FRENCH 17

BIRNBAUM, PIERRE. A Tale of Ritual Murder in the Age of Louis XIV: The Trial of Raphaël Lévy, 1669. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2013.

Review: R. Parish in FS 67.4 (2013): 553-54. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer, this book describes in detail a disturbing case of child murder and the subsequent accusation, trial, and execution of a previously respected Jewish community figure in Metz in 1669. Explores questions of anti-Semitism, possible involvement (or lack thereof) by the king, and the occasional resurgence of interest in the case, notably during the Dreyfus affair. Although the reviewer regrets the lack of an index and the inaccuracy of some factual information, he praises the use of archival material and the quality and readability of the translation.

BOHANAN, DONNA J. Fashion beyond Versailles: Consumption and Design in Seventeenth-Century France. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2012.

Review: N. Hammond in FS 67.2 (2013): 250-51. Author studies post-mortem inventories to describe and analyze the increasing importance of various material goods in the seventeenth century. While Bonahan’s work is to be praised for looking beyond Paris and Versailles, the reviewer wishes that the author had referenced literary sources in addition to archives, and that she had included physical books in her catalog of objects of consumption.

CABANTOUS, ALAIN. Le Dimanche, une histoire. Europe occidentale (1660-1830). Paris : Éd. du Seuil, 2013.

Review : G. Rideau in QL 1085 (du 1er au 15 juin 2013), 24 : L’auteur souligne la lente construction du dimanche comme jour spécifique et ses remises en cause dès l’époque moderne, “de l’Écosse à Madrid et de la Bretagne aux principautés allemands.” “Ce dimanche est donc une invitation à étudier les heures dominicales et la manière dont les gens les ont remplies. Au-delà, il s’intègre à une lecture globale des sociétés modernes et de leurs rapports aux temps et aux autorités, qui fait heureusement écho aux réalités contemporaines !”

CANOVA-GREEN, MARIE-CLAUDE. “Le ‘grand dessein’ de Louis XIII: l’Arioste, le Tasse et le ballet de cour (1617-1619).” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 323-35.

Examines various “ballets de cour” Louis XIII danced between 1617 and 1619 to show how the moral and political aims of the ballets combine with their Christian source material to paint the portrait of an ideal king.

CATTEEUW, LAURIE. Censures et raisons d’état. Une histoire de la modernité politique (XVIe-XVIIe siècle). Paris : Albin Michel, 2012.

Review : S. Haffemayer in QL 1086 (du 16 au 30 juin 2013), 24 : Catteeuw analyse la raison d’État en philosophe, “traquant son élaboration progressive dans l’exercice de la censure entre la fin du XVIe et le milieu du XVIIe siècle en France et à Rome. […] D’un côté, la censure ecclésiastique pourchassa les ouvrages faisant l’apologie de la raison d’État (censure du Prince de Machiavel en 1559), de l’autre, l’État mit en place une censure au service de celle-ci (Richelieu dans les années 1620).” L’ouvrage, issu d’une thèse de doctorat soutenue en 2008, “propose une réflexion dense, appuyée sur une solide base documentaire ; il constitue une contribution essentielle à la compréhension des rapports ambigus entre la consolidation de l’État et le développement de l’opinion publique”.

FICAT, CHARLES. “Il Fait Beau, Allons à Versailles.” RDM (juillet-août 2013), 120-23.

“… un détour par les Yvelines afin d’explorer à nouveau les méandres du roman national” -- des réflexions sur Versailles sur le plan esthéthique, politique, et religieux.

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.

GURVIL, CLÉMENT. Les paysans de Paris du milieu du XVe au début du XVIIe siècle. Bibliothèque d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 33. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2010.

Review: M. Vester in Ren Q 64. 2 (2011), 633-634. Mixed review offers praise for G.’s lengthy (nearly 700 page) study which fills a significant gap, that of rural dimensions of early modern towns and town-country dimensions. Based on a wide selection of notarial records and meticulously researched, this highly useful reference work examines numerous aspects of various groups of Paris, both workers of all types and products. The cultural role of gardens offers a sidelight, but the reviewer would have appreciated “a discussion of kin relations—inheritance, marriage, family structures, property disputes, etc.—among this population, and perhaps a comparison of family patterns in Paris with those of peasants in more remote regions” (V. 634). Index, appendices, tables, bibliography.

HAMSCHER, ALBERT. The Royal Financial Administration and the Prosecution of Crime in France, 1670-1789. Newark: U Delaware P, 2012.

Review: D. Parrott in FS 67.3 (2013): 407-08. Starting with the time of Colbert and ending with the 1789 Revolution, Hamscher asks how France paid for its judiciary system at every level, from smallest parish to the biggest city. Although the short answer is that they didn’t, the book is in fact a nuanced study based on extensive archival research. It reveals both an increase in allocated funds as time progressed and a significant degree of regional variation, illustrated in a helpful appendix.

HARRIGAN, MICHAEL. "Métissage and Crossing Boundaries in the Seventeenth-Century Travel Narrative to the Indian Ocean Bassin." CdDS 15.1 (2013): 19-45.

The article discusses intercultural encounters and, especially, the question of "métissage," of narrative hybridity and circuits of knowing, in the encounter of Europeans with other populations both East and West. Travel narratives "reflect the attempt to encapsulate difference in recognizable forms of text, and the interactions of contemporary—potentially widely disseminated—formulations of human difference with intertextual tradition."

HILLS, HELEN, ed. Rethinking the Baroque. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.

Review: I. Sapir in Ren Q 65.1 (2012), 212-214. Wide-ranging collection is to be welcomed by cultural critics as well as by literary and art historians. Its contributors reexamine the key concept, its “complex historical interaction between past and present, or between different pasts” (S. 212) and its stylistic elements. Reviewer does not specifically mention the French 17th c., but the serious quality of the essays recommends the volume to scholars of late Renaissance and early 17th c. France.

JEANNERET, MICHEL. Versailles, ordre et chaos. Paris: Gallimard, 2012.

Review: J. Prest in FS 67.4 (2013): 554-55. Prest actually critiques two works by Jeanneret in one review, the present title and also his critical edition of André Félibien’s Les Fêtes de Versailles, which takes the same theoretical approach toward the grand siècle. Jeanneret establishes a sort of dialectic between order and chaos, regular and irregular in order to show that classicism is a process, not merely a moment fixed in time or place. Reviewer regrets that only the first part of the first book describes Versailles, as promised in the title–the other two address literature and culture more broadly–as well as certain lacunae in the references and bibliography, but recommends the book all the same. No caveats are given for the edition of Félibien, which covers the court fêtes of 1668 and 1674.

KESSLER, HERBERT L. and DAVID NIRENBERG, eds., Judaism and Christian Art: Aesthetic Anxieties from the Catacombs to Colonialism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

Review: Y. Even in Ren Q 64.3 (2011), 916-917. Highly valuable and diverse collection which demonstrates how Christians “used Jews and Judaism to construct their . . . claims about the material and sensual world” (K. and N. 74). Following a fine and compelling introduction by N., essays analyze by art-historical methods specific artworks and ideas from the late Roman period through Romanticism. Index, illustrations and tables.

LAHAISE, ROBERT. Nouvelle-France. English Colonies. L’impossible coexistence. 1606-1713. Québec : Septentrion, 2006.

Review : R. Le Huenen in UTZ, 82.3 (summer 2013), 746-749. “L’ouvrage est bien documenté. Robert Lahaise connaît parfaitement ses sources et en fait un usage judicieux. Il est aussi très bien écrit et de lecture agréable, facilitée par de nombreuses cartes, claires et précises, qui interviennent aux moments clefs de la relation de la chaîne événementielle et assurent une meilleure compréhension des enjeux. En somme, il s’agit là d’un heureux échantillon d’histoire narrative. Certes de nombreuses études ont déjà été consacrées aux conflits entre Français, Anglais et Amérindiens et l’ouvrage de Robert Lahaise ne renouvelle guère le sujet. Mais son mérite est d’en offrir une synthèse éclairante, succincte mais complète, présentée de manière vivante, voire savoureuse, et qui propose une vision simultanée des événements se passant en différents points du continent nord-américain, comme en Europe”.

KMEC, SONJA. Across the Channel: Noblewomen in Seventeenth-Century France and England. Trier: Kliomedia GmbH, 2010.

Review: S. E. Dinan in Ren Q 64. 2 (2011), 634-636. Praiseworthy examination focuses on an elite Huguenot family as it considers “issues of property management, marriage arrangements, and artistic patronage” (D. 634-635). The noble, bi-confessional family in question is that of Marie de La Tour and Charlotte de la Trémoïlle from western France. Valuable for its analysis of the authority exercised by these women and others of the family. Rich bibliography, appendices, bibliography, and index.

LEVACK, BRIAN P. The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West. New Haven: Yale UP, 2013.

Review: P. Marshall in TLS 5756 (July 26, 5756): 7-8. “The impression readers are likely to take away from this authoritative, though not quite definitive, study is that sometimes astute and sympathetic description is the best we can hope for.” Levack does not try to explain away accounts of possession and exorcism, but stresses that they were “encoded in particular religious cultures.” Sustained metaphor casts demoniacs and exorcists as “performers.” “Scripts” are supplied by their society. One of the major themes of the book is the effect of different material and confessional settings on the performances of possession.

LONG, KATHLEEN P., ed. Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture. Literary and Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2010.

Review: A. Rankin in Ren Q 64.3 (2011), 936-937. Praiseworthy exploration of the “relationship of women and questions of gender to the scientific domain in early modern Europe” (L. 1). The collection of eleven essays examines gender and early modern science from diverse approaches and in diverse material, including, for example, manuscripts and emblems. Focus is on alchemy and obstetrics. French scholars will particularly appreciate Penny Bayer’s essay on women in the alchemical circle of Joseph du Chesne and Bridgette Sheridan’s account of “the relationship between gender, experiential knowledge, and authority at the seventeenth-century French court” (R. 937). Despite some conceptual and editing concerns, R. finds the volume a “rewarding” read and a “significant contribution” towards a “field desperately in need of new scholarship” (R. 937). Index, illustrations, tables, bibliography.

McCLARY, SUSAN. Desire and Pleasure in Seventeenth-Century Music. Berkeley: U of California P, 2012.

Review: T. Knighton in TLS 5743 (April 26, 2013): 17. Author gives most of her attention to French and Italian music. According to the reviewer, McClary’s goal is to make seventeenth-century music intelligible by helping the reader understand “the effects the musical syntax was intended to have within a framework of more general cultural notions of desire and pleasure in the period.” The author helps her readers grasp “the import of the overlapping of two different harmonic systems.” The more complex analyses may be difficult for a non-specialist, but this is a “brilliant musical mapping of the seventeenth century.”

McCLURE, ELLEN M. Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006.

Review: C. Hogg in CdDS 14 (2012): 135-137. McClure seeks to reassess the "dominant discourse of [royal] legitimacy" and rethinks the relationship between state, subjects, and the divine. She distances herself from the theoretical model furnished by Louis Marin and privileges the term and concept of "mediation" over "representation." The reviewer welcomes this study that explores, through close readings combined with illuminating analysis, the issues of authority and delegation of the sovereign, and also pays attention to the role of the diplomat, the playwright, and the actor.

MELZER, SARAH E. Colonizer or Colonized: The Hidden Stories of Early Modern French Culture. Philadelphia: U Pennsylvania P, 2012.

Review: E. Welch in FS 67.3 (2013): 402-03. In an original approach to both subjects, Melzer juxtaposes the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns with the French colonization of the Americas. She identifies discourses that echo each other and intersect and connects them to issues of cultural identity and memory. According to the reviewer, the work lacks detail and close analysis in places, but is nonetheless a “groundbreaking study.”

MILLER, CHRISTOPHER. The French Atlantic Triangle: Literature and Culture of the Slave Trade. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2008.

Review: ANON in FMLS 47.1 (2011), 11. Filling an important lacuna, M.’s “facts-based overview of French slavery and the slave trade” examines literature and film from the mid-17th c. to our day. Despite high recommendations, the reviewer notes the paucity of references to secondary sources outside the US.

MURRAY, RUSSELL E., SUSAN FORSCHER WEISS, and CYNTHIA J. CYRUS, eds. Music Education in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Publications of the Early Music Institute. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010

Review by: P. Harris in Ren Q 64. 2 (2011), 612-614. These selected essays from the 2005 conference at Johns Hopkins, “Reading and Writing the Pedagogy of the Renaissance: Students, Teachers, and Materials of Music Learning, 1470-1650,” examine early music from perspectives of music history, theory, and performance. Impressive for its broad coverage geographically and temporally as well as for its excellent documentation, including archival materials. The collection is organized by “perspectives”: instructional manuals for both children and experienced musicians, places of learning and practices, and materials and contexts. Other emphases include the teacher and case studies of nuns’ music education. Index, appendices, illustrations, tables, and bibliography.

PARKER, GEOFFREY. Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. New Haven: Yale UP, 2013.

Review: T. Rabb in TLS 5746 (May 17, 2013): 10-11. Author seeks to establish that the term “Age of General Crisis” applies to the entire globe in the seventeenth century. Argues that the Little Ice Age is essential background to the events he narrates. Recurrent low temperatures from 1610 to the second decade of the eighteenth century and the resulting hunger and despair contribute to Crisis. Makes clear that devotion to the military, the obduracy of political leaders and the indifference of those leaders to the suffering citizenry are responsible for much of the misery and tumult of the age. Reviewer notes some omissions but views this work as a “colossal” achievement. Reviewer also expresses hope that Parker will issue an abridged edition of this work, so that this “monumental statement about the nature of seventeenth-century history” will be more accessible to the non-specialist.

PETEY-GIRARD, BRUNO. Le sceptre et la plume: Images du prince protecteur des lettres de la Renaissance au Grand Siècle. Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 466. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2010.

Review: N. Hochner in Ren Q 64.2 (2011), 630-631. Praiseworthy volume of over 600 pages with a rich bibliography and “invaluable” index, P.-G.’s study is organized in the following sections: “Quelles théories pour une protection royale des Lettres,” and “Deux siècles d’images royales.” Nuanced examination challenges the oft-cited “evolutionist narrative” as the carefully argued book dashes myths such as that of “a continuous tradition of French kings as exceptional patrons, but also the myth of the literary elite’s manipulation of one of their concerted propagandist ventures” (H. 631). Impressive for its erudition and “wealth of non-canonical sources” (H. 631). Highly useful to historians of the monarchy, political thought, and literary production. Index, bibliography.

RANDALL, CATHERINE, ed. Black Robes and Buckskin: A Selection from the Jesuit Relations. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011.

Review: T. G. Pearson in Ren Q 64. 3 (2011), 983-984. R. has here updated selected Jesuit texts of the Relations from the Canadian missionary work, published in French (1632-1673) and in the 1898-1902 English edition of Reuben Gold Thwaites. R.’s volume includes a historiographical essay on the theology, work and relations with the aborigines, introductions to the chapters, and an essay on translation issues. R,’s translations/paraphrases are generally praised as a “welcome change to the Thwaites edition (P. 983), but the reviewer includes problematic examples and would have appreciated a critical analysis of the Jesuits’ inculturation. Illustrations, bibliography.

ROBERTS, HUGH. “Obscenity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth- Century France.” FS 67.4 (2013), 535-42.

A useful survey of recent scholarship on a topic that once received scant attention. Discusses the definition(s) of obscenity, the development of pornography, the question of misogyny, and the role obscenity plays in critiquing society and religion. Shows obscenity to be a field rich with possibilities for future study and provides many starting points for doing so.

ROWLANDS, GUY. The Financial Decline of a Great Power: War, Influence, and Money in Louis XIV's France. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012.

Review: M. Hawcroft in FS 67.3 (2013), 405-06. An in-depth, and according to the reviewer, erudite study of Louis XIV’s military policy and spending, especially as they relate to the War of Spanish Succession. There are three sections, all based on extensive research using extant royal documents. The first describes the state of the military, the second the weaknesses inherent to the financial system, and the third the intersection of the two, namely the ways in which war was paid for… or not.

RUBLACK, ULINKA. Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Review by: Ann Rosalind Jones in Ren Q 64.3 (2011), 921-922. Although R.’s focus is dress in early modern Germany, she “includes thought-provoking material about Italian and French discourses on fashion, the treatment of clothing in literary texts [such as in travel literature]” (J. 922). Valuable socio-historical examination demonstrates how dress intersects with numerous aspects of life including religion and occupation. Index, illustrations, bibliography.

SANDBERG, BRIAN. Warrior Pursuits: Noble Culture and Civil Conflicts in Early Modern France. Studies in Historical and Political Science, 128th Series. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Review: P. J. Usher in Ren Q 64.1 (2011), 262-263. Welcome and praiseworthy examination of provincial nobles of Guyenne and Languedoc and their pursuits of war between 1598 and 1635. S. focuses on the profession and its culture, bonds of nobility, and military aspects, including rituals of arming and religious convictions. Divisions between Catholics and Calvinists are attended to, but the reviewer would have appreciated more specificity as regards families and conflicts. However S.’s “solid study certainly complements the work of Arlette Jouanna and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie” (U. 263). Index, illustrations, maps, bibliography.

SEIFERT, LEWIS C. Manning the Margins: Masculinity & Writing in Seventeenth-Century France. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009.

Review: J. Cherbuliez in CdDS 14 (2012): 142-144. "Seifert's project is to elucidate the ways in which masculinity, despite its constitutive pretense to dominion, instead is defined dialectically—between dominance and submission—and therefore appears “variable, multiple, and contingent” (2) in its meanings and forms. Seifert focuses on historical figures, selected texts, and the historical record. The first part analyzes elite construction of masculinity through the figure of the honnête gentleman and salon masculinity. The second section explores marginal sexuality practices, placing "the seventeenth century's own contestation of marginal sexualities in conversation with our own". This study is also a model of literary history that offers a thorough critique of concepts in regards to the Classical Age.

SIMMS, BRENDAN. Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 1453 to the Present. London: Allen Lane, 2013.

Review: N. Ferguson in TLS 5758 (August 9, 2013): 3-4. A sometimes contentious argument for the primacy of foreign affairs in shaping domestic politics. Views Denmark, Germany and the Low Countries as key to gaining supremacy. According to reviewer, Simms “lovingly restores” seventeenth- and eighteenth-century diplomatic history.

SÖDERLUND, INGA ELMQVIST. Taking Possession of Astronomy: Frontispieces and Illustrated Title Pages in 17th-Century Books on Astronomy. The Center for History of Science. Stockholm: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2010.

Review: D. A. Brownstein in Ren Q 64.2 (2011), 584-587. Positive aspects of S.’s volume are noted such as the inclusion of “‘pictorial references to celestial phenomena’ in over 90% of the many frontispieces she has examined” (S. 105) plus the construction of a typology and conventions as she focuses on the intersection between science and art. Although the volume’s breadth is appreciated, its analyses could be more specific and questions such as “the artists’ interest in astronomical research (B. 586) or gender and science more deeply examined. Index, illustrations, and bibliography.

SPARY, E. C. Eating the Enlightenment: Food and the sciences in Paris, 1670-1760. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2012.

Review: W. Doyle in TLS 5729 (Jan 18, 2013): 3. Explores of new food stuffs on consumption habits and ways of thinking of nutrition. Chiefly concerned with the eighteenth century, but does look at Jesuit and Jansenist clashes on self-denial.

THOURET , CLOTILDE and LISE WAJEMAN, ed. Corps et interprétation (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles). Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013.

Review: T. Wynn in FS 67.3 (2013): 403-04. Nineteen articles on aesthetics that focus on the material body as object of interest in literature and the arts. Essays cover a variety of countries, periods, and art forms, and are organized thematically. Pieces of interest for readers of this bibliography include “a suggestive analysis of the grotesque body in seventeenth-century French writings” by Hélène Merlin-Kajman and Jean-Vincent Blanchard’s study of a guide to Saint-Cloud’s waterfalls. Reviewer suggests adding an index and general bibliography, but praises the editors’ work overall, especially the avant-propos and the generally high quality of the essays.

VITULLO, JULIANN and DIANE WOLFTHAL, eds. Money, Morality, and Culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.

Review: S. Deng in Ren Q 64. 2 (2011), 625-626. While this volume’s breadth is impressive, in the subjects (disciplines of history, art history, literature and musicology are included), genres, and geography covered, the reviewer would have appreciated more attention to the “complex relations between economy and morality in this key transitional period of European history” (D. 626). French scholars will benefit from Kathleen Ashley’s essay on the motives of the French philanthropist Abigail Mathieu. Index, illustrations, bibliography.

WELCH, ELLEN R. “State Truths, Private Letters, and Images of Public Opinion in the Ancien Régime: Sévigné on Trials.” FS 67.2 (2013), 170-83.

Shows how Sévigné juxtaposes reports from the courts with gossip and other forms of socially acquired information in her epistolary accounts of two famous court cases: Nicolas Fouquet’s corruption trial and the prosecution of the Marquise de Brinvilliers in the Affaire des Poisons.

WOOD, ELLEN MEIKSINS. Liberty and Property: a social history of Western thought from the Renaissance to Enlightenment. London, New York: Verso: 2012.

Review: J. Clark in TLS 5730 (Jan 25, 2013): 24. Chiefly treats France and England. Wood questions the idea of one “modernity” as she examines the different material conditions of different nations. Reviewer takes issue with many of her arguments but says she demonstrates that Marx still has much to offer when analyzing such questions as interaction between property and the state.