FRENCH 17

BAYLE, ARIANE, ed. La Contagion: enjeux croisés des discours médicaux et littéraires (XVIe-XIXe siècle). Dijon: Éditions universitaires de Dijon, 2013.

Review: H. Roberts in FS 68.2 (2014) 243. A collection of articles that combines the history of medicine and literary studies to show how medical discourse, especially that of contagion, infiltrated literary and artistic criticism. Includes postface, bibliography, and index. Reviewer notes that sections on the 16th and 17th centuries are especially strong.

BUSSAT-ENEVOLDSEN, MARIE-CLAIRE. Le voile et la plume. Jeanne Chantal et François de Sales, l’étonnant récit de leur rencontre. Montrouge: Bayard, 2010.

Review: J. Morgante in S Fr (2012) 137. This volume offers a biography which focuses on the first part of J de C.’s life, although the interested reader will also discover an account of her later life and a rapid reconstruction of that of F. de Sales. M. notes lacunae but remarks that the picture of Jeanne from the biography highlights her intelligence and independance.

CAGNAT-DEBOEUF, CONSTANCE. “‘Ce triomphe d’amour’: la mort des Solitaires dans les mémoires de Port-Royal.” Tr Lit 25 (2012) 139-154.

Rich and fascinating examination of memorial texts by C.-D. demonstrates not only their great importance and variety but also their diverse strategies. C.-D. finds the originality of the “récit de mort port-royaliste” to be in the tension that exists when adversaries attempt to transform edifying récits into “morts des réprouvés” (139). Important stylistic characteristics, language and salient examples of the hagiographic récit are presented and analyzed. Particularly appealing is C.-D.’s examination of several “hymnes à l’amitié” included in the récits, modeled after S. Augustine and demonstrating affinities with Montaigne. C.-D. asks, rightly so in our eyes, if we cannot apply to the Solitaires’ “récit de mort” the phrase from one (by Nicolas Fontaine) “ce triomphe d’amour qui surmonte tout”? (154).

CHÉDOZEAU, BERNARD, ed. L’Univers biblique catholique au siècle de Louis XIV: ‘La Bible de Port-Royal,’ I: Les Préfaces de l’Ancien Testament: une théologie scripturaire (1672 –1693); II: Les Préfaces du Nouveau Testament (1696 –1708 ). Paris: Honoré Champion, 2013.

Review: R. Parish in FS 68.1 (2014) 102-03. A 2-volume edition of the Port-Royal translation of the Bible. Contains all prefaces and approbations, including those of dubious attribution or “mediocre quality.” Analysis of these introductory texts, along with opening and closing essays, contextualize the material presented.

COUSSON, AGNÈS. L’Écriture de soi: lettres et récits autobiographiques des religieuses de Port-Royal. Angélique et Agnès Arnauld, Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, Jacqueline Pascal. Paris: Honoré Champion 2013.

Review: J. Conley in FS 68.1 (2014) 101-02. Explores the writings of Port-Royal’s three most important abbesses and the tensions between private and public exhibited therein. Highlights the contradiction between the need for withdrawal and self-denial and the impact of external influences such as family or the call to preach salvation to the world.

DOTOLI, GIOVANNI. La Beauté ou le salut du monde. Paris: Hermann Éditeurs, 2011.

Review: P. Adinolfi in S Fr 168 (2012) 624. Beauty is here examined in all its aspects including ideas of happiness, architectural space, science, economics, etc. Beauty is seen as having a possible decisive role in the reconstruction of the world, individually and collectively. This wide-ranging volume begins with Plato’s Banquet and continues its parcours through the 20th c. Among 17th c. authors represented is Molière. Ample bibliography and index of names.

DUFOURCET, M.B., CH. MAZOUER, and A. SURGERS, eds. Spectacles et pouvoirs dans l’Europe de l’Ancien Régime (XVIe –XVIIIe siècles). Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 2011.

Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 168 (2012) 564. Drawn from presentations at a colloque of the Centre de recherches sur l’Europe classique and from the Centre Artes, the essays of this volume analyze the role of civil and ecclesiastical power in the organization and realization of spectacle. 17th c. scholars will find of particular interest essays on the following subjects: royal and political munificence, the prince in attendance at spectacles, the relations between music and power, and representations of peace.

DURU, AUDREY. Essais de soi: poésie spirituelle et rapport à soi, entre Montaigne et Descartes. Genève: Droz, 2012.

Review: E. Herdman in FS 68.2 (2014) 242-43. Explores literary and cultural impact of devotional poetry by lesser-known poets of late 16th-early 17th centuries. Shows that poets’ self-expression is more about religious and political autonomy than a quest for self as a modern reader might understand the term. Reviewer: “detailed and well-informed.”

FERREYROLLES, GÉRARD. “Mourir avec Pascal.” Tr Lit 25 (2012) 127-138.

Focusing on P.’s Lettre sur la mort written at his father’s death, on his Pensées, and on his Prière pour demander à Dieu le bon usage des maladies written two or three years before his death, F. discovers three perspectives and an evolution: “une perspective théologique, une perspective apologétique et une perspective spirituelle” (127). In the letter P. reminds us that man as created was not destined to die, but death is the result of original sin, and that the horror we feel for death was legitimate in the innocent state. Finally, according to the Christian vision, death marks “le couronnement de la béatitude de l’âme, et le commencement de la béatitude du corps” (Lettre sur la mort, 859). F. finds that in the Pensées, P.’s perspective necessarily must change as he seeks to persuade his “lecteurs libertins” with vivid, brutal and repugnant images of death “pour déchirer le voile d’oubli dont l’homme enveloppe sa fin” (F. 130). Death for P. does not illustrate our misery, but our vanity (liasse III, F. 130). Masterfully referring to numerous pertinent fragments, F. draws our attention to fragment 190 where the situation is resumed in an abrupt warning: “si vous mourez sans adorer le vrai principe, vous êtes perdu” (131). The spiritual dimension or perspective is developed in P.’s Prière pour demander à Dieu le bon usage des maladies where we have a reflection on death which all must face and a meditation on death which belongs to the Christian (132). Death is no longer a confrontation with the question of God’s existence but the experience of his presence in the person of Jesus-Christ (133). F.’s rich analysis also takes into account other writings of P. such as the Écrit sur la conversion du pécheur and letters to Mlle de Roannez as he underscores the Augustinian anthropology of P. and the Pauline understanding of the struggle between flesh and spirit. F. concludes that P.’s treatment of death has both a remarkable continuity and a progression. The three foci here correspond to three significations: “adoration,” “expiation”, and “libération” (138).

GENGOUX, NICOLE. Un athéisme philosophique à l’âge classique: le ‘Theophrastus redivivus,’ 1659. 2 vols. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2014.

Review: M. Benitez in FS 69.2 (2015) 242-43. Attempts to use a close reading of the text, or more accurately, a 1981 French translation created from a composite of extant manuscripts, to prove that it contains a “‘philosophie athée’ complète.” Contains bibliography and index, but does not cite the Latin original and some quoted passages lack references. Reviewer suggests author forces the text to fit her argument, which itself is full of contradictions.

GUION, BEATRICE. “‘Ces grands mots de temps et de mort’: la mort dans les Oeuvres oratoires de Bossuet.” Tr Lit 25 (2012) 169-180.

Careful and convincing demonstration presents solid and engaging arguments against both the romantic confessional appreciation and the baroque interpretation of B. Considering the demands of both doctrine and preaching, G. correctly reminds us that “la mort est d’abord présente pour inciter l’auditeur à la conversion” (169) and that our body is corruptible. Moral and theological lessons result from B.’s images and biblical references. G. underscores the role of the senses, antithesis, metaphoric assimilations and other key stylistic features such as repetition, all in the service of “l’exhortation au contemptus mundi et à la pénitence” (180).

LEOPIZZI, MARCELLA. “Vanini en France: perspectives de recherche.” S Fr 168 (2012) 505-512.

Retraces V.’s French milieu with attention to his patrons and protectors, libertine literary circles, the discovery of America, and the wide diffusion of Greek and Latin works. L. notes both important findings on V.’s life and the lack of documentation--she mentions as of yet non-inventoried sacks (some 80,000) of the Archives Départementales de la Haute-Garonne de Toulouse which relate to judicial activity of the period. Other suggestions for future research are outlined, such as manuscript notes of the “fonds Baudouin” of the same archives which L. considers “une mine d’information” (508). The remainder of L.’s article offers tantalizing precisions relating to these documents, and an insistence on the influence of V. on the libertine current as well as the continuing presence of Italian culture in French culture of V.’s era “où se croisent des cultures diverses et des dialogues multiples” (512).

LE ROUX, NICOLAS. Les guerres de religion, 1559-1629. Paris: Belin, 2009.

Review: H. Daussy in BHR 75.3 (2013) 667-668. Ouvrage qui “s’adresse avant tout aux étudiants et aux amateurs d’histoire désireux de découvrir les guerres de religion à la lumière des acquis les plus récentes…. ”

LESTRINGANT, FRANK. Une sainte horreur ou Le voyage en Eucharistie (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles) préface de PIERRE CHAUNU. Genève: Droz, 2012.

Review: D. Cecchetti in S Fr 168 (2012) 555. Praiseworthy and economically accessible second edition of L.’s important earlier study by the same title. Highly useful for students of religion and anthropology as well as for those of literature of the imaginary (Cyrano, for example).

LEVESQUE, MATHILDE and OLIVIER PEDEFLOUS (dir). L’emphase: copia ou brevitas? (XVIe-XVIIe siècles). Paris: Presses Universitaires Paris-Sorbonne, 2010.

Review: A. Amatuzzi in S Fr 166 (2012) 136-137. The notion of emphasis is central to this collection of essays stemming from a 2009 journée d’étude on the subject. Perspectives include: the rhetorical, stylistic, semantic, and pragmatic. 17th c. foci take in love declarations in Racine, the epistolary (Mme de Sévigné) Cyrano’s expressivity and La Rochefoucauld’s concision.

LYONS, JOHN D. The Phantom of Chance : From Fortune to Randomness in Seventeenth-Century French Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012.

Review: K. Wine in MP 111.4 (May 2014) E411-E414. “This searching and provocative study offers a compelling account of the cultural and intellectual currents that encouraged the increasing prominence of a “de-dramatized” hasard over the course of the seventeenth century. Whereas […] much writing about chance in the early modern period has focused on probability or on games of chance, Lyon’s wider emphasis offers an illuminating perspective on the grand siècle as a whole, demonstrating that the period’s preoccupation with regularity lead to new methods of dealing with the disordered, the random, and the formless. The book’s richest rewards, however, lie in its readings. Lyons states early on that much of the distinctiveness of individual writers lies in the ways they use their perception of chance’s ubiquity, a claim that the individual chapters fully bear out. At the same time, the individual analyses bring to light unexpected affinities, as in the cases of Pascal and the Jesuits or Joad and Athalie.”

MACLEAN, IAN. Scholarship, Commerce, Religion. The Learned Book in the Age of Confessions, 1560-1630. Cambridge (USA) et Londres: Harvard University Press, n°3, 2012.

Review: M. Engammare in BHR 75.3 (2013) 583-588. “L’auteur s’intéresse aux modes de transmission du savoir en choisissant l’un de ses vecteurs essentiels, le marché du livre érudit, ayant réuni les conférences qu’il donne à l’Université d’Oxford en mai 2010….”

MORIARTY, MICHAEL. “La Bruyère: Virtue and Disinterestedness.” FS 68.2 (2014) 164-79.

Explains two of the principles underlying La Bruyère’s Caractères. Virtue is Aristotelian, motivated by doing good for its own sake; any glory or pleasure must be a byproduct, not a motive. Disinterestedness can go in two directions, self-sacrifice or detachment from the world, but is always a moral value, potential source of personal well-being, and social ideal.

PAPASOGLI, BENEDETTA. “Rileggendo Sainte-Beuve: è il ‘Port-Royal’ ad aver ‘fatto’ la grandezza sei Solitari?” S Fr 166 (2012) 79-83.

P’s useful article includes reminders of previous editions of Port-Royal, the French editions of 1955 and 2004, the Italian translation of 1964 and the recent 2011 one. Focuses on the iconographic apparatus and its dialogue with the literary portraits. Notes the introduction by Mario Richter which allows us to experience anew S.-B.’s rich intellectual and spiritual dimensions. Underscores the excellence of the edition and the collaborative work of five translators (80). The remainder of the article offers insights into the question “Come rileggere oggi il Port-Royal?” as it reviews various perspectives and their critics such as Jean Molino, Philippe Sellier, Louis Marin, Tony Gheeraert, among others. P.advises that those who would immerse themselves in Port-Royal would do well first to read Fontaine’s Mémoires.

PAPASOGLI, BENEDETTA. “Les leçons de la mort dans Les Aventures de Télémaque.” Tr Lit 25 (2012) 181-191.

Praiseworthy parcours from the first to the last book of F.’s novel examines conversations, narration, action, mise en scène, spiritual signs, the dialectic between exterior and interior, and, to be sure, “peinture moral” and pedagogy. P. carefully and convincingly analyzes F.’s “ecphrases de la mort”, beauty and ugliness in the novel, finding that “les contraires ne s’excluent pas” (191) (the Platonician Fénelon has given a body to Mentor) and that Télémaque “se prête à une lecture ouverte” (190).

PASCHOUD, ADRIEN and NATHALIE VUILLEMIN, éds. Penser l’ordre naturel, 1680-1810. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2012.

Review: N. Treuherz in MLR 109.1 (2014) 250-251. Collection of essays taking an interdisciplinary approach and focusing “on scientific/philosophical and literary/aesthetic subjects, to the exclusion of economic/political aspects of natural order.” Reviewer finds that “the usefulness of this volume lies in the individual contributions on their specific themes rather than as a comprehensive introduction to the theme of natural order in the period.”

PLAZENET, LAURENCE, dir. Port-Royal. Paris: Flammarion, 2012.

Review: C. Ficat in Theology, morality, and hermeneutics are at the heart of this well-documented and convincingly argued essay on equivocation and its theories. 17th c. French scholars will appreciate T.’s “forward-looking perspective” as the essay moves from Augustine to Spanish theologians, notably Domingo de Soto and Martin de Azpilcueta (Doctor Navarrus) and on to the Louvain Jesuit Lessius, the French Jesuit Théophile Raynaud, and the Sorbonne theologians of the early 17th c. T. reminds us of the large and dangerous conflict “between certain sectors of the French church and the Roman Curia, whose relations were very delicate from the 1610s and in the aftermath of the murder of Henri of Navarre . . . and became dramatically tense after the publication of Cornelius Jansenius’s Augustinus in 1640” (148-149), and of the eventual condemnation of Raynaud in 1681. Rich bibliography includes archival and printed sources.

RANDALL, CATHARINE. The Wisdom of Animals: Creatureliness in Early Modern French Spirituality. Notre Dame: U Notre Dame P, 2014.

Review: R. Parish in FS 68.4 (2014) 543-44. A promotion of animal rights in a worthwhile scholarly monograph. Covers four main figures from sixteenth to eighteenth centuries: Michel de Montaigne, Guillaume du Bartas, François de Sales, and Guillaume-Hyacinthe Bougeant. Reviewer criticizes inconsistencies in bibliography and in transcription of French words, but overall finds work readable and accessible, with a “compelling” conclusion.

ROCHE, BRUNO. Le Rire des libertins dans la première moitié du XVIIe siècle. Paris: Champion, 2011.

Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 166 (2012) 139-140. Heterogeneous methodologically and judged “intellettualmente vivace” (140) R.’s contribution to the widely examined topic of “le rire” is organized in sections which examine social and religious perspectives, strategies of creation such as dissimulation and irony, and libertine passions. R. finds that “le rire” may contribute to the founding of a new positive anthropology: “jouir-savoir-pouvoir.”

SCHOLAR, RICHARD and ALEXIS TADIE, eds. Fiction and the Frontiers of Knowledge in Europe, 1500-1800. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.

Review: S. Pierse in MLR XLI.80 (2014) 215-18. “The nebulous interface between fiction and early modern philosophy, science, medicine, or law will never look quite the same after this collection of erudite essays….” Essay by W. Williams linking Ronsard, Montaigne, Corneille, and Pascal “masterfully combines close linguistic analysis with subtle criticism of literature, philosophical thought, politics, self-exploration, and early modern historicity.” I. Moreau “probes philosophical, scientific, and fictional models from Descartes and Gassendi to Bernier, through exploration of the epistemological and moral dimensions encompassed within the term fiction. She traces legal and theatrical fiction and perceived planetary movements, and ultimately examines the collision of truth, reality, and rules, against hypotheses, constructs, and falsehoods.”

SHIOKAWA, TETSUYA. Entre foi et raison: l’autorité. Études pascaliennes. Paris: Champion, 2012.

Review: H. Bjornstad in PSCFL 14 (2012): 137-142. A collection of texts by eminent Pascal scholar Shiokawa, written over four decades and revised and/or translated into French for the present volume. Three sections of five essays each: themes and concepts, apologetics, and politics. Reviewer finds second the strongest. Essays are clear and hold together both individually and as a collection, thanks in large part to author’s problem-driven approach. A valuable contribution to Pascal studies.

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.

THIEL, UDO. The Early Modern Subject: Self-consciousness and Personal Identity from Descartes to Hume. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011.

Review: D. Heller-Roazen in TLS 5757 (August 2, 2013) 24. Reviewer finds this a “learned and weighty book” which “reconstructs the steps” that led early modern thinkers “to offer innovative accounts of the relations between reflective awareness and identity across time.” Thiel argues that Descartes less innovative than some suppose since the doctrine of the cogito says little about “what makes each individual soul the thing it is” (Heller-Roazen). Cartesians “drew no close link between subjective awareness and the identity of the human person” (Heller-Roazen).

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.