© 2007 University of Nebraska–Lincoln. All Rights Reserved.
Sonoma State University |
Modern Language Association |
UNL Center for Digital Research in the Humanities
2015 Number 63
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. 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.
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. Préface par Philippe Sellier. Paris: Champion, 2012.
Review: F. Forner in S Fr 174 (2014), 591-592. Comprehensive and praiseworthy examination includes analyses of the epistolary in a religious institution in general as well as in Port-Royal in particular. Wide-ranging examination investigates importance of St. Augustine’s work, notably in relation to “amour-propre” and love for God, the style and length of the letters, the daily life of Port-Royal, the letter as means of defense of the community, the centrality of the letter, among other useful aspects. Numerous photographic reproductions of letters are included as is a genealogical tree of the Arnauld family.
ARNAULD, ANTOINE. Des vraies et fausses idées. D. Moreau, éd. Paris : Vrin, 2011.
Review: M.-P. Pellegrin in RPFE 141.2 (2016), 293-294. “ Le texte polémique Des vraies et fausses idées, rédigé par Antoine Arnauld contre Malebranche, révèle en effet un conflit d’interprétation passionnant, puisqu’il est tout autant un conflit de filiation, par rapport à Descartes et par rapport à Augustin, dont les deux auteurs se réclament si souvent ”.
ARNAULD, ANTOINE et PIERRE NICOLE. La Logique, ou l’art de penser. D. Descotes, éd. Paris : Honoré Champion, 2014.
Review: H. Dilberman in RPFE 141.2 (2016) 294-295. “ Cette édition critique de la Logique de Port-Royal ne mérite que des éloges, et d’abord parce qu’elle constitue un objet très élégant sous sa belle couverture blanche et bleue—une élégance toute classique. L’on appréciera tout autant la lisibilité parfaite de l’ouvrage : l’apparat critique, abaondant mais très éclairant, se trouve en bas de page, ce qui préserve le fil de la lecture. Je m’attarderai surtout sur l’excellente introduction de Dominique Descotes, qui explique fort bien les raisons du choix de l’édition de 1664. On trouvera d’ailleurs dans une section à part les chapitres de 1662 remaniés en 1664 ainsi que les chapitres ajoutés en 1683 ”.
BASTIN, KATHRYN. "Le Singe est-il toujours singe? Speculating on Ugliness, Refinement, and Beauty in Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy’s 'Babiole'." CduDs XV, 2 (2014), 82–102.
D'Aulnoy's “Babiole” develops the seventeenth-century's uneasiness with animal-human differences, while at the same time allowing for a reflection on the tension between ugliness and refinement that operates along the frontier of beast and woman. In turn, this tension leads us to consider otherness and refutes ancien régime ideals of beauty all while allowing for a viewing and imagining of the non-white body.
BLOOM, RORI. “Miniature Marvelous: The Petit as Personal Aesthetic in the Fairy Tales of Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy.” M&T 29.2 (2015), 209-227.
“Although many fairy tales feature small characters or things, Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy’s evocation of the small is not just a consequence of her tales’ small scale but rather a self-conscious decision to examine and exploit the limits of the genre. Although d’Aulnoy sometimes associates the small with deformity or inferiority, most often she evokes small things to admire their delicate beauty. I argue that in her descriptions of small objects, especially toys and jewels, d’Aulnoy celebrates the skill with which they have been made in a self-reflexive move that ascribes new value to her artfully crafted tales.”
LE MARCHAND, BÉRÉNICE V. “Et in Arcadia ego: le conte du Mouton de Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy.” DFS 102 (2014), 117-123.
L’auteur analyse le sous-texte du conte du Mouton qui se trouve dans la nouvelle espagnole Don Gabriel Ponce de Léon pour démontrer une subversion qui se fait au premier cadre, celui de la Cour royale, et non pas au deuxième cadre merveilleux.
MILANESE, ARNAUD. “‘History as psychology’: de quoi est faite une psychologie empiriste chez Bacon?” DSS 265 (2014), 619-364.
Proposes a reconsideration of Francis Bacon’s thought by arguing that psychology articulates a fundamental link between philosophy and history: “la possibilité d’une psychologie cognitive pleinement philosophique passe … par une historiographie des savoirs, et d’abord de la philosophie.”
TONOLO, SOPHIE. "Balzac aux confins de la vie: le recueil épistolaire de 1647." CdDs CdDS XV, 2 (2014), 33–45.
Placing the Lettres choisies in the context of their publication seven years before Balzac's death, the author examines how Balzac presents the notion of l'éloquence incarnée and une parole agissante. By clearly establishing a link between existential problems and the act of writing, Balzac develops a powerful paradox: "s’employant, dans un genre que l’on dit volontiers issu de la vie, à abolir toute expression de la vie réelle, l’épistolier entend pourtant recueillir le feu de l’existence, un feu qui se ranime à l’écriture d’autrui."
BOHNERT, CÉLINE. “Mythologiae / Mythologie : l’allégorie fabuleuse selon Natale Conti et Jean Baudoin” 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. 91-104.
“Nous avons cherché ici à mettre en valeur les lignes de fracture et les différences entre deux conceptions de la Fable. Il faut souligner cependant que certaines nouveautés introduites par Conti dans la tradition mythographique préparent l’évolution vers la conception de Jean Boudoin. Les mythologiae font apparaître pour la première fois dans leur titre la notion de Fable, substituée à la mention des noms ou des images des dieux païens. D’autre indices, comme le rôle dévolu à l’apologue dans la définition de la Fable et la rédaction somme toute plus unifiée à l’intérieur de chaque chapitre, signalent déjà une évolution du modèle mythographique à la fin de XVIe siècle.”
PATRELLA, SARA. “Jean Baudoin et la réception des mythographies au XVIIe siècle” 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. 105-122.
“Au XVIe siècle, les hybrides et les monstres, Pan et les dieux antiques, tout ce vaste répertoire mythologique a pu donner accès à toutes les vérités, du monde, de l’homme et même de Dieu. En revanche, avec Jean Baudoin, on observe un XVIIe siècle soucieux de mettre en place une forme d’allégorie dés-animalisée et tout entière centrée autour de l’homme. Pan et tous ses avatars doivent désormais être différenciés au sein d’une classification moderne des champs de savoirs, entre langue scientifique esthétique. L’allégorie, qui n’est plus étendue comme un processus herméneutique, vaut comme un signe clair et efficace, comme une image univoque.”
ALBERTINI, ALEXANDRA WILLAUME. “Rhétorique du discours contre la superstition dans les ‘Pensées diverses sur la comète’ de Pierre Bayle: astronomie et littérature au service de la raison.” S Fr 174 (2014), 455-466.
A. demonstrates that as with other rationalist thinkers, B. both critiques superstition and promotes new scientific knowledge while persisting in the Christian faith. A. declares: “La raison est utilisée et écartée pour prouver la foi.” Situating B.’s “Pensées diverses sur la comète” in its epistemological and religious context, A. indicates distinctions with John Calvin’s views and underscores both B.’s rigor and his interdisciplinarity. Very well documented.
BAYLE, PIERRE. Correspondance de Pierre Bayle, vol. XI: Août 1697-décembre 1698. E. Labrousse, A. McKenna, et al., eds. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2014.
BAYLE, PIERRE. Correspondance de Pierre Bayle, vol. XII: Janvier 1699-décembre 1702. E. Labrousse, A. McKenna, et al., eds. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2015.
Review: A. Matytsin in MLR 111.3 (2016), 868-869. An “essential resource for any Bayle scholar,” the new volumes in this series offer edited letters, footnotes, indices of correspondents and referenced figures, a list of lost letters, and a bibliography in the important years following the publication of Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique et critique. These volumes “continue to uphold the high standard of scholarship that has been set by their predecessors” (868). The reviewer hopes that the new tomes will be digitized, as the first seven volumes are available online through the Université de Saint-Étienne.
BUNG, STEPHANIE. “Une querelle à l’époque de la Fronde. Du Cid à la guerre des sonnets. ” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 117-130.
“Mise en parallèle” of la querelle and la guerre des sonnets (Voiture’s d’Uranie and Benserade’s Job), which B. argues underscores the singularities of each. The “le balancement entre le topique et le referential,” a double-writing serving at once to play and to pay homage to the patron, situates la guerre as “un jeu gallant,” and differentiates la guerre from its predecessor in which the authoritative and definitive intervention by the Académie marks the querelle’s different social, aesthetic, and political stakes.
BÉROALDE DE VERVILLE, FRANÇOIS. Le Palais des curieux. Ed. Véronique Luzel. Genève: Librairie Droz, 2012.
Review: N. Kenny in RHL 114.1 (2014), 231-232. Four hundred years after the original publication date of Le Palais des Curieux in 1612, Véronique Luzel is the first person to publish a second edition of Verville’s collection of “objets,” witty reflections on various topics. Reviewer admires the editor’s carefully researched annotation of Le Palais, which contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the text: “L’érudition patiente de Véronique Luzel a transformé notre compréhension de l’ouvrage.” According to the reviewer, Luzel’s critical introduction brings attention to the often neglected religious aspect of Verville’s work, and situates the text as being in tune with the sensibilities of the modern reader while remaining true to its humanist, pre-Cartesian culture. Enhanced with a glossary, index, and chronology of the author’s life, Luzel’s volume makes Le Palais more readable, and thereby opens it to scholarly debate.
HARAI, DÉNES. Gabriel Bethlen Prince de Transylvanie et roi de Hongrie, 1580-1629. Coll. Histoire Hongroise. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2013.
Review: J. Bérenger in DSS 265 (2014), 746-747. Biographical study of a prince whose importance in Central Europe has perhaps been overlooked, H.’s work blends archival research and offers syntheses of studies previously published in Hungarian.
ZÉKIAN, STÉPHANE. “Comment améliorer les œuvres classiques: le cas de Boileau.” RHL 114.1 (2014), 31-43.
Zékian’s article examines three nineteenth-century revisions of Boileau’s L’Art poétique published by Ponce-Denis Écouchard Lebrun (1808), Michel Cubières (1812), and Pierre Chaussard (1811, 1817). According to the author, these re-editions serve as an indicator to the enduring influence of Boileau’s canonical text, as well as to the diverse critical reception of seventeenth-century classicism in post-Revolutionary France.
PROBES, CHRISTINE MCCALL. ““ Vita Virtutis Expers Morte Peior ” le fonctionnement de l’allégorie dans l’emblématique chez Jean-Baptiste Chassignet et Jean-Jacques Boissard” 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. 65-74.
“La présente étude explorera l’allégorie chez deux emblématistes du premier XVIIe siècle Jean-Baptiste Chassignet et Jean-Jacques Boissard. Dans les Sonnets franc-comtois [de Chassignet], la Renommée de l’emblème LXXXI, une allégorie prédominante, peut se joindre à un nombre de figures stylistiques pour transmettre le panégyrique du dédicataire. L’appel sensoriel s’y associe aussi dans l’invitation au lecteur à contempler la figure de l’image et à s’imaginer le son de ses trompettes. Dans [l’] exploration de l’album de Boissard, [l’auteur a] signalé un développement allégorique de la vertu qui peut s’étendre sur plusieurs emblèmes, ou être interrompu par une considération de vices tels que l’avarice, l’hypocrisie, la lascivité ou l’envie, avant d’être repris.”
MEERE, MICHAEL. “Theatres of Torture: Martyrs, Pagans, and the Politics of Conversion in Early Seventeenth-Century France.” EMFS 37.1 (2015), 14-28.
“This essay examines writing about and representations of pain and torture by looking specifically at two French Catholic martyr plays that appeared at the turn of the seventeenth century: Nicolas Soret’s La Céciliade (1606) and Jean Boissin de Gallardon’s Le Martyre de saincte Catherine (1618). It interprets these plays alongside Antonio Gallonio’s Trattato degli instrumenti di martiro (1591; 1594) and Richard Verstegan’s Théâtre des cruautez des Herectiques de nostre temps (1587; 1607). On the one hand, by analysing the representations of physical torture, this article investigates the relationship between religious violence in the real world and the significance of the martyr figure on stage in La Céciliade. On the other, it takes into account the crushing of the executioners’ bodies in Boissin’s play and in iconographical representations of St Catherine’s wheel of torture, arguing that representations of the martyrs’ and pagans’ injured bodies not only serve to profess publicly the truth of the Catholic faith but also act as vehicles for the Catholic Church’s politicization of martyrdom and conversion.”
CROFT, MARIE-ANGE. “Ésope à la Cour (1701) d’Edme Boursault : allégories et clefs historiques” 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. 123-133.
“Ésope à la Cour met en scène certains de ses contemporains et fait écho aux scandales qui les entourent. Ce décryptage sous la surface du texte instaure un jeu de reconnaissance intertextuel avec le public, qui participe au plaisir esthétique de lecteur-spectateur et qui décuple l’effet comique. Dans ce jeu interprétatif, la clé allégorique nous est révélée par un décloisonnement des genres (fable, comédie, lettres, etc.) et l’intertextualité, par le biais de la métalepse, interroge le rapport au réel. Il ne faut aucun doute que le premier public prit plaisir à ce jeu de décodage, qui ouvre les frontières entre fiction et réalité.”
MAIRA, DANIEL. “Des tribades et des godemichés: mollesses viriles dans Le Recueil des dames de Brantôme.” FS 70.4 (2016), 503-518.
Looks at sexual relations between women in Brantôme. Shows that author’s depictions of such relations destabilize masculinity, male gender performativity, perhaps even gender identity in general.
VERNET, MAX. ““ Les humbles, pour qui je besogne. . . ” comment Jean-Pierre Camus expose la conception post-tridentine de l’allégorie” 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. 137-149.
“Le Traitté [des passions de l’âme de J.-P. Camus] est ainsi le porche doctrinal de la plus vaste entreprise narrative post-tridentine. Aussi, l’allégorie n’est pas une figure occasionnelle, mais la condition nécessaire de la narration en général ; comme Dieu a pris en Jésus la forme de l’homme passionné, naturellement passionné, le sens s’incarne dans le récit. Passion, incarnation, allégorie, bonne parole et écriture de récits sont donc intimement liées, au point d’être indissociables, comme tout ce que Dieu unit.”
CORMIER, JACQUES. L’Atelier de Robert Challe (1659-1721). Paris: PUPS, 2010.
Review: M.-H. Cotoni in RHL 114.1 (2014), 232-235. Praiseworthy volume by Jacques Cormier synthesizes the life and works of Robert Challe, author of La Continuation de l’Histoire de l’admirable Don Quichotte de la Manche (1713), Les Illustres Françaises (1713), and Le Journal d’un voyage fait aux Indes orientales (1721), among other works. The author presents a detailed critical analysis of each of Challe’s texts along with their historical and cultural contexts. According to the reviewer, Cormier’s “étude magistrale,” with its nearly one hundred pages of bibliography and exhaustive index, sheds a positive light on the corpus of the underrepresented Challe. Edition includes a preface by Geneviève Artigas-Menant, and could be of interest to scholars studying récits de voyage and literature published near the end of the reign of Louis XIV.
ROUX, ALEXANDRA. “Robert Challe et Malebranche: de la recherche de la vérité à la recherche de la vraie religion.” DSS 265 (2014), 651-675.
Considers Robert Challe (whose works were only rediscovered in the 20th century) as a reader of Malebranche, specifically analyzing the ways in which Challe subverts Malebranche’s writings to articulate a Deist philosophy.
PAGETT, MATTHEW. "Materiality of Money in Seventeenth-Century French Comedy: The Case of Le Parisien." CdDs XV, 2 (2014), 140–155.
Champmeslé’s 1682 Le Parisien is presented as an example of a new treatment of money on the comic stage that leaves behind traditional ideas of economic and social value in order to represent a new consumer credit system where land as a source of value is questioned within the context of commerce in the Indies. The author shows how the comedy "exploits a 'monetary imaginary' composed of coins and financial instruments," linking it to colonial trade and the changing association of the nobility with value.
Dechaud, Jean-Marc. Bibliographie critique des ouvrages et traductions de Gabriel Chappuys. Cahiers d’Humanisme et Renaissance 114. Geneva: Droz, 2014.
Review: C. Revest in Ren Q 68.3 (2015), 1099-1100. Supplies an important tool for specialists of translation and publishing in the early modern. Includes a preface by Jean Balsamo, consideration of C.’s life and works, review of previous bibliographies and in part II, the bibliography with a fact sheet for each work of C. Admirable throughout.
PROBES, CHRISTINE MCCALL. ““ Vita Virtutis Expers Morte Peior ” le fonctionnement de l’allégorie dans l’emblématique chez Jean-Baptiste Chassignet et Jean-Jacques Boissard” 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. 65-74.
“La présente étude explorera l’allégorie chez deux emblématistes du premier XVIIe siècle Jean-Baptiste Chassignet et Jean-Jacques Boissard. Dans les Sonnets franc-comtois [de Chassignet], la Renommée de l’emblème LXXXI, une allégorie prédominante, peut se joindre à un nombre de figures stylistiques pour transmettre le panégyrique du dédicataire. L’appel sensoriel s’y associe aussi dans l’invitation au lecteur à contempler la figure de l’image et à s’imaginer le son de ses trompettes. Dans [l’] exploration de l’album de Boissard, [l’auteur a] signalé un développement allégorique de la vertu qui peut s’étendre sur plusieurs emblèmes, ou être interrompu par une considération de vices tels que l’avarice, l’hypocrisie, la lascivité ou l’envie, avant d’être repris.”
ARENBERG, NANCY. “Writing the Self: The Theatrics of Transvestism in Choisy’s Memoires.” PFSCL XLVIII 84 (2016), 21-31.
Explores Choisy’s exploitation of the “private memoir, as a malleable form” in his “theatrical role-playing and illusion.” A. argues “[Choisy’s] penchant for transvestism also reveals that the body is a blank canvas, a malleable surface lending itself to experimentation. For the cross-dresser and his fellow actors, the masquerade will play on within the parameters of the private theater [memoire] where the body know no boundaries and is eternally empowered by the cloak of ambiguity.”
ALBANESE, RALPH. “Silence et parole dans Horace.” PFSCL XLVIII 84 (2016), 7-19.
Comparative analysis of speech and silence of female characters (Camille and Sabine) and male characters (le Vieil Horace, Horace, and le roi Tulle) in Horace. After tracing the function of silence and speech in both feminine (sentiment and love) and masculine (constance and obligation) discourse, A. draws out a misunderstanding: “sa soeur ne répondant pas à l’affirmation à ses dix impératifs (vv. 516-30), [Horace] finit vraisemblablement pas prendre son silence pour un signe d’acquiescement.” This misunderstanding gives rise to the dénouement: the murder of Camille et Tulle’s imposition of a « mutisme institutionnel.”
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.
BUNG, STEPHANIE. “Une querelle à l’époque de la Fronde. Du Cid à la guerre des sonnets. ” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 117-130.
“Mise en parallèle” of la querelle and la guerre des sonnets (Voiture’s d’Uranie and Benserade’s Job), which B. argues underscores the singularities of each. The “le balancement entre le topique et le referential,” a double-writing serving at once to play and to pay homage to the patron, situates la guerre as “un jeu gallant,” and differentiates la guerre from its predecessor in which the authoritative and definitive intervention by the Académie marks the querelle’s different social, aesthetic, and political stakes.
CALHOUN, ALISON. "Corneille’s Andromède and Opera: Practice Before Theory." CdDs XVI, 1 (2015), 1–17.
This article examines the theory of vraisemblance that Corneille elaborates in the meta-theatrical discourse of Andromède. What emerges is an "irregularity" that "not only opens up a clearer understanding of Corneille’s thoughts on spectator belief, but also suggests that we reconsider his views on music and machines in a much more positive light; a rethinking, thus, of the fundamental part he played in the history of French opera."
CORNEILLE, PIERRE. Théâtre: Tome I. CARLIN, CLAIRE, JEAN DE GUARDIA, MARC VUILLERMOZ and LILIANE PICCIOLA, eds. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2014.
Review: H. E. Bilis in Ren Q 68.4 (2015), 1515-1517. This edition presents C.’s first five plays along with a helpful introduction for a wider audience than previous editions. Useful and current bibliographies of each play as well as a general bibliography and indices which include both mythological and literary characters and geographical locations. Judges “accessible, informative and affordable.”
Review: J. Harris in FS 69.4 (2015), 526. Includes Corneille’s plays from 1629-1633, in order of performance: Mélite, La Veuve, La Galerie du Palais, La Suivante, and Clitandre. Gives pride of place to contemporary paratexts such as épîtres and arguments, with the examens included in the notes that follow each play. Introductions also include questions of staging and production. Reviewer considers this a worthwhile volume that contextualizes these plays and gives each its due.
DETOC, FABIENNE. “Chimène impudique? Le statut éthique et esthétique de la pudeur féminine.” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 81-91.
Analysis of the querelle focusing on the relationship between Chimène’s purdeur and shifting notions of private v. public space in 17th c. France. D. examines this relationship aesthetically through analysis of the Cid and querelle (esp. Observations), and socially, through analysis of the declining economic power of nobles and architectural changes to la maison from “espace clos et privé” to site of interaction between the sexes. This pairing arrives at “le paradoxe de la maison au theater,” which underscores how “l’autorité” itself “laisse penser que le respect de la tradition patriarcale n’est qu’une performance, peut-être même une mascaraed.”
DUFOUR-MAÎTRE, M., ed. Héros ou personnages? Le personnel du théâtre de Pierre Corneille. Rouen/ Le Havre: PU de Rouen et du Havre, 2013.
Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 173 (2014), 357-359. This last volume of the collection “Les Corneille” includes the acts of the annual colloque organized at the University of Rouen by the Movement Corneille. Demonstrates the dynamic quality of C.’s theatre and its important and varied presence in today’s criticism, resisting reductionist and stereotypical tendencies. Includes examinations on the structure of the 17 th c. troupe, stock characters, the hero seen through other characters, perspectives on particular plays, canonical and scholastic reception, among others.
GREWE, ANDREA. “Nouvelles pièces dédiées aux femmes fortes. Sur les dédicataires féminines du théâtre cornélien des années 1630.” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 49-64.
Analysis of the frequency with which C dedicated his works to women, of the particular women to whom C dedicated, and of the relationship between these female dedicatees and the female characters in the plays dedicated to them. G argues that through the female dedicatees, to whom C attributes “un discernement infaillible,” C reclaims literary authority for “un public beaucoup plus large […] dont les femmes—au moins certaines grandes dames—forment une partie essentielle.” This debate finds a corollary in the “voix” of female characters who “se fait le défenseur le plus explicite et le plus éloquent de l’ordre nouveau.”
HARRIS, JOSEPH. “‘Dying of the Fifth Act’: Corneille’s (Un)natural Deaths.” FS 69.3 (2015), 289-304.
Compares deaths that do not conform to the tragic norm of characters dying in acts of murder or suicide in L’Illusion comique; Théodore, vierge et martyre; Attila, roi des Huns; and Suréna: général des Parthes. Shows intended effect(s) of these deaths and how playwright prepares audiences to receive them.
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.
LASSERRE, FRANÇOIS. “Corneille : ‘Les sujets viennent de la fortune’.” PFSCL XLVIII, 84 (2016), 33-48.
Polemical survey of plot (particularly the dénouements) in C’s œuvre argues that “c’est l’action qui est le message.” Contrasting works “de commande” and those written after the decline of “la tutelle de Richlieu,” L. insists that it is the former in which capture his “intention militant” “de porter un jugement sur ce qui se passe dans la société.”
NANCY, SARAH. “‘Chimène dans son agreement a jetté entr’eux cette pomme de discorde’—Ce que le féminin dit du théâtre, et inversement.” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 65-79.
Rigorous and convincing analysis of the querelle identifies the problem “d’aimer ou de ne pas aimer Chimène” to be a conflict over “dédoublement” in genre of drama, and ultimately, genre (gender) in society. N traces a series of structurally homologous splits: (1) daughter split between vengeance and love; (2) le Cid split between acclaimed performance and (morally/artistically) faulty text; (3) public split between old notion of a cohesion resulting from shared values and new notion of free, particular values. In (2) the conflict revolves around how drama, as “répresentation seconde,” ought to teach morality: should it use this split to “faire le bien sans le promettre,” or “résorber toute division” to teach “un message morale clair.” That this conflict erupts over a female character, N. argues, links the concern over the ability for performance (v. text) to charm by eloquence irrespective of morality (the feminization of eloquence) with the polyvalence of choice and the particular: “La crainte d’une possible déliaison, d’une désagrégation du corps social par l’importance excessive accordée au ‘particulier.’” The feminine comes to serve as the privileged figure for drama: “non plus comme entité unifiée et stable, mais comme construction, comme combinaison de rôles à travers différents espaces et différentes paroles,” while also marking the Cid and querelle as agents, rather than simple reflections, in the reorganization of values.
PICCIOLA, LILIANE. “Dissimulation et exacerbation des fractures familiales dans Le Cid : les silences de la Querelle.” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 15-31.
Comparative textual analysis of Le Cid and the comedia identifies consideration of a conflict between generations, between two epochs (Medieval and Classical) in C’s version to be missing from the querelle. P locates this conflict in C’s addition of affective resistance to paternal and royal authority. The happy ending, required of the genre and assumed by C’s detractors, “cede la place à un espoir incertain, car la relation Rodrigue/Chimène recèle à une éternelle fêlure,” which “révélât une réticence à la toute-puissance du souverain sur les individus.”
SCHLIEPER, HENDRIK. “Comment peut-on être héros? La virilité de Rodrigue." OeC XL, 1 (2015), 93-102.
Exploration of virility in conception of the hero in le genre romanesque through analysis of Rodrigue, Scudéry’s Observations, the Sentiments of the Académie, and C’s Trois discours. Emergence of a “héroïsme ‘doux’—in opposition to “une virilité ‘de force’”—gives rise to a “un désir social prononcé de concilier les différents idéaux virils.” This ‘resolution’ comes in the querelle through a hierarchization of honor over love (even in C’s Trois discours), which fails nonetheless to offer a definitive solution.
STEIGERWALD, JÖRN. “Introduction: la Querelle du Cid ou la naissance de la politique culturelle française au XVIIe siècle.” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 3-14.
Volume introduction situating the contributions according to the political shift marked by the querelle, notably Richelieu’s interventions. S.’s analysis takes a step back from the typical critical starting point by asking: “ce qui distingue la tragi-comédie de Corneille de ses pièces ultérieurs, mais aussi des drames de ses contemporains pour qu’ait pu éclater pour son Cid une querelle.” He concludes that the Querelle indicates "une configuration de la politique culturelle qui vise à la politique de la famille, des sexes et du public."
STEIGERWALD, JÖRN. “Les deux critiques de Scudéry: Les Observation sur Le Cid et Didon.” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 33-47.
Consideration of la querelle contends that in addition to Scudéry’s theortical contributions, D. should be read as “son modèle idéal de la tragédie.” Analysis of D shows that for Scudéry “la vraisemblance morale ainsi que les lois de la justice poétique […] se basent aussi sur la domination masculine.” This domination, S argues, becomes less tenable when “la maison close” gives way to “la maison ouverte,” as it does in C’s tragic comedy and France.
VIALLETON, JEUN-YVES. “L’image du maître-ouvrier dans la Querelle du Cid et ses enjeux.” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 103-115.
An innovative analysis of the frequent appearance of "la pensée économique" in the querelle, and “le retournement [qui] nous a rendus aveugles à cette dimension majeure du texte.” Identifying focus on the conflict between the state and the individual in criticism as both “libertaire” and anachronistic, V insists that the emphasis on rules in the querelle marks literary production as “un métier,” “l’idée d’une tache de parfaitement accomplice grâce à un savoir acquis par l’effort.”
LE CHEVALIER, G. La Conquête des publics. Thomas Corneille, homme de théâtre. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2012.
Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 173 (2014), 359. Judged a serious and detailed study (of 572 pages) on the younger brother of the great C. Le C.’s vast examination reminds us of the extensive creative work of T. C., forty works, some very successful. Includes analyses of mises en scène, multiplicity of influences such as Spanish and Italian, critical reception, among others. Le C. promises a second volume, La Pratique du spectateur.
HOFMANN, CATHERINE and HÉLÈNE RICHARD, edsLes globes de Louis XIV. Étude artistique, historique et matérielle. Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2012.
Review: R. Abad in DSS 264 (2014), 571-572. The second volume of papers produced from the 2007 colloquium held at the BN to commemorate the restoration of Venetian cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli’s globes offered to Louis XIV by César d’Estrées, the book considers the complex motivations of the three aforementioned figures (Part 1), analyzes globes as artistic and scientific objects in their own right (Part 2), summarizes the history of the BN’s acquisition of the globes (Part 3), and features technical analyses about the restoration process (Part 4).
RACEVSKIS, ROLAND. “Cyrano’s Posthuman Moon: Comic Inversions and Animist Relations.” SYM 69.4 (2015), 214-227.
Analyzes the critique of humanism and human exceptionalism in L’Autre Monde and Les Etats et Empires du Soleil through ecocritical and posthumanist frameworks, arguing that the texts should be considered both science fiction and comic fiction. Places Cyrano in dialogue with 21st-century problems defining the anthropocene.
BOUCHILLOUX, HÉLÈNE. “ Le cogito de la Seconde Méditation : une protestation contre le Malin génie ”. RPFE 140.1 (2015), 3-16.
L’auteur voudrait “ mettre en lumière une spécificité, occultée par les commentateurs, du cogito de la Seconde Méditation : l’ouverture d’un véritable débat avec le scepticisme ”.
BRAIDER, CHRISTOPHER. The Matter of Mind: Reason and Experience in the Age of Descartes. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
Review: H. Bjornstad in PFSCL XLVIII, 84 (2016), 109-111. A “challenge to the place of the dualist Cartesian subject as the crucial turning point on the way to modernity, countering not only accounts celebrating the Cartesian threshold moment (from Hans Blumberg to Jonathan Israel) but also decrying it (from Adorno to Foucault)" that is “supremely ambitious and utterly successful.” Following an introduction that “importantly shifts the emphasis from reasons to experience as the central concept that best enables us to grasp the major intellectual stakes of the period,” six chapters “so rich both in the breadth of their contextualizations and in the depth of their critical engagement as to contain the germ of a monograph of its own” analyze D’s Meditations, Poussinian art, Cornelian tragic poetry, the Moliéresque stage, Pascal’s Pensée, and Boileau’s “Sur l’Équivoque.”
Review: E. McClure CdDs XVI, 1 (2015), 109–111. Braider challenges the myth of Descartes as “tenacious idol to which most accounts of the early modern West pay homage” and instead centers his account of seventeenth-century French culture on the influence of Montaigne, "plac[ing] the age of classicism against the messiness of contingent embodiment rather than, say, against the geometric reflecting pools of Versailles." For Braider, "Descartes does, in the end, provide a useful framework through which to view the century, but only insofar as his aspiration for the clear, the distinct, and the universal is undercut by the inevitable pull of chaotic contingency." Poussin, Corneille, Molière, Pascal, and Boileau are important focus points for Braider and "the wide range of works considered, as well as the looseness of Braider’s theoretical apparatus, can at times lead the reader to wonder to what extent the conflict between universal and particular is specific to seventeenth-century France." In short, "Braider’s efforts to destabilize the classical canon, or, more accurately, to point to the ways in which the canon destabilizes itself" resonate with contemporary critical questions and "Braider’s provocative arguments, supported by readings that are often no less than ingenious, are a joy to read."
BUZON, FRÉDÉRIC DE. La Science cartésienne et son objet. Mathesis et phénomène. Paris : Honoré Champion, 2013.
Review: P. Dumont in RPFE 141.2 (2016), 295-296. “ La plupart des chapitres sont une reprise d’articles déjà parus, en vue de mettre à la disposition du public l’ensemble des productions de l’auteur sur la question. Une introduction cherche, comme il est d’usage, une unité de l’ouvrage dans le refus d’envisager un Descartes d’abord mathématicien puis devenu métaphysicien, en 1641, pour fonder la science : les Méditations métaphysiques marquent une décision ‘restée relativement inaperçue’ de modifier l’objet des mathématiques (figure et mouvement, au lieu de nombre et figure) pour pouvoir faire entrer les principes mécaniques des corps ‘sous le concept de mathesis’ ”.
CARRAUD, VINCENT & RENAUD VERDON. “Remarques circonspectes sur la mort de Descartes.” DSS 265 (2014), 719-726.
Refutes the rumor substantiated by Theodor Ebert in L’énigme de la mort de Descartes (2009) that Descartes perished from arsenic poisoning administered at the hands of the cleric François Viogué, by critically reviewing the flaws in Ebert’s methodology (notably regarding his medical hypotheses). Nevertheless defends the book’s utility for presenting testimonials of Descartes’ death.
CASSAN, ÉLODIE. Bacon et Descartes. Genèse de la modernité philosophique. Lyon : ENS éditions, 2014.
Review: P. Dumont in RPFE 141.2 (2016), 296-297. “Ce recueil est issu d’une journée d’étude (décembre 2011) regroupant des chercheurs français et italiens. Une introduction érudite fait le point sur les théories contemporaines concernant rapprochements et oppositions entre Descartes et Bacon, ainsi que sur la réception de Bacon, en France, au XVIIe siècle ”.
CASSAN, ÉLODIE. Les Chemins cartésiens du jugement. Paris : Honoré Champion, 2015.
Review: D. Simonetta in RPFE 141.2 (2016), 297-298. Selon le critique, s’il est courant de considérer que la réflexion de Descartes sur la “ méthode ” a été dépassée par une réflexion sur la “ métaphysique ”, l’originalité du livre de Cassan consiste d’abord à des démarquer de ces perspectives. “ Elle aussi cherche à rendre compte de l’évolution de l’œuvre de Descartes, mais elle remarque que cette évolution se produit à l’intérieur d’une même réflexion continuée sur la science, qui traverse les ‘moments’ successifs. Pour le montrer, elle étudie un terme moins immédiatement visible que ceux de ‘méthode’ ou ‘métaphysique’ : le ‘jugement’. … Formellement ce livre est un tour de force, puisqu’il condense en 136 pages le contenu d’une thèse de doctorat qui en comptait près de 700 ”.
Review: M. Moriarty in FS 70.3 (2016), 431-432. A fresh approach to the problem of judgement in Descartes that argues against the reduction to psychology or subjectivity. Reviews previous critical approaches to help develop her own, in which she reconstructs what Descartes would have been taught concerning judgement and how his method both differed from what he was taught and evolved from the Regulae to the Discours to the Méditations.
DE PERETTI, FRANÇOIS-XAVIER. “Des idées aux choses chez Descartes: Sommes-nous capables d'idées adéquates?” RPL 114 (2016), 193-220.
“La thèse d’une correspondance cartésienne de l’ordre des raisons et de l’ordre des choses garantie par la véracité divine inclinerait à penser que nous sommes capables d’idées adéquates, parfaitement conformes à la réalité extérieure. Or, rien ne semble moins évident à établir chez Descartes. Cet article se propose de montrer que si pour Descartes nous ne sommes pas incapables de vérité, nous n’avons pour autant jamais le privilège, qui reste celui de Dieu, d’une entière et parfaite connaissance des choses. Nous accédons bien à des parts de vérité, mais toute la vérité ne nous revient pas en partage. Et quand bien même ce serait le cas, nous ne saurions le savoir, de sorte que nous serions encore privés d’en jouir. À travers plusieurs considérations développées par Descartes sur les limites de notre capacité de connaître, nous nous attachons à appréhender comment sa démarche lègue à la science moderne les contours d’une philosophie critique de la connaissance.”
DONNEAU DE VISÉ. Les Costeaux, ou, Les marquis frians. Peter William Shoemaker, ed. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2013.
Review: P. Scott in FS 69.4 (2015), 527. A thoroughly researched edition of a one-act comedy written at a time when French cuisine was transitioning into something modern readers might recognize as quintessentially “French.” Although the play was published anonymously, reviewer finds Shoemaker makes a convincing case for de Visé’s authorship and considers this valuable reading for anyone interested in the early modern period.
DUBOUCLEZ, OLIVIER. Descartes et la voie de l’analyse. Paris: PUF, 2013.
Review: P. Scott in FS 69.4 (2015), 527. A thoroughly researched edition of a one-act comedy written at a time when French cuisine was transitioning into something modern readers might recognize as quintessentially “French.” Although the play was published anonymously, reviewer finds Shoemaker makes a convincing case for de Visé’s authorship and considers this valuable reading for anyone interested in the early modern period.
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.
GRESS, THIBAUT. Descartes. Admiration et sensibilité. Paris: PUF, coll. “ Philosophies ”, 2013.
Review: P. Dumont in RPFE 140.2 (2015), 248-249. “ Récusant une tradition qui place la naissance de l’esthétique au XVIIIe siècle, Thibaut Gress propose de remonter jusqu’à Descartes et de chercher des ‘indices permettant de comprendre ce que serait son esthétique’ ”. Le critique remarque qu’il est vrai que “ Descartes est resté parcimonieux en matière artistique et qu’il contraint, aujourd’hui comme hier, ceux qui osent d’y risquer, à spéculer sur ce qu’il a négligé de dire ”.
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.”
MARR, ALEXANDER. “Crowned with Harmless Fire : A New Look at Descartes.” TLS 5841 (March 13 2015), 14-15.
Discusses pastel portraits by Simon Vouet, and argues that the “Portrait of Man Wearing a Collar,” which entered the Louvre collection in 2006, may actually be an early portrait of Descartes.
MURATORI, CECILIA and BURKHARD DOHM, eds. Ethical Perspectives on Animals in the Renaissance and Early Modern Period. Florence: Sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2013.
Review: P. F. Cuneo in Ren Q 68.3 (2015), 1030-1032. The result of two research projects, the volume’s goals are as follows: “To show that the materials revealing ethical perspectives on animals is richer and more complex than previously assumed; and to consider the development of ethical problems from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries without holding to the radical separation between a phase before Descartes and one after Descartes.” Both goals are capably met; 17th c. scholars will appreciate chapter 6, “Descartes on the Moral Status of Animals”. Highly useful both for animal studies and human identity and culture.
PETRESCU, LUCIAN. “Cartesian Meteors and Scholastic Meteors: Descartes against the School in 1637.” JHI 76.1 (2016), 25-45.
“This paper presents the scientific project of Descartes’s Meteors (1637) and integrates it in the development of Descartes’s thought. It assesses Descartes’s publication strategies and the reception of the essay, while drawing attention on its opposition to contemporary Aristotelian meteorology. I argue that Descartes is concerned in The Meteors with advancing an anti-qualitative physics on the basis of an ontological reduction of real accidents to modes. I then analyses Descartes’s nominalist critique of the late-scholastic notion of body from Replies VI, The World and Rule XIV.”
VINCIGUERRA, LUCIEN. La Représentation excessive. Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Pascal. Villeneuve d’Ascq : PU du Septentrion, 2013.
Review : P. Hamou dans RPFE 140.2 (2015) 249-251. L’auteur reprend “ la question de la représentation à l’Âge classique, interrogeant quatre figures philosophiques canoniques ”. Le critique trouve l’analyse de Descartes “ tout à fait remarquable, en particulier en ce qu’elle nous fait comprendre pourquoi nos problèmes (le dualisme, le voile des perceptions, les équivoques sceptiques du représentationnalisme) ne sont pas et ne pouvaient pas être ceux de Descartes ”. Par contre, “ les pages consacrées à Locke, Leibniz ou Pascal sont également très suggestives, mais parfois moins convaincantes ”.
WIENAND, ISABELLE and OLIVIER RIBORDY “La conception cartésienne de l’amour pour Dieu: amour raisonnable et passion.” DSS 265 (2014), 635-650.
Despite preconceptions to the contrary, Descartes does not entirely overlook love. The authors analyze Descartes’ reflections on intellectual or reasonable love, sensual or sensitive love, and love for God in his correspondence and in the Passions de l’âme, contending that each type is predicated upon the union of the body and soul. Suggests that his epistolary works are “de toute première importance pour l’intelligence de sa doctrine de l’amour.”
DU BOSC, JACQUES. L’Honnête Femme: The Respectable Woman in Society and the New Collection of Letters and Responses by Contemporary Women. Eds. Sharon Diane Nell and Aurora Wolfgang. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto series 31. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2014.
Review: R. Wilkin in Ren Q 68.3 (2015), 1067-1068. Important volume for translation of Du B.’s 1658 and 1642 editions of the two works in the title. They counsel women’s education, particularly moral philosophy. Includes a highly readable, well documented introduction, notes, index and wide-ranging bibliography.
CHADUC, PAULINE. Fénelon, direction spirituelle et littéraire. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2015.
Review: N. Hammond in 70.4 (2016), 597-598. At a voluminous 720 pages, reviewer claims this is among the most thorough studies of Fénelon not only as a writer, but also as a spiritual director and theologian, an aspect of his work often neglected beginning in the 1700s, when interest in all things spiritual began to wane. The only thing lacking, according to the reviewer, is any inclusion of or even reference to the considerable English-language scholarship on Fénelon. Otherwise, reviewer highly recommends.
CUCHE, F.-X. and JULIEN GUESLIN, eds. Fénelon et son double. Strasbourg : Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire, 2015.
Review: V. Kapp in PFSCL XLVIII, 84 (2016) 117-118. Collection from an exposition in Strasbourg commemorating the 300-year anniversary of F’s death. “Cuche explique le projet de l’exposition… en invoquant les ‘deux courants que l’on associe aux origines de l’Europe de notre temps’, l’héritage philosophique et l’héritage chrétien, susceptibles ‘d’une double interprétation’" (117). Three essays address Félenon’s role as archbishop of Cambrai. “Cette exposition attire l’attention sur une donnée centrale du destin de Fénelon, que les spécialistes ne pouvaient ignorer, mais qu’on n’a jamais illustré d’une telle manière. C’est pourquoi le catalogue devrait devenir un ouvrage de référence pour toutes les recherches futures sur cet auteur" (118).
SCHAFFER, SIMON. “Fontenelle’s Newton and the Uses of Genius.” E Cr 55.2 (2015), 48-61.
Pertinent consideration of F. as “both emblem and protagonist of the cultural uses of genius.” The concept of both individual and national genius are examined and illustrated through numerous texts of F. and others, including the eulogies/éloges F. formally made in his roles in the academies and his correspondence with prominent Europeans. With references to Newton, Voltaire and others, S. demonstrates “the range of uses of genius in . . . public statements about the development and fate of natural philosophy [ . . . and how] questions of authorship and intellectual property were central in the establishment of the term’s sense.”
HAMMOND, NICHOLAS. “Furetière's Le Roman bourgeois and ‘La Rage de Causer’.” EMFS 37.2 (2015), 126-134.
“This article explores and reassesses Furetière's Le Roman bourgeois (1666), taking as its starting point its Parisian setting, and applying in particular the self-reflexivity of gossip to the narrative construction and digressions of the text. It is argued that the overlap between oral and written discourses forms one of the main unifying factors of the book as is the role played by literal and figurative keys. The article concludes with analysis of the distinction between notions of public and private.”
PETERSCHMITT, LUC. Espace et métaphysique de Gassendi à Kant Anthologie. Paris: Hermann, 2013.
Review: J. Walsh in RPFE 140.2 (2015), 246-248. “The volume is divided into fourteen sections, each devoted to either a philosopher or a group of related philosophers. Each section begins with a helpful short general introduction to the concept of space of each thinker, followed by useful comments on each excerpt of primary text, followed by the primary texts themselves.” In spite of some criticisms, the reviewer writes that this anthology “will be undoubtedly useful for any francophone interested in theories of space in the early modern period and especially for those teaching classes on the topic.”
CONSTANT, JEAN-MARIE. Gaston d’Orléans, prince de la liberté. Paris: Perrin, 2013.
Review: S. Duc in DSS 265 (2014), 744-745. “Une synthèse approfondie […] visant à réévaluer la vie du fils cadet d’Henri IV.” Paradoxically admired in his lifetime and misunderstood or forgotten by history, Gaston d’Orléans nevertheless merits our attention, among other reasons because of his interactions with important political figures from his time. The reviewer praises in particular the careful archival research undertaken in this biography.
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.
LYONS, JOHN D. “Tragedy and Outrage: Hardy’s Scédase.” PQ 93.1 (2014), 43-64.
The author considers the emotional content and effect of Hardy’s Scédase and concludes that “Scédase shows that following [author’s emphasis] the moral law is an error and that ignoring a divine warning is the safe way to proceed,” and that the play must have incited outrage in its audience. Either Hardy was using the theater to convey his own indignation against Church and Crown or he found success in giving the public the opportunity to direct anger at the oppressive institutions of their time.
BRITLAND, KAREN. “Recent Studies of the Life and Cultural Influence of Queen Henrietta Maria.” ELR 45.2 (2015), 303–321.
Important review essay on recent scholarly work on Henriette Marie de France, Reine d’Angleterre, sibling of Louis XIII. Includes sections on “General Studies” (with an essay in the Oxford Dictionary of Natural Biography, for example, as well as other studies on H.-M.’s connections with love, religion and cultural agency) and “Studies of Selected Topics” (concerning her connections and letter writing, print culture, her marriage, political thought, her household and circle, female performance, her court productions, music, dance, patronage, cultural influences and war and exile). 17th c, scholars will especially appreciate the references to two studies: Marie-Claude Canova-Green’s La Politique-spectacle au grand siècle: les rapports franco-anglais (1993) and Melinda Gough’s discussion of H.-M.’s participation in Anne d’Autriche’s 1624 Ballet de la reine in “A Newly Discovered Performance by Henrietta Maria,” HLQ 65 (2002), 435-437. In addition to a short assessment on the radically changed state of criticism on H.-M., a bibliography of another 40 sources is included.
LEVEAU, ERIC. “La réception d’Érasme dans les Caractères de La Bruyère.” RR 104.3/4 (2013), 293-311.
Author examines and contextualizes a direct citation in Latin from Erasmus’s Letter to Martin Dorp (1515) contained in the fourth edition of La Bruyère’s Caractères (1689), in order to highlight the thematic echoes between the writings of these two authors, and to show how Erasmian thought influenced the fluid, ever-evolving philosophy of the Caractères.
CONNORS, LOGAN J. “Increasing Engagement in French and Francophone Studies: Structured Journaling on the Emotions in La Fayette’s La princesse de Clèves,” PMLA 130.5 (2015) 1476-1480.
Pedagogical piece recounting the author’s experience teaching the novella through a structured close-reading project that encouraged students both to become better readers and to appreciate the transferable skills acquired in humanities courses. Offers specific strategies to attract undergraduates to early modern French studies.
ROHOU, JEAN and GILLES SIOUFI. Lectures de Madame de Lafayette. Rennes: PU de Rennes, 2015.
Review: J. Lyons in FS 70.4 (2016), 597. Although title may suggest an edited collection, this is actually a co-authored monograph whose intended audience is teachers and advanced learners of French. Includes both Lafayette’s biography and an analysis of her works, with a heavy focus on La Princesse de Clèves. Despite a lack of English-language sources in the bibliography and some problems with the index, reviewer highly recommends.
SIOUFFI, GILLES. “Après une lecture de La Princesse de Clèves.” DSS 265 (2014), 727-732.
Reviews the reading of excerpts from La PdC by Eugène Green, Benjamin Lazar, and Louise Moati at the colloquium “La Princesse de Clèves 2014: anatomie d’une fascination.” Considers the difficulties in ascertaining with certainty the “correct” diction and pronunciation of 17th-century texts, as well as whether concerns with “faithful reconstitutions” should be considered for 21st-century audiences (and beyond).
MORGANTE, JOLE. Quand les vers sont bien composés. Variation et finesse, l’art des “Contes et nouvelles en vers” de La Fontaine, avec une préface de Cesare Segre. Berne: Peter Lang, 2013.
Review: A. Génetiot in S Fr 172 (2014), 138-140. Praiseworthy structural and narratological examination of a corpus of 75 poems demonstrates the convergence of the two genres, contes and fables, and the importance of the former, as the reviewer says, “trop souvent négligés et jugé frivoles en raison des préjugés anti-mondain et anti-libertin.” M.’s study is organized into the following sections: “Statut problématique des Contes,” “Contes et Nouvelles: un corpus autonome,” “Complexité énonciative des Contes” and “Interdiscursivité et Finalité communicative.”
DE LA MESNARDIÈRE, HIPPOLYTE JULES PILET. La Poétique. Jean-Marc Civardi, ed. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2015.
Review: J. Harris in FS 70.2 (2016), 256-257. The first critical edition, and first printing since 1972, of one of the earliest influential works concerning French dramatic theory. While it may not have the same weight as treatises by d’Aubignac or Corneille, Civardi’s contextualization of La Mesnardières’s work shows that it is nonetheless significant, particularly for the way it points toward the neoclassical theater yet to come.
LA MOTHE LE VAYER, FRANÇOIS DE. Dialogues faits à l’imitation des Anciens. Ed. critique par Bruno Roche. Paris : Honoré Champion, 2015.
Review : M.-F. Pellegrin in RPFE 141.2 (2016), 288-289 : “Si, à l’échelle de l’œuvre entière du libertin, l’idée de distinguer un ‘vrai Le Vayer’ d’un faux paraît difficile et finalement peu légitime (car contraire à la pratique sceptique elle-même renonçant au vrai et au faux), à l’échelle de ces neuf dialogues, le travail de Bruno Roche (appareil de notes et argument analytique au début de chaque dialogue) aide grandement à comprendre un ensemble de texte qui montrent ce que peut être une pratique intellectuelle moderne du pyrrhonisme, qui examine aussi bien la physique que la morale ou la religion en mobilisant des arguments pro et contra solides dans une ambiance relativiste réjouissante.”
Review: J. Goodman in FS 70.2 (2016), 256. The first ever complete scholarly edition of a text whose importance the author himself ostensibly disavowed. The nine dialogs, accompanied by Bayle’s “Vayer” dictionary entry and remarks, as well as a substantial, well-constructed critical apparatus, expose and explore Le Vayer’s thoughts on skeptical philosophy. An invaluable resource that places the author in his literary, philosophical, and social context and helps understand not only his work, but also the broader context of libertine thought.
DIONNE, VALÉRIE. “Le Sourire canin de Montaigne et de La Mothe le Vayer, ou la vertu cynique du libertin.” EMFS 37.1 (2015), 2-13.
“Le cynisme a suscité au cours de l’histoire de vives controverses. D’un côté, les partisans de cette philosophie justifient le cynisme des Anciens comme une pratique juste qui se présente sous la conduite de mère Nature. D’un autre côté, on entend la voix des détracteurs qui contestent la vie menée par ces philosophes cyniques comme inappropriée et indécente. En prenant part à ce débat, cet article montre que Montaigne et La Mothe Le Vayer revisitent l’opposition cynique entre nature et culture pour s’attacher plus particulièrement au thème de l’universalisme augustinien de la pudeur appartenant à la nature post-lapsaire de l’homme. Nos philosophes s’emploient à citer et représenter Diogène afin de déstabiliser cette perspective universaliste. Grâce aux cyniques, Montaigne et La Mothe Le Vayer peuvent ainsi exposer une nature pluraliste où les ‘lois naturelles’ sont spéculatives, complexes et souvent contradictoires. Cet essai établit que ces deux philosophes libertins recourent au cynisme dans le but de libérer les esprits et d’éveiller le jugement critique des citoyens afin qu’ils remettent en question les vérités dites universelles de ce qui est juste ou immanent à l’homme.”
HOGG, CHLOÉ. “Subject of Passions: Charles Le Brun and the Emotions of Absolutism.” PQ 93.1 (2014), 65-94.
The author demonstrates “how early modern discourses of the passions that focused on the figure of the prince (or his minister stand-in) might lend themselves to imagining the subject, and her emotional agency as well. Thus Le Brun transforms an affective exemplar for princes—the scene of Alexander’s magnanimity before the captive queens of Persia—into a visual exploration of the passions of the subject.”
CLAUSSEN, EMMA. “A Sixteenth-Century Modern? Ancients and Moderns in Loys Le Roy's De la Vicissitude.” EMFS 37.2 (2015), 76-92.
“Loys Le Roy's final work, De la Vicissitude ou variété des choses en l'univers (1575), has often been cited as one of the earliest Modern interventions in the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes. This article explores what might be Modern about this text via a close reading of its final chapter. It draws on Cave's theory of pre-histories to situate Le Roy within the broader context of the Querelle as well as to offer a reading of Le Roy's juxtaposition of ancient and modern culture that restores a sense of the particularity both of the work itself and of the immediate context of the work's composition and publication. In investigating how Le Roy might be considered ‘Modern’, it explores his treatment of the themes of imitation, translation, growth and decay, and the development of new genres or kinds of writing, as informed by contemporary humanist debates, as well as by the context of the French civil wars. It is argued that Le Roy's view of ancients and moderns is informed both by his understanding of history and by a dual conception of time, which lead him to invest cautiously in the idea of greater, or more perfect, cultural production in the future.”
DE LESCLACHE, LOUIS. La Rhétorique ou l’éloquence française by Louis de Lesclache. LE GUERN, MICHEL, ed. 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.
DE L’ESTOILE, PIERRE. Journal du règne de Henri IV, Tome II: 1592–1594 (transcription Ms. fr. 10299 et 25004 de la BnF). Eds. XAVIER LE PERSON and GILBERT SCHRENCK. With VOLKER MECKING. Textes Littéraires Français 630. Geneva: Droz, 2014.
Review: N. Kuperty-Tsur in Ren Q 68.4 (2015), 1402-1403. Completes the set of “registre-journaux” of Pierre de l’Estoile. This volume focuses on Henri IV’s conversion to Catholicism and his entrée into Paris. Includes references to several genres such as pamphlets and satirical verse. With a short preface, rich notes, a 25-page lexicon, a glossary and a bibliography.
MARAL, ALEXANDRE. Le Roi-Soleil et Dieu. Paris: Librairie académique Perrin, 2012.
Review: X. Bisaro in DSS 264 (2014), 573-574. The reviewer praises the author’s ability to succinctly and powerfully synthesize the complexity of the religious polemics during Louis XIV’s reign, as well as the originality of certain arguments and the multidisciplinary methodological approach. Despite mentioning several weaknesses (stylistic and substantive), B. concludes that the study proposes “un aperçu érudit et accessible du règne de Louis XIV, tout en en dévoilant des aspects aussi captivants que mal connus.”
MONGENOT, CH. and M. E. PLAGNOL-DIÉVAL. Madame de Maintenon. Une femme de lettres? Rennes: PU de Rennes, 2012.
Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 172 (2014), 140. The essays in this volume seek to answer the question “Qui était Madame de Maintenon?” through analyses of her correspondence and pedagogical writings. Focusing on rhetorical and esthetic dimensions and reflecting on the reception of M., the volume is a welcome corrective to an often depreciative view.
ANTOINE-MAHUT, DELPHINE. “ Malebranche sur le terrain des théories contemporaines de la reconnaissance : un révélateur ”. RPFE 140.4 (2015), 529-538.
L’auteur propose de mettre en valeur une philosophie malbranchiste éthique et politique, afin d’en découvrir la richesse concernant la question de la reconnaissance.
ARBIB, DAN. “ Malebranche, le stoïcisme et les trois erreurs de l’orgueil ”. RPFE 140.4 (2015), 505-524.
“ La grâce malebranchiste se trouve donc prise entre la rupture de l’affectivité et l’inscription au cœur de l’affectivité. C’est pourquoi elle se donne elle-même comme plaisir, et n’ôte ni la vulnérabilité ni la douleur : elle satisfait la vérité de l’épicurisme naturel sans pour autant relever de la nature… tel est son paradoxe ”.
BARDOUT, JEAN-CHRISTOPHE. “ Malebranche et les mondes impossibles ”. RPFE 140.4 (2015), 473-490.
L’auteur commence avec l’hypothèse de Malbranche que la mise en œuvre d’une justification métaphysique du choix divin et la thèse selon laquelle notre monde est nécessairement le meilleur de tous les possibles impliquent un certain nombre d’ingrédients doctrinaux et de réquisits théoriques. L’auteur met en évidence trois difficultés dans la philosophie de Malebranche qui rendent cette hypothèse problématique.
GENY, VINCENT. “ Le plaisir et la grâce chez Malebranche ”. RPFE 140.4 (2015), 491-504.
L’auteur montre la logique des liens entre les concepts du plaisir et de la grâce chez Malebranche car il trouve que “ c’est de façon parfaitement cohérente que la philosophie malebranchienne tire ses conclusions, dans l’ordre de la nature comme dans l’ordre de la grâce, de notre expérience immédiate, quotidienne et ‘sentimentale’ du monde ”.
GORI, GIAMBATTISTA. “ Il filosofo e la sua famiglia. Contributo alla storia di Malebranche vivant ”. RPFE 140.4 (2015), 457-472.
“ Gori met au jour des archives familiales (rôle de son oncle maternel et de son frère aîné notamment) lui permettant de reconsidérer certains aspects de la formation de la pensée de Malebranche, sur le plan scientifique (questions mathématiques) et théologique (querelle janséniste) ” (Pellegrin, M.-F., “ Malebranche mort ou vif ” RPFE 140.4 (2015), 451-452.)
PELLEGRIN, MARIE-FRÉDÉRIQUE. “Malebranche mort ou vif.” RPFE 140.4 (2015), 451-455.
L’auteur se sert des Entretiens sur la mort comme fil conducteur pour présenter les cinq articles réunis dans ce volume qui commémore le trois-centième anniversaire de la mort de Malebranche. L’auteur explique que célébrer la mort de Malebranche, “ c’est constater ce que signifie la vie véritable selon lui : ‘ma vie, la vie d’un esprit, car mon corps n’est pas à moi, c’est la lumière qui m’éclaire, et qui me réjouit. ”
ROUX, ALEXANDRA. “Robert Challe et Malebranche: de la recherche de la vérité à la recherche de la vraie religion.” DSS 265 (2014), 651-675.
Considers Robert Challe (whose works were only rediscovered in the 20th century) as a reader of Malebranche, specifically analyzing the ways in which Challe subverts Malebranche’s writings to articulate a Deist philosophy.
HORSLEY, ADAM. “Le Président libertin: The Poetry of François Maynard after the Trial of Théophile de Viau.” EMFS 37.2 (2015), 93-107.
“The poet François Maynard is remembered as a disciple of Malherbe, a one-time member of Théophile de Viau's libertin entourage, and a master of the epigram. Yet he is also known for having abandoned Théophile during the latter's trial in order to focus his efforts on his political career and on perfecting his poetry. The purpose of this article is to suggest that, contrary to the popular notion of a linear progression in Maynard's life from a libertin to a devout statesman, Maynard was interested in pursuing political alliances before Théophile's trial and fond of composing obscene and irreligious poetry long after Théophile's death. Beginning with a description of the dominant discourse surrounding Maynard's biography at the time of Théophile's trial, this article presents neglected archival evidence attesting to Maynard's earlier moves to ally himself with powerful families of Toulouse's legal classes. It then explores Maynard's apparently libertin poems, appearing in manuscripts unpublished during his lifetime, that were composed after Théophile's trial. The article concludes by suggesting that Théophile's trial may have led Maynard to restrict the dissemination of his libertin verse to manuscripts shared between trusted friends, but that it did not cause him to cease composing such poems entirely.”
ALBANESE, RALPH. "Ruses et stratégies discursives dans L’Ecole des Maris." CdDs XVI, 1 (2015), 35–47.
The author examines language and miscommunication in the play, focusing on how Sganarelle is unable to communicate while Isabelle masters oblique discourse to manipulate her tutor. In the end, Sganarelle is essentially a victim of a ruse of his own making and his defeat shows how he is permanently incapable of being socialized.
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).
CALL, MICHAEL. The Would-Be Author: Molière and the Comedy of Print. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2015.
Review: S. Fleck in PFSCL XLVIII, 84 (2016) 111-114. Study explores the “changing nature of authorship and its social, legal, and literary implications” in Molière’s œuvre, with a focus on the “double status of ‘Molière’ during his lifetime, stage name increasingly becoming pen name, ‘Molière’s authorship essentially becom[ing] on of his many roles.” “While it is not clear that despite its solid grounding in a wide range of scholarship this study breaks genuinely new ground in such an historically long and overcrowded, if still rather murky field, it is nonetheless a comprehensive and frequently thought-provoking vademecum to the complex questions surrounding Molière’s evolving status as author during his lifetime.”
Review: N. Peacock in FS 70.4 (2016), 595-596. Although Call is not the first scholar to challenge previous beliefs regarding Molière and his stance on publication, this is the first book-length study of the playwright as published author and his interactions with the bookselling world. Reviewer finds this a “subtle, illuminating study is a stimulating contribution to Molière bibliography and to our knowledge of the French book trade in the mid-seventeenth century.”
CORNUAILLE, PHILIPPE. Les Décors de Molière 1658-1674. Paris: PU Paris-Sorbonne, 2015.
Review: M. Hawcroft in FS 70.4 (2016), 596-597. An effort to assemble all extant evidence of Molière’s theater sets, however fragmented it may be. A first part looks at seventeenth century theater in general, particularly set design and construction, then two additional sections take Molière’s plays on a case-by-case basis. Not all the plays have the same quantity or quality of documentation available, which the author acknowledges. Sheds new light on the theater of Molière, in part by laying to rest the notion that Chauveau’s and Brissart’s illustrations were representative of the playwright’s actual practice.
FIORENTINO, FRANCESCO. “Il servo coadiuvante nel teatro di Molière. Mascarille e Scapin.” S Fr 173 (2014), 249-256.
Close and well documented examination of the diverse dramatic functions of two servants in key plays of M.: L’Etourdi, Les Précieuses ridicules, and Les Fourberies. Convincing demonstration of Mascarille and Scapin’s reversal of the hierarchy of values.
FREIDEL, NATHALIE. "La ruse du nom, machination rhétorique dans Amphitryon de Molière." CdDs XVI, 1 (2015), 18–34.
Under the cover of a mythological subject, Molière continues the battle begun with Tartuffe in Amphitryon, producing a spectacularly luxurious machine-driven play meant to distract from its controversial message which adapts the argument of La Lettre sur l'Imposteur to the stage.
LECOUTRE, MATTHIEU and GOULVEN OIRY. “Les ‘barbouillés’: le vin et l’ivresse dans l’oeuvre de Molière.” S Fr 172 (2014), 37-45.
Careful systematic analysis of wine and drunkenness chez M. Despite drunkenness being considered a vice, it is prevalent, particularly as relating to satire and stock characters. Includes sidelights on “l’honnête homme” and the various classes of society depicted as imbibers. The intermèdes and their music, along with the ballets, receive consideration. While references to wine are numerous in M. and provide much humor, little wine is consumed. Well documented study includes notes regarding M.’s decision not to evoke the drunkenness of nobles, unlike other writers of the time such as Saint-Simon and Madame Palatine (39, n. 32).
MORVANT, EGLANTINE. "La vie moderne selon Molière : à hauteur de conscience de soi et de responsabilité devant la communauté dans Tartuffe, Le Festin de Pierre, et Le Misanthrope." CdDs XV, 2 (2014), 189–204.
In these three plays, Molière contrasts the inertia of a monarchical society with the active, modern individuality of the principal charcaters in order to contemplate the proper balance between responsibility for the individual and the collective.
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.
HARVEY, SARA. Entre littérature galante et objet précieux. Étude et édition critique des Divers portraits de Mademoiselle de Montpensier (1659). Paris: Hermann (La République des Lettres), 2013.
Review: A. Amatuzzi in S Fr 174 (2014), 590. Welcome critical edition includes a study with historical, literary and linguistic notes, as well as biographical notes on personages in M.’s portraits. Sections of the critical study focus on origins of the “portrait mondain,” the various elements of M.’s work, and the publication history and reception.
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.
CLERMIDY-PATARD, G. Madame de Murat et la “défense des dames”. Un discours au féminin à la fin du règne de Louis XIV. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2012.
Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 173 (2014), 360. This welcome first biography of Madame du Murat, after reconstructing her scandalous life, analyzes her heterogeneous work, some still not clearly classified, and helps us appreciate the aspirations of this aristocratic and ambitious lady. Appendix and rich bibliography.
SCHINO, ANNA LISA. Battaglie libertine. La Vita e le opera di Gabriel Naudé. Florence : Le Lettere, 2015.
Review: J.-P. Cavaillé in RPFE 141.2 (2016), 289-291. “ Ces batailles libertines. Vie et œuvres de Gabriel Naudé constituent un ouvrage important sur le fameux érudit bibliothécaire, considéré comme l’un des représentants majeurs de ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler, depuis René Pintard, le ‘libertinage érudit’. Il s’agit d’ailleurs d’un livre lui-même très érudit, tout à fit représentatif de l’histoire des idées à l’italienne, d’une grande rigueur descriptive (par exemple dans le comparatisme serré des auteurs dont les relations sont explicites), historiographique (multiples références aux collègues) et philologique (ici, il n’est pas question de traduire une citation française ou latine, le lecteur visé est nécessairement polyglotte !) ”.
ARNAULD, ANTOINE et PIERRE NICOLE. La Logique, ou l’art de penser. D. Descotes, éd. Paris : Honoré Champion, 2014.
Review: H. Dilberman in RPFE 141.2 (2016) 294-295. “ Cette édition critique de la Logique de Port-Royal ne mérite que des éloges, et d’abord parce qu’elle constitue un objet très élégant sous sa belle couverture blanche et bleue—une élégance toute classique. L’on appréciera tout autant la lisibilité parfaite de l’ouvrage : l’apparat critique, abaondant mais très éclairant, se trouve en bas de page, ce qui préserve le fil de la lecture. Je m’attarderai surtout sur l’excellente introduction de Dominique Descotes, qui explique fort bien les raisons du choix de l’édition de 1664. On trouvera d’ailleurs dans une section à part les chapitres de 1662 remaniés en 1664 ainsi que les chapitres ajoutés en 1683 ”.
CANTILLON, ALAIN. Le ‘Pari-de-Pascal’: étude littéraire d’une série d’énonciations. Paris: Vrin/EHESS, 2014.
Review: R. Parish in FS 69.3 (2015), 387-88. Traces the transcription and publication history of what is “misleadingly called the wager argument.” Raises important questions in a style reviewer finds “trenchant and energetic throughout, at times ironic, and mostly persuasive.”
HUNTER, GRAEME. Pascal the Philosopher: An Introduction. Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 2013.
Review: T. Chamberlain in UTQ 84.3 (summer 2015), 232-234. The author’s principal argument is that Pascal should be taken seriously as a philosopher. The critic states that “this is a wonderful book” but has some friendly criticisms. He concludes that “Hunter’s analysis is welcomed and appreciated insofar as it sheds light on the failures of philosophy and points to Pascal as a potential guide, although it does not match the full extent of Pascal’s reinterpretation of it.”
KAZMAIER, DANIEL. “(How) Leisure Works: Writing as an Ethical Practice in Pascal.” MLN 130.4 (2015), 791-806.
Analyzes Pascal’s Pensées through the lens of otium, arguing that the text’s incomplete status complicates the connection between leisure and intellectual work. Considers Pascal’s work on the manuscript of the Pensées to examine writing’s double status as concrete literary work and as creating the very possibility for leisure.
QUANTIN, JEAN-LOUIS. “‘Si mes Lettres sont condamnées à Rome... ‘Les Provinciales devant le Saint-Office.” DSS 265 (2014), 587-617.
Analysis of the condemnation of the Lettres provinciales and other Jansenist works based on archives from the Stanza Storica, including an appendix with transcriptions of primary documents. Provides details on the officials involved in the condemnation.
VINCIGUERRA, LUCIEN. La Représentation excessive. Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Pascal. Villeneuve d’Ascq : PU du Septentrion, coll. “ Philosophie moderne ”, 2013.
Review: P. Hamou dans RPFE 140.2 (2015) 249-251. L’auteur reprend “ la question de la représentation à l’Âge classique, interrogeant quatre figures philosophiques canoniques ”. Le critique trouve l’analyse de Descartes “ tout à fait remarquable, en particulier en ce qu’elle nous fait comprendre pourquoi nos problèmes (le dualisme, le voile des perceptions, les équivoques sceptiques du représentationnalisme) ne sont pas et ne pouvaient pas être ceux de Descartes ”. Par contre, “ les pages consacrées à Locke, Leibniz ou Pascal sont également très suggestives, mais parfois moins convaincantes ”.
COJONNOT-LE BLANC, MARIANNE. “Les artistes privés de l’invention? Réflexions sur les ‘desseins’ de Charles et Claude Perrault pour les Bâtiments du roi dans les années 1660.” DSS 264 (2014), 467-479.
Studies the collaboration between Charles and Claude Perrault, as well as between Charles, Le Brun, Claude II Audran, and Girardon, in the design and execution of paintings, sculptures, and gardens at Versailles. Defends collaboration as crucial to the process of inventio.
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.”
MICHAELIS-VULTORIUS, ALEXANDRA. “Christmas Story with a Fairy-Tale Twist: Paul Arène’s The Gospel According to Saint Perrault.” M&T 29.2 (2015), 343-351.
“This unorthodox Christmas story by the nineteenth-century French author Paul Arène appeared in Nouveaux Contes de Noël (New Christmas Stories, 1890). “The Gospel According to Saint Perrault” is a recast of the Nativity told from the perspective of a 4-year-old girl, who incorporates into the biblical account characters and events from Charles Perrault’s Histoires ou contes du temps passé.”
NORMAN, LARRY F. “La Pensée esthétique de Charles Perrault.” DSS 264 (2014), 481-492.
Uses Perrault’s praise for the “faux antique” in the Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes as a springboard for a closer examination of Perrault’s reflection on aesthetics. Argues that Perrault’s polemic interventions develop and advance his aesthetic system based on sens, émotion, raison: “Admettre l’instrumentalité polémique des positions adoptées par Perrault n’entraîne cependant pas la négation de leur valeur intellectuelle ni l’annulation de leurs implications esthétiques.”
PERRAULT, CHARLES. Contes. Ed. Tony Gheeraert. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2012.
Review: C. Trinquet du Lys in M&T 30.1 (2016), 113-115. Reviewer: “has the immense merit of being a comprehensive collection of Perrault’s writings in the genre, including his versified tales, prose tales […], and prefaces, dedications, contemporary letters, and contemporary articles on the subject.” An excellent single volume for reading Perrault’s work in its entirety; reviewer regrets only that recent North American scholarship was not incorporated into the introduction, bibliography, and notes.
SEIFERT, LEWIS. “Queer Time in Charles Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty.” M&T 29.1 (2015), 21-41.
“I argue that alongside moments of undeniable misogyny, “Sleeping Beauty” (“La Belle au bois dormant”) of Charles Perrault presents time in ways that disrupt the heterosexual marriage plot and open the possibility for deviant desires. Various temporal disjunctions—specifically, cyclical time, nonsequentiality, suspension, and anachronism—detract from the inevitability of a heteronormative happy ending. Neither the first part of the tale, Sleeping Beauty’s story, nor the second, the Ogress Queen’s story, progress according to an ordered sequence, and neither provides a definitive assurance of a heteroreproductive future. The final versed morals also cast doubt on the possibility of any sort of happy ending by purporting that women’s eagerness for marriage leads to unsuitable mates. But a suggestion by the narrator that Sleeping Beauty’s dreams, granted by her fairy godmother, have an erotic dimension creates the possibility of queer readings, even as it makes her awakening and her life with the prince a heteronormative nightmare.”
ZÉKIAN, STÉPHANE. “Inactualité d’un Moderne au XIXe siècle: Charles Perrault à l’épreuve de l’histoire.” DSS 264 (2014), 493-507.
Examines the reception of Charles Perrault in the 19th century, a period during which Z. contends that the author was misunderstood and his oeuvre reduced to his Contes.
COJONNOT-LE BLANC, MARIANNE. “Les artistes privés de l’invention? Réflexions sur les ‘desseins’ de Charles et Claude Perrault pour les Bâtiments du roi dans les années 1660.” DSS 264 (2014), 467-479.
Studies the collaboration between Charles and Claude Perrault, as well as between Charles, Le Brun, Claude II Audran, and Girardon, in the design and execution of paintings, sculptures, and gardens at Versailles. Defends collaboration as crucial to the process of inventio.
LESAULNIER, JEAN. “Nicolas Perrault, théologien de Port-Royal 1624-1661.” DSS 264 (2014), 417-427.
Studies the interventions of Nicolas Perrault in the polemic surrounding Jansenism and the condemnation of Antoine Arnauld. Offers a nuanced perspective on Perrault’s role in the publication of the Lettres provinciales.
LECLERC, JEAN and CLAUDINE NÉDELEC. “Pierre Perrault critique littéraire.” DSS 264 (2014), 429-445.
Examines Pierre Perrault’s activity as a literary critic in the final six years of his life, specifically arguments developed in the 1670s in the prelude to the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, as well as his participation in the development of a “poétique du rire.”
BURY, EMMANUEL. “Théorie et pratique de la traduction chez les frères Perrault.” DSS 264 (2014), 447-466.
Frames the translation work undertaken by the Perrault brothers as an indispensable theoretical and pragmatic “touchstone” with their defense of Modern values during the Querelle des anciens et modernes.
LECLERC, JEAN. “L’allégorie à l’épreuve de la raison et du ridicule: l’exemple des oeuvres burlesques des frères Perrault” 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. 241-252.
“Que ce soit dans la littérature burlesque ou dans toute autre forme d’art à l’âge classique, le mythe appelle une application, une interprétation ou un déplacement du sens littéral vers un sens allégorique. Les poésies burlesques des Perrault montrent bien que, même si l’allégorie est battue en brèche autant comme pratique herméneutique que comme procédé rhétorique, elles continuent à fasciner des auteurs et à constituer un mode légitime d’expression poétique, eût-il besoin de la distance qu’apportent l’ironie et la satire.”
NEDELEC, CL. 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.
RABINOVITCH, ODED. “Stratégies familiales, carrières littéraires et capitalisme de cour dans la famille Perrault.” DSS 264 (2014), 403-415.
Considers the careers of the Perrault brothers as a case study to understand the complex relationship between writing and socioeconomic ascension in an era of “court capitalism.” Argues for a closer examination of the link between literary activity and social mobility.
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. Préface par PHILIPPE SELLIER. Paris: Champion, 2012.
Review: F. Forner in S Fr 174 (2014), 591-592. Comprehensive and praiseworthy examination includes analyses of the epistolary in a religious institution in general as well as in Port-Royal in particular. Wide-ranging examination investigates importance of St. Augustine’s work, notably in relation to “amour-propre” and love for God, the style and length of the letters, the daily life of Port-Royal, the letter as means of defense of the community, the centrality of the letter, among other useful aspects. Numerous photographic reproductions of letters are included as is a genealogical tree of the Arnauld family.
GAILLIARD, AURÉLIA. “Fable et allégorie à la fin du XVIIe siècle ou “ comment on doit suppléer au manquement du subjet ” (Poussin)” 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. 77-89.
“On sait également qu’à partir de ces mêmes années 1670-1680, s’amorce un scission et que la fable, cible de critiques de plus en plus virulentes de la part des Modernes, va de moins en moins servir de sujet allégorique. Que se passe-t-il alors quand le sujet fabuleux n’est plus compris comme allégorique ? Ou risque d’être mal compris ? [L’auteur va] étudier quelques débats suscités par cette question à l’époque ainsi que quelques réponses (provisoires) apportées, selon trois types de réactions, très inégalement traitées : l’étonnement voire l’incompréhension, l’abandon ou la reprogrammation, enfin, le détournement ou le recyclage.”
MORRIS, HERBERT. "The Absent and Present Serpent in Nicolas Poussin’s Spring." CdDs XVI, 1 (2015), 63–76.
Poussin's decision not to include an image of a serpent in Spring's representation of Adam and Eve in Eden is unusual, especially considering the symbolic importance of serpents in his work, especially in Winter, a companion piece to Spring in his cycle of the four seasons. The author argues that Poussin "gains something from non-representation of the Serpent," and that the serpent is indeed present "in the Tree of Life, offering a deceptively appealing illusion." Finally, he concludes that Poussin in Spring offers "a radical and illuminating revision of the biblical tale of Adam and Eve from a Stoic perspective on life."
COHEN, HENRY. "Racine’s Esther: In Praise of Historiographers and Historians." CdDs XVI, 1 (2015), 77–92.
Racine represents Esther as a historian of sorts, in that she offers up narratives of events for use by those who have ordered them to be chronicled. Assuérus thus becomes a student of history, and historiography rather than divine intervention becomes the agent of liberation of the Jews of Persia. Racine's own experience as a royal historiographer adds an additional layer to his contemplation of the importance of history for governing the state.
COSTE, CLAUDE. “‘ J’ai toujours eu envie d’argumenter mes humeurs’ : Savoir et subjectivité dans La chambre claire et Sur Racine.” E Cr 55.4 (2015), 86-100.
C.’s article is a contribution to this issue of E Cr which is devoted entirely to Roland Barthes. C. proposes a dialogue between the two works cited in the title of this article. He affirms that “le Sur Racine peut se lire . . . comme une réflexion, presque une méditation, sur la forme la plus adéquate pour recueillir cette subjectivité incertaine.” After reminding us of the famous quarrel between Barthes and the Racine specialist Raymond Picard, C. continues his analysis, focusing on B.’s subjectivity and proposing to read Sur Racine as if Racine did not exist. Key plays and heroes are examined as C. focuses on B,’s philosophical eclecticism and personal reflections.
DECLERCQ, GILLES “’Théatre est un palais voûté’ Un cas d’écriture allégorique chez Racine : le récit de Thésée aux Enfers” 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. 163-184.
“Notre propos est d’examiner le statut du récit de Thésée aux Enfers dans la perspective d’une rémanence de la culture allégorique dans le dernier tiers du XVIIe siècle. Postulant que ce récit est un cas tardif et singulier d’écriture allégorique en dramaturgie, nous nous efforcerons consécutivement de dégager les composantes, feuilletées, de sa signification.”
HAMMOND, PAUL. “The Rhetoric of Space and Self in Racine’s Bérénice.” SCFS 36.2 (2014), 141-155.
The author explores the singular and collective spaces created by Racine’s rhetoric in the Roman tragedy Bérénice. Hammond’s analysis of key words repeated throughout the text demonstrates that language functions to unite and separate the characters, alternately creating both intimacy and distance onstage.
KRUER, MEGAN. "Personification, Dissemination, Violence: Jean Racine’s Britannicus." CdDs XV, 2 (2014), 170–188.
The author examines how Racine separates Néron as literary character from the historical personage by focusing on the character of Narcisse who serves as "the personification of the difference constitutive of Néron, and perhaps the self in general." Furthermore, this approach diminishes Néron's position as the violent center of the tragedy, allowing for a re-examination of how violence is diffused through the play as well as the very nature of violence itself.
NATAN, STÉPHANE. “Les questions d’Andromaque: entre révolte et révélation.” SCFS 36.2 (2014), 125-140.
Natan invites a new critical perspective on the eponymous heroine of Racine’s Andromaque (1667). By examining the questions (both rhetorical and direct) spoken by the title character over the course of the play, this article endeavors to redefine Andromaque as being far more complex than her typically idealized persona.
ZAISER, RAINER. “Le sacré et le profane de l’allégorie biblique dans Esther de Racine” 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. 185-195.
“En choisissant un épisode du Livre d’Esther comme source de sa pièce, Racine met en scène une histoire biblique susceptible de suggérer effectivement les trois sens figurés propres à la privation de l’herméneutique sacrée. Cependant, la pièce, dans laquelle l’évidence de la révélation de Dieu est confrontée au constat de son absence, n’est pas exempte d’ambiguïtés. Sur le plan exégétique, l’allégorie biblique de la pièce racinienne est donc loin de s’inscrire harmonieusement dans le schéma interprétatif des quatre sens de l’Écriture : le message divin est par endroits, laissé dans l’imprécision, voire dans l’obscurité.”
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.
GETHNER, PERRY. "The Resurrection Experience in Rotrou." CdDs XV, 2 (2014), 156–169.
This article focuses on the spiritual transformation of Rotrou's characters who either genuinely believe that they died and returned to life (L'Hypocondriaque, La Pèlerine amoureuse, Célie, Dom Lope de Cardone) or were truly resurrected from the dead (Hercule mourant).
CORRARDI, FEDERICO. Saint-Réal, Césarion ou entretiens divers. Introduction et édition critique. Paris: Hermann, “Bibliothèque des littératures classiques,” 2013.
Review: B. Piqué in S Fr 174 (2014), 592-593. This critical edition with introduction and annotations is a welcome reminder of St-R.’s rich and complex work, for example, for its multivalent perspectives and reflections on “politesse,” on history, on “arts de vivre,” the “je,” the form of dialogue, the role of Césarion as “un courtisan désabusé,” among others. The reviewer praises the direction of Patrick Dandrey and the solid culture and critical intelligence of the author/editor.
SCARRON, PAUL. Théâtre complet. Édition critique par Jonathan Carson. Genève : Droz, 2013.
Review: V. Kapp in PFSCL XLVIII, 84 (2016) 115-116. Review compares C’s critical edition of Scarron’s work with Véronique Sternberg’s 2009 Théâtre complet. “[I]l faut renconnaître que le travail philologique de Carson est plus soignée et par conséquent plus précieux parce qu’il enregistre les multiple variantes des textes. Dorénavant, les spécialistes auront intérêt à se référer à la présente édition qui fournit un texte beaucoup plus fiable.” Reviewer appreciates C’s focus on literary history, in lieu of literary theory which marks Sternberg’s edition, but expresses dissatisfaction that C’s edition fails to address Italian theater, like Sternberg’s focusing only on Spanish, which C’ does not only in the introduction “mais également dans la presentation de chaque pièce.”
ZOBERMAN, PIERRE. “Scarron’s Taming of the Shrew.” SCFS 36.2 (2014), 156-171.
In Part II of Le Roman comique (1657), Paul Scarron integrates a re-telling of the Spanish novella El juez de su causa, which recounts the adventures of a cross-dressing heroine. Zoberman contends that Scarron’s adapted translation of the Spanish text, which restores the female character to a traditional gendered order, reinforces Scarron’s misogynistic construction of femininity by creating a model for the disempowerment of women.
STEIGERWALD, JÖRN. “Les deux critiques de Scudéry: Les Observation sur Le Cid et Didon.” OeC XL, 1 (2015) 33-47.
Consideration of la querelle contends that in addition to Scudéry’s theortical contributions, D. should be read as “son modèle idéal de la tragédie.” Analysis of D shows that for Scudéry “la vraisemblance morale ainsi que les lois de la justice poétique […] se basent aussi sur la domination masculine.” This domination, S argues, becomes less tenable when “la maison close” gives way to “la maison ouverte,” as it does in C’s tragic comedy and France.
LIGNEREUX, CÉCILE, ed. Lectures de Madame de Sévigné. Les Lettres de 1671. Rennes: PU de Rennes, 2012.
Review: A. Amatuzzi in S Fr 174 (2014), 590-591. These fourteen studies provide welcome textual readings and focus on various aspects of rhetoric, aesthetic choices made in view of the letters’ recipients, intertextual elements and linguistic procedures.
SEYS, ELISABETH. Ces femmes qui écrivent. De Madame de Sévigné à Annie Ernaux. Paris: Ellipses, 2012.
Review: F. Forcolin in S Fr 172 (2014), 200-201. This “parcours” includes attention to the role of “writing women” in the family and in society, their aspirations and the obstacles they faced. Although the title lists Madame de Sévigné as the starting point, there are chapters on Christine de Pizan and Marguerite de Navarre. The 17th c. is represented only by S. which is disappointing; given the volume has 443 pages. Critical apparatus includes a bibliography.
POUTET, FRANÇOISE. “Sens littéral et sens caché dans les histoires comiques de Charles Sorel: pour une allégorèse méthodique et critique” 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. 227-239.
“Les histoires comiques de Sorel opposent ainsi deux pratiques de l’allégorèse: l’une qui se perd dans les délires imaginatifs les plus extravagants, l’autre qui se présente comme un parcours méthodique et balisé du texte à déchiffrer. L’allégorie réserve donc nécessairement une place centrale au lecteur, à condition que celui-ci soit fin herméneute. En mêlant l’écriture allégorique à l’esthétique du brouillage parodique de révéler, peut entrer au service d’une poétique de la “fiction véritable.”
THEOBALD, ANNE. "Plaisirs solitaires: Masturbation in the Histoire comique de Francion." CdDs XV, 2 (2014) 46–62.
Sorel's complex and ambiguous presentation of masturbation echoes the theological discourse denouncing masturbation while also acknowledging it as natural human behavior. Moreover, the author argues that for Sorel, masturbation, like the novel itself, "creat[es] an endless need to replicate pleasure that can’t ever be satisfied."
MEERE, MICHAEL. “Theatres of Torture: Martyrs, Pagans, and the Politics of Conversion in Early Seventeenth-Century France.” EMFS 37.1 (2015), 14-28.
“This essay examines writing about and representations of pain and torture by looking specifically at two French Catholic martyr plays that appeared at the turn of the seventeenth century: Nicolas Soret’s La Céciliade (1606) and Jean Boissin de Gallardon’s Le Martyre de saincte Catherine (1618). It interprets these plays alongside Antonio Gallonio’s Trattato degli instrumenti di martiro (1591; 1594) and Richard Verstegan’s Théâtre des cruautez des Herectiques de nostre temps (1587; 1607). On the one hand, by analysing the representations of physical torture, this article investigates the relationship between religious violence in the real world and the significance of the martyr figure on stage in La Céciliade. On the other, it takes into account the crushing of the executioners’ bodies in Boissin’s play and in iconographical representations of St Catherine’s wheel of torture, arguing that representations of the martyrs’ and pagans’ injured bodies not only serve to profess publicly the truth of the Catholic faith but also act as vehicles for the Catholic Church’s politicization of martyrdom and conversion.”
PASCHOUD, ADRIEN. "La notion de 'vie' dans l’écriture mystique du second XVIIe siècle: L’exemple de Jean-Joseph Surin" CdDs VX, 2 (2014), 5-17.
This article examines the spiritual and literary context surrounding the usage of the word vie in Surin's work, focusing on Le Triomphe de l’amour divin sur les puissances de l’Enfer and La Science expérimentale des choses de l’autre vie.
JEANNERET, M. and A. ADAM, eds. Tallemant des Réaux. Historiettes. Paris: Gallimard, 2013.
Review: M. Pavesio in S Fr 172 (2014), 140. This modernized edition contains about one-third of the 1960 edition, a rich introduction by J., plus a critical apparatus including bibliographical and linguistic material. Attractive to the greater reading public as well as to 17th c. scholars.
MIOCHE, MARIE-CLAUDE, ed. Audace et modernité d’Honoré d’Urfé. Paris: Champion, 2013.
Review: L. Rescia in S Fr 174 (2014), 589-590. These Acts of the 2011 international colloquium held at the Château de Goutelas complement the new d’Urfé edition (vol 1. of L’Astrée, Champion, 2011) and include a synthesis of the discussion on the new edition organized by Philippe Sellier and Delphine Denis. Additionally, the acts include two sections focusing on aspects of d’Urfé’s innovations: Part 1, “Lectures et relectures” and Part 2, “Libres filiations,” focusing on influences of classical and Italian culture.
CHATELAIN, CLAIRE. “The Search for Parents in Tristan L’Hermite, 1601-1655.” Trans. David Moak. FHS 38.4 (October 2015), 549-565.
Based on an analysis informed by social history, the author argues that Tristan L’Hermite speaks about himself in his literary works and that he drew on “phantasmagoric figures that populated his imagination and were products of his relationships, such as they were crystallized in his childhood unconscious by early representations.”
DANDREY, PATRICK. “Le Page disgracié de Tristan L’Hermite ou le ‘roman de sa vie.” RHL 114.1 (2014), 169-181.
Author argues in favor of a reading of Tristan L’Hermite’s coming-of-age novel Le Page Disgracié (1642) as a work of auto-fiction rather than as an autobiography, since Tristan consciously inserts fictional episodes into the otherwise personal narrative about his childhood and youth. Dandrey emphasizes the harmonious tension between authenticity and fabrication in the text.
PAINE, SKYE. “Vaugelas’s Pleasant Mixture: The Complicated and Contradictory Order of the Remarques sur la Langue Française.” PFSCL XLVIII, 84 (2016), 49-60.
Perceptive exploration of “random ordering” in Remarques. After showing that the work does not follow expected, “raisonnable” systems of ordering—alphabetical or according to parts of speech—, P’s analysis of the first term of the work, “héros” demonstrates that it instead “ingeniously reflects the subject matter” of “le bon usage” which “fait beaucoup de choses par raison, beaucoup sans raison¸ et beaucoup contre raisons.”
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.
TAYLOR, HELENA. “Ovid, Galanterie, and Politics in Madame de Villedieu’s Les Exilés de la cour d’Auguste.” EMFS 37.1 (2015), 49-63.
“Les Exilés de la cour d’Auguste (1672–78) was one of Madame de Villedieu’s most successful novels, and yet it has received very little critical treatment. In this essay, I will show that the novel deserves attention primarily as an exploration of the burgeoning genre of the histoire galante. One of the principal ways in which Villedieu examines her own writing practice is through the characterisation of Ovide in which she self-consciously reworks recent fictional and poetic depictions of this figure, responding to and developing his assimilation into galant circles. Villedieu draws out the complexity of Ovid’s place in galant culture, and so the complexity of galanterie itself, by examining the relationship between the refined and the licentious facets of this phenomenon. This examination is in turn used as a means of reflecting on the genre of the histoire galante in order to pose questions about the contemporary publishing climate, the relationship between the court and the poet, and to make a case for the polemical powers of her historical fiction.”
BUNG, STEPHANIE. “Une querelle à l’époque de la Fronde. Du Cid à la guerre des sonnets. ” OeC XL, 1 (2015), 117-130.
“Mise en parallèle” of la querelle and la guerre des sonnets (Voiture’s d’Uranie and Benserade’s Job), which B. argues underscores the singularities of each. The “le balancement entre le topique et le referential,” a double-writing serving at once to play and to pay homage to the patron, situates la guerre as “un jeu gallant,” and differentiates la guerre from its predecessor in which the authoritative and definitive intervention by the Académie marks the querelle’s different social, aesthetic, and political stakes.
DE WICQUEFORT, ABRAHAM, ed. Les gazettes parisiennes de l’année 1653: Suivies de L’état de la France en 1654. Ed. Philippe Mauran. Bibliothèque d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 44. Paris: Champion, 2014.
Review: A.Pettegree in Ren Q 68.1 (2015), 307-308. Welcome continuation of Claude Boutin’s 2010 edition of the 1648-52 newsletters (it had been thought that the later issues were too water damaged to be useful). De W.’s weekly newsletters written in service to Augustus of Braunschweig-Lüneburg presented political and diplomatic events and assessed powers and the process of decision making at court.
© 2007 University of Nebraska–Lincoln. All Rights Reserved.
Sonoma State University |
Modern Language Association |
UNL Center for Digital Research in the Humanities