of training of actors and actresses. Book gives no sense of Molière's interaction with the audience or of the life of his plays on stage.
Review: J.E.Parker, Jr. in Choice 38, 9 (2001), 1634: A well-documented and very readable biography that treats Molière's life "from a theatrical point of view rather than from the more usual literary point of view. Scott gives a clear picture of Molière's relationship with the troupe of actors of which he became the accepted leader, his work with the French court of Louis XIV, and his personal life."
SELLES-FISCHER, EVELYNE. "'L'Ecole des femmes' de Didier Bezace." RDM (août 2001), 184–87.
Interview avec Bezace, comédien, metteur en scène, et directeur du Théâtre de la Commune à Aubervilliers, qui a ouvert le festival d'Avignon cet été avec la pièce de Molière. "Ce qui m'intéresse, c'est que Molière est lié. . . à un courant de pensée qui commence à se faire sentir au XVIIe siècle, le libertinage, au sens philosophique."
SERROY, JEAN, ed. Molière, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Edition présentée, établie et annotée parJean Serroy. Paris: Gallimard, 1998.
Review: N. Négroni in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 225–227: "Au total, l'on est impressionné par l'esprit de synthèse, mais aussi l'esprit de finesse, qui se dégagent de cette préface."
SERROY, JEAN, ed. Molière, L'Ecole des femmes. Paris: Galimard (Folio classique), 2000.
Review: A. Lesot in IL 53.2 (2001), 61–63. Part of a series of editions that aim at a public of lycéens while nonetheless incorporating details of interest to scholars, including information on mise-en-scène. Serroy introduces the play by explaining that Molière invents the monomaniac, proposing that Molière's lack of success in tragedy led him to make comedy more serious, and speculating that it was this that made L'Ecole scandalous—its blurring of genres.
SERROY, JEAN, ed. Molière, Les Fourberies de Scapin. Edition présentée, établie et annotée parJean Serroy. Paris: Librairie générale française, 1999.
Review: B. Chédozeau in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001), 224: "Voilà quelques décennies que Les Fourberies de Scapin se voient reconnaître une place à part dans le théâtre du XVIIe siècle. La préface de J. Serroy reprend et résume ces traits désormais admis."
SIMKOVA, SONA. "'Tartuffe' et 'Les liasons dangereuses.'" RHT (juillet-septembre 1999), 215–32.
Review: M. Lagier in S Fr 132 (2000), 594: Study of important slovac mises en scène of Molière's play, extremely varied and including one which eliminates all religious references, demonstrates Tartuffe's textual polysemy.
SLATER, MAYA, ed. and trans. Molière. The Misanthrope, Tartuffe and Other Plays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2001.
Review: D. Potts in TLS 5133 (Aug 17 2001), 29: Slater's choice to translate Molière's verse into alexandrines as opposed to iambic pentameter has enabled her to "produce versions that are much more successful in giving the reader immediate access to both plot and character," unencumbered by previous interpretations. Potts dismisses introduction as having little relevance to theatrical experience, but has high praise for translation.
SONDEREGGER, LORI. "Sources of Translation: a Discussion of Matthew Medbourne's 1670 Translation of Molière's Tartuffe." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 553–570.
Discussion of Medbourne's translation of Tartuffe, which examines the specific historical context in which it was written. The author focuses on some of the additions found in the 1670 translation.
TEBBEN, MARYANN. "Speaking of Women: Molière and Conversation at the Court of Louis XIV." MLS 29.2 (1999), 189–206.
Tebben analyzes the role of women and particularly salonnières in French society of the time of Louis XIV as reflected in three of Molière's plays, Les Précieuses ridicules, La Critique de l'Ecole des femmes, and Les Femmes savantes. She shows how "each of his plays affirmed the power of female conversation as urgent social problems to be remedied with Molière's special skill at ridicule."
TOBIN, RONALD W. "Civilité et convivialité dans Le Misanthrope et ses suites." Le Nouveau Molièriste IV–V (1998–1999): 145–168.
Tobin studies Molière's imposition of le jeûne (a lack of interest in orality and, consequently, civility) in Le Misanthrope, which creates distance between Alceste and the other characters in the play; he extends this study to plays by Molière's successors. Tobin concludes: "l'espace de quelques années Molière a ressenti une profonde incertitude quant à la possibilité d'exprimer sa vision du monde dans le genre comique, ce genre qui, dans ses mains, aboutissait souvent à une forme de régénération sociale: un mariage ou une invitation à souper."
VAN ELSLANDE, JEAN-PIERRE. "Molière ou le moraliste à la fête." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 363–374.
Molière as a "moraliste": like La Rochefoucauld and Pascal, he analyzes behaviours and seeks the masked or forgotten truth behind appearances. But, unlike them, "il inscrit sa réflexion au coeur d'une action (. . .) son propre théâtre est au contact immédiat avec le théâtre du monde."
VENESOEN, CONSTANT. Quand Jean-Baptiste joue du Molière. Essai. Tübingen: PFSCL/Biblio 17, 1996.
Review: T.P. Finn in CdDS 8.1, 194–97. "Venesoen offers a psycho-symbolic journey into the French playwright's 'puissance créatrice inconsciente' (8)." Author reads Molière's plays as a "therapeutic exercise through which [he] can exteriorize his inner most fears and examine the spectrum of possible reactions." A well-researched and plausible argument which at times shows "a somewhat strained cause and effect relationship" between Molière's life and work.
WOLFE, KATHRYN W. "Creating Comic Dialogue in Molière's L'Avare: Harpagon and the Economics of Miserly Verbal Exchange." RomN 51 (2000), 79–86.
An insightful analysis of Harpagon's comic attempts to escape the laws of reciprocal exchange which govern speech. Miser's "verbal greed" seen in reluctance to impart any information to interlocutors and in his tendency to operate with a "referential deficit."
HUREL, DENIS-ODON and RAYMOND ROGE, eds. Dom Bernard de Montfaucon. Actes du Colloque de Carcassonne, octobre 1996. Editions de Fontenelle, 1998.
Review: P. Castagnetti in DSS 211 (2001), 341–343: Author of l'Antiquité expliquée and Monuments de la Monarchie française, Montfaucon is a little-known disciple of Jean Mabillon. Primarily biographical in its approach, this collection of articles by a diverse range of participants strives to present an image of the man "dans sa globalité."
PITTS, VINCENT J. La Grande Mademoiselle at the Court of France. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000.
Review: A. Goodden in TLS 5129 (July 20 2001), 31: Reviewer doubts need for yet another book on Mademoiselle. Finds that Pitts does little except trudge through the events recorded in Mademoiselle's memoirs. Goodden regards memoirs as interesting because of relevance for history of feminism but seems to regard Mademoiselle herself as "a grandly silly person, whose activities barely mattered." Pitts has not made a case that the life (rather than just the memoirs) is worthy of study.
Review: F.J. Baumgartner in Choice 39, 1 (2001), 195: A biography of Anne-Marie Louise d'Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier, that emphasizes her relationships with the rest of the royal family and high government officials. "[P]rovides keen insights into French elite society of the seventeenth century and the place of an intelligent and independent-minded woman in it."
BIANCHI, LORENZO. Rinascimento e libertinismo: Studi su Gabriel Naudé. Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici. Naples: Bibliopolis, 1996.
Review: P. Ford in BHR 63.1 (2001), 160–161: Naudé n'est "pas toujours un personnage très attrayant, mais un excellent exemple d'un libertinage érudit formé par des mouvements italiens aussi bien que français." Ford regrette les répétitions inhérentes dans un recueil dont quatre des six études ont été publiées ailleurs mais apprécie le contexte historique, culturel et philosophique établi par l'auteur pour situer l'oeuvre de Naudé.
GIRAUD, YVES, éd. Antoine de Nervèze. Les Essais poétiques. Paris: STFM, 1999.
Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 132 (2000), 585–86: Excellent edition by Giraud of this much discussed author includes, in addition to the poetry itself (love poetry and encomiastic verse) a convincing critical introduction which demonstrates the simplicity and intimate delicate lyric qualities of Nervèze's work. Notes provide historical references or send the reader to the 1605 Lyon edition. A bibliography, glossary and table of incipit are included.
THIROUIN, LAURENT, ed. Pierre Nicole, Essais de morale. Choix d'essais introduits et annotés parLaurent Thirouin. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999.
Review: R. Baustert in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 655–657: "Essais de par leur nature non spéculative, ils le restent, comme le remarque judicieusement l'éditeur, au sens propre du terme, exercices permettant, dans la tradition de Montaigne, de s' 'essayer' soi-même dans les multiples circonstances d'une vie, et d'en affronter les défis."
Review: B. Chédozeau in IL 53.1 (2001), 45–46. A choice of ten essays judged the most significant. Edition includes notes and an introduction, which reviewer qualifies as an "excellent ouvrage de synthèse [qui] définit l'originalité de Nicole au sein du mouvement augustinien et dans l'ensemble de la littérature morale."
ATTALI, JACQUES. Blaise Pascal ou le Génie français. Paris: Fayard, 2000.
Review: BCLF 629 (2001), 294–95: Biographie de Pascal: "Deux idées soustendent ce travail. Tout d'abord, Pascal est présenté comme le type même du génie français, c'est-à-dire comme un intellectuel, un journaliste, un polémiste en même temps que comme un grand scientifique, esprit génial très et trop méconnu aux dires de l'auteur."
CAGNAT-DEBOEUF, CONSTANCE. "Fléchier, lecteur de Pascal. Ou de l'art du plagiat." Biblio 17, 122, 115–125.
The author studies Fléchier's reading of Pascal.
GILBY, EMMA. "Reflexivity in the Pensées: Pascal's Discourse on Discourse." FS 55.3 (2001), 315–26.
Examines the self-conscious use of language in the Pensées, through which, according to the author, Pascal "stimulates readers towards an active construction of meaning."
MAZAHERI, HOMAYOUN. "L'apologétique et le mythe du juif dans les Pensées de Pascal." CdDS 8.1, 107–119.
Author shows how Pascal's glorification of Christianity had as its counterpart an antisemitism that most pascaliens have not confronted.
NATOLI, CHARLES. "Pascal: Mystique/anti-mystique," C17 V,1 ((1996).
PARE, FRANÇOIS. "Temps et digression dans les Pensées de Pascal." EFr 37.1 (2001), 67–81.
Seeks in the Pensées a certain conception of the subject that would escape the constraints of history, particularly mechanisms of fragmentation and "formes ouvertes de la temporalité."
SELLIER, PHILIPPE. Port-Royal et la littérature: Pascal. Paris: Champion, 1999.
Review: N. Hammond in FS 55.2 (2001), 241–42: "Sellier's major works on intertextuality in Pascal (most notably the roles played by the Bible and St Augustine) are widely reflected here...There is also a very useful updated index of all biblical allusions in Pascal's works. His classic articles on Pascal's rhetoric, style and conception of tyranny make a welcome return. In addition to these topics, a number of more unusual comparative subjects appear [...]." While his appraisal is highly favorable, the reviewer wishes that the book featured a general index, and that it acknowledged recent scholarship on Pascal more fully.
TARASSOV, BORIS. "Dostoïevski et Pascal : parallèle de deux univers de la création littéraire." RLC 296.4 (octobre-décembre 2000), 493–514.
Great similarities of thought are to be found in the ideas of Pascal and Dostoievsky. Both are equally convinced that reason and science cannot decipher the "mystery of man." They consider that the heart is superior as a means of knowledge but nevertheless is too often corrupted by the passions.
STEINBERGER, DEBORAH, ed. Françoise Pascal. Le Commerce du Parnasse. University of Exeter Press, 2001.
SIRVIN, ANNE. "François Perrin: Un Parcours Immobile (Les Enseignements du Paratexte dans l'Oeuvre du Poète Autunois)." BHR 62.2 (2000), 303–315.
Analyse du paratexte de l'oeuvre de F.P. (1533–1606), chanoine d'Autun et auteur de cinq recueils de 1574 à 1599. Le paratexte pour Perrin est "un objet littéraire multiforme et riche de sens où se trouvent conjugués de façon consciente et avec abondance poésie et stratégies éditoriales, prose et postulats idéologiques."
MARIN, LOUIS. Sublime Poussin. Ed. Daniel Arasse et al. Trans.Catherine Porter. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999.
Review: J. Tansey in SCN 58.3 (2000), 271–274: A translation of Marin's unfinished treatise on Poussin and the notion of the sublime (originally published posthumously under same title by Seuil in 1995). Includes ten papers published between 1970–1988, Marin's outline, and "superb descriptions of about 20 of Poussin's paintings." Reviewer writes: "This book will be of interest to art historians and theoreticians alike for its detailed descriptions. All students in the humane studies who relish bold, fresh methods for interpreting texts, images, and practices will find much here for use and inspiration. It is a slim volume, at times lyrical, not excessively packed with jargon, and well-translated."
SZANTO, MICKAËL. "The Taste for Poussin in Paris: The Case of Pierre Hennequin de Fresne." Burlington 1177 (2001), 196–203.
Cites examples of Poussin's popularity in Paris, French art academies, then asks whether this Poussin can be equated with the "real Poussin of Rome." By studying the collection of Poussin's patron, M. de Fresne, concludes that these two views of Poussin do not entirely coincide.
NORMAN, BUFORD, ed. Philippe Quinault, Livrets d'opéra. 2 vols. Toulouse: Société de littératures classiques, 1992.
Review: L. Naudeix in RHL 100 (2000), 1214–15: Reviewer notes the extreme difficulty in locating the texts for Quinault's musical tragedies, and lauds Norman's editorial efforts. Texts provided are those of the first printing, with rigorous attention to variants. An accessible edition, containing a short bibliography, brief introduction, a lexicon, and a dictionary of proper names.
Review: G. Durosoir in DSS 210 (2001), 169–170: Contains eleven librettos composed for Lully between 1673–1686. The substantial critical apparatus includes the performance history of each opera, the successive editions of each libretto, a glossary, selected bibliography and discography, and name and place dictionaries. Reviewer enthusiastically praises Norman who achieves his intended goals: "redonner aux livrets de Quinault leur place dans le domaine de la littérature dramatique en considérant les livrets du seul point de vue de l'écriture littéraire, et de mettre ainsi en lumière leur valeur littéraire intrinsèque. . .."
NORMAN, BUFORD. "Quinault's libretto for Isis:: new directions for the tragédie lyrique." Lully Studies. Ed. John H. Heyer. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. 57–71.
"Comment éditer un monument: la place du texte littéraire dans une édition d'une tragédie lyrique." Quellenstudien zu Jean-Baptiste Lully / L'oeuvre de Lully: Etudes des sources. Hildesheim: Olms Verlag, 2000. 115–28.
ACHER, LIONEL. Jean Racine: Phèdre. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999.
Review: P. Bousquet in DSS 211 (2001), 350: An original work that regroups the principal Racinian criticism as well as new approaches to familiar subjects. In addition to the play itself, supplementary materials abound: a synopsis of the play, its literary context, a brief biography focusing on the primoridial place of Phèdre in Racine's career, a discussion of literary and mythological sources, and finally, the noteworthy stagings of the play. Two-thirds of the volume are devoted to a detailed literary analysis of the play. The reviewer writes that this "useful and stimulating" work offers an excellent overview of the current state of Racinian scholarship but notes the "excessively short" bibliography.
ALBANESE, RALPH, JR. "Britannicus: une dramaturgie de l'espace." 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), 125–135.
Article examines spatial crises in Britannicus and its role in delimiting the place of the other, that is, the limits of the other's power in the play. Focuses on Néron's political exploitation of space in a wide variety of paradigms.
BABY, HELENE and JEAN EMMELINA, eds. Racine et la Méditérranée, Soleil et Mer, Neptune et Apollon. Actes du Colloque International de Nice des 19–20 mai 1999. University of Nice: Sophia Antipolis, 1999.
Review: D. Shaw in MLR 96. 2 (2001), 499–500: "The Nice conference clearly attracted many leading scholars and, within the perspective of sun and sea, the resulting articles study Racine from a remarkable variety of critical viewpoints: geographical, historical, artistic, poetic, theatrical, religious, metaphysical and psychological."
Review: J.D. Lyons in FS 55.2 (2001), 244–45: A collection of papers of "overall high quality" given at one of the 1999 colloquia commemorating the tercentenary of Racine's death. Of the group of papers dealing with the sun and the sea in Racine, "particularly noteworthy are the studies by Marc Szuskin, Jean-Claude Ranger, and Ronald Tobin on the sea as symbol or spatial factor in the tragic plot and John Campbell's extremely illuminating comparison of the language of the sea in Shakespeare and Racine." The volume also features two long articles: Marc Escola's comparative study of Corneille's and Racine's use of episodic characters, and Bernard Chédozeau's "more debatable, though stimulating, description of the relationship between history and the spectators' experience of Racinian tragedy [...]."
BACKES, JEAN-LOUIS. "Racine's Use of Maxims." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 27–38.
"Backès scrutinizes the quite specific way in which the apparent authority of the maxim is used to infuse local colour and character difference... Backes illustrates the way in which the maxim is exploited to enforce acceptance of a different 'Other'" ("Introduction," 6–7).
BAKER, SUSAN READ. "Sounds of Silence: Faltering Speech in Racine's Bérénice and Corneille's Tite et Bérénice." 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), 223–232.
Article examines the relationship between speech and silence in Corneille's and Racine's competing works as a fundamentally aesthetic problem which each solved in a unique way, Corneille through the "sterilizing dialectic" between love and self-love, and Racine in the more elegant form of tragic misunderstandings in simple love triangles.
BARNETT, RICHARD-LAURENT. "Errances et transgressions raciniennes: Pour une nouvelle sémiotique du discours tragique." SYM 55.1 (2001), 3–14.
Essai de synthèse sur la problématique de la parole: "Bref, se donne ici en spectacle moins le discours du tragique que le tragique du discours."
BAYLEY, PETER. "Let's Dump Classicism." 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), 261–264.
Bayley questions the appropriateness and usefulness of the term "classicism" as a descriptor for a specific period, suggesting that students prefer to respond directly to texts without confusing labels for works which they would do better to experience immediately rather than in mediated form.
BIET, CHRISTIAN. "Women and Power in Britannicus and Bérénice: The Battle of Blood and Tears." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 39–54.
Study of the dramatic and psychological implications of tears, including "a sensitive and disturbing reflexion on the nature of cruelty on stage, and the pleasure we can derive from it" ("Introduction," 7).
BOLDUC, BENOIT. "Iphigénie: de la vaine éloquence à l'artifice efficace." 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), 93–112.
A study of the exceptional circumstances of Iphigénie's "première" at Versailles, with particular attention paid to the role of the play in the greater project of the glorification of Louis XIV. Bolduc studies "le rôle particulier que jouent l'éloquence et l'artifice dans l'élaboration du mythos racinien et de la thématique d'Iphigénie."
BROOKS, WILLIAM. "Racine, or, The Triumph of Irrelevance." 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), 265–274.
Brooks details his decision to "accidentally" include Racine's tragic works in a course on seventeenth-century comedy, in which he highlights parallels in action, themes, language, and character types between Molière and Corneille's comedies and Racine's tragedies.
BURY, EMMANUEL. "Racine historiographe: théorie pratique de l'écriture historique." 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), 151–168.
Article examines Louis XIV's choice of Racine as historiographe du roi in terms of the playwright's ability to rise above his station to take on this new role. Bury insists upon aspects of Racine's previous work which would allow him to be an effective historian and offers an analysis of Racine's work as historian. His conclusion suggests that Racine as poet and Racine as historian share fundamental characteristics common to all of the playwright's humanist oeuvre.
CALDICOTT, EDRIC. "Racine's 'Jacobite' Plays: The Politics of the Bible." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 100–120.
A "reassessment of existing historical interpretations of Esther and Athalie... [Caldicott] draws upon the edited correspondence of the Comte d'Avaux, French ambassador to James II in Ireland, to tilt at the flattering preoccupations which still prevail about the Jacobites" ("Introduction," 9).
CAMPBELL, JOHN. "'Enseigner Racine': mission impossible?" 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), 249–260.
An account of recent sessions on teaching Racine at conferences in Nice, Paris and Uzès; in general, the account is a sobering one, both at the lycée and in university courses, in France and elsewhere.
CONROY, DERVAL. "Gender, Power and Authority in Alexandre le Grand and Athalie." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 55–74.
Focuses on la souveraine. "Conroy examines to what degree Racine's plays can be read as upholding or subverting the epistemological paradigms of the time, arguing that the representation of the power and authority of Axiane and Athalie highlights the ambiguities, in a patriarchal society, of female exclusion from the throne" ("Introduction," 8).
CONROY, JANE. "Constructions of Identity: Mirrors of the 'Other' in Racine's Theatre." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 75–99.
"Conroy examines the representation of origins and race, of both the collective and the individual 'Other' (predominantly although not exclusively woman), and analyses how issues of identity are constructed in Racine" ("Introduction," 8).
COURSE, DIDIER. "Pourquoi Racine n'a-t-il jamais écrit de pièce sur Judith?" 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), 437–448.
Course traces the literary history of the Biblical femme forte, Judith, and posits that, while the story was privileged as a subject of plays and other texts in the early 17th century, by the second half of the century, when Racine wrote his theater, the figure of Judith gave way to other, less violent representations with enhanced psychological subtlety.
COWART, GEORGIA. "Sappho's Cythera: The Fête galante vs. the Fete monarchique." 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), 395–408.
Article traces the origin of Watteau's myth of Cythera to 17th-century feminist and egalitarian movements from the period of the Fronde. Considerable attention is paid to Antoine Houdar de la Motte's libretto for Le Triomphe des arts of 1700, Madeleine de Scudéry's Sapho and Montpensier's La Relation de l'isle imaginaire and La Princesse de Paphlagonie, as well as to the development of the opéra-ballet.
DANDREY, PATRICK. Phèdre de Jean Racine: genèse et tissure d'un rets admirable. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999.
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in FR 74.6 (2001), 1240–1241: Designed for use by beginning university students, this book demonstrates the difference recognized today between tragedy as a literary genre conceived and practiced in the seventeenth century in an Aristotelian context and "the tragic" as a modern metaphysical and esthetic category. Dandrey argues that neither Phèdre nor Hippolyte is truly guilty, but rather represent "l'essence d'une condition humaine vouée à l'erreur et au malheur, ce qui confère à la pièce son sens tragique." Early chapters offer students the necessary groundwork to understand the play, as well as the genre it illustrates. Other chapters examine the meaning of the play, and highlight the importance of Racine's style and vocabulary. A balanced study useful for both beginners and more advanced readers.
DECLERCQ, GILLES. "Poéticité versus rhétoricité: pathos et logos dans les tragédies de Racine." 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), 19–53.
Declercq states: "Notre projet est de montrer dans ce contexte général l'effet du regain rhétorique sur la lecture de Racine; et de monter plus spécifiquement de quelle façon une lecture rhétorique 《 fondamentaliste 》 — centrée sur la dimension argumentative du discours—, permet de reformuler la question du pathos racinien par l'analyse du logos persuasif déployé sur scène par les personnages — autrement dit de ré-articuler la question moderne et ancienne du poétique et du rhétorique."
DELACOMPTEE, JEAN-MICHEL. "The Majesty and the Pleasure of Bérénice Today." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 177–187.
Delacomptée "explicitly argues that [Bérénice] is more convincing if shifted from a focus on love to a political examination of the responsibility of kingship" ("Introduction," 11).
DELCROIX, MAURICE. "Katachronismes raciniens." 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), 423–435.
Article suggests that, when seen through the lens of history, lexical abstraction in Racine's theater is seen to be capable both of anticipating future lexical usages and of referring back to past usages. Delcroix offers several examples of this phenomenon by a careful tracing of a thematic lexical network.
DELEHANTY, ANN T. "God's Hand in History: Racine's Athalie as the End of Salvation Historiography." PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 155–166.
Study of Racine's play within the context of salvation history. The author argues that Racine stages in that tragedy a battle between two opposite models of historiography-salvation history and political history, in other words the conflict between the purposes of the state and the divine purpose for the future.
DESNAIN, VERONIQUE. "Les Faux Miroirs: The Good Woman/Bad Woman Dichotomy in Racine's Tragedies." MLR 96.1 (2001), 38–46.
Desnain argues that "since tragedy not only represents but also validates social constraints, the predominance of female characters in Racine is not, as suggested by Goldmann, dictated by the particular ability of women to experience extremes of emotion, but rather could be interpreted as a warning to socially-dissident women. This is further supported by the introduction of the 'miroir', as the very presence of the 'good woman' shows us precisely where the 'bad woman' has deviated from the norm."
EKSTEIN, NINA. "Le change in Corneille and Racine." 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), 209–221.
Article examines the figure of le change in Racine, that is, the abandonment of the object of one's affections for a new lover. Offering numerous comparisons to Corneille, Ekstein conceives of change as fundamental to the œuvre of both dramatists, despite its traditional association with the heroic or the tragic, albeit with very different motivations in each playwright.
EMELINA, JEAN. "Le bonheur dans les tragédies profanes de Racine." 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), 343–367.
Article catalogs numerous manifestations of bonheur in Racine in an effort to counter a predominant 20th-century critical tendency to ignore the qualities of Racine which were intended to plaire andtoucher the spectators by their intensity and passion.
EMELINA, JEAN. Racine infiniment. Paris: SEDES, 1999.
Review: A. Blanc in RHL 101 (2001), 151–53: Author statistically demonstrates Racine's current disfavor on stage and in the classroom. After a prudent look at Racine's life, book focuses on the atemporality of his tragic characters, his refusal of general moral or political maxims, the importance of amourous passion, and the exact definition of "le tragique" for Racine. "Cette étude, rigoureuse, érudite, ... doit être mis en tête de toute bibliographie raciniennne ad usum des étudiants de licence et d'agrégation, et sa lecture s'impose à qui que ce soit qui désirerait non seulement faire un cours, mais se former une idée juste et claire de Racine."
Review: H. Phillips in FS 55.1 (2001), 88–89: "Emelina emphasizes the way in which Racine's tragic world is unquestionably of the here and now, and of flesh and blood...[he] prefers a Racine who offers no explanations about the human condition: rather, 'il donne à voir.'" Although the reviewer objects to some of the "contemporary reference points" that Emelina employs to illustrate Racine's timelessness, he concludes: "This lively and engaging book is a 'cri du cœur' on behalf of us all which, while containing many passages of great sensitivity and insight...resolutely offers no solutions."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Racine's Andromaque, mise en scène par Daniel Mesguich. Comédie Française, été 2001. Le Point 1499 (2001), 117.
"Un spectacle intrépide et nul. Des comédiens qui confondent la tragédie et le grabuge, égarés entre perdition et névrose. Un massacre."
FERNEY, FREDERIC. Performance review of Racine's Bérénice, conçue par Frédéric Fisbach et Bernardo Montet. Théâtre de la Bastille, printemps 2001. Le Point 1488 (2001), 141.
"A mi-chemin entre le théâtre et la danse, une Bérénice entrecoupée d'étreintes, de chutes, de duels, d'enlacements. . .. Des moments brefs d'une intense beauté." Notes the "intrusion de l'hébreu dans la bouche de Bérénice," played by Tal Beit-Halachmi.
FORESTIER, GEORGES. "Editer Racine aujourd'hui: choix, enjeux, significations." 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), 55–71.
Forestier details the complex set of questions any modern editor of Racine must face when embarking on the project to publish his oeuvre, particularly when what precisely constitutes Racine's œuvres complètes is elusive. Includes a discussion of why Racine is commonly seen to be "(presque) injouable" today.
FORESTIER, GEORGES. "The Racinian Hero and the Classical Theory of Characterization." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 14–26.
"Forestier looks at Racine's innovative dramaturgy, i.e. the mechanism of plot structures and the concept of character... [He shows] how, in the specific case of Andromaque, Racine inaugurated a new phase in the history of French tragedy" ("Introduction," 6). Focuses on Racine's new definitions for vraisemblance, bienséance and ressemblance.
GETHNER, PERRY. "Pros and Cons of Human Sacrifice in French Mythological Plays." 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), 449–458.
Article summarizes the place of human sacrifice in various versions of the story of Iphigenia, including Rotrou's Iphigénie and Racine's Iphigénie. Gethner also recounts the use of human sacrifice in Françoise Pascal's Endymion (1657) and Anne-Marie Du Boccage's Les Amazones (1749), contrasting the tendency to use deux ex machina in the 17th century with the rejection of this mechanism in the 18th c.
GIRAUD, YVES and GEORGES FORESTIER. "Lire Racine, vraiment?" RHL 101 (2001), 303–09.
An exchange about the punctuation of Racine's tragic verse; Forestier's recent edition of Racine had stressed punctuation as an index of the theatrical delivery intended by the author. Giraud maintains that Racine's original editions show quite arbitrary use of punctuation; while Forestier argues that all the examples cited by Giraud only confirm the care Racine took with this aspect of his text.
GORMLEY, GRAINNE. "Moreau as Teacher: The Impact of His Vocation on the Composition of Esther." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 209–228.
"Gormley focuses on the practical considerations that would haveinfluenced Moreau's composition and which, Gormley argues, should inform performance practice today" ("Introduction," 12).
GUENOUN, SOLANGE M. "Coupures et recoupements: une histoire en lambeaux. Etude des Notes et Fragments de Racine." 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), 169–194.
This reading of a posthumous publication by Racine highlights elements which link various fragments through references to the comté d'Auvergne and the dukes and duchesses of Bouillon. Rather than read the fragments as "anecdotes," Guenoun suggests that a coherent project underlies this collection of notes and facts.
HARTWIG, SUSANNE and BERTHOLD WARNECKE. "Esther: Prototype of an Oratorio? The Collaboration of Racine and Jean-Baptiste Moreau." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 188–208.
"[O]ne of the first modern analyses of Moreau's music, studied in conjunction with Racine's treatment of the Biblical story [of Esther]... [A] highly technical but accessible study of Moreau's composition" ("Introduction," 12).
HAWCROFT, MICHAEL. "Racine through Pictures." 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), 275–307.
Hawcroft details his pedagogical experiment to confront the texts of Racine through the playwright's 17th- and 18th-century illustrators as a means of engaging his students in more active critical analysis of the texts themselves. Includes sections on illustrating narrations, illustrating visual effects, allegorical interpretations, and sequential readings. Correct readings of the illustrations require students to have extensive textual knowledge, which is in any case the initial goal. Article contains numerous illustrations.
HILGAR, MARIE-FRANCE. "L'héroïne de Racine a-t-elle franchi le pas?" 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), 471–475.
Hilgar details the history of la casuistique, its fundamental principles and objections made with regard to it in the 17th c. She includes a brief application of these principles to the case of Phèdre.
HOFFMANN, KATHRYN. "Flying through Classicism's Night: The Witch in Myth and Religion." 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), 459–470.
Article chronicles multiple instances of witch-like female figures (like Medea) in mythical, religious, literary, juridical, medical and historical texts and their constant resistant of efforts to contain them. Includes references to Corneille's Médée and La Conquête de la Toison d'or, historical witch trials, the texts of demonologistts, Perrault and d'Aulnoy's fairy tales, and Racine's Phèdre.
KOPPISCH, MICHAEL S. "Tout fuit, tout se refuse à mes embrassements: Can We Continue to Teach Racine?" 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), 309–319.
Article discusses the professoriat's assumptions regarding the cultural knowledge students possess or are expected to acquire during their university studies, and suggests that good teaching is about being subversive, about posing questions which address students' inner realities through a subject-centered approach to the teaching of literature, thereby promoting discovery and engagement with the text.
LEINER, WOLFGANG, and SCHRÖDER, VOLKER, éds. Présences de Racine. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1999.
Review: R. Parish in FS 55.1 (2001), 89: "The essays in this volume, by an international team of collaborators, deal with the dramatist from a widely contrasting range of viewpoints: historical, linguistic, political, religious, psychological and psychoanalytic... The best pieces combine an interpretative dimension with a full account of the significant contributions to Racinian studies over the last few decades, and point to fertile areas for future research activity...Outstanding among such are Bury on antiquity, Hawcroft on language, Ronzeaud on politics and Sweetser on women."
LIMBRICK, ELAINE. "Racine: The Historian in the Text." 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), 195–205.
Article chronicles Racine's preparation of the Abrégé de l'Histoire de Port-Royal, suggesting ways in which Racine broke away from traditional royal historiography in its effort to paint the abbey as the victim of the Jesuits and of royal religious policy, an approach to writing history that was not objective, but rather ideologically and emotionally charged.
LYONS, JOHN D. "What Do We Mean When We Say 'classique'?" 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), 497–505.
Lyons offers several contrasting and complementary definitions for what is often presented as an unquestioned aesthetic concept, that is to say, "classical" or "classique." Lyons suggests that critics use the term with caution, since it is a fundamentally ambivalent and fragile term, and 17th c. authors themselves did not use the word with reference to their own work.
MACKENZIE, LOUIS. "Phèdre Makes the Scene: Opening (the) Signals and Semantics." 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), 333–340.
Close reading of the incipit of Phèdre. The protagonist's fate is to speak, yet her public and private universes are in conflict. Speaking her love is tantamount to performing it, and the play will develop the conflicts between speaking and going which are detailed in the first scene.
MCBRIDE, ROBERT. "Les frères ennemis: Racine, Moliere and 'la querelle du théâtre." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 121–134.
A comparative study which incorporates Racine's correspondence with Nicole, demonstrating "how right [Racine] was to defend the unjustly maligned Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin" ("Introduction," 9).
NORMAN, LARRY F. "Racine's 'Other Eye': History, Nature, and Decorum from Ancient to Modern." 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), 139–150.
Article challenges the notion that Racine's universe is uniquely "ahistorical" by suggesting that a new sense of historical evolution may also be found in the plays. Norman proposes that "ancient" becomes a metaphor for "otherness" in Racine, which is a virtue; paradoxically, a "constant mitigation" of difference is required in Racine's universe which impacts on the playwright's own eternal reputation as well.
PICARD, RAYMOND, ed. Racine: Phèdre. Paris: Galimard (Folio classique), 2000.
Review: A. Lesot in IL 53.2 (2001), 61–63. Part of a series of editions that aim at a public of lycéens while nonetheless incorporating details of interest to scholars, including information on mise-en-scène. Preface here is that of Picard's 1950 Pléiade edition, which reviewer feels is right on its conclusion that Phèdre is a tragedy of human limits rather than fate. Nevertheless, reviewer also thinks that Picard's preface is much less accessible than it once was, and regrets the lack of a panorama of Racine criticism in the Dossier, including perhaps the Barthes/Picard polemic.
RACEVSKIS, ROLAND. "The Time of Tragedy: Andromaque, Britannicus, Bérénice." 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), 113–123.
Article examines "dramatic time in Bérénice through a close reading of the text and preface of the play itself and through a comparison of moments of characters' time-consciousness in Bérénice with similar key moments in Andromaque and Britannicus." Situates Bérénice "in the historical context of the science of time measurement," chronometry. Conclusion points to the "irreducibility of the question of time in Racine."
Racine et la Méditerranée. Soleil et mer, Neptune et Apollon. Actes du Colloque international de Nice. Nice: Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis, 1999.
Review: B. Louvat-Molozay in DSS 211 (2001), 351–352: This collection of essays focuses on, but is not limited to, "la place accordée, dans l'œuvre racinienne, au soleil et à la mer et à leurs figures tutélaires." The essays reflect a wide range of approaches and explore, among other subjects, the sea and the tragic, solar imagery and the mythological, the essential connection between the senses and solar and aquatic elements. Fifteen essays in all, plus the fruits of a round table on teaching Racine. The reviewer notes some unevenness in the quality of the essays.
RIGGS, LARRY W. "The Sovereign Eye and the Empty Throne: Chimène Silent, Junie Invisible." 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), 233–245.
Article applies several critical or theoretical models to the treatment of the nation-state and of absolutism in Le Cid and Britannicus. Riggs demonstrates how both plays essentially undermine absolutism's "theater of power" by staging multiple, contradictory voices, thereby denying the possibility of a single utopian political model.
RIVIERE, MARC SERGE. "Voltaire, Women and Reception: Racine in the Eighteenth Century." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 135–154.
Study of Voltaire's attitude toward Racine, Sévigné and Caylus, as well as the attitude of female contemporaries of Voltaire to these same writers.
ROHOU, JEAN, ed.. Album Racine. La Pochotèque, Le Livre de Poche, 1998.
Review: P. Pasquier in DSS 208 (2000), 548–550: With some 180 illustrations, this album is, according to the reviewer, "une authentique étude de la vie et de l'œuvre de Racine s'appuyant sur de très nombreux documents, tous choisis avec le plus grand soin. C'est la personnalité même de Racine qui nous est restituée, en une sorte d'inventaire raisonné, dans sa complexité, ses contradictions. . .." One chapter includes the complete series of frontispieces of Racine's dramatic works, and another is devoted to a comprehensive portrait of theatre life in Racine's time. An enthusiastic recommendation for this book that combines "les charmes du livre d'images et la rigueur de l'érudition."
ROHOU, JEAN. Avez-vous lu Racine?: Mis en point polémique. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2000.
Review: V. Desnain in MLR 96.3 (2001), 820–21: Vast in scope, this "mise au point attempts to rectify what Jean Rohou sees as misinterpretations of Racine's tragedies." Reviewer expresses disappointment that the author fails to demonstrate awareness of critical work done outside France; work also lacks bibliography and index.
Review: J. Emelina in DSS 211 (20010), 353–354: "Dense, erudite, fervent and stimulating," this book develops the author's "thèse bien connue d'une vision tragique de l'homme marqué par l'anthropologie augustinienne." The first seven chapters are devoted to the nature and mechanisms of theatrical fiction: "on démontre solidement la primauté des acteurs et des rôles sur les personnage et les caractères, celle du dramaturge sur l'auteur. . .." Five chapters focus on a "'critique interprétive' où l'allégorie et la signification morale prévalent." Two concluding chapters satirize the media, Barthes, and certain modern representations.
Review: H. Phillips in FS 55.2 (2001), 243–44: "This interesting but fundamentally chaotic book rails, sometimes intemperately and always passionately, against a whole host of academic targets," but "at the root of it all is a profound disagreement with the 'genetic' perspective of Georges Forestier." While "the analyses are often sensitive and sensible," the major flaw here is "Rohou's complete lack of any systematicity in proposing his own thesis."
SCHRODER, VOLKER. La Tragédie du sang d'Auguste: Politique et intertextualité dans Britannicus. Biblio 17, 119. Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1999.
Review: D. Clarke in MLR 96. 1 (2001), 186–187: Historico-political reading of Britannicus "makes an eloquent case, both theoretical and practical, for the usefulness of an intertextual approach in recreating the cultural horizons of the play's first public . . . ." Reviewer finds that Schroder, "in condemning 'la myopie des analyses psychologiques'," should nonetheless have taken into consideration "Racine's evocation in the First Preface to Britannicus of the traditional distinctions to be drawn between history and the biographical 'Life'" (from Plutarch's preamble to his Life of Alexander).
Review: M.-O. Sweetser in FR 74.6 (2001), 1240–1241: Aimed at Racine specialists, this study examines the political, and, specifically, dynastic dimensions of Britannicus. Sweetser argues that Racine shows "la supériorité du système successoral français par primogéniture mâle" in an attempt to please his sovereign "dont l'approbation allait assurer le succès de la pièce, aprèes un accueil initial réservé." A new, important, and clearly written thesis based on voluminous historical research.
Review: J. Lyons in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 653–655: ". . .un ouvrage original, subtil, d'une grande érudition, plein d'observations neuves et provocantes."
Review: J. Emelina in DSS 211 (2001), 348–350: Schroder examines a range of plays in view of refuting the traditional view of Racine as "apolitical." The author seeks to establish and elaborate the literary-historical and Franco-Roman "continuum" that underpins Racine's plays. The approach is "archeological" and exhaustive, offering new perspectives and interpretations. Ambitious, meticulous, erudite, enriched with numerous quotations and notes, writes the reviewer, the book makes a valuable contribution to Racinian studies.
Review: R. Parish in FS 55.3 (2001), 386–87: "In this elegant and meticulous étude dynastique, Volker Schröder considers a single Racinian tragedy in the light of its classical and contemporary subtexts, in order to bring to the surface the network of allusions which subtend it." The study includes extensive discussion of the political questions raised by the play, and features a "fascinating examination of the vexed question of succession," as well as detailed analysis of Junie as a figure of political legitimacy and keeper of the "sacred Roman flame." The reviewer concludes, "...by marshalling a formidable corpus of material, without ever losing the clarity of line, [Schröder] accords real authority to his argument."
THOMAS, DOWNING A. "Pastoral Against Tragedy in Hippolyte et Aricie." 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), 409–419.
Article demonstrates the way in which the juxtaposition of pastoral and tragedy in Hippolyte et Aricie functions self-referentially and in metadiscursive fashion, offering a kind of commentary on the situation of 18th-c. lyric theater.
TOBIN, RONALD. "Avant-propos: Doit-on encore aimer Racine?" 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), 9–15.
Organizer of the Santa Barbara conference and editor of the volume in question, Tobin situates the work at Santa Barbara within the context of the world-wide celebration of l'Année Racine, noting the remise en cause du classicisme which is the focus of this volume. Tobin maintains that Racine studies are better off currently than they were when the playwright's birthyear was celebrated in 1939.
TOBIN, RONALD. Jean Racine Revisited. New York: Twayne, 1999.
Review: D. Shaw in MLR 96.2 (2001), 498–499: "... introduction to Racine leaves much unsaid but provides the first-year student with a tolerable overview of the tragedies while offering nuggets of interest to the Racinian scholar." Chapters devoted to Racine's life and each of the tragedies along with chronology.
Review: H. Stone in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 658–659: ". . .professors who teach these works regularly will appreciate this volume for the solid scholarship it offers their students, a firm basis on which to layer their own and their students' own readings."
Review: N. Ekstein in E Cr 40 (2000), 99–100: This new "complex and compelling. . . vision of Racine's theater" (the original Twayne was done in 1977 by Claude Abraham) provides us with excellent text based readings and discussions noteworthy in part due to their "broad diversity of approach. Ekstein notes several errors and puzzlements but praises the volume as a "welcome addition" and a fitting tribute" for the Racine tricentennial. She notes Tobin's original perspective on why Racine left the theater after Phèdre.
Review: R. Runte in Literary Research/Recherche littéraire 17.33 (2000): 494–495: "Language and tone . . . are suitable both for undergraduate readers and for their professors. The analyses are clear and logical with a classical simplicity which is nonetheless profound." Runte notes that, "[A]lthough each chapter can be read exclusively and individually, it contains references to other plays, the work of other critics, and to previous comments." Tobin "manages to make sense of a poetry comprehensible and real to his readers, including those who must rely solely on the translations" thanks to his "sensitivity both to Racine's verse and to his audience." Tobin also "develops Racine's Latin and Greek sources and carefully explains divergences." Runte lauds Tobin's ability to "masterfully situate each play in its socio-political context" and to "draw a parallel between political fragmentation and Racine's choice of subject, figures, and occasional voluntary destruction of dramatic illusion." "A pleasure to read."
Review: M. Reilly in FS 54.4 (2000), 507–8: "Tobin's close engagement with the texts and admirably clear style make the book highly readable. The play-by-play approach allows him to convey the development and innovation of Racine's theatre, while pointing the reader to the standard secondary material. However, undertaking such a comprehensive study inevitably means running the risk of oversimplification or of being unable to develop many promising lines of enquiry... In the end, however, it is perhaps testimony to Tobin's critical skill that he leaves us wanting more."
Review: B. Louvat-Molozay in DSS 211 (2001), 352: Two introductory chapters devoted to biography and the adaptation of tragedy to the French stage are followed by chapters that examine each of Racine's plays. The reviewer notes that there are few original analyses, all the more regrettable given the author's erudition, and attributes this to the format imposed by the "Twayne's World Authors Series," designed to highlight only the most recent Racinian criticism.
TOCZYSKI, SUZANNE. "Teaching Phèdre: Desire and the Phenomenology of Action." 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), 321–332.
Article examines the play through the lens of Alice Rayner's To Act, to Do, to Perform. Phèdre's desire is examined as "act" (the conceptualization and articulation of desire), as "deed" (her physical experience of desire), and as "performance" (the "site of negotiation between the discursive dimension of desire and its physical actuality"). Toczyski offers "a variety of positions from which to consider Phèdre as agent and as object of her desire."
VAN DELFT, LOUIS. "'Philosophie' et 'comédie': nature — ou condition — humaines?" 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), 389–392.
A brief response to the session entitled "Tragédie et pensée morale" of the Santa Barbara conference, in which papers by Jean Emelina and Pierre Zoberman were read. Van Delft situates the papers read in the greater context of contemporary Racinian criticism.
VAN DELFT, LOUIS. "Pleasure in Racine." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 154–176.
Van Delft's "uninhibited challenge to his readers to reflect on what exactly one expects of a modern production of a canonical (or 'classical') French play of the seventeenth century" ("Introduction," 10). Specific focus on Bérénice and la tristesse majestueuse.
VIALA, ALAIN. "Racine and the Three Vanities." Racine: The Power and the Pleasure. Edric Caldicott and Derval Conroy, eds. Dublin: University College Dublin Press (2001), 229–240.
A "thought-provoking analogy of Racinian topoi with the realm of fine art, and with the form of still-life (or 'vanitas') in particular" ("Introduction," 13).
VUILLEMIN, JEAN-CLAUDE. "Baroque: pertinence ou obsolescence?" 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), 479–496.
Article examines the legitimacy of the elastic notion of "baroque," contrasting it amply with the more commonly accepted notion of "classique." Offering a more developed description of the multi-faceted nature of baroque, Vuillemin ultimately wonders if that which we now refer to as "classique" is not simply one modality of its predecessor, the "baroque."
WYGANT, AMY. Towards a Cultural Philology: 'Phèdre' and the Construction of 'Racine'. Oxford: Legenda, 1999.
Review: R. Parish in MLR 96.1 (2001), 187–188: Four-part interdisciplinary study organized around music, design, garden, and the sublime. "Wygant starts with 'La fille de Minos et de Pasiphaé' and ingeniously considers the line's musicality with reference to the problem of rhyme posed by the name 'Phèdre'. . . . She then turns to the use of the metaphors of painting and drawing . . . in examining the portrayal of the death of Hippolyte, and, in part three, to Le Nôtre's centreless labyrinth at Versailles, as a physical correlative to the mythical labyrinth of Crete." The final section deals with "the establishment of Racine (or 'Racine') as a classical icon..."
Review: M. Hawcroft in FS 55.1 (2001), 90: "In each of four chapters, [Wygant] weaves three strands: an issue in Racinian criticism, a textual moment in Phèdre, and a cultural analogy." Chapter 1, for example, "contains intertwined discussions of the critical tradition of calling Racine's verse musical, the line 'La fille de Minos et de Pasiphaé,' and the prologue to Lully's and Quinault's opera Atys." The patterns Wygant finds "are expounded with...intricate subtlety," and her "suggestions of new and rich contexts for readings of Phèdre" are "cleverly argued." The approach Wygant takes in this "ambitious" book results in "a suggestion that similar conceptual patterns can be found implicated in different kinds of cultural objects."
ZOBERMAN, PIERRE. "Ethics, Politics, and Metaphysics: Representations of Power in Racine's Theater." 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), 369–388.
Article details the fundamental dialection between Racine's representation of absolutist monarchy and his representation of Man which, together, aim to produce "belief-behaviors" in the reader/spectator. Zoberman's reading attempts to resolve the contradictions between critical models which posit Racine as entirely free of the political and those which are acutely aware of the political in Racine.
KRAILSHEIMER, ALBAN JOHN. Armand-Jean de Rancé, abbé de la Trappe. Ed. rev. et corr; trad. par Adolphe Levée. Paris: Cerf, 2000.
Review: BCLF 626 (2000), 2475–76: Biographie en trois parties: l'homme et sa vie, l'influence de Rancé dans le cloître ainsi que dans le monde. Krail analyse les relations de Rancé avec les jansénistes dans sa conclusion. Ouvrage "rigoureusement fondé sur les sources, en particulier sur les quelque 2000 lettres écrites par Rancé, ainsi que sur 'une quantité considérable mais intéterminée de lettres' ayant trait à la Trappe..."
CUILLIERE, ALAIN. "La conversion de sainte Thècle, de Guillaume Reboul, 1602." TL 13 (2000), 81–100.
Original contribution analyzes this unknown yet remarkable novel which was to have been part of a "vaste travail consacré aux vierges chrétiennes" (dedicatory letter to Marie de Médicis). Cuillière also retraces the success of Thècle's story from the apocryphal Actes de Paul to allusions by the Church Fathers and three important medieval retellings. Reboul addressed his narrative to female and worldly readers; Cuillière points out passages indicating "le souci constant de courtoisie" (93) as well as analyzing two successful stylistic traits: a systematic affectation of modesty and hyperbolic comparison. Reboul's récit demonstrates "un réel travail de composition" as well as offering the unusual theme "du christianisme naissant qui ébranle les valeurs et oppose les dieux" (100).
GOUZI, CHRISTINE. Jean Restout (1692–1768): peintre d'histoire à Paris. Paris: Arthéna, 2000.
Review: BCLF 627 (2000), 2600–01: Neveu de Jouvenet ("le maître incontestable de la peinture religieuse à la fin du XVIIe et au début du XVIIIe siècle"). Son style se caractérise selon Gouzi par "la transparence rhétorique consacrée par la tradition française du Grand Genre—et d'un réalisme intériorisé, aux courants particuliers de la pensée à la sensibilité de l'époque avant l'inflexion du goût ver les épures néoclassiques."
BERTIERE, SIMONE, ed. Mémoires, précédés de la Conjuration de Fiesque. Paris: Le Livre de poche, 1998.
Review: H. Carrier in DSS 209 (2000), 725–726: A modestly priced edition of the Retz's major work preceded by a youthful and polemical piece. Reviewer signals the substantial introduction, the rich bibliography, and the extensive annotation that illuminates and contextualizes the form (memoir genre) and content (political and social) of the Mémoires. Reviewer cites as well the numerous useful appendices, which include among other materials contemporary documents "offerts en parallèle aux passages correspondants de Retz."
DUC, ALEXIA ELISABETH. "De la Fidélité héroïque à la sociabilité mondaine: Pour une lecture des 'Mémoires' du Cardinal de Retz." DAI 61/10 (2000), 4016.
Argues against the prevailing view of de Retz as a nostalgic aristocrat, showing him instead indebted to ideas (sociabilité, esprit, honnêteté) circulating in salon circles at dates later that the times de Retz supposedly describes. "[E]ven as the Mémoires explicitly denounce court society and absolute monarchical power, they implicitly adopt court society's moral and social values and the ideology that monarchical power engenders."
LE BOZEC, YVES. "La mise en place du vraisemblable dans les Mémoires du Cardinal de Retz." PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 61–79.
Study of Retz's autobiography, not as an attempt to test its capacity to deliver or hide historical truth, but rather as a "mise en place" of "vraisemblable," according to the principles which govern all narrations.
LEVI, ANTHONY. Cardinal Richelieu and the Making of France. Constable, 2000.
Review: D. Porter in TLS 5101 (Jan 5 2001), 28: Porter finds little here to confirm the need for a new biography, although an interesting hypothesis is proclaimed to be the central theme. Richelieu, according to Levi, outlived his age, which was molded by positive, optimistic and heroic convictions about human potential. The cardinal is studied in the context of the "strong resurgence and incipient collapse of the euphoric moral and religious values of early seventeenth-century France... Levi's hypothesis is striking but it sits unconvincingly in the framework of a largely conventional book."
Review: R.T. Ingoglia in Choice 38, 6 (2001), 1144: A biography that argues that Richelieu operated in an intellectual context dominated by Du Vair and Descartes, and "characterized by a confidence in human potential. . . This thesis, soundly researched and presented, makes a valuable contribution to placing in context Richelieu's public and private actions in working toward France's cultural and national identity. Unclear, however is the biographer's contribution to a deeper understanding of Richelieu's religiosity."
GETHNER, PERRY. "A Baroque Guilt Trip: False Death Announcements in Rotrou." CdDS 8.1, 58–67.
Establishes a typology of Rotrou's frequent use of the device of having living characters announced for dead, concluding that it is more likely than not that the motif served the cause of religion.
HENIN, EMMANUELLE ET BONFILS, FRANÇOIS, eds. Jean Rotrou, Le Véritable Saint Genest. Présentation, analyse, notes, dossier, bibliographie, lexique parFrançois Bonfils etEmmanuelle Hénin. Paris: Flammarion, 1999.
Review: J.-C. Vuillemin in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 193–196: ". . .nonchalance éditoriale à imputer à Flammarion, qui, heureusement, n'affecte pas le texte même de la pièce, ni le sérieux et la richesse de l'ensemble des commentaires qui l'accompagnent."
KIRSOP, WALLACE. "Rotrou's Dedicatory Epistles Revisited." AJFS 37.2 (2000), 121–126.
Argues that recent critical editions of Rotrou's theater are based on too limited an examination of extant copies of original printings. Includes transcriptions of dedications not printed with all editions of Amélie (1638) and La Pélerine amoureuse (1637). Concludes that bibliographic inquiry must include not only all titles of a given work, but, where possible, all copies of each edition.
RIFFAUD, ALAIN. "Le Réseau des images chez Rotrou: l'exemple d'Iphigénie." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 509–525.
Study of poetic images ("la sombre clarté" and "calme et tempête") in Rotrou's mythological tragedy dating from 1641.
VUILLEMIN, JEAN-CLAUDE, éd. Jean Rotrou, L'Hypocondriaque ou Le Mort Amoureux. Genève: Droz, 1999.
Review: J. Clarke in MLR 96.3 (2001), 819–20: Worthy critical edition whose introduction examines author's biography, historical and literary sources, use of the décor simultané, 17th-century theories of madness and medicine, the significance of cross-dressing. Scene by scene analysis and detailed establishment of the text.
HOPE, QUENTIN M. Saint-Evremond and his Friends. Geneva: Droz, 1999.
Review: D. Potts in FS 55.2 (2001), 239: "[A] masterly and much-needed evocation of the life, times and society of a man of remarkable independence of mind whose place in seventeenth-century French thought and literature is still insufficiently appreciated." Hope "follows the author through the different stages of his long career: chapters which explore his friendships alternate with others which provide insightful commentary on the most prominent themes of his writing at the time... [Hope] is especially impressive on literary criticism, and breaks new ground in his treatment of the author's interest in music." The reviewer adds that "Hope's gifts as a writer (the book is a joy to read) make for some beautifully formulated passages on Saint-Evremond's style."
COIRAULT, YVES, éd. Saint-Simon, Les Siècles et les jours. Lettres (1693–1754) et Note "Saint-Simon" des Duchés-pairies, etc. Textes établis, réunis et commentés parYves Coirault.Préfaced'Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. Paris: Champion, 2000.
Review: A. Niderst in PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 182–183: "L'introduction d'Yves Coirault est, comme tout ce qu'il écrit, un miracle de culture. . ."
Review: BCLF 624 (2000), 2208–09: "Yves Coirault, à qui l'on doit la meilleure édition de Saint-Simon—celle de la Pléiade—, publie dans ce volume trois cent soixante et onze des lettres du 'petit duc'. . . conservées soit dans les archives du Quai d'Orsay, soit dans différentes collections privées."
COIRAULT, YVES. "Saint-Simon entre deux siècles et entre deux cultures." TL 13 (2000), 143–160.
Lecture given in 1998 at the Collège de France at the invitation of E. Le Roy Ladurie. Coirault seeks to "réduire Saint-Simon à lui-même, à la manière d'un physicien ou d'un chimiste analysant la matière d'une météorite" (143). Comparing Les Mémoires to a cathedral, Coirault finds their author both a man of the past and of the future, agreeing with Eric Auerbach that both reactionary and liberal tendencies are present in this socio-political monument (157, 156).
STEFANOVSKA, MALINA. Saint-Simon: un historien dans les marges. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: C. Moyes in FS 55.1 (2001), 93: In "one of the most interesting readings of Saint-Simon to come out in recent years," Malina Stefanovska attempts to reconcile two predominant views of Saint Simon: for historians he is an "ideologue of aristocracy," while for literary critics he is "above all a stylist." The author emphasizes the memorialist's "position of secrecy." "Conducted with erudition and eloquence, Stefanovska's argument marshals brilliant close readings of a number of key scenes in the Mémoires."
CARSON, JONATHAN, éd. Paul Scarron. Le Jodelet duelliste. Genève: Droz, 2000.
Review: BCLF 627 (2000), 2679: "Il s'agit d'un travail universitaire accompli, mais qui gagnerait peut-être à un peu plus de synthèse. . . . le lecteur pourrait reprocher à la longue introduction une certaine confusion dans sa volonté de confrontation systématique des sources, qui apporte finalement beaucoup moins que le relevé des vers espagnols imités par l'auteur judicieusement ajouté en appendice."
PARISH, RICHARD. Scarron. Le Roman comique. London: Grant & Cutler, 1998.
Review: J. Serroy in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 643–644: ". . .Richard Parish (. . .) en une centaine de pages, réussit à faire le tour des éléments indispensables pour aborder Le Roman comique, et pour en dégager tant les qualités que les enjeux."
Review: E. Desiles in DSS 210 (2001), 171–172: A critical and descriptive guide to Scarron's novel that covers literary context, characters, comic techniques, and questions of narrative. Includes a discussion of key critical studies of the novel. The reviewer concludes: "un ouvrage destiné aux non-initiés-anglophones-, concis, clair, dont le spécialiste pourra en confiance conseiller la lecture aux étudiants de premier cycle."
Review: C. Rolla in S Fr 130 (2000), 153: This critical guide situates the novel in its literary context, illuminates its importance for the history of French theatre, analyzes structure and narrative strategies. References are to the editions by Y. Giraud and J. Serroy. Rich bibliography and interesting appendices.
WINN, COLETTE H., ed. Règlement donné par une dame de haute qualité à M*** sa petite-fille, pour sa conduite, & pour celle de sa maison: avec un autre règlement que cette dame avoit dressé pour elle-mesme. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997.
Review: A. J. Strange in FR 74.2 (2000), 364–365: Reestablishes the "distinctive contribution to women's instructional literature" made by Schomberg (1600–1674) in two treatises, written for her granddaughter, on the duties of the wife and mother. Winn's "valuable" and "instructive" critical edition, including introduction and comprehensive bibliography, informs Schomberg's treatment of child rearing, household supervision, and social conduct.
PELLEGRINI, ROSA GALLI et CRISTINA BERNAZZOLI. Alaric ou Rome vaincue de Georges de Scudéry. Faisano, Paris: Schena, Didier Erudition, 1999.
Review: A. Niderst in S Fr 130 (2000), 120–21: Praiseworthy edition which allows the reader pleasure and the possibility to "communier. . . avec l'imaginaire de l'âge classique." Niderst appreciates the excellent critical apparatus, notes, résumé, tables of descriptions and comparisons, bibliography, but would have preferred more emphasis on the political and more thorough recognition of C. Rizza's work on the subject.
PELLEGRINI, ROSA GALLI. "Le Libre arbitre de la femme dans les tragi-comédies 《 pseudo-historiques 》 de Georges de Scudéry: le problème du suicide." CdDS 8.1, 120–127.
Considers the contradiction between the positive, neo-stoic value given to female suicides in Scudéry's theater and the Christian condemnation of those who take their own lives.
PELLEGRINI, ROSA GALLI. "Stratégies du 'tragique' dans Ibrahim, ou l'Illustre Bassa". S Fr 131 (2000), 255–75.
Perceptive and stimulating examination concludes that the novel's structure is "bicéphale" rather than "tricéphale" as René Godenne has previously argued (273). The hero is his double identity as Christian and Moslem "fera de trait d'union" between two worlds, East and West, representing however positive universal values "de la justice, de la fidelité, de la raison, du courage des armes et de la pensée" (273). Pellegrini demonstrates the centrality of historical sources and allusions to the novel and convincingly presents the important ideological significance of the novel's "stratégies du tragique."
DENIS, DELPHINE, ed. Madeleine de Scudéry, "De l'air galant" et autres Conversations (1653–1684): pour une étude de l'archive galante. Edition établie et commentée parDelphine Denis. Paris: Champion, 1998.
Review: E. Goldsmith in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 615–616: "Delphine Denis's selection of Scudéry's conversations is now the only one in print, and given the current state of academic publishing we are unlikely to see another one soon. It is all the more unfortunate that she has omitted such a large body of work from her bibliography."
KROLL, RENATE. Femme poète. Madeleine de Scudéry und di 《 poésie précieuse 》. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1996.
Review: A. Génetiot in RHL 100 (2000), 1210–11: "solidement documenté," the work examines in detail Scudéry's poetry, which is for the first time brought together in the appendix. Mainly concerned with the questions of female identity and authorship, the author show how "les genres mineurs de la poésie deviennent l'expression privilégiée d'un accès des femmes à l'écriture." Rejecting neoplatonic and Petrarchan models, Scudéry lets women participate in "la dignité du sujet lyrique," and inaugurates a new model of individual self-affirmation that will flower in the 18th century.
WAGNER, MARIE-FRANCE. "Le Rétablissement de l'ordre public, ou l'entrée du chancelier Séguier à Rouen." CdDS 8.1, 128–142.
Examines the documents surrounding Séguier's 1640 visit to Rouen to quell uprisings in Normandy, especially in their use of the topos of disorder.
KILLEEN, MARIE-CHANTAL. "Loin des yeux, près du coeur: Madame de Sévigné et le supplément de l'écriture." PFSCL XXVIII, 54 (2001) 121–134.
Refutation of the often repeated thesis that Sévigné's letters recreate the presence (Mme de Grignan's) in her absence. Rather, they show that the symbiosis between the daughter and the mother will never take place: "les lettres de la mère ne cessent de faire le deuil d'une plénitude depuis toujours happée par le vide, l'absence et l'altérité."
ASSAF, FRANCIS. "Francion: une étude carnavalesque." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 85–95.
Study of the characters and episodes of the Francion which demand a Bakhtinian approach. The author concludes that Sorel's work, especially in its original edition, cannot be understood without the concepts of the world upside down, of the grotesque, and of the satirical assimilation of the high and the low.
DEBAISIEUX, MARTINE. "Sous le signe de Mercure: de la thématique du vol à la fraude littéraire dans le Francion." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 49–61.
The author ponders to what extent the ambivalent figure of Mercury answers to the representation of Francion, and how such an identification to a god whose main attributes are "ruse, mensonge et vol" might fit in the thematics of the "histoire comique".
DESILES, EMMANUEL. "Des signes à la littérature: problèmes de langage dans l'Histoire comique de Francion." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 167–186.
Status of language in Sorel's work, fluctuating between scepticism about literary language and trust in its worth expressed in his final work, De la connaissance des Bons Livres.
DUMORA-MABILLE, FLORENCE. "Logiques du sens dans le songe de Francion." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 133–152.
Study of Francion's dream, which seeks to "mettre en lumière l'enjeu épistémique et poétique du songe dans l'oeuvre de Sorel."
FOURNIER, NATHALIE. "Language, discours, métadiscours, style dans l'Histoire comique de Francion." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 187–210.
The author finds that a socio-linguistic project is included in Sorel's literary project: "la variation linguistique dans le Francion est mise en récit dans l'histoire comique et dominée par le recul métalinguistique des énonciateurs qui donnent voix à la diversité des personnages."
GIRAUD, YVES. "'Mais j'étais un grand trompeur. . .' Franchise et tromperie ou le double jeu de Francion." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 41–48.
The author denounces the shaky ideology of the novel, which he finds fails to adopt a coherent ideological, moral, and philosophical position.
GREINER, FRANCK et VERONIQUE STERNBERG. L'Histoire comique de Francion de Charles Sorel. Paris: Sedes, 2000.
Review: BCLF 630 (2001), 498: "Ce sont deux universitaires qui offrent aujourd'hui, avec ce livre, une nouvelle synthèse critique ayant pour seul objet d'offrir à l'agrégatif en cours de révision un outil sûr et efficace."
HINDS, LEONARD. "World as Pattern, Picture, and Harmony in Charles Sorel's Science universelle." S Fr 130 (2000), 77–83.
Remarkably clear examination of Sorel's use of various conceptual models to organize discourses of knowledge and to conceive the world. Rather than distinctly progressive, his methods and discourse are constantly moving: "in the end of his Science universelle, Sorel chooses neither a model based on a visual resemblance . . . nor one of the reduction of the world to a visual representation consisting of transparent, binary signs; instead, he prefers the mathematical analysis of auditory experience . . . organiz[ing] the world in patterns of assonance-Harmony" (82).
HODGSON, RICHARD (British Columbia). "Du roman 'satyrique' au roman libertin: Sorel, le Francion et la naissance du roman en France," in Lectures du Francion de Charles Sorel, éd., Daniel Riou, PUF de Rennes, 2000, pp. 47–55.
HODGSON, RICHARD (British Columbia). "Du roman 'satyrique' au roman libertin: Sorel, le Francion et la naissance du roman en France," in Lectures du Francion de Charles Sorel, éd., Daniel Riou, PUF de Rennes, 2000, pp. 47–55.
MAZOUER, CHARLES. "Le théâtre dans l'Histoire comique de Francion de Charles Sorel (Livres I à VIII). Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 97–107.
Study of the theatrical themes in the Francion, which offers an "éclairage latéral" of Sorel's work.
MORGANTE, JOLE. "La récriture de la première partie du Francion: techniques d'écriture libertine." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 13–30.
Study of the stratification of Sorel's text in order to grasp "dans son devenir une écriture aux ressorts multiples dont les procédés se compliquent au fur et à mesure, mais se donnent en même temps, dès l'origine, comme le résultat d'une stratégie communicative rusée et retorse."
RONZEAUD, PIERRE. "L'imagination dans l'Histoire comique de Francion: l'autre Naïs." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 63–82.
For Ronzeaud, Sorel on the one hand condemns a certain form of abuse of imagination, by the "superstitieux, mélancoliques, fabulateurs" and on the other synthesizes in Francion "toutes les potentialités positives d'une imagination devenue, dans sa "naïveté" parfaite, non plus la folle du logis, mais la compagne indispensable-une autre Naïs."
SERROY, JEAN. "Charles Sorel, Histoire comique de Francion. Présentation." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 7–9.
Presentation of the special issue of Littératures Classiques devoted to Sorel's Histoire comique de Francion.
Review: BCLF 629 (2001), 295: "Avec ce numéro consacré à l'Histoire comique de Francion (1633) de Charles Sorel, la revue Littératures classiques abandonne son étude systématique des grandes perspectives critiques contemporaines pour ne plus envisager qu'un auteur et une oeuvre particuliers. C'est évidemment le programme de l'agrégation de Lettres 2000–2001 qui a déterminé un tel choix." Volume en trois parties: la première partie traite du libertinage; des analyses thématiques et linguistiques forment l'ensemble des deuxième et troisième parties. "L'intérêt de ce dernier numéro de l'année est rehaussé par la présence des tables décennales (1989–2000) de la revue, qui constituent un repère essentiel pour les chercheurs."
SERROY, JEAN. "La P. . . irrespectueuse. L'histoire de la vieille dans le Francion de Sorel." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 123–131.
Serroy sees the story of the old lady in the Histoire comique as doubling Francion's, so that her story takes on a meaning which "permet d'éclairer celui du roman lui-même."
SERROY, JEAN. "Orientations bibliographiques". Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 213–217.
"Cette bibliographie ne se veut pas exhaustive. Elle se propose simplement d'indiquer les ouvrages et articles les plus directement utiles et utilisables dans la perspective de la préparation à l'agrégation."
SUOZZO, ANDREW. "La bourgeoisie à la recherche de la noblesse: le libertinage de l'Histoire comique de Francion." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 31–40.
The author places Sorel in the context of 17th century "libertinage". He concludes that Sorel's libertinage is defined by "une sensualité exubérante et un regard sceptique sur la société."
TUCKER, HOLLY. "Pleasure, Seduction, and Authorial Identity in Charles Sorel's Le Berger extravagant." Neophil 84 (2000), 347–58.
Perspicacious and stimulating treatment of "the role of pleasure "in the ambivalent dynamic between roman and anti-roman" (347). Sorel seeks to edify ("travailler pour l'utilité publique" Préface), therefore to attract the reader he "fashions a type of disguise that is based on the fabrication of an image of the roman that is used to mask the underlying and edifying anti-roman" (349). Barthes's terms plaisir/jouissance (Le Plaisir du texte) supply a helpful framework to Tucker's analysis which includes reflections on Sorel's Remarques as well. Tucker concludes that the author, as his text, is "multi-layered, polysemous, uncertain" (356).
VERDIER, GABRIELLE. " "Femmes-objets"? Femmes de tête? L'indécidable sexe féminin dans l'Histoire comique de Francion." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 109–121.
A "nouveau regard" on the women in Sorel's novel, which focuses on the "signifiants par lesquels se construisent les "personnages" féminins."
VERDIER, GABRIELLE. "Charles Sorel ou le roman(cier) en procès," in Charles Sorel, Histoire Comique de Francion. Coll. "Parcours critique," Ed. Patrick Dandrey. Paris, Klincksieck, 2000, 57–68 (art. publ. in 1991).
ZONZA, CHRISTIAN. "Les mots et les choses dans l'Histoire comique de Francion." Littératures Classiques 41 (2001), 155–166.
The author shows that the confusion created by successive editions of Sorel's work as to the main character, the author and the narrator provides "une vérité à facettes", that the adequation between word and thing, between sign and referent, between being and appearance, might be nothing but a "leurre d'où semble naître une réflexion sur le langage, la littérature et la place de l'écrivain dans la société."
FAYE, EMMANUEL. "Dieu trompeur, mauvais génie et origine de l'erreur selon Descartes et Suarez." RPFE 1140 (2001), 61–72.
Responds to Emanuela Scribano as to whether and to what degree Descartes borrowed from Suarez ideas concerning the nature of God and the origin of error. Concludes that Descartes knew of Suarez but remains original in that of the two, only Descartes sought "un fondement de la science."
BERTOLINI, SONIA. "Gabrielle Suchon: une vie sans engagement?" AJFS 37.3 (2000), 289–308.
An attempt to shed light on the life, work, and theories of Suchon. Discusses numerous archival documents discovered by Bertolini, including descriptions of the professional activities of Suchon's father, a certificate authorizing Suchon's transfer to the Jacobin monastery at Langres, and another clarifying details about the lives of two of Suchon's aunts. Examines the publication circumstances and reception of Suchon's Traité de la Morale et de la Politique (1693) and Le Célibat volontaire ou la vie sans engagement (1700) in which Suchon "proposait aux femmes la voie du célibat volontaire et dénonçait avec force les mariages arrangés et les vocations forcées." Bertolini demonstrates that much work needs to be done on this important social theorist. Archival documents are reproduced in an appendix. (Article is followed by a short bibliographic note on S. by Wallace Kirsop [pp. 309–11]).
GRIVEL, CHARLES. "Tabarin des latrines." RSH 261.1 (2001), 101–117.
An overview of the works of Tabarin. The author treats other characters in his farces, plays on language, lower-body strata, scatological references, representation of sexual organs, and comic effects.
HINDS, LEONARD. " "Honni soit qui mal y pense": Avowals, Accusations, and Witnessing in the Trial of Théophile de Viau." PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000), 435–444.
Part one of a study focusing on Théophile's trial. What was revealed was the growing influence of the Jesuits in the creation of "a new social order of intellectual and moral constraint through spying, voyeurism, and the violation of the sacrament of confidential confession."
MAZAHERI, J.H. "Autorité, transgression, et conscience du mal dans Les Amours de Pyrame et Thisbé de Théophile de Viau." RHT 52.3 (2000), 241–56.
Traces the representation of authority, transgression and guilt in the two earliest sources of Théophile de Viau's play (Ovid's Metamorphoses and a medieval version of the Pyramus and Thisbe myth); shows how these themes are given greater importance in Théophile's version.
SABA, GUIDO, ed. Oeuvres complètes. 3 vols. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999.
Review: E. J. Campion in FR 74.4 (2001), 799: A three-volume critical edition that expands upon Saba's four-volume edition published between 1979 and 1987. This is "the definitive edition on which scholars will rely for generations. Saba has contributed greatly to restoring Théophile de Viau to his rightful place as the most important French lyric poet of the first half of the seventeenth century." Saba collates relevant versions of Viau's French and Latin works and includes linguistic and critical annotation "of the highest quality."
Review: J.-. Chauveau in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 651–652: "Décidément Théophile, à l'extrême fin du XXe siècle, semble bien avoir pris une légitime revanche sur les avanies que la postérité lui a fait subir: il nous est loisible, désormais, si nous le voulons, d'entendre sa voix, une voix vraie et juste."
Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 130 (2000), 151–52: Elegant reproduction of Saba's 1978 and 1997 Italian editions, with significant modifications, notices for each poem, a bibliography, lexique and indices.
Review: C. Abraham in CdDS 8.1, 171–72. A new three volume edition of Saba's own Nizet edition, with modernized spelling and punctuation, as a reduced critical apparatus. Reviewer likes the changes, judges the introduction "a model of rigorous yet sensitive thinking," but feels the endnotes are cumbersome to use. Owners of the previous edition will not need this new one.
SABA, GUIDO. Théophile de Viau: un poète rebelle. Paris: PUF, 1999.
Review: E. J. Campion in FR 74.5 (2001), 1004–1005: In this "insightful" and "thoughtful" book, Saba describes Viau's rebellious social and esthetic positions. Viau was a freethinker who "rejected orthodox Christian belief and challenged his readers to question accepted philosophical and social thinking," and an opponent of Malherbe's efforts to impose rules on poetics. Saba describes the 1621 "Elégie à une dame" as an art poétique in which Viau critiques Malherbe. The book also includes readings of "Un Corbeau devant moi croasse" and "La Maison de Sylvie." This study continues to demonstrate that it "is difficult to overestimate the importance of Saba's pioneering work on Viau."
Review: J.-P. Chauveau in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 648–651: "C'est donc à une lecture d'amateur, de gourmand de poésie, sans préjugés, sans présupposés d'aucune sorte, que nous invite Guido Saba. . ."
Review: C. Rizza in S Fr 130 (2000), 151–52: Welcome and most thorough study of this very interesting and significant 17th c author. Saba takes into account all of Théophile's activities, as épistolier, pamphlétaire, narrateur, dramaturge and poète. Saba's profound competence, in Rizza's excellent judgment, is constantly in evidence.
Review: C. Abraham in CdDS 8.1, 173–74. A study of Théophile's poetry, drama, and prose based on a lifetime of impartial scholarship. Reviewer praises most the chapter on the verse, one which shows "how Viau was 《 rebelle 》 and 《 libertin 》." The reader is shown why Viau can justly be considered "le premier poète moderne" (Saba).
Review: J. de Jean in FS 54.4 (2000), 503–4: The perplexed reviewer "cannot imagine the audience for which [this work] was intended." Saba's volume lacks the footnotes and critical apparatus one expects in a work aimed at specialists: there are "virtually no overt references" to other critical works on Théophile. On the other hand, despite his study's "open, accessible style," Saba's "elliptical fashion" of dealing with Théophile's writing renders his book unsuitable for a more general audience.
Review: L. Godard de Donville in DSS 211 (2001), 361–362: A far-reaching exploration that covers the different genres practiced by de Viau and offers a synthesis of themes, sources, and stylistic traits. ". . .Guido Saba éclaire, avec une sensibilité et une pénétration qui renouvellent le plaisir du lecteur, à la fois l'originalité de l'écrivain (notamment par son questionnement sur l'existence), et les multiples liens qui le rattachent à son temps, et à une tradition humaniste."
GROVE, LAURENCE, ed. Emblems and the Manuscript Tradition. Including an Edition and Studies of a Newly Discovered Manuscript of Poetry by Tristan L'Hermite. Volume Edited by Laurence Grove. Glasgow Emblem Studies, 2. Glasgow: University of Glasgow, 1997.
Review: Anne-Elisabeth Spica in PFSCL XXVII, 53 (2000) 621–623. "L'ensemble est illustré avec abondance et pertinence, et la clarté générale de présentation rend d'autant plus regrettable les coquilles qui émaillent l'ouvrage. . .ce qui n'enlève rien au fond, scientifiquement irréprochable et destiné à faire date."
GUICHEMERRE, ROGER, éd. Tristan L'Hermite: Œuvres complètes, V. Théâtre (suite). Plaidoyers historiques. Avec la collaboration deDaniella Dalla Valle etAnne Tournon. Paris: Champion, 1999.
Review: J. DeJean in FS 55.2 (2001), 235–36: "Volume V contains all of [Tristan's] non-tragic theater: the 1644 tragicomedy, La Folie du sage; the 1653 comedy, Le Parasite—as well as a 1643 prose work, Plaidoyers historiques, attributed to Tristan. Volume I... opens with an excellent, succinct biography and includes a complete, up-to-date bibliography for each prose work." The prose volume includes B. Bray's "welcome" edition of Tristan's 1642 letter manual, Lettres mêlées, as well as J. Serroy's "fine" edition of the 1642 novel, Le Page disgracié. "Scholars will surely quickly accept this edition [of Tristan's works] as definitive...this is among the all too rare editions of early modern French authors in which scholars can have complete confidence."
SERROY, JEAN, éd. Tristan L'Hermite: Œuvres complètes, I. Prose. Avec la collaboration deBernard Bray,Amédée Carriat etMarc Fumaroli. Paris: Champion, 1999.
BERTIAUME, PIERRE. "Psychodoxie du personnage dans L'Astrée." DSS 210 (2001), 3–18.
Drawing upon many examples, Bertiaume demonstrates that d'Urfé's characters become "abstractions soumises à des codes, à des essences, figés qu'ils sont dans l'image que le discours donne d'eux." He concludes that L'Astrée resembles traités des passions in its preoccupation with classifying, rather than analyzing, the passions and their manifestations.
AYRES-BENNETT, WENDY, and CARON, PHILIPPE, éds. Les Remarques de l'Académie française sur le Quinte-Curce de Vaugelas, 1719–1720: Contribution à une histoire de la norme grammaticale et rhétorique en France. Paris: Presses de l'Ecole normale supérieure, 1996.
Review: A. Lodge in FS 55.1 (2001), 92: In the seventeenth century, Vaugelas's translation of Quintus Curtius's De rebus gestis Alexandri magni was "read as the practical embodiment of the principles of bon usage enunciated in the Remarques [sur la langue françoise]." But "[a]s the language and literary fashions changed, imperfections in the work of Vaugelas inevitable became apparent to the new guardians of usage, notably the French Academy, who engaged in a page-by-page critique of le Quinte-Curce in the years 1719–1720." Ayres-Bennett and Caron's "sumptuous edition" includes "a close and intelligent analysis of the principles underlying the randomly ordered comments of members of the Academy."
ASSAF, FRANCIS. "Henriette-Sylvie, agent et objet du désir." FR 74.3 (2001), 518–526.
Discusses the relations in Madame de Villedieu's Mémoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Molière between the representation of desire and the novel's narrative design. The narrator's unhappy judgement that women may not be simultaneously the subject and object of desire corresponds to textual devices that play out the novel's thematic conflicts.
KLEIN, NANCY DEIGHTON. The Loves of Sundry Philosophers and Other Great Men, A Translation of Madame de Villedieu's Les Amours des grands hommes. [SFrL, No.37.] Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2000.
Review: J. F. Boitano quoted in part in the Mellen catalogue, French Literature 2001: "Klein's transcription remains faithful to the original 1673 English translation, modernizing only capitalization and the use of possessives. By maintaining the seventeenth-century English translation, she notes that readers will have at their hands and be able to compare two original seventeenth-century texts. Klein's introduction provides the reader with valuable background information on the text and its author. . . The introduction and extensive critical bibliography provide a useful synthesis of scholarly work on Madame de Villedieu."
LALANDE, ROXANE DECKER, ed. A Labour of Love. Critical Reflections of the Writings of Marie-Catherine Desjardins (Mme de Villedieu). Cranbury, NJ/London: Farleigh Dickinson UP/Associated UP, 2000.
Review: J. Campbell in MLR 96.3 (2001), 821: Collection of essays in three parts: the first part deals with Mme de Villedieu's dramatic works; part two treats her short stories and letters; part three explores her novels and their reception. Reviewer expresses need for greater editorial control to avoid repetition of biographical data and to reduce narrative and quotation that "sometimes seems to crowd out analysis and perspective."
GEDDO, CRISTINA. "New Light on the Career of Jacob-Ferdinand Voet." Burlington 1176 (2001), 138–144.
Describes previously undiscovered archival sources about the last phase of this Flemish portraitist's international career, during which he served as court painter to Louis XIV in the 1680s, just prior to his death in Paris in 1689.
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