FRENCH 17

BAH-OSTROWIECKI, HÉLÈNE. Le Theophrastus redivivus. Érudition et combat antireligieux au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2012.

Review: N. Gengoux in DSS 265 (2014), 740-742. A study of the anonymous text based on the author’s “pioneering” dissertation. The analysis centers on the text’s doxographical form, interpreted “comme le signe d’une position essentiellement polémique de l’auteur anonyme du Theophrastus lequel cherche moins à prouver la vérité de sa thèse naturaliste et athée qu’à opposer à la position chrétienne une position adverse aussi forte, qui en fixe les limites, en dénonce la relativité et permette de défendre la liberté qu’elle étouffe.” The reviewer objects to certain conclusions, but admires the style and the quality of the argumentation, as well as the originality of the evoked “parenté” between atheism and religious thought.

BECKETT, SANDRA, ed. Revisioning Red Riding Hood Around the World: An Anthology of International Retellings. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2014.

Review: V.L.M. Harkavy in M&T 29.2 (2015), 354-356. Uses Perrault’s version as hypotext to establish a compilation of 52 retellings of the Red Riding Hood tale, all but two of which are appearing in English for the first time. Organized thematically rather than chronologically or geographically, which some readers may not appreciate. Also problematic is the verbal description of images that could not be reproduced. Reviewer finds it better as a reading anthology than a scholarly resource, but definitely recommends as such.

BLANCHARD, JEAN-VINCENT. “Beyond Belief: Sovereignty and the Spectacle of Martyrdom in Early Modern France.” SCFS 36.2 (2014), 94-108.

Thought-provoking article highlights the importance of the rhetoric and representation of the memory of pain to the formation of a body politic. Blanchard presents a reading of Corneille’s martyr play Polyeucte (1643) in light of the Jesuit Louis Richeome’s devotion book La Peinture spirituelle (1611) in order to demonstrate how the performative violence of martyrdom ultimately functions to create and sustain the idea of divinely appointed sovereignty.

BOTTIGHEIMER, RUTH B. Magic Tales and Fairy Tale Magic: From Ancient Egypt to the Italian Renaissance. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Review: A. Maggi in Ren Q 68.4 (2015), 1496-1498. Highly useful for several disciplines beyond fairy tales themselves such as the history of ideas, the volume focuses on both magic itself in the tales and what their characters consider magical. Wide-ranging study finds Straparola as embodying the new approach and that the printing press created “a sea change.” Judged an “interesting and serious volume.”

BOULERIE, F., ed. La Médiatisation du littéraire dans l’Europe des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Tübingen: Narr, 2013 (Biblio 17, 205).

Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 172 (2014), 138. The seeming anachronism of the title is well justified by Ch. Mazouer whose contribution focuses on the reevaluation of the place of literature in the public and social life of the Early Modern. The volume is organized in the following sections: “Stratégies publicitaires,” “Débats esthétiques,” “Instrumentalisations politiques” and “Consécrations auctoriales.”

CALABRITTO, MONICA and PETER DALY, eds. Emblems of Death in the Early Modern Period. Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance 120. Geneva: Droz, 2014.

Review: D. Graham in Ren Q 68.4 (2015), 1369-1370. Includes much new materials but is found disappointing for its lack of specificity and unevenness as concerns any consistent understanding of what an emblem of death is.

CALL, MICHAEL. “Fortuna Goes to the Theater: Lottery Comedies in Seventeenth-Century France.” Fr F 40.1 (2015), 1-15.

Pertinent and well documented study begins with a concise history of bans and permissions of the lottery in the Renaissance and the 17th c, with finally “the broad social acceptance of the practice [which] would result in the successful establishment of a royal lottery in 1659.” Focus here is on shared connections between lottery and theatre, spectacle and performance, which leads C. to examine a series of lottery comedies. The diverse approaches of characters hoping to assure a win, strategies which may provide dénouements, moral tone, plays based on real-life incidents and models, commentaries on the time, all come up for discussion leading to the conclusion that “chance is about vraisemblance [and similarly] comedies . . . are based on the tension between predetermined outcomes and probable futures.” C. writes well, even wittily at times, such as in his concluding sentence: “Even while staging the random, the authors of seventeenth-century lottery comedies could ill afford to leave anything to chance.”

CAMPANINI, MAGDA. In forma di lettere. La finzione epistolare in Francia dal Rinascimento al Classicismo. Venezia: Supernova, 2011.

Review: M. Mastroianni in S Fr 172 (2014), 135-136. Wide-ranging and heterogenous volume analyzes texts relevant to eloquence, “lettres d’amour” and “lettres galantes.” The analysis demonstrates that the letter is “una forma già matura e completa nei suoi elementi costitutivi che sono gli stesse che continueranno ad animarla nel Settecento” (135). Careful attention to cultural influences is evident throughout this solid and useful examination.

CHAOUCHE, SABINE. “Stratégies économiques et politiques de programmation à la fin du XVIIe siècle. Les spectacles à l’heure des barbouilleurs et des amuseurs.” DSS 265 (2014), 677-690.

Studies the economic foundations of the theater in the Old Regime, too often overlooked according to the author (although C. notes the Registres de la Comédie-Française project currently in progress). Combines quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyze the interdependence between commercial strategies and dramatic productions to understand the increasing commercialization of the theater from the end of the 17th century.

CUMMINGS, BRIAN and FREYA SIERHUIS. Passions and Subjectivity in Early Modern Culture. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.

Review: E. Harvey in MP 113.4 (May 2016) E242-E245. The volume includes fifteen essays framed by an introduction and afterword coauthored by Cummings and Sirhuis. The collection encompasses diverse manifestations of subjectivity or the passions across a sweep of time (Montaigne to Hobbes), a range of disciplines (philosophy, politics, theology, art, literature, medicine, science), and a variety of approaches (philosophy, literary criticism, intellectual history). The final section of the volume, “Philosophy and the Early Modern Passions,” includes an essay by Stephan Laqué in which he considers Hamlet through the Cartesian mind-body divide. The reviewer states that “although the collection is a valuable addition to the debates on the passions, in its endeavor to rectify the somatic imbalance of its predecessor scholars, it ends up privileging through structure, method and topic the perspective of the mind.

DALLA VALLE, DANIELA, LAURA RESCIA and MONICA PAVESIO, eds. Da un genere all’altro. Traposizioni e riscritture nella letteratura francese. Rome: Aracne, 2012.

Review: B. Piqué in S Fr 172 (2014), 136-138. This collection of essays originating in the November 2010 conference held in Torino on the topic of the volume’s subtitle is a rich contribution of twenty-five essays. Important for analyses of the development of the theatre, romance, innovations such as Fénelon’s “contaminazione di poesia e prosa” and for resonances with La Fontaine.

DION, NICHOLAS. Entre les larmes et l’effroi. La tragédie classique française, 1677-1726. Paris: Éditions Classiques Garnier, 2012.

Review: O. El Mansouri in DSS 265 (2014), 750-751. Within the existing corpus of criticism on “la dimension affective du théâtre classique,” D.’s study stands out for the choice of primary texts and for the consideration of both “la pitié tragique” and “l’effroi.” The first section presents the theoretical scaffolding for the project, including a convincing argument regarding tragedy’s appropriation of the “merveilleux noir” developed in the opera. Section Two turns to the influence of “le goût élégiaque et la tentation horrifique” on tragic dramaturgy, while the final section examines the relationship between elegy and horror. The reviewer praises in particular D.’s “style sobre et toujours elegant” and “[la] richesse et [la] precision de ses analyses” of post-Racinian tragedies. The work will also interest 18th-century specialists.

EICHEL-LOJKINE, PATRICIA Contes en réseaux: L’émergence du conte sur la scène littéraire européenne. Les seuils de la modernité 16. Geneva: Droz, 2013.

Review: L. C. Seifert in Ren Q 68.3 (2015), 1106-1108. Argues that the “conte” must be understood as a transcultural phenomenon. E.-L.’s work fills a number of important lacunae. Useful reliance on the Foucauldian notion of network. The study is arranged into three parts: 1) an investigation of definitions of the fairy tale, 2) the genre’s genealogy and 3) its transformations from Straparola to Perrault. Specific tales are analyzed as well and animal-human relations are examined. Appealing and useful to both specialists and non-specialists.

ÉVAIN, AURORE, PERRY GETHNER, and HENRETTE GOLDWYN. Théâtre de femmes de l’ancien régime, Vol.III, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles. Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne, 2011.

Review: M. Dye in MLR 110.3 (2015), 863-864. The reviewer notes a “great diversity of themes and genres” (863) in the six authors and nine plays that figure in Volume 3 of this series offering critical editions for works by female playwrights in the Ancien Régime. Some authors adapt well-known stories from antiquity, while others invent plots that question marriage and gender norms. The works presented in the volume dialogue with canonical (male) figures from the period even as they innovate upon these works, and many of the female authors represented were able to live from their pen. D. finds that the plays in the volume “provide an important perspective on the classical era that is indeed crucial to our understanding of the age” (864).

FEERICK, JEAN E. and VIN NARDIZZI, eds. The Indistinct Human in Renaissance Literature. Early Modern Cultural Studies 1500-1700. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Review: J. Crawford in Ren Q 68.1 (2015), 398-400. Stimulating and wide-ranging collection explores humans and relationships with nature, its editors claiming that “the potential for human indistinction is the dark underside of Renaissance celebrations of man’s preeminent place within the cosmos.” C. finds much to like in the studies which are indebted both to Aristotle’s De Anima and his understanding of the “ensouldness of all things” and to the 2012 book by Laurie Shannon, The Accomodated Animal. Shannon is represented in this volume as well and the editors follow Shannon in “seeing Descartes as the endpoint for the reign of human indistinction.”

FERREYROLLES, GÉRARD, et al., eds. Traités sur l’histoire (1638-1677). La Mothe Le Vayer, Le Moyne, Saint-Réal, Rapin. Paris : Champion, 2013.

Review: V. Kapp in PFSCL XLVIII, 84 (2016), 118-122. Anthology of 17th c. historical treatises, arguing that history in the period be considered not only with respect to historiographes, but also historiologues, “notion par laquelle il [Ferreyrolles] désigne les ‘auteurs des traités sur l’histoire’ dont ce volume réunit quatre des plus importants de l’époque.” Although reviewer notes that the editors seem to feel compelled to make arguments “sans pouvoir toujours prouver leur pertinence,” he applauds Ferreyrolles’s 100-page introduction which assess: 1) “les enjeux de la charge d’historiographe du roi de France,” 2) the porous border “entre érudition profane et érudition ecclésiastique,” 3) “les affinités et les conflits entre la codification de l’historiographie et les préceptes rhétoriques du style" (119). Reviewer concludes that “Aucun critique qui s’occupe de le poétique du XVIIe siècle, ne pourra plus contourner la problématique littéraire de ce genre.”

FIX, FLORENCE. Barbe-Bleue et l’esthétique du secret de Charles Perrault à Amélie Nothomb. Pari: Hermann, 2014.

Review: R. Sapino in S Fr 174 (2014), 652-653. Rich and wide-ranging examination of the figure of Barbe-bleue from P.’s 17th c. to the present. The very large corpus includes some 20 texts of varied genres. The volume is organized into the following chapters: “Figures de l’impossible,” “La curiosité est un vilain défaut,” “Anne, ma soeur Anne . . .” and “L’adieu au bleu.”

FORESTIER, GEORGES. Scédase de Hardy: à propos de quelques récents malentendus sur violence et cruauté dans la tragédie française. DSS 264 (2014), 533-548.

Rejects the notion that Hardy’s Scédase stands apart from previous humanist tragedies for the depiction of on-stage violence, contending that the work continues a tradition traceable to Seneca. Argues that the misinterpretation of the word “honnêtement” in De l’Art de la Tragédie (1572) constitutes the root of a misunderstanding that incorrectly considers humanist theater as precluding the representation of violence. Deploying a “genetic” approach, F. suggests that the play’s true innovation resides in the author’s reinforcement of the tragic element through the promise of “justice” to come.

FRISCH, ANDREA. Forgetting Differences: Tragedy, Historiography, and the French Wars of Religion. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2015.

Review: G. Hoffman in MP 113.4 (2016), E239-E241. Although focuses primarily on the sixteenth century, this study will be of interest to dix-septièmistes for its interweaving of legal, religious, and literary history and the ways it sheds light on the rise of neoclassical tragedy and the modern era.

FUMAROLI, MARC. La république des lettres. Paris: Gallimard, 2016.

Review: J. Rogister in TLS 5875 (Nov 6 2015), 27. This “stimulating and allusive book” examines the République des lettres from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century. Fumaroli shows how Amsterdam, London and Paris became three great centers of this republic. He pays much attention to Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc and the brothers Dupuy, then traces the origins of a new République as French replaces Latin.

GARGAM, ADÉLINE. Les Femmes savantes, lettrées et cultivées dams la littérature française des Lumières ou la conquête d’une légitmité (1690-1804). Paris: Champion, 2013. 2 vols.

Review: R. Bochenek-Franczakowa in S Fr 174 (2014), 594-595. Important for its contribution to the understanding of the place and role of women in the (late) 17th and in the 18th centuries’ literary and intellectual history. Includes documentation of over 500 women, real and fictive, literary and scientific. Of major importance for our grasp of the access of women to knowledge and the obstacles they faced. G. has organized her study into three parts: “Les femmes savantes, lettrées et cultivées: approches littéraires, historique et sociologique,” “Femmes et savoirs dans les débats scientifiques et littéraires” and “Les femmes savantes, lettrées et cultivées dans les fictions narratives et théâtrales.” Rich voluminous examination includes imposing and precise bibliography.

GARNIER, ISABELLE and OLIVIER LEPLATRE, eds. Impertinence générique et genres de l’impertinence, XVIe-XVIIIe siècles. Cahiers du GADGES 10. Genève: Droz, 2012.

Review: A. Vintenon in DSS 265 (2014), 747-749. Contributions to this edited volume analyze the term “impertinence” at the intersection of aesthetics, morality, and savoir-vivre from linguistic, generic, and rhetorical perspectives. “La richesse de cette belle notion est bien reflétée par ce recueil foisonnant et varié, qui explore non seulement le lexique de l’impertinence, mais aussi, plus largement, la réalité qu’elle recouvre, l’écart par rapport à une norme.” “Les vingt-neuf contributions sont, globalement, de très bonne facture, et leur organisation, présentée dans une solide introduction, décrit une progression efficace.”

GOBERT, R. DARREN. The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction in the Cartesian Theater. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2013.

Review: E. Koch in MP 113.3 (Feb. 2016), E164-E166. In analyzing theater, theater history, and theater performance, Gobert’s work extends a recent development in studies of Descartes: the restoration of Cartesian corporeality and corporal phenomena by tracing its cultural effects beyond Descartes’ philosophy. Koch calls Gobert’s work “important” and “intriguing,” but cautions that much of the physiology and theory of passions that Gobert attributes to Descartes is very much in the air at this time and resonances can be found elsewhere as well.

GREENHILL, PAULINE. “The International Fairy-Tale Filmography (IFTF).” M&T 29.1 (2015), 137-139.

“We introduce the International Fairy-Tale Filmography (iftf.uwinnipeg.ca), created by Jack Zipes, Pauline Greenhill, and Kendra Magnus-Johnston. It is a database currently searchable by title, director, person, company, country, language, or origin (ATU numbers and/or literary fairy-tale titles and authors). It is available free of charge, open access to all users.”

HARRIS, JOSEPH. Inventing the Spectator: Subjectivity and the Theatrical Experience in Early Modern France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Review: M. Meere in Ren Q 68.4 (2015), 1517-1518. Focusing on theoretical texts from the 16th -18th c., H. analyzes the spectator as a “composite or hypothetical construct” of theoreticians. 17th c. scholars will appreciate the chapters on the Abbé d’Aubignac, Corneille and Jean-Baptiste Dubos as well as analyses of music in the theatre, the unities, perspective, pleasure and suspense, emotion, among other topics. Only criticism is a plea for more attention to earlier and lesser-known late 16th- and early-17th c-theorists.

HAWCROFT, MICHAEL. “Violence et bienséance dans l’Examen d’Horace: pour une critique de la notion de bienséances externes.” DSS 264 (2014), 549-570.

Against other interpretations, H. focuses on the overlooked first paragraph in the Examen d’Horace to revise what he perceives to be an enduring inaccuracy in literary criticism: “La bienséance ou les bienséances n’avait rien à voir au XVIIe siècle avec la representation de la violence sur la scène. La bienséance était surtout un concept poétique exigeant une cohérence dans le traitement du personnage fictif” (560). Further contends that Corneille weighs the representation of violence in relation to the importance to incite fear and pity in spectators.

JEFFERSON, ANN and JEAN-AL:EXANDRE PERRAS. “Introduction.” E Cr 55.2 (2015), 1-3.

The editors of the summer volume of E Cr introduce its focus, the notion of Genius. The impetus for the collection was a journée d’études held November 15, 2013 at the Maison française d’Oxford. The approach favored is the history of the notion “dans la longue durée” and in the great variety of constructions and uses, including, for example, quarrels and debates, political, economical, linguistic (and other) relationships. 17th c. specialists will appreciate studies on linguistic phenomena and on Descartes, for example.

KJØRHOLT, INGVILD HAGEN, “Appropriations of the Cosmopolitan in Early Modern French Literature.” FMLS 51.3 (2015), 287-303.

Focuses on the origins of the Greek term and its transformations in early modern France. After a careful consideration of kosmopolites as illustrated by Diogenes, K. turns to 16th and 17th c. French texts to demonstrate the term’s appropriation. Although K. has a section entitled “The 16th and 17th centuries: the cosmopolitan as author,” and several 16th c. examples are given, the only 17th c. one is that of a Polish alchemist, philosopher and medical doctor. Yet before turning to the next section, “The 18th century: the cosmopolitan philosopher,” K. remarks that the term in 16th and 17th c. French “is usually employed as a pseudonym or sobriquet.” While appreciative of this article’s attentiveness to 16th and 18th c. uses of the concept under study, we would concur with K. that, at least as regards the 17th c., “further research” is merited.

KROUPA, GREGOR. “The Poets and the Philosophers: Genius and Analogy in Descartes and the Encyclopédie (Following Aristotle).” E Cr 55.2 (2015), 34-47.

Beginning with Aristotle’s statement that “‘the greatest thing by far’ for a poet is to be a master of metaphor: ‘It is the one thing that cannot be learnt from others: and it is also a sign of genius [euphyía], since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars’” (qtd. from the Poetics), K. then turns his attention to Aristotle’s Rhetoric with its narrowing down of the definition of metaphor: “‘metaphors must not be far-fetched, or they will be difficult to grasp, not obvious, or they will have no effect.’” K.’s consideration of Descartes focuses on what he terms “unofficial texts” of the Cartesian canon, “to find heterogeneous analogies between the physical and spiritual domains—those better served by the genius of poetry than rational methods” (42). In the remainder of his essay, K. focuses on the Encyclopédie, concluding that “Diderot links genius to analogy in a way that echoes both Aristotle and Descartes, insofar as analogy is not primarily a didactic tool but a means of discovery” (45). This thoughtful and convincing article provides stimulating references in the notes and concludes that while the “century of genius” (the 17th) brought “so many new discoveries, [. . . the 18th c.’s task was] to bring order to the vast quantity of new knowledge.”

LAIGNEAU-FONTAINE, SYLVIE. “Petite patrie”: L’image de la région natale chez les écrivains de la Renaissance. Travaux d’humanisme et Renaissance 521. Geneva: Droz, 2013.

Review: E. M. Ancekewicz in Ren Q 68.4 (2015), 1349-1350. The birthplace or native region is the focus of L.-F.’s study which includes an essay by ÉMILE SÉRIS on the topos itself, its history and symbolic functions. Seven studies by L.-F. examine French humanism and the praise of France. Highly recommended.

LAVOCAT, FRANÇOISE. ed. Le Mariage et la loi dans la fiction narrative avant 1800. Louvain: Peeters (La République des lettres, 53), 2014.

Review: Anon. in FMLS 51.2 (2015), 235. Welcome volume examines links (“ethical, aesthetic and existential”) between the topic and “each literary production and its context.” Organized into sections on “the relation between marriage and the law,” “texts which reject marriage” and “the poetics of the topos of marriage,” the collection also demonstrates convincingly the “power of fiction by exploring the nature of its relation to the real world.”

LE GUERN, MICHEL, ed. La Rhétorique ou l’éloquence française by Louis de Lesclache. Paris: Garnier, 2012.

Review: A. Sort-Jacotot in DSS 265 (2014), 743-744. Critical edition featuring an introduction with details on the attribution of the work to Lesclache and on the years of the treatise’s composition (c. 1652 -1660), as well as situating Lesclache’s place in the history of rhetoric. A glossary and two indices supplement the critical apparatus.

LOCHERT, VÉRONIQUE and JEAN DE GUARDIA, eds. Théâtre et Imaginaire: Images scéniques et representations mentales, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle. Dijon: Éditions Universitaires de Dijon, 2012.

Review: S. L’Hopital in DSS 265 (2014), 753-755. An edited volume featuring contributions from a colloquium on the ways in which the theater produces images, both mental and material. Section 1 studies the status of the image in the theater and the birth of the “image illusionniste” in the 17th century. Section 2 treats the exchanges between images on the stage and in the cultural imaginary. The third and final section discusses “la naissance d’un théâtre de l’imaginaire et du spectaculaire” in the 18th century.

MARRACHE-GOURAUD, MYRIAN. “La Plume des Amériques en son histoire allégorique.” in Pioffet, Marie-Christine, Anne-Élisabeth Spica, eds. S’exprimer autrement: poétique et enjeux de l’allégorie à l’Âge classique. Actes du colloque du Centre International de Rencontres sur le 17e siècle. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2016. 253-270.

Argues that the markedly ambivalent European conception of the native peoples of America is clearly present in the emblematic trope of the feather. Through Lévi-Strauss’s observation in Tristes Tropiques that the new is always in some ways marked by the old, the author embarks on a longitudinal examination of the “feather’s” allegorical construction. The analysis concludes that the symbol realizes both exotic and savage dimensions, which render it allegorically ambiguous.

MCCLARY, SUSAN. Structures of Feeling in Seventeenth-Century Cultural Expression. Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 2013.

Review: M. Reeves in UTQ 84.3 (Summer 2015), 193-195. This collection of thirteen essays addresses “a remarkably diverse array of primary sources, including treatises, travel writing, letters, prophecy, visual art, poetry, and various musical forms. What ties these essays together is their common interest in tracing structures of feeling in written, visual, and performative art produced within various cultures across western Europe and the Americas during the seventeenth century.” The critic notes that this is a scholarly work, not an introductory text, which succeeds in promoting the seventeenth century as a period worthy of study in its own right.

MIERNOWSKI, JAN. La beauté de la haine. Essais de misologie littéraire. Genève: Droz, 2014.

Review: R. Benedettini in S Fr 174 (2014), 657. This wide-ranging examination treats the aesthetic concept of the beauty of hatred from the 16th c. to the present through careful attention to poetry, novel, theatre and pamphlets. 17th c. specialists will appreciate the analyses of Corneille’s Rodogune and Racine’s Thébaïde, the latter termed a veritable festival of hatred. Bibliography and index.

MOREAU, FRANÇOIS, MARIE-CHRISTINE GOMEZ-GÉRAUD and PHILIPPE ANTOINE, eds. Itinéraires littéraires du voyage, Travaux de Littérature, XVI (2013), Paris: ADIREL.

Review: R. Sapino in S Fr 174 (2014), 654-656. This volume of TL asks the question “La Littérature de voyage est-elle de la littérature?” The collected essays are organized into five sections: “Voyageurs et voyageuses: une écriture ?” “Saveurs et images du voyage,” “De la Méditérranée aux Orients,” “Poétiques du voyage,” and finally three contributions on the 20th c. The essays make a positive reply to the opening question as they examine numerous pertinent aspects such as language, a feminine imaginary, dialogue, food, images, ruins, genres, the “sacré” and the “profane,” the writer-traveler and “lieux de mémoires,” among others. Index of names, presentation of authors and recent publications of members of ADIREL.

NANCY, SARAH. La Voix féminine et le plaisir de l’écoute en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2012.

Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 172 (2014), 141. Informed by theories of the pleasure of listening, this examination focuses on relationships between feminine voices, music, word and spectacle. Impressive both for its engagement with primary sources and today’s critics, N.’s study is well documented, an example of interdisciplinarity imbued with serious scholarship.

NEDELEC, CLAUDINE and J. LECLERC, eds. Le Burlesque selon les Perrault, Oeuvres et critiques. Paris: Champion, 2013.

Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 173 (2014), 359-360. Praiseworthy discovery and edition of rare texts, some in manuscript, of a literary and theoretical nature belonging to the burlesque genre. The first part of the anthology includes the burlesque texts, such as L’Enéide burlesque, while the second part focuses on critical reflection (1678-1692) of the brothers P. Rich critical apparatus includes a glossary and an extensive bibliography.

OIRY, GOULVEN. “Des abeilles dans la grande ruche citadine: les serviteurs de la comédie des années 1540-1610.” S Fr 173 (2014), 236-248.

Although the focus here is Renaissance comedy, demonstrating convincingly the pivotal role of domestics, several plays by authors toward the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th c. are included: Pierre de Larivey, Pierre Le Loyer, François d’Amboise, Odet de Turnèbe, François Perrin, Jean Goddard and Pierre Troterel. Well documented and pertinent, the article demonstrates that “pour la bourgeoisie et la noblesse, sur le mode de la dérision humoristique plutôt que d’une satire méprisante, le serviteur du théâtre comique fait bien office d’exutoire. Il se conçoit en ce sens comme le raccourci ou l’emblème du spectacle comique dans son ensemble.”

ORME, JENNIFER. “A Wolf’s Queer Invitation: David Kaplan’s Little Red Riding Hood and Queer Possibility.” M&T 29.1 (2015), 87-109.

“The concept of queer invitation is explored in this reading of David Kaplan’s short film Little Red Riding Hood (1997). I propose that queer reading is activated by the acceptance of the queer invitation initiated primarily by the wolf figure in the film. This invitation to queer reading demands the suspension of the culturally dominant versions and interpretations of the tale by the Grimms and Perrault and activates gay cultural knowledges of celebrity intertexts in their stead. The suspension of “what everybody knows” about the tale and the wolf figure in particular opens space for a repositioning of the wolf-man through the representation of the wolf but also through the relationships between the cinematic visual, verbal, and musical channels and extratextual references to Vaslav Nijinsky and Quentin Crisp. Although offering a queer reading, I do not attempt to offer a template for queer reading of fairy tales; rather, I suggest that situated and specialized cultural knowledges are integral to queer reading and are therefore not available to, or accepted by, all audience members at all times.”

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

Review: K. Laporta in RR 104.3/4 (2013), 389-392. Appreciative review qualifies Paige’s case study of the evolution of the early modern French novel as “innovative” and “as bold as it is cautious.” In order to explore the rise of fictionality during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Paige creates three régimes of literary invention: Aristotelian, pseudo-factal, and fictional. The author then proceeds to analyze a corpus of six authors—Lafayette, Subligny, Crébillon fils, Rousseau, Diderot, and Cazotte—whose works characterize the problematic truth-status of the pseudo-factal regime, thereby delineating an important shift in novelistic practice.

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

Review: P. Balazs in S Fr 172 (2014), 142. An attestation to the semantic “malléabilité” of the term “l’ordre naturel,” this collection of essays responds to the question, “L’ordre de la nature réside-t-il dans les choses même ou bien dans leur modélisation scientifique?” Scholars examine aspects as varied as “la physico-théologie,” “le materialisme,” “la naufrage,” and “la poésie descriptive,” among others.

PAVESIO, MONICA. “Nascita, evoluzione e successo di un nuovo tipo di servo sel teatro francese tardo secentesco: il caso di Crispin.” S Fr 173 (2014), 257-264.

This illuminating article fills an important lacuna in the study of the evolution of personages of 17th c. theatre. Convincingly demonstrates the multiple influences and sources for Crispin who became the “valet vedette” of the 17th c. thanks to actor-playwright Belleroche (Raymond Poisson, 1633-1690).

PERRAS, JEAN-ALEXANDRE. “Genius as Commonplace in Early Modern France.” E Cr 55.2 (2015), 20-33.

P.’s article is the introductory one for this issue of E Cr which focuses on the concept of genius: “Thinking Genius, Using Genius / Penser le génie à travers ses usages,” directed by Ann Jefferson and Jean-Alexandre Perras. P’s exploration of the opposition “between genius and the commonality” begins with attention to definitions, the first being that of 1606 in Jean Nicot’s Thrésor de la langue françoise tant ancienne que moderne which focuses on the individual, in contrast with that of Louis-Sébastien Mercier’s 1801 Néologie: “Genius: A mind superior to that of other men: but by how much? That is the question?” P.’s study includes consideration of “the authority of ethical and esthetic models inherited from antiquity” and the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. Other important contributors to the development and use of the notion examined here include Perrault and Boileau, as well as several key figures of the 18th c. Well documented and with illustrations including examples of Roman and French coinage representing the concept.

PEUREUX, GUILLAUME. La Muse satyrique, 1600-1622. Seuils de la modernité 17. Geneva: Droz, 2015.

Review: A. Horsley in MLR 111.1 (2016), 249-250. The first modern book-length study of the corpus of obscene poetry known as les recueils satyriques, P.’s work traces these anthologies and their reception by their contemporary public and beyond. The reviewer notes in particular the study’s surprising conclusion regarding the “subversion and resistance” evidenced in some of these works (250). By limiting his analysis to a select number of the roughly 150 poets who published these collections, the reviewer finds that P. stimulates the reader’s interest in this corpus and provides “solid groundwork and useful scholarly frameworks for future studies” (250).

Review: H. Roberts in FS 70.1 (2016), 102-103. The first serious, book-length attempt to deal with the profusion of early seventeenth-century satyres since the work of Frédéric Lachèvre in the early 1900s. Looks at the sheer number of anthologies and their increasing obscenity in light of contemporary attitudes, including a defense of “traditional” masculinity during the rise of court culture. Reviewer, who admits a personal stake due to collaboration with the author, finds text “essential reading for anyone with an interest in this intriguing area of French literary history.”

Review: J. Leclerc in PFSCL XLVIII, 84 (2016), 122-125. Avoiding the many traps of les recueils satyriques by placing them within their historical context (the Edict of Nantes, assassination of Henri IV, and the trial of Théophile de Viau), “[l]e livre de G.P. s’avère le meilleur guide de lecture écrit jusqu’à maintenant sur ces textes, dessinant un trajet minutieux à travers les méandres de la poésie satyrique.” Five chapters ("Phénomène satyrique," “Trouble satyrique,” “Poètes et lecteurs satyriques,” “Double obscénité satyrique," and "Politique de l’événement satyrique") explore “les aspects éditoriaux, génériques, sociologiques, et idéologiques,” laying the foundation for future study in the directions evoked but not pursued by P. Reviewer considers the notion of “‘l’effet de recueil,’ grâce à laquelle la pluralité des voix auctoriales, des motifs, des thèmes, et des genres sollicités trouve sa cohérence, une sorte d’unification artificielle, susceptible d’opérer un ‘travail’ sur le lecteur" to be the most convincing of the text.

REQUEMORA-GROS, SYLVIE. “Voyager vent debout: Paradoxes d’un ‘charmant voyage’”. Tr L 28 (2015), 75-83.

Including a helpful review of key volumes and colloques on voyage in prose and verse and a succinct characterization of the genre, R.-G. focuses on the writings of Jean-François Regnard as well as on La Fontaine, l’abbé Levasseur and others. R.-G. underscores R.’s originality and diversity in her pertinent analyses and offers highly useful remarks on “galanterie,” the term’s semantic and style.

PROBES, CHRISTINE. “‘La Vie’ selon les emblématistes : les sens et les significations.” CdDs XV, 2 (2014), 18–32.

A comparative study of "la vie" that focuses on the role of the senses in the work of Jean-Jacques Boissard (Emblemes, 1584, 1593, 1595 ; and Theatrum vitae humanae, 1596) and Jean-Baptiste Chassignet (Sonnets franc-comtois, c. 1615). In addition to their consistent application of the senses, the two emblematists also evoke a tension between the senses and reason. By appealing to the eyes, the intellect, and the memory, their work "réunit l'utile à l'agréable, visant à plaire et à instruire."

RESIDORI, MATTEO, HÉLÈNE TROPÉ, DANIELLE BOILLET, and MARIE-MADELEINE FRAGONARD, eds. Vies d’écrivains, vies d’artistes: Espagne, France, Italie, XVIe–XVIIe siècles. Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2014.

Review: E. Guerra in Ren Q 68.4 (2015), 1489-1490. This result of two research projects, “Formes et idées de la Renaissance au Lumières” and “Les Cultures de l’Europe méditerranéenne occidentale,” analyzes biographies, their writing processes and relation to societies including readers. Wide-ranging, the project also addresses the pedagogical role of biographies and confirms that “the biography is a precious instrument that . . . helps us further understand Renaissance societies.”

ROMANOWSKI, SYLVIE. "Teaching the Seventeenth Century at the Graduate Level." CdDs XVI, 1 (2015), 93–108.

The author presents strategies for organizing a graduate seminar around the theme of modernity. The course allows for a wide variety of seventeenth-century culture to be presented while encouraging broad connections with the literature and culture of other periods.

RONZEAUD, PIERRE. “Usages Polémiques de l’allégorie en context pamphlétaire: les Mazarinades” in Pioffet, Marie-Christine, Anne-Élisabeth Spica, eds. S’exprimer autrement: poétique et enjeux de l’allégorie à l’Âge classique. Actes du colloque du Centre International de Rencontres sur le 17e siècle. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2016. 215-226.

“Son enquête montre la grande variété des figurations allégoriques proposées par Mazarinades et la grande instabilité de leurs usages dépendant des positions frondeuses ou anti-frondeuses des auteurs, qui, changeant d’ailleurs s’inverser, amenant des anamorphoses, des métamorphoses ou même de renversements totaux de l’imagerie mobilisée. La plasticité des contextes esthétiques (dramatique ou burlesque par exemple), des modèles génériques (sonnet, discours, ou dialogue par exemple), induit en outre des variations dans les potentialités d’allégorèses des Mazarinades: facilitation d’interprétation souvent renforcée par des titres, des explications, des commentaires, ce qui est logiqu dans une stratégie de conquête de l’opinion, ou, plus rarement, opacification énigmatique.”

ROUSSEAU, CHRISTINE. "Hommes et animaux dans les contes de fées du XVIIe siècle." CdDs XV, 2 (2014), 103-120.

Fairy tales push us to ask whether animals or humans have a greater bestial nature and whether metamorphosis from animal to human (or vice versa) is positive or negative. The author concludes that " la métamorphose est ainsi le lieu privilégié d’une critique des moeurs et des relations hommes-femmes."

SCHUWEY, CHRISTOPHE. "Le Mercure galant : un recueil interactif." CdDs XVI, 1 (2015), 48–62.

This article looks at the Mercure as a "livre perpetuel"––a book constantly being written and rewritten––and shows how modern concepts of journalism are foreign to the seventeenth-century understanding of its editorial practice which considered the Mercure a "receuil." The author concludes that "Il constitue ainsi une plateforme à la plasticité maximale, idéale pour imprimer, diffuser, et surtout, conserver une série de contenus qui ne pourraient trouver place ailleurs : en cela, il participe à l’immense entreprise d’écriture de l’histoire du siècle de Louis le Grand. Mais la pérennité de sa republication lui permet en outre de susciter des productions, et de les imprimer ensuite, en une sorte de mouvement perpétuel : le Mercure galant est interactif."

SERVET, PIERRE et MARIE-HÉLÈNE. Testaments pour rire. Testaments facétieux et polémiques dans la littérature d’Ancien Régime. 1465-1799. Édition critique. Genève: Droz “Textes littéraires français” 625, 2013.

Review: G. M. Roccati in S Fr 174 (2014), 651. Welcome critical edition focuses on burlesque and satirical testaments, examining them chronologically and by genre, from Jean de Meung’s Congès up to the Revolution. Identifies characteristics of literary form (figures and symbols, for example), situates form “au carrefour des genres” and studies editorial contexts. Table, bibliography and lexical notes are included in this examination which is organized in two parts: “Testaments facétieux” and “Testaments polémiques.”

SOUILLER, DIDIER, ed. Maniérisme et Littérature. Comparaisons. Paris: Éditions Orizons, 2013.

Review: S. Miglierina in Ren Q 68.4 (2015), 1492-1493. The result of two conferences which occurred in 2010 at the Château d’Ancy le Franc and at the Université de Bourgogne, the volume addresses the problematic relationship between literature and a “pictorial language,” here, mannerism. Afterword by Danielle Della Valle on the need for such investigation. The essays include considerations of the ancient and Renaissance legacy, the diversity of genres (erotic dreams, gardens) and specific geographical areas (including France with an article on Abraham de Vermeil). Praiseworthy for the lacunae which the volume fills and for its erudition.

SPICA, ALLE-ÉLISABETH. “L’allégorie, “ Figure et image ”” in Pioffet, Marie-Christine, Anne-Élisabeth Spica, eds. S’exprimer autrement: poétique et enjeux de l’allégorie à l’Âge classique. Actes du colloque du Centre International de Rencontres sur le 17e siècle. Tübingen : Gunter Narr Verlag, 2016. 3-27.

L’article essaie “de mettre au jour la pluralité des niveaux de contradiction de l’allégorie classique, entendue dans ses différents champs d’application, rhétorique, théologique et poétique ; pour essayer, aussi, de saisir les clivages interprétatifs qui se constituent, au XVIIe siècle, autour d’une notion convoquée avec autant d’abondance que de militantisme.”

STANTON, DOMNA C. The Dynamics of Gender in Early Modern France: Women Writ, Women Writing. Farnham: Ashgate. 2014

Review: S. Genieys-Kirk in MLR 111.1 (2016), 251-252. By analyzing cultural and literary representations of women, S. engages with Butler and Foucault to argue that gender norms constitute “sites of contested meaning” in 17th-century France. The first part of the book (“Women Writ”) studies works penned by male authors, engaging with recent scholarship that analyzes notions such as “classicism” as semi-mythical constructs. Part Two (“Writing Women”) turns to works by female authors, revealing the complex subversion of gender norms that figure in female literary production from the period. A “rich study” combining “literary and gender theories, psychoanalysis, and feminist epistemology,” the reviewer finds that the work sheds “new light on the complex ‘dynamics’ of the ‘Querelle des femmes et des hommes.’”

STEIGERWALD, JÖRN and MARINE ROUSSILLON, eds. La dispute entre l’Arioste et le Tasse. Les appropriations de deux esthétiques antagonistes au XVIIe siècle en France. Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, vol. XL, n. 79, Tübingen: Narr, 2013.

Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 174 (2014), 593. Welcome assessment of the new Ariosto-Tasse aesthetic at the courts of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Book chapters examine reception, appropriations in “histoires comiques,” the epic genre, the unities, the ballet and in Molière’s work.

STIKER-MÉTRAL, CHARLES-OLIVIER. “L’amour-propre : de l’allégorie à la réflexion morale” in Pioffet, Marie-Christine, Anne-Élisabeth Spica, eds. S’exprimer autrement: poétique et enjeux de l’allégorie à l’Âge classique. Actes du colloque du Centre International de Rencontres sur le 17e siècle. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2016. 151-161.

“De manière exemplaire, ces deux textes [Le palais de l’amour divin entre Jésus et l’âme chrétienne et Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales] sur l’amour-propre permettent de [sic] d’observer à la fois un approfondissement et une rupture dans le traitement littéraire de cette notion. Certes, on voit se développer, tout au long du siècle, une interrogation sur l’amour-propre, lequel s’apparente à un défi au langage et à la représentation. Mais la rupture est peut-être déterminante : la morale consiste pour La Rochefoucauld en une herméneutique des actions humaines, plutôt qu’en la figuration toujours imparfaite d’une intériorité et qu’en un portrait de ce qui demeure irrémédiablement caché.”

SUKIC, CHRISTINE ed. Corps héroïque, corps de chair dans les récits de vie de la première modernité. Reims: Éditions et Presses universitaires de Reims, 2013.

Review: P. Zoberman in Ren Q 68.4 (2015), 1490-1492. Judged as an “important contribution to our understanding of the emergence of the representation of the modern body and (auto)biographical writing,” these studies resulting from a 2012 conference of the Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Languages and Thought include essays on Dassoucy and Jeanne de Chantal, among others.

TIKANOJA, TUOMAS. Transgressing Boundaries: Worldly Conversation, Politeness and Sociability in Ancien Régime France, 1660-1789. Helsinki: Unigrafia, 2013.

Review: C. Crowston in MLR 111.1 (2016), 253-254. An “ambitious” study tracing the emergence of the terms sociabilité and social in the eighteenth century, T.’s book examines a wide range of primary texts (works by salonnières, court manuals, treatises) to set out the argument that a “new high society constituted itself in the late seventeenth century as a self-conscious alternative to the absolutist court.” Arguing against recent works by Antoine Lilti and Steven Kale, T. defends Dena Goodman’s thesis that the salons “played a central role in the development of an autonomous public sphere.” The reviewer congratulates the author for “weaving together a rich and fascinating set of reflections” on the topics, but criticizes T.’s methodology for taking primary sources at face value.

TRIBOUT, BRUNO. Les récits de conjuration sous Louis XIV. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Lanval, 2010.

Review: K. Laporta in RR 104.3/4 (2013), 392-395. Ambitious study of prose narratives published during the second half of the seventeenth century that address the controversial subject of revolt. Author examines the paradoxical nature of fictional representations of uprising during the reign of the Sun King, observing that whereas the readers are encouraged to identify and sympathize with the conspirators, the act of revolt is denounced, and the texts ultimately adopt a pro-monarchical stance that cautions against tyranny. According to the reviewer, Tribout’s pre-revolutionary corpus (not specified in the review) converges around “the pleasure of witnessing monarchical rule threatened and reestablished within the safe haven of fiction.” Reviewer admires Tribout’s meticulous research, but regrets that the author did not include a discussion of early modern theories of tragedy, or further develop his definition of the sublime noir, both of which would have strengthened his argument.

TRUE, MICAH. “Beyond the ‘Affaire Tartuffe’: Seventeenth-Century French Theatre in Colonial Quebec.” RomN 55.3 (2015), 451-61.

This article questions the tendency to focus on the 1694 quarrel over a performance in of Tartuffe when discussing theatre in New France. By examining the extant records of French plays performed in the colony, the author tries to determine how common such performances were, who chose the plays, and how the plays were received. The author proposes that close readings of plays known to have been performed in New France should occur alongside examination of the rich accounts of colonial life. This might illumine performance circumstances and yield new interpretations of the plays in question.

VAILLANT, ALAIN, ed. Esthétique du rire. Paris: PU de Paris Ouest, 2013.

Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 173 (2014), 360-361. Wide-ranging volume of thirteen essays is organized from the medieval age to our day and focuses on French literature. Three articles examine 17th c. authors and perspectives, including the laughter of libertinage, badinage, and works by Sorel, Scarron, Théophile and Cyrano, among others. Useful bibliography.

VAN DAMME, STÉPHANE. “Subversive Freedom: Libertine Anthropology and the Geography of Knowledge in Seventeenth-Century France.” EMFS 37.2 (2015), 108-125.

“To understand how the idea of freedom operates in seventeenth-century France, and in libertine writing in particular, this article argues that it is important to take into account new social and spatial constraints that arose in the period, as well as the fictional figures of libertine travel writing. French libertine conceptions of freedom are then seen primarily as the reflection of a developing practice of mobility. To give substance to the hypothesis of a relationship between mobility, moral geography, and conceptions of freedom, the article contrasts two examples of attitudes to kinds of freedom in the French libertine world. The first example is that of French libertines themselves, and their relationship to the decline of liberty in France which took place in the aftermath of Theophile de Viau's trial. The second is centred on the banks of the Ganges and the experience of libertine travellers to India in the mid-seventeenth century. The suggestion is that libertine travelling culture modified its representations of freedom by introducing anthropological and comparative dimensions to the discourse.”

VERSELLE, VINCENT. “Faire dire, pour décrire. Caractérisation langagière des personnages et poétique du récit dans la littérature comique et satirique (XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle). Metz: U de Lorraine, coll. “Recherches textuelles,” 2012.

Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 173 (2014), 360. Interdisciplinary approach, privileging the linguistic-semiotic aspect provides literary exegesis of a large corpus of works by Sorel, Scarron, Furetière, Marivaux and Diderot. First part of the volume concentrates on the theoretical confronting Aristotelian theory with modern semiotics while the second section applies theoretical apparatus to a novella of Sorel.

VOISIN, PATRICK, ed. La Valeur de l’oeuvre littéraire, entre pôle artistique et pôle esthétique. Paris: Garnier, 2012.

Review: A. Schellino in S Fr 172 (2014), 205-206. This extremely wide-ranging investigation into the esthetic and artistic value of literature includes explorations organized into sections on general reflections, poetry, novel and literature and politics. Several theoretical chapters are followed by diverse inquiries into theatre, both textual and in the eye of the spectator. 17th c. scholars will appreciate two chapters on Racine’s Phèdre.

WADE, MARA R., ed. Gender Matters: Discourses of Violence in Early Modern Literature and the Arts Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 169. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2014.

Review: M. Carter in Ren Q 68.3 (2015), 1105–1106. Wide-ranging collection “explores the intersectionality of multiple frameworks of gender construction and their expression as violence” in ramifications with disciplines such as theatre, literature, history, art and music. Transnational and with a global perspective which is also highly interdisciplinary. Recommended for educators (for several possible courses) and for scholars on violence and gender. Literature and visual art are particularly well-represented.

WARNER, MARINA. Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tales. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014.

Review: F. Wade in TLS 5841 (March 13 2015). “A thoroughly enjoyable and scholarly account.” Warner contends that the writing down of traditional tales is closely linked with social and national events. For example, Charles Perrault and his niece Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier wrote modern variants of old tales in order to challenge the cultural supremacy of classical myth.

WELCH, ELLEN. "Risking Life and Limb: Commerce and the Value of Life in Caribbean Adventure Narratives." CdDs XV, 2 (2014), 121–139.

In the anonymous Nouvelles de l’Amérique ou le Mercure amériquain (1678) and the first French edition of Exquemelin’s Histoire des aventuriers (1686) pirates display "an ideal, chivalric form of heroism" while pursuing material riches, making them valuable figures for examining "notions of the honorableness of commercial endeavors." Furthermore, pirates' acceptance of risk to life and health for the sake of wealth points to an evaluation of life's value in a commercially driven society.

WINN, COLETTE H., ed. Teaching French Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2011.

Review: Kathleen Llewellyn in CdDs XVI, 1 (2015), 113–116. “A critical reappraisal of current thinking on early modern women writers and a guide to studying their works, particularly in the classroom,” this work surveys the cultural, economic, social, and literary conditions of women writers before presenting a series of studies devoted to individual authors (Louise Labé, Pernette Du Guillet, Georgette de Mornay, Anne de Marquet, Marie de Gournay.) The volume concludes with a section on pedagogical approaches appropriate to both the undergraduate and graduate classroom as well as a guide to abundant useful resources for research and teaching. “This volume will be a precious resource for teachers and for scholars. The selection of writers, subjects, and approaches is both broad and deep, and will prove invaluable for those who wish to include women writers in survey courses or courses focusing on a particular theme or genre, and for those constructing a course specifically centered on early modern women writers.” Largely focused on pre-17th-century literature with some points of interest for dix-septièmistes.

ZANIN, ENRICA. Fins tragiques: poétique et éthique de dénouement dans la tragédie de la première modernité (Italie, France, Espagne, Allemagne). Genève: Droz, 2014.

Review: E. Wilton-Godberfforde in FS 70.1 (2016), 101-102. An effort to provide wide-reaching insight into the theories and practices underlying tragedy, especially the “unhappy ending” aspect, across Western Europe in the early modern period. Reviewer finds the work to be thorough, though also at times “disjointed” and “scattered,” probably because it attempts rather too much for a single volume.