FRENCH 17

XVIIe siècle, 230 (janvier—mars 2006).

Review: D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 155 (2008): 445. This volume is devoted to a subject of interest to specialists in both literature and art: “L’Eglise et la peinture dans la France du XVIIe siècle: les écrits d’ecclésiastiques, entre théologie et théorie de l’art.” In Varia two essays focus on Richelieu and his period.

XVIIe siècle, 231 (avril—juin 2006).

Review: D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 155 (2008): 445—446. In addition to an “In Mémoriam” for Jacques Morel, this volume features criticism on both historical and literary subjects.

XVIIe siècle, 232 (juillet-septembre 2006).

Review: D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 155 (2008): 446. Literature is the focus of this welcome volume which includes criticism on Spinoza, Huet and Tristan, among others. Section on “Notes et documents” includes an état présent on Galileo.

XVIIe siècle, 233 (octobre—décembre 2006).

Review: D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 155 (2008): 446. Gassendi is the focus of eight articles on related literature, philosophy and “libertinage.” The Varia includes an article on partonage and one on La Mothe Le Vayer’s skepticism and “libertinage.”

ALESSANDRELLI, SUSANNA. Ironie vs humour. Essai de définition typologique. Perugia: Morlacchi, 2006.

Review: F. Cittadini in S Fr 154 (2008): 235—236. A.’s welcome study is organized into sections including a review of relevant linguistic and aesthetic studies and analyses of ironic forms (irony as antiphrastic). Judged an important (and convincing) contribution (both by theoretical underpinnings and textual analysis) to the definition of the relationship between irony and humour.

ASSAF, FRANCIS. “Amadis de Grèce ou la mise en fiction du pouvoir royal.” SCFS, 31.1 (2009), 14—24.

“L’article examine d’une part les points de correspondance historiques (Guerre de la Ligue d’Augsbourg et camp de Compiègne) qui identifient Amadis avec Louis XIV et de l’autre l’appareil dramatique qui montre Amadis en prince enchanté.”

BAADER, RENATE. “Nachrufe. Margarete Zimmermann (1937—2007).” RF 120.1 (2008): 59—62.

This “in memoriam” reminds 17th C scholars of B.’s many and significant contributions to the field. Important studies and edited collections ranging in subject from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century mark her career, but she is best known for her often cited 1986 volume Dames de Lettres: Autorinnen des preziösen, hocharistokratischen und ‘modernen’ Salons (1649—1698): Mlle de Scudéry—Mlle de Montpensier—Mme d’Aulnoy. Stuttgart: Metzler.

BEASLEY, FAITH and KATHLEEN WINE, eds. Intersections. Biblio 17—161. Tübingen, Gunter Narr, 2005.

Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 154 (2008): 183. The Acts of the May 2003 Congress of NASSCFL, held at Dartmouth College testify to the usefulness of an interdisciplinary approach. Among the “intersections” examined are novel and theatre, comedy and tragedy, the sacred and the ironic, print and performance, arts and literature, writing and geographical spaces, human spaces, high and low culture and the sacred and the secular.

BELIN, CHRISTIAN, ed. La Méditation au XVIIe siècle: Rhétorique, art, spiritualité. Colloques, congrès et conférences sur le Classicisme. Paris: Champion, 2006.

Review: A. Szabari in Ren Q 61.1 (2008): 191—193. This collection includes papers from a conference held in Montpellier in 2000 and attests to the richness and variety of practices of meditation. Scholars will appreciate several analyses: on texts of Bossuet and Fénelon (polemical aspects), Descartes and Malebranche (philosophical aspects), among others. Multiple genres are explored in literature and the arts. Meditation as a rhetorical topos is never lost sight of in this volume which offers “a rich array of materials for anyone interested in the conjunction of rhetoric, literature, arts and spirituality in the Seventeenth Century” (192). S. would have appreciated clues “as to why this boom of meditative practices immediately precedes the eclipse of interest in this form of spirituality that occurs in the eighteenth century” (192).

BIRBERICK, ANNE L. and RUSSELL GANIM, eds. Modern Perspectives on the Early Modern: Temps recherché, temps retrouvé. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press (EMF: Studies in Early Modern France, 10), 2005.

Review: Anon. in FMLS 44.1 (2008): 94. Praiseworthy for its ambition along with its coherence and high quality, this edition of nine essays explores theory, influence, representation, rhetoric—in sum, “different facets of a wide-ranging topic, namely reflections on the Renaissance and seventeenth-century culture in modern (and post-modern) literature, art and critical thinking” (94). A bibliography accompanies each article and there is an index to the whole.

BOURGEOIS, CHRISTOPHE. Théologies poétiques de l’âge baroque: la muse chrétienne (1570—1630). Lumières Classiques 69. Paris: Champion, 2006.

Review: D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 154 (2008): 177—178. A fine study of the baroque of late 16th and early 17th centuries; B.’s focus is both Catholic and Protestant French Christian baroque literature. Well-known authors as well as lesser known ones are analyzed in this examination which is organized in four sections: “La conversion des muses,” “Biblical figures,” “the rhetoric of the spirit,” and a “mistica della parole.” Rich and diverse bibliography.

Review: R. Ganim in FR 82 (2008), 388—89: “[A]n exhaustive study of the intellectual and aesthetic circumstances in which a resurgent devotional poetry and poetics found themselves during the baroque era” (388). The reviewer admires the author’s extensive consideration of the “humanistic, rhetorical, patristic and literary contexts” of the poems in question. He would have liked to have seen more consideration of the conflict between sacred and profane poetry in this period.

BURY, EMMANUEL etFRANCINE MORA,dirs. Du Roman courtois au roman baroque. Actes du Colloque des 2—5 juillet, 2002 (U de Versailles—Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines). Paris: Belles Lettres, 2004.

Review: B. Ferrari in S Fr 154 (2008): 239—241. These Acts bring together specialists from different periods examining the evolution of romanesque production from the Middle Ages to the 17th C. The basic question of the colloque and present volume is “Ruptures ou continuité.” An état présent furnishes helpful parameters. The various axes of research include the following: “La merveille et l’amour,” “Stratégies éditoriales et narratives,” “Éthiques et idéologies,” “Rencontres génériques,” and “Poétiques immanentes et théories du roman.” Welcome volume allows us to appreciate a very real continuity (due to reception and metamorphoses of the great medieval works), make a re-evaluation of the importance of 15th C works and permits a better understanding of the cultural climate predisposing the prolongation of the Baroque age (Bury and Mora, introduction). Bibliography, index of authors and works cited.

BUTTERWORTH, EMILY. Poisoned Words, Slander, and Satire in Early Modern France. London: Legenda, 2006.

Review: R. Runte in FR 82 (2009), 1314: “This slim volume presents slander and satire in a non-literary guise, focusing nonetheless on the works of several authors who were victims or themselves employers of the Menippean style” (1314). Addresses Béroalde de Verville, Marie de Gournay and Jean-Pierre Camus. Could benefit from some editing, but “an intelligent discussion” (1314) which leaves the reader’s interest piqued.

CARLINO, ANDREA and ALEXANDRE WENGER, eds. Littérature et médecine. Approches et perspectives (XVIe—XIXe siècles). “Recherches et rencontres” vol. 24. Genève: Droz, 2007.

Review: G. Bosco in S Fr 156 (2008): 716. Welcome collection of articles updates the state of research at the intersection of literature and medicine since George S. Rousseau’s 1981 work. C.’s and W.’s edited volume brings together the Acts of the October 2005 Geneva Colloquium focusing on mutual influences of the two disciplines and cultures. This volume, in hommage of Jean Starobinski, is organized in sections on “La Littérarité des texts médicaux,” “Les Maladies (et mort) des gens de lettres,” “Les doctrines médicales et la textualité,” and “Les Mises en récit de la maladie.”

CHATELAIN, MARIE-CLAIRE. Ovide savant, Ovide gallant: Ovide en France dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008.

Review: V. Kapp in OeC 34.1 (2009), 102—05: “. . .l’auteur analyse un domaine particulièrement riche de la réception de ce poète en élucidant les deux volets par ailleurs inséparables: le discours critique et l’assimilation par le champ littéraire où la poésie du Romain renaît, métamorphosée, dans les formes et les genres poétiques français les plus divers. Ces analyses procurent un plaisir de lecture dû à la finesse des explications et à la clarté des développements.”

CHOMETY, PHILIPPE. “Philosopher en langage des dieux.” La poésie d’idées en France au siècle de Louis XIV. Paris: Champion, 2006.

Review: D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 154 (2008): 182—183. This thèse d’état of the U of Provence examines a neglected area of poetry and takes the quotation of its title from La Fontaine’s “Poème de Quinquina.” The study which focuses on the period 1653—1716 is organized in three parts: “La ‘querelle’ des poètes et des philosophes,” “Une poésie qui satisfait aux exigences du didactisme,” and “Poésie d’idées et art du langage.” An annex sketches the lives of little known authors. Includes a rich bibliography and index of names. Reviewer would have preferred only “le XVIIe siècle” in the title, since numerous references are made to texts preceding the reign of Louis XIV.

CRON, ADELAIDE etCÉCILE LIGNEREUX,dir. Littératures classiques 62 (2007). “Le langage des larmes aux siècles classiques.”

Review: B. Papasogli in S Fr 155 (2008): 451. Highly ambitious both by its double focus on language and emotion as well as on both 17th and 18th centuries. The editors provide an introduction with bibliography, “De la lisibilité des larmes.” Sections with rich and varied dimensions are organized as follows: “La spiritualité des larmes,” “L’intimité des larmes,” “La fiction des larmes,” “Le spectacle des larmes.”

D’ADDARIO, CHRISTOPHER. Exile and Journey in Seventeenth-Century Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007.

Review: L. Tredennick in Ren Q 61.2 .(2008): 656—657. Judged “enormously powerful” conceptually, D’A’s study outlines “the importance of exile to our understanding of prominent literary, religious and philosophical texts, indeed some of the foundational elements of the early modern canon” (D’A. 3). For D’A., the psychology of exile is “a complex blend of nostalgia, national idealism, displacement, anger, longing and self-consciousness” (T. 656). Although the focus is English, 17th C French scholars will find D’A.’s conceptual delineations useful.

DAGEN, JEAN, MARC ESCOLA et MARTIN RUEFF. Morales et politiques. Actes du colloque international organisé par le Groupe d’étude des moralistes. Paris: Champion, 2005.

Review: R. Hodgson in DSS 242 (2009), 179—180: “L’objectif principal de ce colloque a été d’étudier la convergence entre pensée politique et réflexion morale dans une grande variété de textes (pièces de théâtre, poésie, mémoires, fables, romans, traités, etc.). Les 23 communications que ce livre réunit se caractérisent par une diversité remarquable d’approches méthodologiques et de points de vue philosophiques. La plupart des contributions portent sur un corpus de textes français des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, avec une exception, une étude de Philippe Raynaud sur la civilité chez Hume.”

DEFRANCE, ANNE and JEAN-FRANÇOIS PERRIN, eds. Le conte en ses paroles: La figuration de l’oralité dans le conte merveilleux du Classicisme aux Lumières.

Review: M. Papachristophorou in Marvels & Tales 23.1 (2009), 201—04. The proceedings of a 2005 conference entitled “Le conte en ses paroles: le dire et le dit dans le conte merveilleux de l’âge Classique (XVIIe—XVIIIe siècles),” the ensemble of which, according to the reviewer, show that “Orality and literature are. . .perceived as complementary notions,” rather than as separate phenomena.

DEKONINCK, RALPH and AGNÈS GUIDERDONI-BRUSLÉ, eds. Emblemata sacra: Rhétorique et herméneutique du discours sacré dans la littérature en images. Imago Figurata Studies 7. Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.

Review: A. Saunders in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 963—964: Judged “substantial” and “impressive” as the collection opens up “the broader spiritual context in which emblematic religious writings should be situated” (964). One of two important publications that have resulted from the 2005 conference on the topic at the Université Catholique de Louvain. Focus is on French works from the 17th C and Catholic spirituality; “discours sacré” includes both texts and images. The collection is organized into seven sections: “Questions d’histoire et de méthodes,” “Exégèse de l’Ecriture et de la Création,” “L’image in absentia,” “Rhétorique et poétique de l’image,” “Le spectacle de l’image,” “La circulation des images entre sensibilités religieuses,” and “L’efficace de l’image.” The essays are rich and varied, treating both well- and little-known subjects. Reviewer, who herself is a renowned specialist in the domain, regrets nevertheless the paucity of illustrations and lack of a bibliography.

DENIS, DELPHINE. Le Parnasse galant. Institution d’une catégorie littéraire au XVIIe siècle. Paris:Champion, 2001.

Review: V. Kapp in RF 120.1 (2008): 104—107. Highly praiseworthy for its innovative interpretations, excellent documentation, careful reflections and elegant writing, D.’s study includes analyses of various galant texts, the self-identification of galant authors and their inventio. Attentive to theory and aesthetics, production, reception, linguistic and rhetorical components, D.’s examination focuses on honnête and galant: “l’air galant, venant s’ajouter par surcroît aux qualités de l’honnête homme, en constitue le versant sociable extériorisé” (124).

DENIS, DELPHINE, ed. L’obscurité: Langage et herméneutique sous l’Ancien Régime. Louvain: Bruylant-Academia, 2007.

Review: A. Faudemay in DSS 244 (2009), 559—561: Eighteen excellent articles are grouped in 4 parts: “Ancrages théoriques,” “Mystères sacrés,” “La confusion des signes,” and “Illustrer et commenter” and all “font parfaitement ressortir la double dépendence de l’obscurité, vis-à-vis du contexte, d’une part, de la représentation anticipée des destinataires et de la réception des œuvres, d’autre part.”

DIMLER, G. RICHARD. Studies in the Jesuit Emblem. AMS Studies in the Emblem 18. Brooklyn: AMS Press, 2007.

Review: W Melion in Ren Q 61.2 (2008): 584—586. Welcome volume “bears witness to this scholar’s foundational contributions to the field of emblematics” (586). Rhetorical form and function are the focus of these essays “selected from D.’s extensive writings on emblematic theory and practice” (584). Praiseworthy introduction provides “a comprehensive overview of scholarship on the Jesuit emblem” (585). Particularly impressive are chapters on Jakob Masen’s theory of the figurative image which although privileging the visual demonstrate the power of the symbolic as regards persuasion.

DOMENECH, JACQUES(sous la dir. de). Censure, autocensure et art d’écrire: De L’Antiquité à nos jours. Bruxelles: Éditions Complexe, 2005.

Review: Y. Laberge in OeC 34.1 (2009), 101—02: “Ouvrage collectif produit à la suite d’un séminaire de l’Université de Nice tenu entre 2001 et 2003, Censure, autocensure et art d’écrire: De l’Antiquité à nos jours propose 23 chapitres consacrés à different aspects, principalement des analyses de cas entourant des œuvres et des auteurs, pour la plupart européens. Dans son introduction, Jacques Domenech souligne le caractère transdisciplinaire de son séminaire et rappelle pertinemment que ‘la véritable censure, consubstantielle à l’art d’écrire, impose des normes qui ne sont pas seulement idéologiques. Elle s’oppose à la nouveauté, à la création’ (22).” Voir l’article de J. Emelina “qui étudie — non sans humour — comment certains passages plus gaillards de la Bible . . . avaient été retranchés ou réinterpretés dans des éditions du XVIIe siècle,” et l’article de Françoise Weil sur le “‘Fonctionnement de la censure en France au XVIIe siècle’. . .”

DOTOLI, GIOVANNI. “Quel italianisme en France au XVIIe siècle?” TL 22 (2009): 179—191.

D., who here takes up Cecilia Rizza’s challenge made at a 1966 colloque and who himself published in 2001, with Castiglione Minischetti, V. Pompejano and P. Placella Sommella, Les Traductions de l’italien en français au XVIIe siècle (Schena), refuses “[le] concept d’‘influences’ et . . . un comparatisme ne reposant pas sur des données solides . . . [pour] suivre le chemin de la réalité” (180). D.’s rich essay underscores views both negative and positive, from French writers and statesmen concerned with establishing France’s cultural and political hegemony in Europe to others such as Claude Lancelot who praised the beauty, esteem and importance of Italian. Evoking an expression in the title of J. Balsamo’s 1998 edited volume Passer les mots. Français en Italia. L’Italie en France (1494—1525), (Champion), D. challenges scholars: “il faut que nous passions encore les monts, les uns et les autres, jour après jour” (191). Reminding us of Dominique Fernandez’s 1995 cultural history of the baroque, La Perle et le croissant. L’Europe baroque de Naples à Saint-Pétersbourg, he declares: “il est temps d’écrire une histoire culturelle de l’Europe en partant de l’Italie” (190).

DULONG, CLAUDE. “Grandeurs et servitudes de la biographie.” PFSCL XXXVI, 70 (2009), 181—184.

A short reflection on the work of the biographer.

DUMORA, FLORENCE. L’œuvre nocturne. Songe et représentation au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Champion, 2005.

Review: L. Rimpau in RF 120.2 (2008): 232—235. Welcome study takes its rightful place in the scholarship on dream in the early modern, a burgeoning field since the late 1990s. D.’s work gives the lie to Jean Bousquet’s thesis that “les hommes ne rêvent guère que depuis 1780” (8) as it pioneers the investigation of the theme in 17th C texts and, following Foucault’s theoretical formulations, constructs an “archéologie du songe à l’âge classique” (13). Organized into sections on “Le Discours sur le songe” and “Récits de songes,” D.’s work provides new perspectives and new sources (28 anonymous ones previously unedited). While R. would have appreciated more socio-historical context and political dimensions, she praises D.’s contribution for its diversity and clarity of thought.

EGMOND, FLORIKE and FRANCISCO BETHENCOURT, eds. Correspondence and Cultural Exchange in Europe, 1400—1700. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007.

Review: E. Dursteler in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 947—950: Praiseworthy demonstration of a “much denser network of communications involving many smaller centers” than previous research had uncovered (948). Enlarges our understanding of communication, showing the engagement not only of the literate, political and the artistic, but also of the non-literary, even illiterate population.

EICHEL-LOJKINE, PATRICIA, éd. ‘De bonne vie s’ensuit bonne mort’. Récits de mort, récits de vie en Europe (XVe — XVIIe siècle). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2006.

Review: G. Banderier in RBPH 86.2 (2008), 528: “A bien des égards, le récit de la mort forme, sous l’Ancien Régime, sinon un genre littéraire à part entière, du moins une sorte de spécialité, incarnée dans l’oraison funèbre, qui—paradoxalement—évoque plus la vie passée que le trépas. Actes d’un colloque organize à l’université de Montpellier en septembre 2003, ce volume aborde, en moins de trois cent cinquante pages, un champ infiniment vaste. On y trouvera donc plutôt des coups de sonde dans le noir du Temps, qu’une synthèse digne de ce nom. Sont abordés les domaines français (Catherine d’Amboise, Nicolas Caussin). . .”

ERDMANN, EVA and KONRAD SCHOELL, eds. Le comique corporel. Mouvement et comique dans l’espace théâtral du XVIIe siècle. Biblio 17—163. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2006.

Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 154 (2008): 180. These studies represent the Acts of the 2002 seminar by the same title of the 3rd Congress of the Associazione dei franco-romanisti tedeschi. The essays presented by S. are organized around the contribution of Charles Mazouer, the guest of honor of the seminar and himself the author of “Le jeu avec les objets dans le scenario de Domenico Biancolelli.” Other essays focus on gestures of comic effect, inherited from the farce and the commedia dell’arte (Rotrou, Mairet, Corneille and Scarron are among the authors studied). Four essays treat Molière from various perspectives of the corporeal comic. Bibliographies accompany each essay.

Review: W. Theile in RF 120.1 (2008): 107—109. Collection of essays from the third meeting of the German-French organization of Romance specialists offers an “interesting and rich kaleidoscope.” Theory and practice are important to this “historical anthropology of comedic creation” which includes analyses of little known as well as celebrated authors, even considering a 20th C film focusing on the 17th C.

ESMEIN-SARRAZIN, CAMILLE. “‘Parler roman’: imaginaire de la langue et traits du style Romanesque au XVIIème siècle.” RHLF 109.1 (2009): 85—99.

Theoretical approach to the definition and prescriptions concerning the roman in the Seventeenth Century. The essay turns starts with the critical perception of the “style Nervèze” and the précieux styles as anti-models of prose while critics sought to purify and simplify its language. In a next step, the author addresses the importance of finding a language adequate for the novel, and the ambitions to find such a language. The essay concludes by defining that “parler roman” can be seen as a theoretical representation of Romanesque language that may have appeared a bit belatedly in the century but which sought to account for the production of the entire period, ranging from the sentimental to the heroic novel.

EVAIN, AURORE, PERRY GETHNER, et HENRIETTE GOLDWYN, éds. Théâtre des femmes de l’Ancien Régime. 1530—1811. Anthologie en 5 volumes. Vol. 2: XVIIe siècle. Saint-Etienne: Publications de l’Université Saint-Etienne, 2008.

Review: R. Lalande in OeC 33.2 (2008), 165—66: “Particulièrement bien équilibré du point de vue des œuvres choisies qui s’échalonnent de 1655 à 1680, ce volume présente neuf pieces de cinq femmes dramaturges, dont Françoise Pascal, la Sœur de la Chapelle, Marie-Catherine Desjardins (Madame de Villedieu), Anne de la Roche Guilhen, et Antoinette Deshoulières. Munie d’introductions, de nombreuses notes et d’un glossaire, cette edition méticuleuse rend justice à la richesse et à la découverte de ces autrices à la comédie, à la tragic-comédie, à la comédie-ballet, au théâtre sacré et à la tragédie.”

EZELL, MARGARET J. M. “The Laughing Tortoise: Speculations on Manuscript Sources and Women’s Book History.” ELR 38.2 (2008): 331—355.

Masterful article challenges us “to revisit the nature of the significance of manuscript studies for those working with early modern women writers in the context of the expansion of a new literary historical field, the history of the book” (333). E. points to several excellent monographs of women’s participation in the print trade, but deplores the lack of attention to mansucript volumes which can offer valuable insights into gender, culture, authorship and the role of the reader (336). Includes a detailed case study of the recently rediscovered manuscript volume of poetry and romance by Hester Pulter (1640s—1660s).

FERRARI, JEAN, MARGIT RUFFING, ROBERT THEIS and MATTHIAS VOLLET, eds. Kant et la France—Kant und Frankreich. Hildesheim: Olms, 2005. Europaea Memoria. Studien und Texte zur Geschichte der europäischen Ideen; Reihe I, 46.

Review: G. Schlüter in RF 120.4 (2008): 531—535. One of the numerous publications resulting from the 2004 world-wide Kant commemorations, the present meritorious volume includes over thirty essays from the 2004 congress held in Mainz, Dijon and Luxembourg. Although many essays examine connections relating to Kant’s reception or affinities with modern figures such as Péguy, the first part deals with Kant’s predecessors and parallels (objective reality and Descartes, Kant and Pascal “deux critiques de la raison,” or “Espèce et adaptation chez Kant et Buffon,” for example) (531).

FRAGONARD, MARIE-MADELEINE and JACQUES BERCHTOLD, eds. La Mémoire des Guerres de religion: La concurrence des genres historiques (XVIe—XVIIIe siècles). Actes du Colloque international de Paris (15—16 novembre 2002). Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance 79. Geneva: Droz, 2007.

Review: K. MacDonald in Ren Q 61.1 (2008): 202—204. This volume, which offers the acts of the first conference of the “Equipe Formes et idées de la Renaissance aux lumières,” fills a recognized lacuna in the criticism of the practice of history writing of the Wars of Religion. The 15 essays are chronologically arranged and explore a wide variety of genres from official histories and polemical pamphlets to memoires, letters, ballets, even the nouvelle, among others. The “personal documents” are shown to complement the “official,” as M. states: “The nouvelle showed what la grande Histoire was either unable or unwilling to” (203).

FRAPPIER, LOUISE. “Construction de la Figure monarchique et perfection divine dans les récits d’entrée royale à Avignon (1600 et 1622).” EMF 12 (2008): 26—43.

This article takes a closer look at the rhetorical devices that were used to describe the royal entrances in Avignon by Marie de Medici and Louis XIII. It shows how the image of the monarch’s divine character was not only constructed but even transformed, according to the political climate of the time. The ultimate construction is that of Louis XIII as image of God.

GAMBELLI, DELIA et LETIZIA NORCI CAGIANO, eds. Le Théâtre en musique et son double (1600—1762). Actes du Colloque “L’Académie de musique Lully, l’opéra et la parodie d’opéra,” Rome, 4—5 février 2000. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005.

Review: L. Naudeix in DSS 244 (2009), 555—556: Although this colloquium took place at a time when this field of research was still rather unmined, the delay in publication has rendered it “un peu anachronique.” “Le corpus étudié est large, puisqu’il embrasse les spectacles mixtes de Molière et Lully [. . .], le théâtre à divertissement musical de la seconde moitié du règne de Louis XIV, durant l’application du fameux privilège obtenu par Lully, les tragédies en musque elles-mêmes.” The reviewer also remarks on some errors in the manuscript as well as a certain informality in the transcription of some of the less structured papers delivered at the colloquium.

GARRAWAY, DORIS. The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean. Durham and London: Duke UP, 2005.

Review: Anon. in FMLS 44.1 (2008): 92. Welcome multidisciplinary analysis of cultural contacts based on “subtle and revealing literary interpretations of early modern histories, fictions, engravings, legal documents and travel writings.” The study, infused with methodology drawn from “historiography, anthropology and psychoanalysis,” will be useful to “students and specialists of the Early Modern period, colonial history, women’s studies and postcolonial studies” (92).

GELY, VÉRONIQUE. L’invention d’un mythe: Psyché. Allégorie et fiction, du siècle de Platon au temps de La Fontaine. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2006.

Review: C. Barbafieri in DSS 242 (2009), 182—183: In an augmented version of her thesis, “V. Gély se propose de montrer comment l’histoire de Psyché est progressivement devenue un mythe, comment elle a pris place dans le champ des discours mythologiques pour finalement apparaître dans les dictionnaires savants à la fin du XVIIe siècle.”

GETHNER, PERRY. “Female Friendships in Plays by Women Writers.” CdDS 12.2 (2009): 31—41.

Gethner turns to four aspects of friendship in drama written by women writers: what types of friendships exist between female characters, in what light they are presented, their importance to the plot and their challenging of social order. He concludes that on the one hand, female friendships were revealed to be doomed to failure, due to political conspiracies or ruthless schemes. On the other hand, female friendships enhanced the sense of personal worth and autonomy in women, demonstrating them capable of virtues, such as esteem, loyalty, altruism and sincerity.

GIAVARINI, LAURENCE, ed. Construire l’exemplarité. Pratiques littéraires et discours historiens (XVIe—XVIIIe siècles). Dijon: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2008.

Review: L. Luison in S Fr 156 (2008): 716—718. Welcome volume focusing on the example as both object and method. Studies are organized into sections on “Pouvoirs et leurres de la rhétorique. Comment servent les exemples?,” “Corps d’exemples, configurations d’exemplarités” and “L’exemplarité politique et sociale, entre histoire et fiction.” 17th C scholars will appreciate here essays on tragedy, history, testimonies, stories, récits and biographies, among others.

GILBY, EMMA. Sublime Worlds: Early Modern French Literature. Oxford: Legenda, 2006.

Review: D. Sedley in SCN 66 (2008), 72—75: “In her book Emma Gilby formulates a theory of the sublime and applies it to a series of key authors and texts of French classicism. The result is a solid contribution to the study of early modern sublimity and a useful rethinking of several episodes in the literary history of seventeenth-century France.”

GILBY, EMMA. “‘Émotions’ and the Ethics of Response in Seventeenth-Century French Dramatic Theory.” MP 107.1 (Aug. 2009), 52—71.

The author examines d’Aubignac’s writings with those of Pierre Corneille’s to show that Corneille, unlike d’Aubignac, is able to equate humanly accessible “vérités” and “grandes et fortes émotions.”

GOSSIP, CHRISTOPHER J. “Chappuzeau and the Performance of French Classical Drama.” SCFS, 31.1 (2009), 3—13.

Examines the differences between the 1673 draft manuscript of Chappuzeau’s work Le Théâtre françois and the printed edition of 1674, highlighting how the former “offers evidence of the author’s more robust references to Catholic clergy and greater exuberance in his comments on authors and their works and on the acting profession.”

GRIMM, JURGEN. “La mort de Colbert: Une date pour la périodisation? Plaidoyer pour une périodisation historique de l’histoire littéraire.” PFSCL XXXVI, 70 (2009), 139—148.

Provides an overview of some of the limitations inherent in periodization by traditional literary categorizations (Baroque, classical, rococo) or by the history of events (histoire événementielle), and argues in favour of a different type of periodization which would focus on “une histoire dans lesquelles les événements sont enchevêtrés intimement les uns avec les autres, où les différences entre causes et effets disparaissent.” Article first appeared in De la mort de Colbert à la Révocation de l’Edit de Nantes, ed. Louise Godard de Donville (Marseille: CMR 17, 1984), 347—353.

GRIMM, JURGEN. Französische Klassik. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2005. Lehrbuch Romanistik.

Review: R. Zaiser in RF 120.3 (2008): 378—381. Welcome and impressive synthesis of French Classicism by this recognized master. Comprehensive, the volume treats not only the literature of the era, but also historical, social, institutional and aesthetic conditions (vii). It is therefore a cultural history of the 17th C and focuses on religious, philosophical and scientific literature as well as political and social history of the “long XVIIe siècle (1589—1715).” The baroque is not limited to the first third of the century but is seen as a complementary phenomenon, in dialectic, as the reverse side of classicism. In addition to chapters focusing on the emphases indicated above, other chapters examine the arts in service of the monarchy, the status of salon culture, “honnêteté,” and literary forms and themes. In the latter, G. examines individual authors and themes. Praiseworthy bibliography completes this literary history which is highly recommended to students, scholars and the cultivated public alike.

GUARDIA, JEAN DE and MARIE PARMENTIER. “Les yeux du théâtre: Pour une théorie de la lecture du texte dramatique.” POETIQUE 158 (2009), 131—47.

Attempts to revisit the practice of reading theater, particularly in the wake of disciplinary changes which have valorized the study of theater as performance. De Guardia and Parmentier borrow Molière’s suggestion that reading theater is only advisable for those who have “des yeux pour découvrir dans la lecture tout le jeu du théâtre” (132). The article develops this notion of reading as a “mise en scène mentale” (132) and contrast it to a practice of reading theater as one might read a novel (a stance passingly allied with d’Aubignac).

GUELLOUZ, SUZANNE. Le Classicisme. Paris: Gallimard, 2007.

Review: M. Sweetser in FR 82 (2008), 392—93. Along with a number of other recent books, Guellouz takes up the project of reassessing classicism, addressing her subject from range of perspectives: historical, political, philosophical, religious, anthropological and social. Within this approach, there also emerges detailed treatment of several major figures: La Fontaine, Molière, Mme de La Fayette and Racine. “Les enseignants trouveront dans cet ouvrage dense et exhaustif une approche contemporaine sur la naissance d’un classicisme historique” (393).

HIGGINS, IAN. “Where the Added Value is: On Writing and Reading Translations.” FMLS 44.3 (2008): 231—257.

This excellent essay qualifies as an apology for translation, both in se and as deserving “full recognition not only by the cultured public in general, but also by academic committees assessing quality in research” (abstract 231). Detailed examples from a wide-variety of genres and periods illustrate “compensation in literary translation” between English, French and German. Six pages focus on Ted Hughes’s 1998 translation of Phèdre and analyze techniques such as the elaboration of an image, abandonment of rime for function and mediation itself (between cultures). One might also qualify this remarkable and highly compelling essay as the best kind of pièce de circonstance, since the author’s impetus is “uninformed” and “astonishing” assessment committees, and in the case of the doyenne of translation studies, Susan Bassnett, “unpardonable.” (Students and scholars alike benefit from her volume Translation Studies, now in its third edition—1980, 1991, 2002).

HOWE, ALAN. Ecrivains de Théâtre, 1600—1649: Documents du Minutier Central des Notaires de Paris. Paris: Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, 2005.

Review: Anon. in FMLS 44.1 (2008): 92. Highly useful, provides “an analysis, and for many of them [the playwrights], an integral transcription, of 173 actes, regarding 15 French playwrights [well-known and lesser-known] in the first half of the Seventeenth Century” (92). H.’s volume has many merits—many of the actes are here published and interpreted for the first time and his analyses clarify various important points regarding chronology, performances and bibliography.

IBBETT, KATHERINE. “Pity, Compassion, Commiseration: Theories of Theatrical Relatedness.” SCFS, 30.2 (2008), 196—208.

Examines the distinction between pity and compassion that emerges in seventeenth-century dramatic theory as theorists move away from Aristotle’s poetics. Argues that “Pity is understood as a part of the great machine of catharsis that serves as a schooling for the purged self, whereas compassion ushers in a broader vision of the social, where theatre is prized not because it schools the individual but because it gives rise to a commonality of experience.” Focuses on d’Aubignac, La Mesnardière, Corneille and Rapin.

JACQUEMOND, RICHARD,dir. Ecrire l’histoire de son temps (Europe et monde arabe): L’Écriture de l’histoire. Vol. I. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2005.

Review: L. Luison in S Fr 154 (2008): 237—238. Wide-ranging, this first of two volumes collects the communications from a 2004 colloquium of the U of Cairo and of the Centre Français de Culture et de Coopération of the capital and focuses on both literary and historical writings. Interdisciplinary and intercultural, scholars examine writings (and film) from the classical period to our day. The collection of essays illustrates and verifies the diverse representations of the world and society itself. Genres are also examined, in particular, biography and memoir. In French and in Arabic (the latter, pages 259—327).

JAFFARY, NORA E., ed. Gender, Race and Religion in the Colonization of the Americas. Women and Gender in the Early Modern World. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.

Review: J. R. Ottman in Ren Q 61.2 (2008): 545—546. Welcome collection of eleven essays which “illustrate the kaleidoscopic variety of ways in which gender, race and religion interacted in the early modern Americas [rather] than to support the construction of any overarching synthesis” (545). Organized in thematic sections as follows: “Frontiers,” “Female Religious,” “Race Mixing” and “Networks,” the essays are wide-ranging geographically and perspectives include the spiritual, the political and gender, among others. 17th C French scholars will appreciate Susan Broomhall’s examination of the chronicle of the Benedictine nuns in Tours and its minimization of ethnic differences.

JOSTOCK, INGEBORG. La Censure négociée: Le contrôle du livre à Genève 1560—1625. Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 430. Geneva: Droz, 2007.

Review: R.M. Kingdon in Ren Q 61.2 (2008): 582—583. “Meticulous and thoughtful,” J.’s study is judged “a major contribution to. . .the history of printing and of censorship in Geneva” (582—683). Censorship is found to be “a process, a result of negotiation among the interested parties [governmental, ecclesiastical, authors, printers and publishers]” (582). Chronological analysis, index, appendix and bibliography.

JOUHAUD, CHRISTIAN. Sauver le Grand-Siècle. Présence et transmission du passé. Paris: Seuil, 2007.

Review: H. Stenzel in RF 120.4 (2008): 503—510. Welcome transdisciplinary work with important epistemological and memorial dimensions. J.’s position is “métacritique, celle d’observer et d’analyser une série d’entrées” (505). Two methodological decisions structure J.’s analyses, an explicit one: “brouiller le statut des textes” (23), and an implicit one: “un regroupement thématique de l’analyse de ces deux types de textes [témoignages ou mémoires et des textes historiographiques] sous des sujets globaux [par ex. “Commémorations]” (505—506). Finding J.’s work “stimulant” et “provocateur,” S. underscores that for J. the “transmissions ‘salvatrices’ du XVIIe siècle [sont] celles qui se détournent des portes majestueuses de ce lieu de mémoire et qui inventent des brèches” (510).

JUALL, SCOTT D. “Rewriting Self and Other in Early Modern French Travel Literature.” E Cr 48.1 (2008): 1—4.

The introduction to this special issue of E Cr on “Encounters with Alterity in Early Modern French Travel Literature” demonstrates how the 16th C image, created by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, of an Amerindian chief consulting a sorcerer illustrates the several and varied topics of the volume. J. resumes the volume in this manner: “[It is] devoted to studies of a variety of early modern French travel narratives and visual materials that depict encounters with alterity during a period of discovery, exploration and colonization of lands—mostly unfamiliar—across the globe.” Religious, political and socio-cultural perspectives complement the literary in the récits de voyage examined.

KOCH, EREC. “Perfect Pitch: Sound, Aurality, and Rhetoric from Marin Mersenne’s Harmonie universelle to Bertrand Lamy’s La Rhétorique, ou l’art de parler.” EMF 12 (2008): 185—213.

How do aurality and vocal sound produce an affective response in the auditor? Koch studies this question by looking at questions of pitch, accent, tone and inflection. He further extends his study to see how rhetoric converged with physiology and mechanics. The question was no longer that of an individual audience but that of determining universal laws at work in vocal sound and its action on the ear.

LAVOCAT, FRANÇOISE, PIERRE KAPITANIAK and MARIANNE CLOSSON, eds. Fictions du diable: Littérature et démonologie de saint Augustin à Leo Taxil. Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance 81. Geneva: Droz, 2007.

Review: H. Kallendorf in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 932—934: Praised as “a solid contribution to the study of demonology in the Renaissance and beyond.” Fiction and literature’s relation to treatises on demonology is examined. Sponsored both by a 2003 conference held at Paris—7 Denis Diderot and an interdisciplinary team under the auspices of the Ministère de la Recherche et de l’Enseignement Supérieur, the volume is organized into sections focusing on “writing strategies of demonologists,” the “cross-fertilization of demonological treatises and literary texts,” and “the contributions of demonology to the history of ideas” (933). Useful in itself and stimulating for future scholarship.

LONG, KATHLEEN P. Hermaphrodites in Renaissance Europe. Women and Gender in the Early Modern World. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

Review: G. S. Eschrich in Ren Q 61.2 (2008): 620—622. Judged “rich and revealing,” L.’s study analyzes a wide variety of documents from scientific treatises to novels and poetry. Chapters include examinations of the role of the hermaphrodite in alchemy, gendered representation and alchemical writings, the lyric hermaphrodite, portrayals of Henri III and his mignons and Thomas Artus’s novel Description de l’Isle des Hermaphrodites. Praiseworthy for its “helpful framework” and “significant contribution to gender studies” (622).

LOSADA GOYA, JOSE MANUEL. “Les écrivains français du XVIIe siècle à l’école du Quichotte: les nouvelles intercalées.” TL 22 (2009): 161—168.

Focusing on translations and adaptations of nouvelles in Cervantes’s novels, L G. demonstrates their role and assimilation in France as well as their varied interpretations. L G.’s panorama and analyses of techniques take us to Scarron, Richard de Romany, Pichou, Guérin de Bouscal, Nicolas Baudouin, Brosse “Le Jeune,” Marcel, Vital d’Audiguier, Charles Cotolendi and anonymous writers. As L G demonstrates, C.’s nouvelles contribute to the inspiration of several genres: comedy, tragi-comedy, the novel and conversations in salons (reported by Tallemant des Réaux, par example).

LYONS, JOHN D. “The Case for Reasonable Love.” SCFS, 31.2 (2009), 97—110.

Examines Le Cid, Phèdre and Clélie as works in which the choice of the love object is shown not to be irrational, as it is frequently perceived, but on the contrary “to be a matter of rational choice,” in the sense described in Descartes’ Passions de l’âme. Argues that “the rational-choice position leads potentially to much more pessimistic outcomes than the anti-rationalist opposition.”

MACDONALD, KATHERINE. Biography in Early Modern France 1540—1630: Forms and Functions. London: Legenda, 2007.

Review: B. Bowen in FR 82 (2009), 1312: Though primarily concerned with 16th-century texts, MacDonald also includes discussion of D’Aubigné’s 1629 Sa Vie à ses enfants. Praised by the reviewer.

MAHER, DANIEL. “Corrompre la perfection—de la Carte de Tendre aux Royaumes d’Amour.” EMF 12 (2008): 58—77.

Maher studies the cartography of love, starting with Madame de Scudéry’s La Carte de Tendre as a model of perfection in the world of sentiment. He then discusses contestations, corruptions and rejections of that topography in the works of Tristan L’Hermite, d’Aubignac and Paul Tallemant.

MALINOWSKI, WIESLAW MATEUSZ. “‘Tête rasée et sabre au flanc.’ Les Sarmates polonais et leur royaume aux yeux des écrivains français du XVIIe siècle.” TL 22 (2009): 193—202.

From stereotypical praise to more discerning expression of sentiments such as those of Mme de Motteville, M. examines the rich and varied literary representations in France following the 1645 visit of ambassadors to negotiate the marriage between the Polish King Ladislas IV and Louise-Marie de Gonzague, daughter of the duc de Nevers. M. discovers both repulsion and fascination, along with a systematic comparison of Polish and French clothing (St. Amant). M. reviews the long 17th and 18th C debate on Poland from d’Aubigné’s “modèle opposé à la monarchie française” to La Fontaine’s epistle of 1669 incorporating both praise and irony. M. notes that more lucid developments on Poland’s political institutions are found in Jean-François Regnard’s late 17th C Voyage de Pologne, not published until 1731, and calls for further study of R.’s “tableau” of Poland.

MARCHAL-WEYL, CATHERINE. “Les Adaptations de comedias du Siècle d’Or dans le premier XVIIe siècle: effet de mode ou influence réelle?” TL 22 (2009): 169—177.

Welcome study contributes to a better understanding of the “particularité” of the influence of Spanish comedias in early 17th C France. Examining historic differences of critical views from 19th C comparatists to specialists of our day, M.-W. makes a valiant attempt to understand why the influence remains so controversial and proposes useful avenues “pour essayer de déceler si, derrière le succès des adaptations, se cachent les marques d’un apport réel” (171). M.-W. underscores the abundance of adaptations performed and published, the longevity of the movement (from 1630 to 1670) and “particularités” such as situations, plots, themes, structures, “le recours au ‘masque’” (175) and comic figures, among others. She finds that the influence is “ni supercifielle ni radicale, mais subtile et discrète, puisqu’elle accompagne l’évolution du théâtre français, par ses apports structurels et thématiques, vers une forme qui est tout opposé de l’esthétique dont est issue la Comedia” (177).

MATHIEU-CASTELLANI, GISELE. Eros baroque. Anthologie thématique de la poésie amoureuse. Nouvelle édition. Paris: Champion, 2007.

Review: D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 154 (2008): 177. Praiseworthy new edition of “un’antologia. . .molto preziosa” with a fine introducion. Especially welcome in our period of reconsideration of the French baroque.

MAZOUER, CHARLES, ed. Les lieux du spectacle dans l’Europe du XVIIe siècle, Actes du colloque du Centre de recherches sur le XVIIe siècle européen, U Michel de Montaigne—Bordeaux III, 11—13 mars 2004. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2006.

Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 155 (2008): 446. This collection attests fully to the 17th C as “il secolo dello spettacolo”—theatrical, musical, religious and in both public and private spaces. Highly international and interdisciplinary, the volume represents seven European countries and a wide variety of disciplines, including architecture, art history, literature, theatre, religion and music.

MAZOUER, CHARLES. Le Théâtre français de l’âge classique. Vol. I: Le premier XVIIe siècle. Paris: Champion, 2006. Dictionnaires & Références, 16. and

MAZOUER, CHARLES. Molière et ses comédies-ballets. Nouvelle édition revue et corrigée. Paris: Champion, 2006. Lumière classique, 75.

Review: J. Grimm in RF 120.2 (2008): 256—258. Highly laudatory review of M.’s new wide-ranging book and of the re-edited volume on Molière. Referring to Mazouer as the renowned specialist of all of French theatre from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 18th C, G. retraces admiringly M.’s various publications before turning to Vol. 1 of these new ones. Well-organized with extensive and clearly presented information, it is both readable and absorbing. G. cites M.’s contention that the main feature of the theatrical 17th C is a “[profonde] imbrication de la vie théâtral dans la vie sociale et son lien au pouvoir” (9). Organized in sections as follows: “L’époque d’Alexandre Hardy. 1610—1628” and “le premier classicisme. De 1629 à la Fronde.” The volume contains significant foci such as “le théâtre du rire,” “la tragi-comédie,” “la pastorale,” “la tragédie,” and treats as well Richelieu and the theatre, the Church and the theatre, the theatre as an institution, the public, theatre poetics, and authors and their careers. Extensive bibliography of both primary and secondary texts, indices, illustrations. The 2006 re-edition of M.’s monograph on Molière’s comédies-ballets is welcome as it continues to verify the hypothesis: “L’union des trois arts fait sens: l’intervention de la musique et de la danse n’est pas simplement ornamentale: elle complète, enrichit, nuance, contredit, éventuellement, et de toutes les façons transforme la signification de la comédie récitée, trop souvent privée de ces deux arts dans nos théâtres” (319). M. insists that to interpret correctly and appreciate Molière “il faut lire et analyser conjointement les partitions de Lully ou de Charpentier et le texte de Molière, sans tout à fait oublier les danseurs de Beauchamp qui, avec les acteurs, évoluaient dans les décors d’un Vigarani” (322). Updated bibliography also includes a “Discographie” and it is noteworthy that 5 of 7 here are from 1997, “a convincing demonstration of the vitality of this important and fascinating part of Molière’s theatre” (trans. of G. 258).

MERLIN-KAJMAN, HÉLÈNE. “Le texte comme don public.” EF 45.2 (2009), 47—67.

Discusses the role of works created specifically for artistic and literary patrons, the question of “stratégies sociales” as they related to these works and the relationship between writer and patron.

MOREAU, I. and G. HOLTZ, eds. “Parler librement.” La liberté de parole au tournant du XVIe et du XVIIe siècle. Lyon: ENS Editions, 2005.

Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 154 (2008): 178—179. These essays are the result of some journées d’étude organized by the ENS of Lyon from 2002—2003. Erudite libertinism is the subject of the volume which focuses on the pamphlet and strategies of dissimulation. The literary and historical dimensions are privileged in sections devoted to “auctoritas” and the ideological.

MOUYSSET, SYLVIE. “De mémoire, d’action et d’amour: les relations hommes/femmes dans les écrits du for privé français au XVIIe siècle.” DSS 244 (2009), 393—408.

“[L]es sources narratives, telles que mémoires ou journaux de voyage, laissent à l’historien la liberté de penser, et même d’imaginer les relations hommes/femmes dans un espace familial élargi à l’entourage, voire au-delà, dans le cadre d’une vie itinérante aux horizons plus ouverts. Autre piste possible—et la liste n’en sera pas close—, les livres de raison offrent à celui qui s’apprête à dépasser l’aridité d’une source comptable et fragmentaire, l’opportunité d’approcher la réalité de liens pourtant figurés seulement ici en quelques mots brefs.”

NIDERST, ALAIN. “Clefs et mécènes.” PFSCL XXXVI, 70 (2009), 149—155.

A commentary on Ivan Loskoutoff’s article “Le mécénat littéraire du président de Maisons” (XVIIe siècle, No 233, octobre 2006).

ORWAT, FLORENCE. L’invention de la rêverie. Une conquête pacifique du Grand Siècle. Paris: Champion, 2006.

Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 155 (2008): 447. Praiseworthy for filling an important lacune in 17th C scholarship. After a first section delineating the concept of “rêverie” lexicographically and lexicologically and focusing on representative texts illuminating the idea, O. proceeds to a second section which examines various literary genres (poetry and the novel receive more attention than the theatre). Of particular interest are analyses of “rêve” in l’Astrée, le Page disgracié, and in the writing of the précieuses. Spaces of reverie themselves, private and psychic, also come into consideration.

PAVEL, THOMAS. “La mesure de la pastorale.” EF 45.2 (2009), 13—24.

Shows how the tension between human imperfection and the aspiration toward an ideal are reflected in the pastoral novel’s oscillation between prose and poetry. Demonstrates that from these extremes, pastoral writers manage to create an impression of delicate balance.

PENDERGAST, JOHN. “‘Comedies for Commodities’: Genre and Early Modern Dramatic Epistles.” ELR 38.3 (2008): 483—505.

Although the focus of P.’s study is 17th C English theatre, french scholars will benefit from his careful consideration of the usefulness of paratexts, in particular the epistle and the preface “which mark the move from stage to page” (487) and reveal the “new professionalism of early modern dramatists” (491). P. concurs with John Fletcher’s suggestion in his prefatory epistle to Faithful Shepherdess (1609) that “the generic characteristics of a play are only formally controlling until the play finds life on the stage, at which point audience expectations, reactions and other ‘communal concerns’ take over” (494).

PERRIN, JEAN-FRANÇOIS, et al., eds. Féeries: le conte, la scène. Issue 4. Grenoble: Ellug, 2007.

Review: I. Dyckman in FR 82 (2009), 1053—54: An issue of Féeries devoted to fairy tales adapted to the stage. Many of the stage works in question seem to be situated in the 18th Century. Perrault emerges as the author most adapted in this regard. The volume also includes a chronology of the theatrical works in question, and synopses of the articles.

POSTER, CAROL and LINDA C. MITCHELL, eds. Letter-writing Manuals and Instruction from Antiquity to the Present. Historical and Bibliographic Studies. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 2007.

Review: E. J. Polak in Ren Q 61.2 (2008): 611—612. Praiseworthy “premier volume on the history of treatises and guides on the art of letter-writing” (611). Well-documented with notes, bibliographies and appendices. Although noting omissions particularly as regards recent scholarship, the reviewer is largely appreciative and lauds the “compiling [of] historical and bibliographic materials” promoting the recognition of letter-writing as a distinct discipline within rhetoric (611).

RADULESECU, DOMINICA. “Caterina’s Colombina: The Birth of Female Trickster in Seventeenth-Century France.” TJ 60 (2008): 87—113.

Article discusses how Caterina Biancolelli, one of the actresses of the Ancienne Troupe de la Comédie Italienne, created a Colombina who provides a “superb illustration of transgressive humor, subversive performance and improvisational comedy.” Argues that this version of Colombina depends both upon oral tradition and upon the comic genius of this specific actress.

RIGGS, LARRY. “Teaching the Seventeenth Century: Modernity, Motives, and Further Reflection on Critical Theory.” CdDS 12.2 (2009): 71—86.

Study centers on major problems of epistemology and interpretation of both seventeenth-century literature and critical literacy. Authors discussed are Montaigne, Molière and Lafayette, and questions explored are objects of desire, control, lack or loss, and the issue of interpretation, of reading.

RIZZONI, NATHALIE and JULIE BOCH, eds. L’âge d’or du conte de fées: de la comédie à la critique (1690—1709). Paris: Champion, 2007.

Review: D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 156 (2008): 658. This fifth volume of the Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées illustrates the dramatic dimension of the genre and includes a theoretical discussion of the conte itself. Three plays are edited by R.: Les Fées ou les Contes de Ma Mère l’Oie (1697) bu Dufresny and Brugère de Barante, Les Fées (1699) by Dancourt, and La Fée bienfaisante (1708) by the Chevalier de La Baume. These plays are accompanied by a general preface as well as one for each work focusing on culture and theatrical concerns. B. furnishes in the second part a series of critical texts by some seven authors including Charles Perrault and Catherine Durand. Each author receives examination and commentary in B.’s introduction. Judged highly interesting for its consideration of the extension of the conte to other genres and for its attention to the poetics of the genre itself.

ROLET, STÉPHANE, ed. L’Emblème littéraire: Théories et pratiques. Littérature 145. Paris: Larousse, 2007.

Review: D. Graham in Ren Q 61.1 (2008): 230—232. Despite inadequate proofreading (there are unfortunate misspellings and typos), this edited collection is judged a worthwhile contribution to the field. Varied subjects treated range from the conception and edition of emblem books, sources, emblem as propaganda, symbolism, along with case studies. Particularly noteworthy is Daniel Russell’s “Nouvelles directions dans l’étude de l’emblème français” which considers emblem not only as form but as “mode of thought and reading” (232).

ROY, ROXANNE. L’art de s’emporter. Colère et vengeance dans les nouvelles françaises (1661—1690). Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2007, Biblio 17—169.

Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 156 (2008): 657. This doctoral thesis (U of Montréal, 2004) examines a vast corpus of galant and historical nouvelles from the year that Mlle de Scudéry abandoned the romance for the nouvelle to the year in which the mode changed to mémoires and other forms. R.’s approach is cultural and anthropological. Includes a presentation of the corpus and a definition of the genre, analyses of the representation of anger and the desire for vengeance, considered in relation to the art of love and the art of living in society.

ROY, ROXANNE. “Éloquence du corps et jeu des passions. Le cas de la colère féminine dans les nouvelles galantes et historiques.” DFS 85 (2008), 51—61.

L’auteure propose “d’examiner quels sont les savoirs convoqués dans la représentation physiologique de la colère féminine, quels usages les nouvelles galantes et historiques font de la rhétorique des passions dans cette représentation, et quelles en sont les finalités.” Ensuite elle examine comment “cette rhétorique se déploie à l’intérieur même de la nouvelle, quels sont les mises en scène et les jeux plus problématiques auxquels la représentation du corps féminin en colère donne lieu.”

ROYE, JOCELYN. La figure du pédant de Montaigne à Molière. Genève: Droz, 2008.

Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 156 (2008): 654. Reviewer would have appreciated a wider examination of a comparative nature with archetypes of Scroffa and Belo, but the debt of French literature to these and to the figures of the commedia dell’Arte is recognized. Clear and convincing treatment combines the descriptive with the suggestive and interpretative. The pédant’s language is analyzed as it the veritable emergence of the gallant society and its aesthetic codes.

SHOEMAKER, PETER W. Powerful Connections: The Poetics of Patronage in the Age of Louis XIII. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2007.

Review: L. Seifert in Ren Q 61.3 (2008): 898—899: Praiseworthy for providing a broad and “multifaceted account of both the rhetoric and the practice of literary patronage “during the early 17th C. Chapters focus on “ambiguities and paradoxes of the patron-client relationship,” Guez de Balzac’s letters as “an ideal of the autonomous self, “a poetic corpus drawn from Régnier, Sigogne and Malherbe illustrating “authorship shared with the patron,” libertine writers (St. Amant, Théophile, Sorel), the theatre (Corneille, Mairet, DuRyer) and others “sponsored by Richelieu,” and the Académie Française (S. sees the academy as “both a beneficiary of Richelieu’s patronage [and] an institutional patron”). Highly recommended for its valuable perspectives on authorship, the development of literary fields and the reading public.

STEFANOVSKA, MALINA. “Exemplary or Singular? The Anecdote in Historical Narrative.” SUBSTANCE 38 (2009), 15—30.

The article addresses 17th- and 18th-century uses of the anecdote, the sources of historians’ ambivalence toward it, and the ways in which anecdotes lead writers like Saint-Simon to narrow their scope toward a focus on the singular. Contains detailed consideration of Saint-Simon and Voltaire’s Le Siècle de Louis XIV. Variously compares the anecdote to a collectable, a Proustian moment of the real and Barthes’ notion of the punctum, nicely synthesizing literary-formal analysis with historical reflections about the genre.

STRIKER-METRAL, CHARLES-OLIVIER. Narcisse contrarié: l’amour-propre dans le discours moral en France (1650—1715). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2007.

Review: F. Greiner in DSS 243 (2009), 369—372: Of this impressive and comprehensive study, the reviewer concludes that “[o]n sort inévitablement admiratif de ce beau livre qui réussit la performance de faire le tour d’un sujet complexe et touffu sans jamais rencontrer les écueils des approximations et des aperçus hâtifs, et sans jamais se perdre dans le labyrinthe des analyses ponctuelles. C’est là sans doute sa principale qualité: faire en sorte que le détail se marie toujours harmonieusement aux réflexions de portée générale, que les précisions monographiques convergent en définitive vers la constitution d’une véritable synthèse.”

SUBHU, MUKERJI and RAPHAEL LYNE, eds. Early Modern Tragicomedy. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK.: Brydell and Brewer, 2007.

Review: J. Ridpath in TLS 5505 (Oct 3, 2008): 26. Contains essays on tragicomic dramas of France, Spain, England and Ireland. Review gives no detail on coverage of French material.

THIROUIN, LAURENT. L’Aveuglement salutaire. Le réquisitoire contre le théâtre dans la France classique. Paris: Champion, 2007.

Review: D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 156 (2008): 658. Reviewer agrees with T. that “on est certes en droit de refuser cette condamnation du théâtre par Nicole et ses amis, mais on ne peut que se réjouir de l’installation du débat sur un plan philosophique et morale” (n.p.). Highly appreciative review notes the extensive treatment citing authorities such as Church Fathers and specific problems and texts which are examined from varied perspectives (philosophical, religious, moral, metaphysical, for example). Rich and suggestive work includes useful annexes, a chronology of the Querelle du théâtre and the Querelle des Visionnaires and a selective bibliography.

VAN DELFT, LOUIS. Les Moralistes: une apologie. Paris: Gallimard, 2008.

Review: R. Tobin in E Cr 48.1 (2008): 130—131. T. finds that Van D.’s latest volume is “like the fifth act of a classical tragedy,” and adopts a method much like Montaigne’s; it “is the sum and the synthesis of his [Van D.’s] reflections on the moralists.” Highly interdisciplinary, Van D. “notes the trace of the moralistes in neuroscience, anthropology, the social sciences, phenomenology and rhetoric.” T. finds that to listen to Van D.’s reflections as to those of the moralists, “opens a world of pleasure and prudence” (131).

Review: S. Bertière in DSS 243 (2009), 373—375: “C’est là un livre ambitieux, passionné, point d’aboutissement de toute une vie de recherche et cri d’alarme devant la désaffection qui frappe aujourd’hui les moralistes. Au terme d’une carrière de comparatiste parmi les livres mais aussi sur le terrain dans des universités étrangères, nul n’était plus qualifié que Louis Van Delft pour tenter de faire le point sur un genre qui fut universellement pratiqué et pour en plaider la cause auprès d’une ingrate postérité. L’ampleur du champ est immense, dans le temps et dans l’espace. Au centre, les deux siècles d’or de la réflexion morale, le XVIIe et le XVIIIe, assortis d’incursions en amont, vers l’Antiquité et la Renaissance, et, en aval, vers « notre modernité » .”

VAN DELFT, LOUIS. Les spectateurs de la vie. Généalogie du regard moraliste. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2005. Les collections de la République des Lettres: Etudes.

Review: W. Helmich in RF 120.2 (2008): 226—229. Extremely favorable review praises numerous aspects of this latest volume by the renowned expert on the moralistes. Judged extraordinarily instructive, the volume gathers material from the best of Van D.’s previous publications (1971, 1982, 1993, 1997, 2004), supplementing it with new insights and rich perspectives. Focuses include recurrent representations, portraits of prominent observers such as Montaigne, La Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère, and mnemonic techniques and the spectator (with numerous examples of images and text). Particularly noteworthy are: the remarkably high philological standard of the volume, the copious bibliography, the rich iconographical material and generally the profusion of information.

Review: M. Bouvier in DSS 243 (2009), 372—373: While placing it in the extraordinary context of Van Delft’s contribution to literary scholarship, the reviewer remarks a certain uneven quality to this particular book, noting the introduction and conclusion “tentent de faire un livre de ce qui n’en reste pas moins un ensemble d’études d’abord autonomes; la qualité de ces études ne saurait tout à fait cacher ce défaut, surtout sensible dans les deux premières parties, où les redites et les artifices de liaison gênent. La troisième partie se défend mieux de cette faiblesse, et le très remarquable chapitre 11, « Poétique du fragment » , conclut l’ouvrage de manière magistrale.”

VUILLEMIN, JEAN-CLAUDE. Theatrum mundi: désenchantement et appropriation. POETIQUE 158 (2009), 173—99.

Situates the topos of the theatrum mundi within baroque theater and within the era’s Augustinian religious ideas, which emphasized ephemerality and uncertainty. Vuillemin asserts that “[d]avantage qu’esthétique, le Baroque—mon Baroque—est épistémologique” (179); it is something which takes stock of the world’s perceived decadence and mankind’s disorientation about knowledge. The article allusively situates baroque theater within paradigm-shifting scientific discoveries about the cosmos, and questions the idea that baroque religious plays such as Le Véritable Saint Genest truly underscore the transcendence of God. Engaging and well written.

WALFARD, ADRIEN. “Justice et passions tragiques. Lectures d’Aristote aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles.” POETIQUE 155 (2009), 259—281.

Examines the reception of a portion of Aristotle’s Poetics dealing with justice and the suffering protagonist. For Walfard, early modern debates about whether just heroes should be included in tragic theater “signalent l’ambiguité de la notion de tragique à l’époque prémoderne. Certains poéticiens refusent d’exclure du genre tragique la representation du malheur des justes. . .D’autres poéticiens. . .tente de preserver l’idée d’une culpabilité problématique du personnage tragique” (263). Includes discussion of Corneille, La Mesnardière and Le Père Rapin.

WILD, FRANCINE. Naissance du genre des Ana (1574—1712). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2001.

Review: J. Perlmutter in SCN 66 (2008), 246—249: “Adapted from the author’s doctoral thesis, this is an exhaustive, seminal work on the once popular, but now little-known genre called the “ana.” Wild clearly sets forth her goals in her introduction: she will first establish a definition based on the original form of the ana and will then trace its subsequent diversification following both a diachronic and synchronic approach. A study of the word “ana” will complete this description of the genre. In her concluding chapter, Wild will raise some questions about the ana’s relationship to society, politics and literature.”

ZONZA, CHRISTIAN. La Nouvelle historique en France à l’âge classique (1657—1703). Paris: Champion, 2007.

Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 156 (2008): 656—657. This rich study analyzes a vast corpus of historical nouvelles (dating from the publication of Segrais’ Nouvelles françaises) which represents the theorization and practice of a new romance aesthetic (1703 is the date of the criticism of the Journal de Trévoux and marks the beginning of the genre’s decadence. Wide-ranging study provides generic considerations, analyses of style and function, treatment of ideology, representations of a new heroism, among other subjects. Nine annexes allow chronological classification as well as by characters and recurring situations. Rich bibliography and index of authors.