FRENCH 17

ALBRECHT, JÖRN. Europäischer Strukturalismus.Ein forschungsgeschichtlicher Überblick. Tübingen: Narr, 2007

Review:F. Lebsanft in RF 121 (2009): 72—73. This study offers an historical panorama of European structuralism. Of wide interest theoretically, if less so for mention of particular 17th c. research.

BANDRY-SCUBBI, ANNE, ed. Éducation—Culture—Littérature, "Universités/ Domaine littéraore" série de l'U de Haute-Alsace, Institut de Recherches en langues et littératures européennes, Horizons. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2008

Review:G. Bosco in S Fr 159 (2009):688—689 Highly diverse examination of European literary identity offers reflexions on subjects from the education of protagonists of novels, oral interrogation, biblical imprint, tolerance, and the emblem, among others. One essay is on the 17th c. memorialist Nicolas Goulas: "Les années d'apprentissage dans les Mémoires de Nicolas Goulas," by Mariette Cuénin-Lieber.

BARCHILON, JACQUES. É"Adaptations of Folktales and Motifs in Madame d'Aulnoy's Contes: A Brief Survey of Influence and Diffusion". M&Tales 23.2 (2009) 353—64.

Shows that d'Aulnoy's fairy tales contain nearly every significant type of tale and how this might explain "the universality of her appeal."

BEAM, SARA. Laughing Matters. Farce and the Making of Absolutism in France. Ithaca: Cornell UP 2007

Review:K. Malettke in HZ 289.2 (2009): 473—475. Based on impressive archival research in Paris, Rouen, Dijon, Bordeaux and Toulouse as well as on secondary sources, in particular those relating to the theatre from the early 16thc.-mid 17th c. Judged original, interesting and stimulating to the general public as well as the scholar.

BIRBERICK, A. L., ed. The Art of Instruction: Essays on Pedagogy and Literature in 17th-Century France. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2008

Review:Genieys-Kirk, S. in FS 64.1 (2010), 86. This collection of essays shows the variety of ways that a broad spectrum of genres sought to realize pedagogical goals. Major themes addressed include the role played by fiction in creating a modern reading public, theater and performance as pedagogical genres, and royal pedagogy. "Reprenant ainsi une thématique importante du paysage socio-culturel et politique du dix-septième siècle, soit l'émergence des théories et pratiques pédagogiques, ce volume collectif propose de nouveaux angles d'analyse par lesquels les auteurs revisitent l'idéal horatien selon lequel toute oeuvre doit allier l'utile è l'agréable."

Review:Lise Leibacher-Ouvrard in Fr F 34.1 (2009) 113—115. Appreciative review of B.'s edited collection which demonstrates the importance and variety of instruction in the broad sense. Nine studies analyze the interaction between aesthetics and pedagogical projects. Although diverse and wide-ranging in perspectives (including pedagogy as social constraint, active education of the reader, didactic strategies in theatre, marriage manuals, emblematic poetry as a "miroir du prince," among others), the essays reveal a thematic and strategic continuity.

BIRBERICK, ANNE L., ed. Perfection. Studies in Early Modern France. Charlottesville, VA: Rockwood Press, 2008

Review:M. Meere in SCN 68 (2010), 62—65. "What is perfection? Is it attainable? Is it even desirable? How does perfection, both flawlessness and completeness, play out in early modern French literature and thought? How did writers(and their readers)come to terms with its elusiveness?" This collection of essays "is comprised of a patchwork of ten interesting and diverse studies that grapple with this complex notion in sixteenth-and(mostly)seventeenth-century France."

BLANC, ANDRE. "Les Chœurs dans la tragédie religieuse de la première moitié du XVIIe siècle" DSS 248 (2010), 499—530.

An article that looks at the form, frequency, and importance of classical chorus in religious tragedy of the early 17th c.

BRET-VITOZ, RENAUD. L'Espace et la scène: dramaturgie de la tragédie française, 1691-1759. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2008

Review:J. Harris in MLR 105.4 (2010), 1156—1157. This is an ambitious book, bringing together a wide range of material yet remaining sensitive to the specificities of individual texts. Indeed, for the most part, Bret-Vitoz handles his material very skillfully, interweaving dramatic theory and tragic practice, close readings and general reflection, modern theoretical perspectives and eighteenth-century writings. Occasionally, he could be accused of overlooking the complexities of 'classical'(that is, seventeenth-century) tragic practice, for which he reserves some of his grander, more boldly abstract and less immediately comprehensible claims—such as 'l'espace chez les classiques était toujours métaphorique de l'univers'(p. 11). Generally, though, this is a successful and intelligent work, and a helpful addition to the field."

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

Review:T. Chesters in FS 62.4 (2008), 469—470. After treating the legal context(definitions, penalties, etc.)and the numerous treatises written on the subject of slander between 1595-1640, the author turns her attention to the individual cases of Béroalde de Verville, Jean-Pierre Camus, and Marie de Gournay."Butterworth's study shows an admirable clarity and instinct." This volume will interest those working on "rhetoric, polemic and the fashioning(and unfashioning)of early modern reputations."

Review:Anon in FMLS 45.3 (2009), 353. Welcome study which examines satire as a "practice" rather than as a literary genre, its legal implications, as a philosophical theme, and in specific writers(Béroalde de Verville, Marie de Gournay and Jean-Pierre Camus, for example).

CARROLL, S. Blood and Violence in Early Modern France. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006

Review:De Smet, I. in FS 63.2 (2009), 207—208. Carroll offers "a detailed analysis of various contexts(family feuds; hereditary questions; adultery, seductions and rape; religious conflict; and the exercise of authority)in which aggression and bloodshed took place, from their inception to their escalation and resolution; he studies its mechanisms and judiciary treatment, and the degrees to which violence was accepted or deemed acceptable." The author's focus on the mechanisms of vengeance distinguishes this work which has much to offer both historians and literary scholars.

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

Review:Rollin, S. in FS 63.3 (2009),337. The author surveys the interest in Ovid's different works and his changing fortunes in the face of the emergence of a modern aesthetic. In the early seventeenth century, a humanistic approach predominates and the Metamorphoses take center stage. From 1650, allegorical readings fall from favor, and attention focuses on the expression of sentiments. The "Ovide galant" that emerges will inspire many imitators (e.g., Bussy's Maximes d'amour and Benserade's Métamorphoses d'Ovide en rondeaux, La Fontaine, and Les Lettres portugaises). "En définitive, Marie-Claire Chatelain démontre que ces auteurs subvertissent l'oeuvre d'Ovide, tout en demeurant fidèles à l'esprit qui l'anime."

CIVARDI, J.-M. La Querelle du Cid(1637-1638): Edition critique intágrale. Paris: Champion, 2004

Review:Gilby, E. in FS 63.3 (2009),336. This edition reorders, reexamines, and expands the 1898 collection of documents compiled by Armand Gastá. An extensive introduction traces the chronology, examines the notion of genre, and lays out the major themes of the querelle. Drawing on the work of Hálàne Merlin and others, Civardi looks at the social status of the author, the role of the public, and the evolution of criticism and censorship. This volume is valuable for its "magnificent editing:" Civardi offers a wide range of texts from the obscure to the well-known, complete with variants and rich, detailed footnotes. "A remarkably thorough work of scholarship, and truly a reference point in the field."

COMPARINI, LUCIE et MARC VUILLERMOZ. Montrer/Cacher. La représentation et ses ellipses dans le théâtre des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Chambéry: Editions de l'Université de Savoie, 2008

Review:C. Barbafieri in DSS 248 (2010), 561—562. The reviewer finds this edition of collected papers, "incontestablement riche et intéressant en ce qu'il apporte une pierre à la vaste réflexion sur le visible et l'invisible au théâtre conduite ces dernières années." Divided into three sections, the first part deals with the choices of the playwright, the second follows a more generic approach dealing with pastoral, comic and tragic plays of the first half of the seventeenth century. Finally, the third part deals with the practicalities of production/publication.

DEJARDIN, ISABEL. Captives en tragédie: la captivitéau féminine sur les scènes antiques et modernes. Saint-Genouph: Nizet, 2008

Review:V. Desnain in MLR 105.4 (2010), 1154—1155. "This study by Isabel Dejardin aims to establish whether 'la captive' can be considered a tragic 'type.' To do so she examines the character of the captive in ancient and modern tragedy in order to identify fixed characteristics that would point to the paradigmatic value of this character. The corpus of early modern texts is relatively small and ends in 1650, although references are made to Racine's Phèdre."

Review: B. Landry in FR 83 (2010), 1074—75. Studies the topos of the captive woman both in Greek tragedies(Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides)and in French and English 17th-century tragedy(Mairet, L'Hermite, Corneille, Dryden). Dejardin suggests that the ancient Greek theme of the captive gets recycled in early modern France and England due to political and poetical similarities between these cultures. Divided into three sections,"Traitements dramatiques de la captivité," "Ancrages de la captivité," and "La Captivité en spectacle," this study brings "une contribution remarquable"(1075)to literary and women's studies.

Review:M. Pavesio in S Fr 159 (2009): 617—618. While the subject matter is highly appealing, D.'s selection of works to be analyzed remains perplexing to P. Why, for example, does the inclusion of 17th c. French theatre have a different chronological terminus than that of the English theatre? And why is Italian theatre not included in this analysis of dramatic treatment of female captivity?

DEW, NICHOLAS. Orientalism in Louis XIV's France. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009

Review:Greenberg, M. in FS 64.3 (2010), 345—346. This study focuses on the presentation of Persia, Mughal India, and China in the work of Barthélemy d'Herbelot, Melchisédech Thévenot, and François Bernier. The study focuses on the royal interest(supported by Colbert)in acquiring, cataloging, and translating texts from the Far East as a means to construct a glorious image of the king. Dew's work is best at demonstrating how the networks of the "Republic of Letters" collaborated in the project as well as how princely courts competed to attract scholars. "While Dew is good at delineating the limits of the patronage system and at describing the even more complex organization of the 'public' academies that eventually replaced royal patrons, one would have liked a more interpretative account of the actual texts that were at the interstice of the elaborate scholarly networks — that is, the objects of the desire and of the rivalries of these pan-European scholars."

Review:A. Hamilton in TLS 5583 (April 2 2010): 23. Dew is concerned with the intellectual acquisition of the East, "not so much with the actual achievements of the French orientalists . . . as with the mainly European context in which they acquired manuscripts, tried to find publishers, created networks, and endeavoured to carry out their projects"(Hamilton). Much emphasis put on new role of semi-public academies as patrons of this scholarly research. Most of the projects Dew deals with end in frustration. Hamilton says Dew provides intriguing details, praises the thoroughness of much of the research, but finds the "somewhat disconnected chapters . . . disappointingly inconclusive."

FERGUSON, GARY. Queer(Re)Readings in the French Renaissance: Homosexuality, Gender, Culture. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008

Review:C. Freccero in Ren Q 62.2 (2009), 504—506. Highly recommended as "rich, informative and lively"(506), F.'s volume is based "on original archival research, manuscript consultation, and the secondary critical work of other Renaissance and sexuality studies scholars—of some well-known and lesser-known French sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts"(504). Important introduction provides both an historical and a theoretical overview of the fields. Index, illustrations, bibliography.

FEROS RUYS, JUANITA, ed. What Nature Does Not Teach: Didactic Literature in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods. Turnhout: Brepols, 2008

Review:B. Correll in Ren Q 62.4 (2009), 1231—1232. Wide-ranging essays offer "a rich constellation of issues and questions" and are "admirably strong on issues of gender." C. would, however, have appreciated a bibliography and an index.

FIORENTINO, FRANCESCO. Il theatro francese del Seicento. Bari: Laterza, 2008. Manuali Laterza, Istituzioni di letteratura francese

Review:M. Pavesio in S Fr 157 (2009): 163 and S Fr 158 (2009): 388. Concise but rich panorama of 17th c. French theatre. This useful manual includes perspectives on both literary texts and mise en scène.

FUKASAWA, KATSUMI. "L'histoire française moderne vue du Japon: la place incertaine du XVIIe siècle" DSS 248 (2010),491—498.

An essay tracing Japanese interest in seventeenth-century French studies, with particular emphasis on history. The author finds its place tenuous, though promising, having grown mostly out of interest in economic history, but recently flourishing in other fields.

GIFFORD, PAUL and MARION SCHMID, eds. La création en acte. Devenir de la critique génétique. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007

Review:F. Pellegrini in RF 121 (2009): 373—375. Welcome collection of studies from the international colloque on the subject held in 2003 in London. Specialists of this young discipline including those from the Institut des Textes et Manuscrits Modernes/ CNRS-ENS, Paris, bring, in the present volume, historical and theoretical perspectives of this critical approach and reflect on its potential for the future. The volume is organized in the following sections: "Les études génétiques aujourd'hui et demain," "Le chantier génétique"(examples of studies),"Hypertexte/Hypermédia" methods and diffusion),"Enjeux de l'écriture, enjeux théoriques: penser la création"(on writing itself, for example, the theory of intertextuality)and "L'oeuvre, l'écriture, la création: vocations et avenir des études génétiques"(the transcription of the debate which closed the 2003 colloque and a selected bibliography).

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

Review:P. Shoemaker in FR 83 (2009), 408—09. Suggests that Longinus' ideas on the sublime were in circulation well before Boileau's translation of his work in 1674, and undertakes a rereading of Corneille and Pascal through this optic. An interesting work which, among other things, revises our sense that the sublime necessarily implies lofty, upward movement rather than horizontal 'engagement' with others. The reviewer evokes shortcomings in Gilby's prose, and suggests that "her intriguing argument would be stronger if she fleshed out the readings of her primary sources and went deeper into the problem of influence, rather than engaging in wide-ranging theoretical speculation"(409).

GRAU, DONATIEN, sous la dir. de. Tragédie(s). Paris: Editions rue d'Ulm, 2010

Review:M. Chastang in Esprit (août-septembre 2010), 273—274. "Les auteurs de Tragédie(s) soulignent alors, grâce au pluriel du titre, la diversité des usages modernes que l'on fait de ce terme, et nous invitent à ne pas ráduire la tragádie au seul genre codifiá, mais à considerer ses multiples facettes et l'ensemble de ses déclinaisons contemporaines." Voir la première partie de l'ouvrage et "les auteurs phares" du 17e siècle en France, Corneille et Racine.

GREINER, FRANK. Les Amours romanesques de la fin des guerres de religion au temps de l'Astrée(1585-1628). Paris: Champion, 2008

Review:Mounier, P. in FS 63.1 (2009), 82—83. This broad synthesis applies literary, historical, and sociological perspectives in order to illustrate the relationship between culture and reality. This study takes a thematic approach, dividing works into the categories of "(histoires) exemplaires, dévotes ou d'aventures." This taxonomy, the reviewer finds, brushes aside the important discourse on the novel found in many of the works'prefaces and elides traditional generic boundaries into the vague catch-all of "littérature romanesque."

GUERRIER, OLIVIER, ed. Moralia et Oeuvres morales à la Renaissance: Actes du Colloque International de Toulouse(19-21 mai 2005). Colloques, congrès et conférences sur la Renaissance européenne 61. Paris: Champion, 2008

Review:C. Bevegni in Ren Q 62.3 (2009), 866—868. Appreciated volume for its demonstration of the rich, varied, deep and wide-ranging reception of Plutarch's Moralia. Successfully continues the 1965 Amyot et Plutarque by Robert Aulotte, exploring here several areas suggested by Aulotte. The 17 essays range from an examination of the Moralia's reception in a particular country to specific topics and areas from lexicography to pedagogy and in several genres. Plutarch is seen as "the founder of a moral code definable as humanitas Christiana"(868) which pervaded the long Renaissance.

GUION, BEATRICE. "Comment écrire l'histoire: l'ars historica à l'âge classique". DSS 246 (2010), 9—25.

"Par-delà l'humanisme juridique, qui avait à la fois prôné et pratiqué « un genre d'écrire nu et simple » dans l'histoire, la grande majorité des théoriciens français défend, tout au long du XVIIe siècle, l'inscription de l'histoire dans le champ des belles-lettres. Cela signifie que les modèles antiques s'imposent à l'histoire comme aux autres genres littéraires. Cela signifie encore que les mêmes principes s'appliquent à l'une comme aux autres, au premier rang desquels la bienséance et la vraisemblance: ce n'est pas le moindre paradoxe que de voir les théoriciens classiques refuser le vrai invraisemblable dans un genre dont ils avouent pourtant, à la suite des Anciens, qu'il a pour objet premier de dire la vérité. Ajoutons que, si les théoriciens revendiquent la parenté entre histoire et rhétorique, s'ils pensent l'écriture de l'histoire sur le modèle de la tragédie et/ou de l'épopée, un modèle longtemps inavoué, car inavouable, régit aussi, en pratique, l'écriture de l'histoire: c'est celui du roman."

HALLET, MARTIN AND BARBARA KARASEK. Folk and Fairy Tales, 4th ed. Buffalo, NY: Broadview Press, 2009

Review:Kristiana Willsey in M&Tales 24.2 (2010), 341—43. a broad anthology of a variety of tales of diverse origins and time periods. Includes Madame d'Aulnoy. Sections containing criticism and juxtapositions of two versions of a same tale are noted as being especially useful.

HAMMOND, PAUL. The Strangeness of Tragedy. Oxford: OUP, 2009

Review:P. Kuling in MLR 105.3 (2010),811—812. "Hammond closes his series of theatrical investigations with Racine's Phèdre, considering 'the labyrinth of Phaedra's psyche, the dangerous and intricate space created by her desire'(p. 189). This collection of short pieces on major works of tragedy reads well and effectively links these tragic worlds together through intriguing examples of Freud's unheimlich. The ultimate strangeness of tragedy may be how 'that which impels the protagonist, and seems to be a source of strength—-love, ambition, duty-—turns against him to undo him'(p. 199)."

HAMPTON, TIMOTHY. Fictions of Embassy: Literature and Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2009

Review:D. Biow in Ren Q 62.4 (2009), 1223—1225. Praiseworthy innovative exploration of the figure of the diplomat and the diplomatic function. Relying on New Historicism, H. examines a variety of test cases and genres. B. may not be entirely convinced by some claims but is highly appreciative of the volume's "impressive breadth and depth."

HARRIGAN, MICHAEL. The Question of Female Authority in Seventeenth-Century French Depictions of Eastern Monarchies. SCFS, 32.1 (2010),74—89.

Examines treatment of Eastern queens and noblewomen, and attitudes towards women in general, in seventeenth-century travel literature.

HARRIGAN, MICHAEL. Veiled Encounters: Representing the Orient in 17th-Century French Travel Literature. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2008

Review:Welch, E. in FS 63.4 (2009), 459—460. This "ambitious, comprehensive study of more than 60 seventeenth-century French travel narratives about the Levant and East Asia represents a significant contribution to the emerging fields of early modern French Orientalism and seventeenth-century travel writing." Harrigan situates this body of literature in the context of Said's work on orientalism and cross-cultural representation in order to reveal "the tension between the concept of the Orient and what travelers actually saw." He draws a distinction between the Middle East, known for its tyrants and sensuality, and the Far East(and East Indies)which are characterized as a fertile paradise inhabited by simple or violent barbarians. This study also offers an appraisal of the formal and narrative aspects of the récit de voyage."An intriguing synthesis of of a corpus defined equally by its poetic form and by the geographical and imaginative topos it describes."

HARRIS, J. Hidden Agendas: Cross-Dressing in 17th-Century France, Tubingen: Gunter Narr Verlag (Biblio 17, 156), 2005

Review:Seifert, L. in FS 62.4 (2008), 474—475. Harris deftly bridges the gap between a purely literary approach and a "presentist" approach of contemporary gender theory. His study is "ambitious [. . .] wide-ranging [. . .] and comprehensive," examining theatre, fiction, and memoirs across the seventeenth century. Individual chapters focus on cross-dressing at court, on stage, and in the carnival tradition before focusing on a "transvestite poetics." Harris' conclusions allow for a more nuanced understanding of theorists Judith Butler and Marjorie Garber. An appendix offers a valuable bibliography of "transvestite texts." "An incisive and stimulating book that is now the principal study of cross-dressing in seventeenth-century France."

HENKE, ROBERT and ERIC NICHOLSON, eds. Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater. Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008

Review:F. Cioni in Ren Q 62.3 (2009), 1018—1019. The international team Theater Without Borders has here produced "from a performative and stage-centered approach" a multi-faceted collection focusing on "the exchanges that occurred across national and regional borders that demarcated political-linguistic-cultural entities"(H. and N. 1). Includes sections on "Traveling Actors" (for example, the Commedia dell'Arte in France and elsewhere),"Transportable Units"(plot, topoi, etc.),"The Question of the Actress: Moral and Theoretical Transnationalisms" (including the relation between actresses and female theatregoers),"Performing Alterity, Doubled National Identity," and "Performing a Nation: Transregional Exchanges"(1018). Stimulating interpretations are accompanied by illustrations, a useful bibliography and index.

HOEFER, BERNADETTE. Psychosomatic Disorders in Seventeenth-Century French Literature. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009

Review:B. Woshinsky in SCN 68 (2010), 55—59: "This wide-ranging study explores the meanings of psychosomatic illness in works drawn from four classical genres: self-writing, the novel, comedy and tragedy." The reviewer finds it a valuable work in which the author makes "three main claims: that Cartesian dualism dominated concepts of mind and body in the French seventeenth century; that dualistic views reinforced the oppressive practices of the absolute monarchy; and that, in contrast, representations of psychosomatic disorders posed a "clandestine, indeed repressed challenge to the hierarchical split of body and mind" revealing a close interrelation between the two."

HOLTZ, GREGOIRE et THIBAUT MAUS DE ROLLEY, éds.. Voyager avec le diable: voyages réels, voyages imaginaires et discours démonologiques(XVe – XVIIe siècles). Paris: PU Paris-Sorbonne, 2008

Review:A. Wygant in MLR 105.2 (2010),554—555. Sixteen contributors "accept Frank Lestringant's 'Invitation au voyage' extended in the preface: the Devil is a powerful conjuror, just as is the author. The quality of this double devilishness chosen for emphasis here is motility. Through the airs, down to hell, the Devil's travels make of him a vagabond, and the volume's first part shows, among other fascinations, that 'down' is itself a textual construction . . . ." The second part of the work deals with the "demonological discourses of colonizing projects."

Review:J. Persels in BHR 71.3 (2009) 623—625 Ouvrage collective consacré "à la représentation du diable itinérant et à ses itinéraires multiples et variés sous l'Ancien Régime." Seize contributions "réparties en cinq chapitres thématiques qui tracent chacun un parcours plutôt chronologique."

IBBETT, KATHERINE. The Style of the State in French Theater, 1630-1660: Neoclassicism and Government. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009

Review:Prest, J. in FS 64.3 (2010), 344—345. "Ibbett's aim is to set aside the canonical familiarity that is all too often brought to bear on the century, to step back, and to include alongside her reading of some very canonical works other sources, several of which are deliberately 'curious' choices. These include French schoolbooks of the Third Republic(to a large degree responsible for the particular brand of canonization that Ibbett seeks to eschew), paintings by Terbrugghen and La Tour, and Italian pamphlets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Similarly, some of the critical approaches that are put into effect on the material are more unusual than others: [. . .] Corneille is seldom read alongside Michel Foucault and Walter Benjamin and in the context of France's colonial imperatives in the Americas. Here Ibbett does all three, and more. If the results are sometimes a bit scattered, they are always thoughtful and thought-provoking, and combine to form a book that offers many new and suggestive insights into the seventeenth century." This study focuses largely on Corneille and performs an interesting comparative reading of Théodore and Polyeucte which sheds new light on the martyr play. An examination of Corneille and Richelieu's writing on raison d'état shows an affinity with Machiavelli.

JOUHAUD, CHRISTIAN et DINAH RIBARD et NICOLAS SCHAPIRA. Histoire, Littérature, Témoignage. Ecrire les malheurs du temps. Paris: Gallimard, 2009

Review:M. Brétéché in DSS 248 (2010),566—568. "Mener de front une théorisation méthodologique et une réflexion historiographique sans négliger une analyse fine des sources, tel est le pari relevé par les auteurs de[ce livre]. Soutenu par un réel effort didactique, cet ouvrage[. . .] propose un renouvellement méthodologique très stimulant pour l'étude croisée de l'histoire et de la littérature."

JOURDE, MICHEL and MONFERRAN, JEAN-CHARLES. Le Lexique métalittéraire français(XVIe-XVIIe siècles). Geneva: Droz, 2006

Review: Viala, A. in FS 64.2 (2010), 205.. A collection of twelve essays (and an index of 250 terms) that trace the creation of a specialized poetic and critical vocabulary in the Renaissance and Classical periods. "Un tel effort pour construire les catégories endogènes de la pensée – après un temps où, dans la vogue structuraliste, la critique a souvent privilégié l'emploi de néologismes dans l'espoir d'établir des cadres de description stables plutôt que d'envisager les variations des terminologies et donc des façons de penser, voire leurs concurrences et conflits – est une entreprise utile, nécessaire et salubre."

KELLER-RAHBE, EDWIGE. "Représenter la parole historique au XVIIe siècle: stratégies de deux romanciers-historiens, Mme de Villedieu et Saint-Réal". DSS 246 (2010), 119—142.

"Mme de Villedieu se présente comme une femme romancière è la culture historique mondaine, un auteur qui endosse le masque de l'historien par effet de mode, par souci de vraisemblance et certainement par goût personnel, mais qui revendique aussi de pouvoir s'en affranchir, de pouvoir jouer avec et, surtout, de pouvoir exhiber dans le même temps, sans complexe, son travail de romancière [. . .] A l'inverse, Sait-Réal est historien de formation et sa culture est une culture érudite et savante. C'est pourquoi, devenu romancier, il endosse le masque de l'historien avec tout le sérieux possible et ne manque pas d'élaborer des stratégies pour entretenir le lecteur dans l'illusion que ce qu'il lit ressortit à la vérité de l'Histoire."

KENNY, NEIL. The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004

Review:Anon in FMLS 45.2 (2009), 226. Judged "erudite, nuanced, and complex," K.'s study focuses on ordinary language as he builds on his 1998 Curiosity in Early Modern Europe: Word Histories. K. examines here a series of "interwoven case studies that reveal the frequently conflicting purposes to which curiosity was put"(reviewer). The very nature of curiosity is studied within institutions such as the Church and various academies in this "challenging and provocative work [which is] the most detailed and substantial study of early modern curiosity to date"(reviewer).

LASSERRE, FRANÇOIS, ed. La Comédie des Tuileries et L'Aveugle de Smyrne, écrites en collaboration par F. de Boisrobert, G. Colletet, P. Corneille, Cl. De l'Estoile, J. Rotrou, sous la direction de Richelieu avec la participation de Chapelain. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008

Review:J.-Y. Vialleton in DSS 247 (2010), 365—367. Critical edition of the two plays mentioned in the title preceded by an important(195 pages)introduction by Lasserre.

LE MARCHAND, BERENICE. "Représentations du spectacle dans les contes de fées." EMF 13 (2010) 159—180.

Le Marchand offers an interesting investigation into metarepresentation: she examines spectacle within fairy tales as a reflection of the importance of theatre for the era. She posits its initial popularity under Louis XIV and its decline at the end of his reign. The author also discusses the conteuses' role as intermediaries between the world of the court and the world of popular theater.

LERNER, RALPH. Playing the fool. Subversive laughter, troubled times. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2009

Review:N. Smith in TLS 5611 (Oct 15 2010). An exploration of how humor is used to speak truth to power. Reviewer singles out the chapter on Pierre Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique as especially praiseworthy. The Dictionnaire is an "extreme account of these monuments of human folly through the ages" as well as an exploration of the historian's duty to tell the truth. "It is Lerner's achievement to have made his author in this account pointedly direct . . . quite unlike the dispersed authorial presence in the book itself.

LOSKOUTOFF, YVAN. Rome des Césars, Rome des Papes. La propagande du cardinal Mazarin. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2007

Review:S. De Franceschi in DSS 247 (2010) 375—376. Aligned with a movement to unify history and literary studies, the present book is a great success. "Le récent et imposant travail d'Yvan Loskoutoff est largement tributaire d'un renouvellement aux acquis duquel il apporte une illustration décisive. Essentiellement fondées sur l'exploitation d'une littérature encomiastique trop longtemps méprisée par les historiens, et significativement les historiens de la littérature, qui lui reprochaient son insincérité, les analyses développées dans [ce livre] se placent explicitement dans la lignée des travaux de Jacques Truchet, de Françoise Bardon, de Jacques Hennequin, ou encore de Nicole Ferrier-Caverivière [. . .]"

LOWRIE, JOYCE O. Sightings, Mirrors in texts—texts in mirrors. AmterdamAmsterdam: Rodopi, 2008

Review:F. Forcolin in S Fr 159 (2009): 684—684. Welcome volume of the "Visual Literacies " series edited by Robert Fisher and Nancy Brillias. Interrogates the function and place of the mirror over some five centuries. The myth of Narcissus and the figure of chiasmus prove highly useful in this examination which includes analyses of La Princesse de Clèves and of Andromaque as well as numerous modern and non-Francophone works.

LYONS, JOHN D. "La triple imperfection de l'histoire." DSS 246 (2010) 27—42.

"Le discours sur la poétique au XVIIe siècle – essentiellement la théorie de la tragédie – offre une certaine perspective sur l'idée que l'on se faisait de l'histoire au XVIIe siècle." Most tragédiens and theatrical theoreticians "participant au consensus que l'histoire est défectueuse sous trois aspects: en tant que réalité, c'est-à-dire la succession des événements dans le monde; en tant que source de sujets tragiques potentiels; et, enfin, en tant que représentation complète et fidèle du monde du passé[. . .] et chaque "imperfection" se rapporte différemment aux définitions de l'histoire. La première concerne l'histoire en tant que réalité, le vrai ; la seconde concerne celle-ci et en tant que registre du passé ; et la troisième ne concerne que ce registre."

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

Review:J. Davies in MLR 105.1 (2010), 241—242. ". . . five case studies in the writing of life stories, four biographies and one autobiography. The focus is firmly upon the lives of intellectuals written by fellow men of letters: Louis Le Roy's 1540 Vita of Guillaume Budé; Charles Paschals's 1584 Vita of Guy du Faur de Pibrac; Claude Binet's Vie de Ronsard, first published in 1586; Nicolas de Nancel's Vita of Ramus, which appeared in 1589; and finally Agrippa d'Aubigné's autobiography, composed in 1629 and addressed to his children." Reviewer concludes: "Elegantly written, clearly argued, and erudite, this is a rewarding and thought-provoking book and a valuable contribution to the study of early modern French humanism."

Review:O. Ranum in Ren Q 62.1 (2009), 229—231. Interpretations from a "radical-individualist perspective on relations between the biographer and his subject" inform M.'s study which examines biography as it relates to rhetoric, facts of life and the biographer's own "life perspective"(229). R. usefully indicates limitations of interpretation, dimensions and analytical vocabulary. Index and bibliography.

MAINIL, JEAN, ed. Féeries: études sur le conte merveilleux, XVIIe–XIXe siècles. 5. Le Rire des conteurs. Université Stendhal-Grenoble 3: UMR Lire, 2008

Review:Harold Neeman in M & T 24.1 (2010), 163—65. Reviewer finds the articles in this volume exhibit "solid scholarship" and appreciates how it "allows for insight into various dynamics at play in composing or performing narratives with a fairy-tale setting. The authors indeed deserve great credit for exploring the humoristic, comic, ironic, and satirical potential of several tales."

MALACHY, THERESE. Le Théàtre dans la cité(Un recueil d'articles). Paris: Nizet, 2008

Review:G. Bosco in S Fr 157 (2009): 225. These republished articles focus, as the title suggests, on the scenic and are the fruit of many years of M.'s scholarship while teaching at the Hebraic University of Jerusalem. Organized in three sections, the studies examine theatrical practice, the phenomenon of rewriting, and socio-historical aspects. Molière and Racine are studied, Racine's Esther in its relation to the Old Testament, Molière and Corneille in relation to the problem of liberty, along with a variety of modern authors.

MALAS, ODILE. La Vierge au gré des jours. Les concours de poésie mariale à Caen 1527-1794. Melfi: Libria, 2000. Babele, 10

Review:F. Fassina in S Fr 157 (2009): 156. Account of the three- century long concours of poetry dedicated to Mary; presentation and analysis includes historical and cultural perspectives. Attentive to context, thematics and genre, the study includes as well numerous texts. Chronological table and rich bibliography.

MAURRAS, ELIOT. "Du classicisme". RR 100.1-2 (2009) 67—80.

The article explores the resurrection of classicism's principles and ideas for French literature at the beginning of the twentieth century (between 1891889 and 1930) and focuses mostly on the classical writers, but also briefly alludes to neoclassicism. This new direction grows out of what it perceives to be the failings of symbolism and, in an unstable period, portrays classical literature as an edenic moment of history.

MAZOUER, CHARLES, ed. Farces du Grand Siècle: De Tabarin à Molière. Farces et petites comédies du XVIIe siècle. Bordeaux: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2008

Review:Ousselin, E. in FS 63.4 (2009), 458—459. A new edition of the anthology originally published in 1992. This collection traces the evolution of the farce chronologically; an introduction and notes accompany each play. The grouping of the plays allows for an appreciation of continuity and innovation, particularly as regards recurrent and stock characters(Turlupin, Rodomont)as well as comic strategies(quiproquo, etc.)

MAZOUER, CHARLES. "Mozart et la tragédie française." S Fr 157 (2009) 112—119.

Reflectingreflecting faitfully the two foci of its title, Mazouer's finely argued article proves as illuminating for Racinian studies as for those on Mozart. Demonstrates philosophical and aesthetic distances such as the invention of Ismene by Mozart and a God "bon, généreux qui aime les hommes et veut leur bonheur"(118)rather than a vindictive one.

MONTOYA, ALICIA. "Medievalism and Enlightenment,1647-1750: Jean Chapelain to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. RR 100.4 (2009) 493—513.

This study explores the light-dark metaphor from Jean Chapelain's La Lecture des vieux romans to Rousseau's Discours sur les sciences et les arts. While the light-dark metaphor has often been seen as an appropriation of Enlightenment, Montoya shows the process of Enlightenment's appropriations of that metaphor which challenges the very notion of Enlightenment. She argues that when the rhetoric of light and dark is reframed in its historical context, tensions within Enlightenment discourse become visible and previous definitions of "ancient" and "modern" are re-aligned.

MOUCHEL, CHRISTIAN et COLETTE NATIVEL, éds. République des lettres. République des arts. Mélanges en l'honneur de Marc Fumaroli. Genève: Droz, 2008

Review:D. Ménager in BHR 72.1 (2010), 173—176 Trente-cinq contributions (dont "la Renaissance et l'âge classique se taillent la part du lion") célèbrent Marc Fumaroli qui "a multiplié les promenades savants et sensible entre les deux territories . . . ."

MORTGAT-LONGUET, EMMANUELLE. Clio au Parnasse. Naissance de l'"histoire littéraire" aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Genève: Champion, 2006

Review:L. Fraisse in RF 121 (2009): 501—506: M.-L.offers a new perspective here in a demonstration affirming that what would later be termed literary history was present at the end of the 16th c. and developed throughout the 17th c.(501). While suggesting various points of discussion such as any early evidence of the historic environment of a work or works in question, F. appreciates the attentiveness of M.-L.to a network of writers established among themselves and with the entourage of Henri III as well as to the emergence of an historical perspective(503—504). Other emphases include recognition of a periodisation of literature, new methods of editing and revision of manuscripts, a "dialogue" between the Grand Siècle and the preceding one. Particular examples such as Colletet's Vies des poètes français are examined(C. is writing as an historian rather than a biographer). Praiseworthy bibliography of sources and critics, index of authors and an analytical table of subjects.

ORTOLA, MARIE-SOL and MARIE ROIG MIRANDA, eds. Mémoire-Récit-Histoire dans l'Europe des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, Actes du colloque international organisé à Nancy, 24-26 novembre, 2005, «Europe XVI-XVII». 2 vols. n.p. and n.d.

Review:F. Fassina in S Fr 157 (2009): 159. The theme of mámoire in its rapports with history is the subject of this highly interdisciplinary 2 volume set. Highly useful for scholars in art, history, literature, philosophy, pedagogy, politics and jurisprudence. Studies in volume I connect the concept and theories of memory to various genres while those in volume II focus on memory and historical events or historical narratives.

PADDEN, SUSAN A. "Conceptions of the Function of Author in Seventeenth-Century French Epistolary Literature: The Cases of the Comte de Guilleragues and Mme de Villedieu." DAI 48/06 (2010)

This dissertation shows the author function in seventeenth-century French epistolary literature. Anonymity and pseudonymity are tools through which the authors remove themselves as individuals from their texts. Both empower the reader through re-appropriation of authorship. Yet their motivations are different.

PAPASOGLI, BENEDETTA. La mémoire du coeur au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Champion, 2008

Review:Campbell, J. in FS 63.3 (2009), 337—338. This collection of new and previously published material(some available in French for the first time)concentrates on the theme of memory in the work of the moralists and spiritual writers, as well as imaginative literature. Chapters treat La Bruyère, La Rochefoucauld, the representation of memory, Pascal and Shaftesbury, the genre of the mémoire, François Lamy, meditation, Fontaine and Mme Guyon, Rancé, the role of memory in prose fiction (L'Astrée, La Princesse de Clèves), tragedy (Cinna, Racine), and Fénélon.

Review:D. Dalla Valle in S Fr 159 2009: 618 Highly praiseworthy volume by one of the most renowned specialists of 17th c. moral and spiritual literature. Welcome and rich "sequel" to her 2000 Volti della memoria nel grand siecle e oltre. Rome: Bulzoni After an introduction, the volume is organized into three sections: "Litterature morale," "Litterature spirituelle," and "echos." Includes both examinations of often analyzed texts such as La Princesse de Cleves and of lesser known but important ones.

PEDEFLOUS, OLIVIER. La Muse muselée: Macrin, Bourbon, Dampierre devant l'Affaire des Placards(1534). PFSCL 36.71 (2009), 459—474.

Analyzes how the repressive governmental measures of 1533-1534 influenced the writings of the poets Jean Salmon Macrin, Nicolas Bourbon and Jean de Dampierre.

PERSELS, JEFF, ed. Spectacle. Charlottesville: Rookwood Press, 2010

Review:A. Duggan in SCN 68 (2010), 188—191. As part of the "Studies in Early Modern France" series, the editor successfully "brings together essays that focus on theater and performance from different disciplinary approaches and in a variety of contexts spanning the fifteenth to the eighteenth century."

PETTERSON, JAMES. Poetry Proscribed: Twentieth-Century(Re)Visions of the Trials of Poetry in France. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2008

Review:S. Winspur in Fr F 34.2 (2009), 158—161. Judged a "salutary refocusing" of literature on trial, P.'s study analyzes both philosophical aspects and the significance of the genre of poetry itself. The one 17th c. poet included is Théophile de Viau; his poetry is studied as a "threat to the force of law"(159). This welcome examination also includes a thought-provoking epilogue which "defines the poetic hearing of new singularities by contrasting it to ways of knowing"(160).

PIOFFET, MARIE-CHRISTINE. Espaces lointains, espaces rêvés dans la fiction Romanesque du Grand Siècle. Collection Imago Mundi. Paris: Presses Universitaires Paris-Sorbonne, 2007

Review:E. Welch in FR 83 (2009), 407—08. "[A] rich, well-documented consideration of the representation of faraway spaces in the period's prose fiction. . .Pioffet convincingly argues that novelists created hybrid landscapes which superimposed new geographical knowledge on outdated myths and tropes"(407). The reviewer regrets that more attention is not paid to how aesthetic constraints and conventions shape these depictions of foreign places, but nonetheless praises the work as "magisterial"(408).

REGIER, WILLIS Q. "Shahrazad's New Clothes". WLT 84.2 (2010), 30—34.

An essay that gives rave reviews to the new Penguin Classics 3-volume translation of The Arabian Nights and compares it with earlier versions. Extensively references the history and various versions of the Nights with a special focus on the translation by Antoine Galland.

Les relations franco-anglaises aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles: périodiques et manuscrits clandestins, La Lettre Clandestine, n. 15, Paris: P de l'U Paris-Sorbonne,2007

Review:M. Melai in S Fr 159 (2009): 619. Heterogeneous and rich collection of studies focuses on the circulation of libertine philosophical ideas across England and France. The volume is organized into four sections: 1)an exploration of manuscripts circulating clandestinely, 2)various related questions of the 17th and 18th c,(Cyrano is included here) and 3)reviews of publications from 2006 on the theme with a catalogue of recent initiatives.

RIFFAUD, ALAIN. La Ponctuation du théâtre imprimé au XVIIe siècle.(Geneva: Droz, 2007)

Review:Howe, A. in FS 64.1 (2010), 85—86. Riffaud challenges the long-held belief that the original seventeenth-century punctuation of printed theatrical texts served to guide declamation and performance. His examination of numerous texts and variant editions, guided by careful attention to considerations of material bibliography and printing practices, shows that playwrights were largely indifferent to punctuation practice which was largely controlled by the printers themselves. "Clearly written and liberally illustrated by helpful facsimile extracts, this is a work which future scholars preparing 'scientific' editions of seventeenth-century plays cannot afford to ignore – even though the advice proffered in the concluding chapter, regarding the criteria by which decisions should be made about the retention, modification or modernization of the original punctuation, will make the editorial task appear more daunting."

Review:J. Durrenmatt in DSS 247 (2010), 364—365. The author's work "constitue une passionnante contribution tant à l'histoire de la ponctuation qu'à celle du livre ou de théâtre. Il revient, dans un premier temps, sur la querelle qui oppose depuis longtemps partisans et adversaires de la modernisation de la ponctuation dans les éditions savantes des textes anciens, débat parfois enflammé qui a trouvé, depuis une vingtaine d'années, dans le théâtre du XVIIe siècle un lieu privilégié, sous l'impulsion notamment d'Eugène Green et de Georges Forestier."

ROCHERE, MARTINE HENNARD DUTHEIL DE LA. "'But marriage itself is no party:' Angela Carter's Translation of Charles Perrault's 'La Belle au bois dormant;' or, Pitting the Politics of Experience against the Sleeping Beauty Myth". M & T 24.1 (2010), 131—51.

Argues that Angela Carter's translations of Charles Perrault's tales had a positive affect on her career, in part by claiming them for feminism.

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

Review:G. Bosco in S Fr 158 (2009): 459. Praiseworthy and wide-ranging examination includes physical, intellectual and moral/social dimensions of the pedant. R.'s history of the evolution of the figure includes diverse genres from comedy to poetic satire and the novel. The study is organized in the following three sections: "Le portrait du pédant," "Le langage pédantesque," and "Le pédantisme de la Rive Droite." Copious and erudite bibliography and indices.

SCHACHTER, MARC D. Voluntary Servitude and the Erotics of Friendship: From Classical Antiquity to Early Modern France. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008

Review:G. Ferguson in Ren Q 62.3 (2009), 879—880. This "elegant study" of Montaigne and Étienne de La Boétie and Marie de Gournay is informed by Foucault's "governmentality" and "critique"(879). Although the focus is Montaigne and in particular his concept of liberté volontaire, chapters also examine Plato's Symposium, La Boétie's De la servitude voluntaire and Gournay's Promenoir de Monsieur de Montaigne. Judged "masterful," "at once erudite and innovative," S.'s study will prove highly useful to 17th c. scholars as they examine and reexamine friendship in its numerous manifestations so relevant to the Grand Siècle.

SCHOLAR, RICHARD. The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi in Early Modern Europe: Encounters with a Certain Something. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005

Review:Anon in FMLS 45.2 (2009), 232. Fascinating and rigorous word history also analyzes the expression's use in philosophical debates. Case studies range from Pascal to several poets and Dominique de Bouhours's treatise, the latter in a discussion of politesse.

SCHOLL, DOROTHÉE, dir. Oeuvres et critiques, 32, 2, 2007. "La question du baroque."

Review:L Rescia in S Fr 157 (2009): 162—163 and S Fr 158(2009): 387—388. Finely coordinated thematic issue in which the concept that owes so much to Jean Rousset is revisited. The term's polysemy is demonstrated by J.C. Vuillemin; the concept is examined in its relation to 17th c. oratory doctrines by Volker Kapp; Cecilia Rizza reviews important contributions on the baroque which appeared in S Fr; Dorothée Scholl examines three related categories: baroque, arabesque and grotesque; Francis Assaf focuses on a particular case, Francion's narrative; A. Surgers's contribution examines the theatrical baroque, from spatial organization to emblematics while the literary text of theatre is the focus of M. Brunel's essay which treats the dramatic function of "stances théâtricales" from 1630 to 1660. Another four essays examine the baroque as a modern or post-modern concept. The reviewer singles out for special comment Rainer Zaiser's essay "Le pli: Deleuze et le baroque."

SCOTT, VIRGINIA. Women on the Stage in Early Modern France, 1540-1750. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010

Review:J. Prest in TLS 5610 (Oct 8 2010): 21. This study aims "to review and, when appropriate, to redress the old stereotype of the actress as a whore." At the "theoretical heart" of the study, Prest sees "the dubious reliability of the anecdote, source of many prejudices against actresses." Work contains illuminating discussion of the casting choices for the two rival productions of Racine's Alexandre le Grand and useful biographies of important actresses. Prest particularly praises the discussion of secondary female characters in Corneille's comedies, but expresses surprise that female playwrights are not discussed.

SEIFERT, LEWIS C. Manning the Margins: Masculinity and Writing in Seventeenth-Century France. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2009

Review:K. J. Manna in MLN 124.4 (2009), 1014—1018.: ". . . Seifert compares early modern ideals of manliness to the notion of effeminacy in order to reveal a complex history of non-normative masculinity. Seifert's book brings to light many intricacies of the historical creation of the modern concepts of sexuality and gender and underscores the ways in which these ideas were arbitrarily shaped by writings from and about the past."

Review:Harris, J. in FS 64.1 (2010), 87 Seifert's welcome and important study intelligently explores a range of different 'masculinities' within various seventeenth-century French discourses." The first part examines the interplay between masculinity and civility which takes place largely in the settings of court and salon where honnête masculinity defined itself in relation to femininity. Seifert then focuses on homosexuality and cross-dressing, carefully weaving the early-modern and post-modern and introducing, for example, the modern notion of "transgender" to analyze the Abbé de Choisy. An important study "in itself and [for] the rich theoretical field it opens up.

Review:N. Hammond in TLS 5587 (April 30 2010): 22. A study that considers masculinity as "perpetually in crisis." First part of book explores discourses of civility and their implications for ideals of masculinity. Reviewer finds Seifert "at his best" in second section of the book, when he analyses street songs and satires from the latter part of the century that openly confront homosexual desire. The last part of the book moves back in time to consider Boisrobert and Théophile de Viau. An "excellent book" with "impressive scholarship."

SHAPIRO, NORMAN, ed. French Women Poets of Nine Centuries. Baltimore: JohnsJohn Hopkins UP, 2008

Review:L. R. N. Ashley in BHR 71.3 (2009), 582—583. Ambitious anthology includes 56 writers and 600 poems with English translations; several early 17th-century.

STEDMAN, GESA and MARGARETE ZIMMERMANN, eds. Höfe—Salons—Akademien: Kulturtransfer und Gender im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2007

Review:E. J. Benkov in Ren Q 62.3 (2009), 953—955. Welcomed for its timeliness, variety and the "validity of the guiding premise: women in their various roles contributed to and indeed promoted the circulation of ideas and cultural exchange across early modern Europe"(955). Sixteen essays investigate gender and cultural exchange in 16th -18th c. Europe. Courts, salons and academies are only a few of the "sites" examined; cultural significance and exchange is studied in relation to travel, clothing, reading and translations. S. and Z. furnish a visual illustration and unifying force to the volume through their interpretive essay of the 17th c. painting attributed to Louis-Michel Dumesnil, "depict[ing]Christina of Sweden and Elisabeth of Bohemia at a table with, among others, Descartes and Pierre Chanut, the ambassador who invited Descartes to the Swedish court"(953-954).

TAYLOR, KAREN L. "The Articulation of Emotion in Eighteenth-Century Théâtre d'Education". EMF 13 (2010): 204—228.

The article starts with the importance of Racine's latter plays written for Saint-Cyr for eighteenth-century théàtre de l'éducation but also reflects on the role that non-Racinian works played, among them Boursault's Les Fables d'Esope and the undated version of L'enfant prodigue. Taylor registers the growing influence of Enlightenment's emphasis on sensibility, and notes its role for the education of aristocratic daughters.

TOURETTE, ERIC. Les Formes brèves de la description morale: Quatrains, maxims, remarques. Paris: Champion, 2008

Review:Culpin, D. in FS 63.4 (2009), 460—461. This study shows that the forme brève is not merely an ornamental, rhetorical form but rather reflective of the moral discourse it conveys. The quatrain, for example, is frequently used for moralistic poetry because its brevity constitutes "le symbole permanent de la brièveté de la vie." The maxim's focus on discernment is reflective in its neutral tone and concision. The remark is typified by "la coupure, l'interruption, la relance" which communicate "la déspiritualisation de l'homme." The formes brèves marry forme and fond and make an "ideal tool for that 'art de la demystification lucide' which is the preoccupation of the moralist."

Review:M. Mastroianni in S Fr 158 (2009): 385. This doctoral thesis examines late 16th and early 17th c. formes brèves in France, specifically the development of three genres: le quatrain moral(in the manner of Pibrac), la maxime mondaine(in the manner of La Rochefoucauld)and the remarques(in the manner of La Bruyère).

TURNOVSKY, GEOFFREY. The Literary Market. U of Pennsylvania P, 2010

Review:D. Coward in TLS 5597 (July 9 2010): 3—4.. Work mainly on the eighteenth-century, but argues that writers in seventeenth-century France viewed patronage as a means to autonomy. Patronage "cancelled the seventeenth-century writer's status as a household servant and gave him his entrée to the exalted company of honnêtes hommes"(Coward). Social education considered more important than publishing.

Review:H. Bahri in CHOICE 47 (2010), 2107-08. In examining the evolution of authorship in 17th- and 18th-century France, Turnovsky considers how authors' "stylized images of their experiences" became more important than the content of their art, and how they used distance from their protectors, a constructed "outsider" status, and other gestures to achieve an image as honnêtes hommes de lettres. Recommended by the reviewer.

VAN DELFT, LOUIS. Les Moralistes. Une apologie. Paris: Gallimard, 2008. "Folio Essais Inédits."

Review:B. Papasogli in S Fr 157 (2009): 166—167 and S Fr 158 (2009): 391—392. Highly praiseworthy volume by the great specialist of the genre. Equally fruitful for scholars and "nouveaux venus," Van D. communicates the complex and fascinating world of the classical moralists(392). Organized thematically around the concept of "theatrum mundi," and incorporating analyses such as those from the Stoic, Epicurean or Augustinian perspective. Notable for its breadth and perception throughout and particularly for insights into the relation between the moralists and spirituality.

VINCENT, MONIQUE. Le Mercure Galant: Présentation de la première revue féminine d'information et de culture, 1672-1710. Paris: Champion(Sources classiques), 2005

Review:Wygant, A. in FS 63.1 (2009), 86. This volume includes an introduction to the Mercure and Donneau de Visé followed by a "Reader's Digest-style compilation" of articles. A useful guide for accessing the Mercure's wide range of subject matter; production flaws and infelicities in the accompanying index limit its utility, however.

VON STACKELBERG, JÜRGEN. Der unfertige Garten. Essays zur französischen Literatur. Bonn: Romanisticher Verlag, 2007. ___. Frankreichs große Autoren. Ein Lektürekanon in Vorträgen, Aufsätzen und Essays. Wien: Praesens, 2008. ___. Grenzüberschreitungen. Studien zu Literatur, Geschichte, Ethnologie und Ethologie. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag, 2007. ___. Figaro, Don Giovanni und Così van tutte, Da Pontes Libretti und deren Vorlagen. Wien: Praesens, 2008. ___. "Der atheistiche Kardinal". Die Geburt des Realismus aus dem Geiste des Engagements. Anmerkungen zu Pablo Neruda. Berlin: Frey, 2009.

Review:K. Schoell in RF 121 (2009): 516—519. The first two volumes are brought up to date and demonstrate anew the importance of J v. S. as a critic of Humanism, the French Grand siècle and the Enlightenment. The first 2007 collection of essays that bears the citation from Montaigne includes thirty essays on various works, genres and authors from the Odyssee to Tom Jones, from Molière to Musset, for example. The 2008 volume on France's greatest authors is a highly valuable reference work, especially for the 16th -19th c. The 17th c. specialist will particularly appreciate sections on Molière, Scarron and La Fayette. The other volumes whose titles appear above are reviewed as well, but the emphases(as the titles indicate)are on later periods, even the 21st c. –yet connections are made there as well with the Grand Siècle, especially with Molière.

WILKIN, REBECCA M. Women, Imagination and the Search for Truth in Early Modern France. Women and Gender in the Early Modern World. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008

Review:K. Long in Ren Q 62.4 (2009), 1238—1240. Praiseworthy, wide-ranging and original in many aspects, W.'s study offers "historically and intellectually important" revisions of the traditional. 17th c. scholars will appreciate W.'s "nuanced reading" of Descartes's representation of the mind and will. L. is impressed by W.'s documentation and care in the readings.

WYGANT, AMY. Medea, Magic and Modernity in France. Stages and Histories (1553-1797). Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007

Review:Chesters, T. in FS 63.3 (2009), 343. A "thoughtful, well-researched, and provocative study of Medea's incarnations on the early modern stage [. . .] organized around three avatars of the ancient witch, each of whom conjures her own distinct vision of what it might mean to be 'modern'." These three figures are: the practitioner of "rejuvenative" magic (La Péruse's La Médee, 1553), the "catoptromancer" (Corneille, Médée, 1635), and the "Revolutionary" Medea (Cherubini and Diderot). In the reviewer's opinion, the author's allusions to modern and contemporary culture(e.g., Oliver Stone, group psychology, Revlon, Brecht, Osama Bin Laden)show that "as we begin to move beyond the New Historicist phase, the whole question of periodicity and of what constitutes proper context may again be up for grabs."

ZAISER, RAINER, ed. L'âge de la représentation: l'art du spectacle au XVIIe siècle. Actes du IXe Colloque du CIR 17 (Kiel 16-18 mars 2006). Tübingen: G. Narr, 2007

Review:C. Rolla in S Fr 157 (2009): 162—164 and S Fr 158 (2009): 388—389. These rich Actes of the 2006 conference of CIR 17 include two allocutions, one by President S. Oechsle of the Kiel Faculty of Letters and "Sciences Humaines" and another, on the subject of the colloque, by Cecilia Rizza. Preceded by a preface by Rainer Zaiser, editor of the collection, the volume's essays are divided into the following four sections: "Le spectaculaire sur la scène,": "Le théâtre" and "Danse, ballet, opera"; "Formes de représentation dans la comédie du XVIIe siècle" and "La théâtricalitéé dans les genres non-dramatiques."

ZANIN, ENRICA. "Les réécritures modernes d'Œdipe Roi: entre imitation et moralisation". EMF 13 (2010): 181—203.

The article centers its discussion on adaptations and transformations of the Sophoclean and Senecan tragedy of Oedipus in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century France. The author reveals how playwrights subjected their scripts to the Christian doctrine. The first modern adaptations try to find an answer to the problem of evil in which God's goodness remains intact, while the latter ones try to justify the mystery of the coexistence of divine will and the existence of evil.

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

Review:B. Hamon-Porter in FR 84 (2010), 159—60. An exhaustive study, Zonza's book defines the genre of the nouvelle historique and then demonstrates how it benefits from 17th-century readers' discontent with both the novel and prose history. A third section considers the social commentary and advice offered by the genre as it comes to focus on tales of Valois-era nobles. Zonza's conclusion addresses the 'decline' of the genre into mere gallantry. The reviewer particularly admires the many excerpts of obscure nouvelles historiques which Zonza now makes available.