FRENCH 17

ADAMS, ALISON, STEPHEN RAWLES, and ALISON SAUNDERS. A Bibliography of Claude-François Menestrier Printed Editions, 1655-1765. Geneva: Droz, 2012.

Review: J. Loach in MLR 108.3 (2013), 971-973: Work focused on French Jesuit Claude-François Menestrier (1631-1705) known for his prolific writings on symbolic images and festivals in early modern culture: “This book is as important as an exemplar of bibliographical examination—especially useful in teaching the history of the book—as it is for revising the bibliography of a particular author. From this detailed case study issues arise of more general import, which in turn open up areas for research in printing and publishing: for instance, how unusual, even innovative, was Menestrier in his exploitation of a comparatively small number of privilèges for a large number of effectively separate works (16 privilèges cover 46 editions sufficiently different to count as separate catalogue entries)? All in all, this is a work of painstaking scholarship, which should be read carefully not only by those interested in Menestrier but by anyone working on seventeenth-century French culture, for whom it will offer a springboard for further research.”

BLAIR, ANN M. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010

Review: A. Nuovo in Ren Q 64.3 (2011), 893-894. Masterful retracing of “the history of the structures and methods that have permitted an orderly growth in collective knowledge” (893). B.’s “book-historical” approach allows her to focus on scholars’ organization. Five chapters lead the reader from Antiquity through the 17th c. as they survey “information management” techniques, investigate techniques of note-taking, examine categories of reference works, analyze motivations and methods of authors, and evaluate the impact of early printed books on readers. The rich bibliography of 50 pages may be supplemented by additional bibliography and quotations on B.’s website http://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/blair.php

BOTTIGHEIMER, RUTH B. Fairy Tales Framed: Early Forewords, Afterwords, and Critical Words. Albany: SUNY Press, 2012.

Review: A. Maggi in M&T 28.1 (2014): 180-82. An anthology that seeks to highlight the literary (as opposed to oral) nature of tales by d’Aulnoy and others by re-placing them in their context as literature. This includes an analysis of forwards, afterwards, and author commentary, which are all too often omitted from translated anthologies of the tales, as well as a study of the origins and influences for various tales, with a focus on Giambattista Basile. Reviewer: “an original and necessary volume that raises important and timely questions.”

CHARNLEY, JOY . “Introduction: Representations of Age in European Literatures.” FMLS 47.2 (2011), 121-125.

Praiseworthy introduction to the issue which focuses on “Ageing” as it is represented in language and literature. The approach is wide-ranging and cross-cultural. Essays on theory complement others on specific genres and the sexes. Although the issue concentrates on the 20th and the 21st c., one essay treats the 17th c. (O’Brien).

FROMMEL, SABINE and FLAMINIA BARDATI, eds. La Réception de modèles cinquecenteschi dans la théorie et les arts français du XVIIe siècle. École pratique des hautes études: science historiques et philologiques 5. Hautes études médievales et modernes 96. Geneva: Droz, 2010.

Review: T. Senkevitch in Ren Q 64.1 (2011), 196-198. Focusing on exchanges and the role of models between Italy and France in the Early Modern, the 17 essays here examine a variety of aspects of these exchanges including, for example, cross-fertilization. Interdisciplinary, essays may at times relate music to architecture, and painting to tapestry. Highly useful both for new understandings, even of the etymology of “modèles,” and for specific studies of artists in cultural intersections. Praiseworthy for the rigor of its research and stimulating examinations. Illustrations, bibliography.

MCLEOD, JANE. Licensing Loyalty: Printers, Patrons, and the State in Early Modern France. University Park, PA: Penn State UP, 2001.

Review: K. LaPorta in CdDS 15.1 (2013): 99-101. Whereas previous scholars have analyzed how printers operated outside and in opposition to the government, McLeod's Licensing Loyalty shows the existing relationship between royal officials and the provincial printers, and how the latter engaged in patronage networks. Printers positioned themselves as loyal subjects of the crown in order to get the limited number of licenses they needed, and they clamored for the regulation of their trade. McLeod's new approach centers primarily on printers in the French provinces, rather than focusing on the book trade in Paris. She also paints a more complete picture of the public sphere in France by turning to licensed printers, rather than the "underground" press.

PAIGE, NICHOLAS D. Before Fiction: The Ancien Régime of the Novel. Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

Review: J. G. Turner in MP 111.3 (February 2014), E346-E350. The reviewer is not convinced by Paige’s central argument that in the French nineteenth-century there was a shift to an “ontologically distinct ‘fictionality’” that replaced “a regime in which the characters in novels ostensibly portrayed actual people under a veil.” However, the reviewer sees strength in Paige’s “brilliant selection and dazzling interpretation of his test cases”: La Princesse de Clèves, the Fausse Clélie, Cébrillon fils’ Egarements du coeur et de l’esprit, Rousseau’s Nouvelle Héloïse, various contes by Diderot, and a protgothic novel by Jacques Cazotte.

POUEY-MOUNOU, ANNE-PASCALE. “Dictionnaires d’épithèthes et de synonymes aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Du lexique au manuel.” BHR 75.1 (2013), 47-65.

“Au sein du corpus lexicographique foisonnant que domine la recherche de l’ubertas et de la variatio stylistique aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, nous voudrions nous attacher ici aux modalities selon lesquelles épithétaires et dictionnaires de synonymes se croisent et se confondent au tournant des deux siècles.” L’article de P.-M. “reprend sur nouveaux frais une enquête sur la synonymie (journée d’études La Synonymie, org. M. Thorel, Paris, Atelier XVIe siècle, 24 mars 2007) et poursuit une réflexion sur le genre du dictionnaire d’ épithèthes déjà proposée dans plusieurs art.[icles].”

SCHOLAR, RICHARD AND ALEXIS TADIÉ, ed. Fiction and the Frontiers of Knowledge in Europe, 1500–1800. Burlington: Ashgate, 2010.

Review: J. Helgeson in FS 67.2 (2013): 257-58. A collection born of two workshops held in Oxford in 2007. Reviewer: “a useful compendium of recent approaches to the question of literary, legal, and philosophical ‘fictions.’” Focuses on France and Britain, with occasional reference to Italy or Germany. French dix-septièmistes will be particularly interested in Isabelle Moreau’s treatment of the different meanings and connotations for the term “fiction” and Wes Williams’s close reading of uses of the conditional in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

SCOTT, PAUL. Year’s Work in Modern language Studies. 74 (survey years 2011 and 2012), 45-71. London: Modern Humanities Research association, 2014.

Exhaustive list and brief summaries of books and articles covering topics of the French seventeenth century published in 2011 and 2012.