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Modern Language Association |
UNL Center for Digital Research in the Humanities
2013 Number 61
LALLEMAND, MARIE-GABRIELLE. “L’unité d’action dans les romans héroïques (Desmarets, Gomberville, La Calprenède, Scudéry).” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 291-305.
Covering the years 1640-1670, author looks at influence of Ariosto and Tasso on theories of unity of action in the heroic novel. Concludes that Tasso is the greater influence in terms of how best to create variety in the plot without sacrificing unity.
LINTNER, DOROTHÉE. “Appropriations comiques du Tasse et de l’Arioste à travers quelques histoires comiques du XVIIe siècle.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 261-75.
Shows that most comic novelists either allude to the Tasso-Ariosto quarrel, or reference the authors themselves, or yet again emulate one or the other. Tendency is to show preference for one without necessarily rejecting the other.
STEIGERWALD, JÖRN. “De la querelle entre l’Arioste et le Tasse à la dispute entre l’esthétique de l’Arioste et celle du Tasse.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 233-59.
With frequent reference to Virgil’s Aeneid, author examines the quarrel and competing aesthetics of Ariosto and Tasso in the context of Louis XIV’s 1664 Plaisirs de l’île enchantée.
STEIGERWALD, JÖRN. “De la comédie érudite à la comédie de salon : Les appropriations de l’Arioste par Molière (L’École des maris, L’École des femmes, La Critique de L’École des femmes.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 337-61.
Studies how Molière transforms Ariosto’s trinity of home, family, and sex from “comédie érudite” into “comédie de salon.”
WILD, FRANCINE. “Une référence dissymétrique: Chapelain, Desmarets, Le Moyne, Scudéry, face à l’Arisote et au Tasse.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 277-89.
Analyzes four French epic poems of the 1650s. Shows to what extent each can be considered an imitation of Tasso or Ariosto– primarily the former–and how these preferences relate to principles of French classicism.
TEYSSANDIER, BERNARD, éd. Les Fables d’Esope Phrygien. By Jean Ballesdens. (Héritages Critiques, 1) Reims: ÉPURE, 2012.
Review: A. L. Birberick in MLR 108.4 (2013), 1282-83: Critical edition that is “as thought-provoking as it is thorough and well executed. In addition to presenting readers with facsimiles of the two principal texts (La Vie d’Esope and Fables d’Esope) as well as several liminal texts (‘Épître Au Roy’, ‘Supplique A la Reyne regente’, and tables of contents), the editor has included a postscript, four critical essays, and a select annotated bibliography. The end result is a volume that offers new and surprising perspectives on both the fable tradition and Jean Ballesdens.”
LABROUSSE, ELISABETH, ANTONY MCKENNA, LAURENCE BERGON, HUBERT BOST, WIEP VAN BUNGE, EDWARD JAMES, ANNIE LEROUX, BRUNO ROCHE, CAROLINE VERDIER, and FABIENNE VIAL-BONACCI, eds. Correspondance de Pierre Bayle, vol. ix: Janvier 1693–mars 1696. Lettres 902–1099. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2011.
Review: M. Van Der Lugt, in MLR 108.3 (2013), 973-974: “As in the earlier volumes, the Correspondance is erudite, effective, and utile, as Bayle would put it: the letters are presented in a clean layout, meticulously faithful to original spellings while correcting, clarifying, sometimes translating (from the Latin), and scrupulously annotating on multiple levels.”
BAYLE, PIERRE. Correspondance, vol. VIII (janvier 1689-décembre 1692. Lettres 720-901), éd. Elisabeth Labrousse, Antony McKenna, Laurence Bergon, Hubert Bost, Wiep van Bunge, Edward James, Annie Leroux, Caroline Verdier et Fabienne Vial-Bonacci, Oxford : Voltaire Foundation, 2010 ; vol. IX (janvier 1693-mars 1696. Lettres 902-1099), mêmes contributeurs et Bruno Roche, Oxford : Voltaire Foundation, 2012.
Review : J.-P. Cavaillé dans RPFE n°1/2013, 131-132 : “Antony McKenna et son équipe poursuivent leur patient travail d’établissement de la correspondance générale de Pierre Bayle […] par ces deux volumes du plus grand intérêt, qui couvent la période 1689-1693, l’une des plus intenses pour l’activité du philosophe réfugié à Rotterdam, puisqu’elles sont celles de l’Avis au réfugiés (1690), de la querelle interminable avec le pasteur Jurieu, et surtout de la préparation et de la composition de l’immense Dictionnaire Historique et critique. La très abondante correspondance nous fait participer, parfois au jour le jour, à toutes ces activités du philosophe et au réseau impressionnant de correspondants directs et de relations indirectes qu’il sollicite”.
HOLTZ, GRÉGOIRE. L’ombre de l’auteur: Pierre Bergeron et l’écriture du voyage au soir de la Renaissance. Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance 480. Geneva: Droz, 2011.
Review: N. Médevielle in Ren Q 65.1 (2012), 253-255. Praiseworthy, well-documented investigation into this “ghost writer” (editor, rewriter) of numerous French travelers’ accounts. H. organizes his study to include B.’s background and publishing, his role as a colonial propagandist and historian of French colonialization, his collaborations with Pyrard de Laval’s Voyages (1615 and 1619) and Moquet’s 1617 récit, as well as the less successful rewritings of Vincent Leblanc and Malherbe. H.’s conclusion presents B.’s rhetorical model of discourse such as his borrowing from the picaresque novel and invitations to the reader to reflect on his relationship to God.
HARRISON, DAVID. “Comic Epitaphs: Lucian, Scudéry, and Boileau.” SCFS 35.1 (2013), 38-53.
“This article seeks to redefine the relationship between Boileau’s Dialogue des héros de roman and Madeleine de Scudéry’s Clélie. While Boileau wishes to use his text to erase Scudéry from memory, a close reading of the Dialogue and its Lucianic model reveals Scudéry’s influence on Boileau’s wit. Indeed, the character of Amilcar from Clélie embodies the spirit of Lucianic satire that Boileau hopes to use against Scudéry. Ultimately, Boileau is indebted to a form of enjouement that is inscribed within and popularized by Clélie, and it is this debt that Boileau tries unsuccessfully to make his reader forget in his Dialogue.”
POMMIER, RENÉ. Explications littéraires vol. 5: Molière — Bossuet — Montesquieu. Cazaubon: Euredit - Européenne d'Édition, 2012.
Review: U. Gonthier in FS 67.4 (2013): 555-56. The fifth in a series of ‘anti-theoretical’ close readings in which the author reproduces a textual extract, including scenes from L’Avare and Tartuffe as well as Bossuet’s Oraison funèbre de Louis de Bourbon, then proceeds to an old-fashioned, ostensibly naïve explication de texte for the passage in question. Reviewer: “admirably detailed, but the author’s ideological stance belies his pretension to naivety.”
RÉGENT-SUSINI, ANNE. Bossuet et la rhétorique de l’autorité. Paris: Champion, 2011.
Review: V. Kapp in PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 405-08. Explores the tension between a rhetoric of persuasion and a rhetoric of authority in Bossuet, specifically how his ideas on authority lead to personalized and highly specific rhetorical strategies. Other than a few quibbles concerning theology, reviewer has nothing but praise for this work.
WILD, FRANCINE. “Une référence dissymétrique: Chapelain, Desmarets, Le Moyne, Scudéry, face à l’Arisote et au Tasse.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 277-89.
Analyzes four French epic poems of the 1650s. Shows to what extent each can be considered an imitation of Tasso or Ariosto– primarily the former–and how these preferences relate to principles of French classicism.
JENNINGS, NEIL and MARGARET JONES. A Biography of Samuel Chappuzeau, a Seventeenth-Century French Huguenot Playwright, Scholar, Traveler, and Preacher. An Encyclopedic Life. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2012.
Review: B. Bourque in PSCFL XL.79 (2013): 395-97. A critical biography of a relatively unheralded figure, best known for his 1674 Théâtre français, though he was in reality more prolific in travel and encyclopedic writing. A thorough and well-researched text intended for scholars as well as Chappuzeau’s descendants, among whom authors claim to number. Reviewer regrets inconsistencies in the translations and lack of flow in the organization, but finds text useful and informative all the same.
McVICAR, DAVID, dir. Medea. English National Opera.
Performance review: G. Dammann in TLS 5737 (March 15, 2013): 17. Opera is given World War II as setting. Director draws “clever parallels between the warring ancient Greek cities and the stereotypical characterization of the allies.” Sarah Connolly has role of Medea.
BILIS, HELENE. “Corneille’s Cinna, Clemency, and the Implausible Decision.” MLR 108.1 (2013), 68-89.
Author reads “beyond Cinna’s apparently positive denouement in an effort to understand the implications of Auguste’s clemency. More than the portrayal of a decidedly generous action, Cinna constitutes an attempt at ‘getting it right’, a progression in Corneille’s thinking on how to stage royal judgement on the seventeenth-century tragic stage.”
PAINE, SKYE. “The Fall of a Brilliant Monster: Queen Cléopâtre’s Rhetorical Prowess in Corneille’s Rodogune.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 379-90.
Rather than focus on Cléopâtre’s acts of treachery, author studies the rhetorical strategies Corneille’s anti-heroine uses to achieve her ends.
PETERS, JEFFREY N. “The Geography of Spectacle in Corneille’s L’Illusion comique.” SCFS 35.1 (2013), 23-37.
“In L’Illusion comique (1635) Corneille draws upon concepts of location and placing to dramatize the emergence of a new and, to modern readers, recognizable poetic style. Early in the play, the famous cave in which the magician Alcandre stages his ‘spectres’ serves to distinguish narrative from spectacle, word from image, with the ostensible purpose of giving preference to the latter. What ensues during the play, however, is a gradual blurring of the verbal and the visual. From within the apparent gap separating word and image comes a new kind of specifically verbal image, situated on stage and housed in the confining ‘place’ of the dramatic poem. The play therefore constitutes an important historical development in the early modern discussion of Aristotelian principles of vivid speech whereby the world is made both present and near.”
PRÉVOT, JACQUES. Cyrano de Bergerac: l’écrivain de la crise. Paris: Ellipses, 2011. Review: P. Scott in FS 67.4 (2013): 552.
Known for his body of critical analysis of Cyrano, Prévot creates here a valuable introduction to this famous figure’s life and work. He situates the author in his historical, cultural and literary context, all the while endeavoring to separate the real person from Rostand’s legendary personage. Although reviewer finds it lacks depth in parts and the bibliography somewhat lacking, he considers this work a worthwhile point of departure for those seeking to know more about both the historical figure and the writer.
BLOCKER, DÉBORAH. “Servir le prince par la philologie: André Dacier (1651-1722), un érudit dans l’orbite du pouvoir royal.” SCFS 35.1 (2013), 3-22.
“Dans la lignée des travaux d’Anthony Grafton, l’histoire de la philologie s’est surtout focalisée, dans les dernières décennies, sur le développement des savoir faire érudits et sur la constitution des communautés savantes. Cet article propose de déplacer le regard de l’analyse des logiques propres de la pratique philologique vers l’étude des conditions sociales et politiques dans lesquelles se sont peu à peu établies ces compétences. Au travers de l’examen de la carrière et des publications d’André Dacier, on s’interroge en particulier ici sur la manière dont la recherche et l’obtention du patronage royal a pu infléchir les manières de faire des savants de l’époque moderne. L’étude examine d’abord comment Dacier s’est efforcé de créer une philologie à l’usage du monde, avant d’envisager dans un second temps comment sa manière de traduire, de commenter et de publier les textes anciens s’est modifiée, dans la dernière partie de sa carrière, lorsqu’il œuvrait dans la protection royale.”
ARBIB, DAN. “Le Dieu cartésien : quinze années d’études (1996-2011)”. RPFE 2013/1 (janvier-mars), 71-97.
L’auteur saisit les grandes tendances des travaux en matière de métaphysique cartésienne des quinze dernières années (1996-2011), un projet qu’il qualifie comme “aussi utile que périlleux”.
ARBIB, DAN. “Note sur une maxime cartésienne: “A nosse ad esse valet consequentia, AT, VII, 520, 5.” RPL 111 (2013), 491-512.
“On se propose d’analyser ici une maxime cartésienne, Du connaître à l’être la conséquence est bonne. Rappelant les grandes interprétations de ce principe, on examine toutefois le cadre polémique où il s’insère, à savoir la discussion avec le jésuite Bourdin, auteur des Septièmes objections. Au moyen d’une analyse du concept de res cogitans entendue comme affirmation de l’immatérialité de l’âme, la critique de Bourdin prend pour cible le doute, accusé d’autoriser indûment le passage d’une négation mentale des étants matériels à leur négation dans l’être. Là-contre, Descartes développe les grandes lignes d’une option épistémologique idéaliste mais non réductionniste, option à laquelle il soustrait paradoxalement le casus belli, la res cogitans, par refus de toute objectivation de l’ego pour lui-même.”
BRAIDER, CHRISTOPHER. The Matter of Mind: Reason and Experience in the Age of Descartes. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.
Review: K. Smith in MLR 108.4 (2013), 1284-85: “Braider’s aim is to show that Descartes’s views, and in particular his mind–body dualism, which ushered in what is called the ‘modern subject’, had less of an influence on French intellectual culture during this ‘Age’ than scholars have traditionally claimed. Braider’s approach is more literary criticism or deconstructionism than philosophy or history of philosophy….”
GUENANCIA, PIERRE. Descartes et l’ordre politique. Critique cartésienne des fondements de la politique. Paris : Gallimard (coll. “Tel”), 2012.
Review : P. Dumont in RPFE n°1/2013, 134-135 : “Pierre Guenancia continue, par cette réédition de l’ouvrage paru en 1983 […] une œuvre originale, en marge de l’histoire de la philosophie, où le cartésianisme ne se ferme pas sur lui-même en une scolastique érudite : sa lecture de Descartes ne cherche pas la place de la politique dans ce système de pensée, mais revisite un objet que celui-ci, à toute époque, nous permet d’éclairer de façon différenciée”.
JAMES, TONY. Le Songe et la raison: essai sur Descartes. Paris: Hermann, 2010.
Review: C. Belin in FS 67.3 (2013): 404. In a work that forms part of a larger effort to reevaluate the ensemble of Descartes’s work, James analyzes the three 1619 dreams of the young Descartes. The author closely reads both Latin and French versions of the texts and situates them in the context of Descartes’s life and other works. Author concludes that the dreams are a foundational experience for Descartes’s philosophy, and reviewer agrees that they merit this carefully constructed, thought-provoking second look.
JOHNSON, CHRISTOPHER D. Hyperboles: The Rhetoric of Excess in Baroque Literature and Thought. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 52. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Review: C. Braider in Ren Q 64.1 (2011), 234-236. Highly appreciative review notes that J.’s exploration of hyperbole extends far beyond the figure of speech to the very “nature of language, of imaginative conception and so of thought as a whole” (B. 234). Chapters on the theory of hyperbole from Antiquity to the baroque provide a rich backdrop against which well-informed close readings examine several relevant genres. For France, chapters on Descartes and on Pascal explore the figure in its relation to literature, doctrine, theology, and apologetics. Highly recommended for “as wide and enthusiastic readership as hyperbolic praise can give it” (B. 236).
KAMBOUCHNER, DENIS. Les Méditations métaphysiques de Descartes. Introduction générale. Première Méditation. Paris : Presses universitaires de France, 2005.
Review : M.-F. PELLEGRIN dans RPFE n°1/2013, 132 : “Ce premier volume de 400 pages contient une vaste introduction et s’attaque ensuite à la Première méditation. Deux autres volumes devraient paraître, analysant les méditations suivantes. L’intérêt du travail est double : il propose une lecture fouillée et véritablement philosophique du texte cartésien ; il rappelle les grands débats et les principales interprétations auxquels il a donné lieu. L’auteur s’insère ainsi dans des discussions précisément décrites et il y ajoute sa propre vision”.
KOLESNIK-ANTOINE, DELPHINE. Descartes. Une politique des passions. Paris : Presses universitaires de France (coll. “Philosophies”), 2011.
Review : P. Dumont in RPFE n°1/2013, 133-134: “Après un historique des réappropriations politiques du cartésianisme (Maurras, Thorez) et un renvoi à d’autres ouvrages sur le sujet (P. Guenancia, Descartes et l’ordre politique, Puf, 1983), l’auteur inscrit Descartes dans l’âge classique où ‘la théorie des passions domine le discours politique’ et où gouverner, c’est tenir compte des hommes non raisonnables. La contribution de Descartes consiste à placer au centre de la problématique politique ‘la question de l’estime et de ses perversions.’
MAIA NETO, JOSÉ R. “Le probabilisme académicien dans le scepticisme français de Montaigne à Descartes. RPFE n°4/2013, 467-484.
“Montaigne exprime l’attitude fondamentale qui sera celle du scepticisme français du dix-septième siècle sur le vraisemblable ou probable. Cette attitude est partagée par Descartes qui, quoiqu’opposé aux sceptiques, est très influencé par eux sur ce sujet”.
THIEL, UDO. The Early Modern Subject: Self-consciousness and personal identity from Descartes to Hume. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011.
Review: D. Heller-Roazen in TLS 5757 (August 2, 2013): 24. Reviewer finds this a “learned and weighty book” which “reconstructs the steps” that led early modern thinkers “to offer innovative accounts of the relations between reflective awareness and identity across time.” Thiel argues that Descartes less innovative than some suppose since the doctrine of the cogito says little about “what makes each individual soul the thing it is” (Heller-Roazen). Cartesians “drew no close link between subjective awareness and the identity of the human person” (Heller-Roazen).
GUILLOT, CATHERINE and COLETTE SCHERER, eds. Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, Miriame, tragi-comédie. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010.
Review: R. W. Tobin in E Cr 51.2 (2011), 117. Judged “a small jewel that will shine brightly for students and specialists of French seventeenth-century theater,” this new edition furnishes us with an admirable critical apparatus which includes an introduction, notes and illustrations. Students of text and image will particularly appreciate G.’s examination of this tragi-comedy and its accompanying illustrations. Should increase interest in D. and in the genre itself.
LALLEMAND, MARIE-GABRIELLE. “L’unité d’action dans les romans héroïques (Desmarets, Gomberville, La Calprenède, Scudéry).” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 291-305.
Covering the years 1640-1670, author looks at influence of Ariosto and Tasso on theories of unity of action in the heroic novel. Concludes that Tasso is the greater influence in terms of how best to create variety in the plot without sacrificing unity.
WILD, FRANCINE. “Une référence dissymétrique: Chapelain, Desmarets, Le Moyne, Scudéry, face à l’Arisote et au Tasse.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 277-89.
Analyzes four French epic poems of the 1650s. Shows to what extent each can be considered an imitation of Tasso or Ariosto– primarily the former–and how these preferences relate to principles of French classicism.
DONNEAU DE VISÉ, JEAN. Les costeaux ou les marquis frians. Ed. Peter Shoemaker. London: MHRA, 2013.
Review: J. Prest in TLS 5769 (Oct 25, 2013): 31. Shoemaker presents a convincing case that this play, published anonymously in 1665, is by Donneau de Visé, not Claude Deschamps de Villiers. Prest says that “Visé was drawn to topicality . . . and, in 1665, the emerging figure of the gastronome was ripe for satirical treatment.” “Shoemaker ably sets out how the play coincided with a revolution in taste and a gradual but marked shift in culinary practice, which now promoted natural flavors and textures.” Volume fulfills the series aim of making lesser known texts available and affordable.
LONG, KATHLEEN P., ed. Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture. Literary and Scientific Cultures of Early Modernity. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2010.
Review: A. Rankin in Ren Q 64.3 (2011), 936-937. Praiseworthy exploration of the “relationship of women and questions of gender to the scientific domain in early modern Europe” (L. 1). The collection of eleven essays examines gender and early modern science from diverse approaches and in diverse material, including, for example, manuscripts and emblems. Focus is on alchemy and obstetrics. French scholars will particularly appreciate Penny Bayer’s essay on women in the alchemical circle of Joseph du Chesne and Bridgette Sheridan’s account of “the relationship between gender, experiential knowledge, and authority at the seventeenth-century French court” (R. 937). Despite some conceptual and editing concerns, R. finds the volume a “rewarding” read and a “significant contribution” towards a “field desperately in need of new scholarship” (R. 937). Index, illustrations, tables, bibliography.
CHORPENNING, JOSEPH F., OSFS, éd. Encountering Anew the Familiar: Francis de Sales’s ‘Introduction to the Devout Life’ at 400 Years. Rome: International Commission for Salesian Studies, 2012.
Review: R. Parish in MLR 108.3 (2013), 970-971: Five articles in this volume recording “the (revised and expanded) proceedings of a symposium held in Annecy in 2009 to mark the quatercentenary of the publication of the seminal text of early modern Christian humanism that is the Introduction à la vie devote,….” Reviewer regrets “that there is no index, that no texts are given in the original French (not even in the endnotes), and indeed that there is no strictly literary or historical appraisal of the Introduction at any point in the book.”
LALLEMAND, MARIE-GABRIELLE. “L’unité d’action dans les romans héroïques (Desmarets, Gomberville, La Calprenède, Scudéry).” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 291-305.
Covering the years 1640-1670, author looks at influence of Ariosto and Tasso on theories of unity of action in the heroic novel. Concludes that Tasso is the greater influence in terms of how best to create variety in the plot without sacrificing unity.
LALLEMAND, MARIE-GABRIELLE. “L’unité d’action dans les romans héroïques (Desmarets, Gomberville, La Calprenède, Scudéry).” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 291-305.
Covering the years 1640-1670, author looks at influence of Ariosto and Tasso on theories of unity of action in the heroic novel. Concludes that Tasso is the greater influence in terms of how best to create variety in the plot without sacrificing unity.
GOSS, WILSON. "L'anti-critique de La Princesse de Clèves." CdDS 14.1 (2012): 22-36.
The author argues that Lafayette's novel functions as a clandestine critique of the impiety and extravagance of the Court. In an ambivalent rapport of presence and absence, this Christian novel does not explicitly mention Christianity but reveals the depravation of life at the court in a concealed (Christian) way. Lafayette's world resembles the world of her princess, as she was torn between "devoir" and "passion" herself.
STEDMAN, ALLISON. "Lafayette Rewrites History, Murat Rewrites Lafayette: the Novel and the Transfiguration of the Social Sphere in Old-Regime France." CdDS 14 (2012): 1-21.
Explores the textually mediated social field, in which "authors and readers used generically heterogeneous novelistic production to communicate with one another in a variety of ways." The first part focuses on the importance of the geographic space of Coulommiers, as a revolutionary new option for the princess' self-definition. The second part shows how Murat's Voyage de Campagne, in revising Lafayette's novel, reveals an altered understanding of the public sphere.
BECKER, SANDER. “Perrault aux Prises avec La Fontaine: Imitation, Compétition et Correction dans Les Fables de Faërne (1699).” Neophil 96.2 (2012), 205-220.
Stimulating close analysis of P.’s French translation of Gabriel Faërne’s Neo-Latin Fabulae Centum (1564). B. examines P.’s rewriting in comparison to La Fontaine’s Fables, focusing on versification (including detailed attention to rimes), vocabulary, and apostrophe. B finds occasional “recycling” of an entire verse of La F., significant use of identical or similar adjectives, yet giving these “une tournure nouvelle” (214). B. concludes that beyond many resemblances, there seems to be a certain “competition” and P. does not hesitate to “correct” what he judges to be in La F. a “choix de mots un peu trop malheureux” (218). B. argues that despite a certain “anxiety of influence” (H. Bloom 1973), P. manages to emancipate himself from his model, “en adoptant une attitude à la fois admirative, compétitive et critique” (219).
GRÉLÉ, DENIS. “Les Mémoires de Madame de la Guette ou l’art de se reconstruire une vie.” Neophil 95 (2011), 165-175.
Thought-provoking and convincing examination focuses on what G. would suggest calling “autobiographie utopique” (166). Capably demonstrates the singular quality of the récit of the title since “il n’existe pas canoniquement parlant d’auteurs féminins d’utopie en France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles” (166). G,’s article includes pertinent observations on Paul de Musset’s 19th c. short story Madame de La Guette and indicates helpfully for the interested reader the online location. G. points out various “mystifications” notably on money which is viewed as decisive and yet derided. It is finally a genuine pleasure to read this article which is at once erudite and accessible.
ASSAF, FRANCIS, ed. La Motte, Antoine Houdar de. Les Originaux ou L'Italien. Tübingen: Narr, 2012.
Review: P. Gethner in CdDS 15.1 (2013): 94-95. Assaf is to be commended for his edition of La Motte's comedy. He provides his readers with a wealth of useful information that elucidates the historical and cultural context of the play. He also seeks to identify numerous musical and literary allusions but overlooks a few, which the reviewer contends, are essential. However, the introduction is very useful and the text carefully presented.
BRUNN, ALAIN. Le Laboratoire moraliste: La Rochefoucauld et l’invention moderne de l’auteur. Paris: PUF, 2009.
Review: M. Bombart in FS 67.4 (2013): 551-52. A fresh look at La Rochefoucauld and the concept of authorship that seeks to emphasize the historical context in which he wrote. Reminds the reader that “author” meant something rather different then than it does today. Reviewer: “une vision vivifiante” of the author of the Maximes and Mémoires that combines socio-historical and aesthetic approaches.
TURCAT, ERIC. "Ironie polyphonique ou polycentrique? L’honnête homme et son habile alter ego dans les Maximes de La Rochefoucauld." CdDS 14 (2012): 55-87.
The article studies the polyphonic aspect of irony in la Rochefoucauld's Maximes and pays atttention to the concept of "honnêteté," and the relationship between "honneteté" and "habileté." The author draws heavily on Faret to study the classical concept of honnêteté, as well as the ellipses surrounding it.
MANEA, IOANA. "Le philosophe La Mothe le Vayer: spectateur de la 'comédie' du monde et explorateur du 'globe intellectuel'". CdDS 14 (2012): 88-99.
Studies the role of the philosopher in early modern France and shows how La Mothe perceived of himself as a philosopher through the aspect of "meditation." The article places emphasis on the role of the "spectator" through which La Mothe studies the world.
WILD, FRANCINE. “Une référence dissymétrique: Chapelain, Desmarets, Le Moyne, Scudéry, face à l’Arisote et au Tasse.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 277-89.
Analyzes four French epic poems of the 1650s. Shows to what extent each can be considered an imitation of Tasso or Ariosto– primarily the former–and how these preferences relate to principles of French classicism.
LAPORTA, KATHRINA ANN. "'The Truth about Reasoning': Veiled Propaganda and the Manipulation of Absolutist Authority in Eustache Le Noble's La Pierre de touche politique (1688-1691)." CdDS 15.1 (2013): 72-93.
Le Noble, a rebellious political figure and well-known writer of the period, derisively mocks the enemies of Louis XIV in his pasquinades but, simultaneously, subverts the French crown. While seemingly promoting Louis XIV's reign, the pamphlets need a careful analysis in order to detect how Le Noble questions absolutism and provides his readers with a critical interrogation of what constitutes despotism. Le Noble also examines "the viability of other political organizations." The pasquinades are thus an attempt to constitute "a new discursive space of critical inquiry."
LALLEMAND, MARIE-GABRIELLE. “L’unité d’action dans les romans héroïques (Desmarets, Gomberville, La Calprenède, Scudéry).” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 291-305.
Covering the years 1640-1670, author looks at influence of Ariosto and Tasso on theories of unity of action in the heroic novel. Concludes that Tasso is the greater influence in terms of how best to create variety in the plot without sacrificing unity.
LINTNER, DOROTHÉE. “Appropriations comiques du Tasse et de l’Arioste à travers quelques histoires comiques du XVIIe siècle.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 261-75.
Shows that most comic novelists either allude to the Tasso-Ariosto quarrel, or reference the authors themselves, or yet again emulate one or the other. Tendency is to show preference for one without necessarily rejecting the other.
SPICA, ANNE-ELISABETH. “Lecture françaises du système épique tassien: un enfer pavé de bonnes intentions?” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 307-22.
Posits “un impossible modèle” for French epic poetry that simultaneously has roots in both Aristotle and Horace. Explores the paradoxes of this type of epic in terms of poetics as well as its competition with its generic rival, the novel.
STEIGERWALD, JÖRN. “De la querelle entre l’Arioste et le Tasse à la dispute entre l’esthétique de l’Arioste et celle du Tasse.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 233-59.
With frequent reference to Virgil’s Aeneid, author examines the quarrel and competing aesthetics of Ariosto and Tasso in the context of Louis XIV’s 1664 Plaisirs de l’île enchantée.
WILD, FRANCINE. “Une référence dissymétrique: Chapelain, Desmarets, Le Moyne, Scudéry, face à l’Arisote et au Tasse.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 277-89.
Analyzes four French epic poems of the 1650s. Shows to what extent each can be considered an imitation of Tasso or Ariosto– primarily the former–and how these preferences relate to principles of French classicism.
ADAMS, ALISON, STEPHEN RAWLES, and ALISON SAUNDERS. A Bibliography of Claude-François Menestrier Printed Editions, 1655-1765. Geneva: Droz, 2012.
Review: J. Loach in MLR 108.3 (2013), 971-973: Work focused on French Jesuit Claude-François Menestrier (1631-1705) known for his prolific writings on symbolic images and festivals in early modern culture: “This book is as important as an exemplar of bibliographical examination—especially useful in teaching the history of the book—as it is for revising the bibliography of a particular author. From this detailed case study issues arise of more general import, which in turn open up areas for research in printing and publishing: for instance, how unusual, even innovative, was Menestrier in his exploitation of a comparatively small number of privilèges for a large number of effectively separate works (16 privilèges cover 46 editions sufficiently different to count as separate catalogue entries)? All in all, this is a work of painstaking scholarship, which should be read carefully not only by those interested in Menestrier but by anyone working on seventeenth-century French culture, for whom it will offer a springboard for further research.”
MULLER, DAVID G. “Theatrical Iconography, Jeu de Scène, and Recognizing the ‘Table Scene(s)’ in Molière’s Tartuffe. SCFS 35.1 (2013), 54-68.
“Many recent discussions of the Chauveau and Brissart frontispieces to Molière’s Tartuffe have sought to discourage their use as documentary evidence for original performance practice on the grounds that their depiction does not conform to the text of the play. This article re-examines the textual and iconographic evidence for staging the ‘table scene’, suggesting that these frontispieces may still possess significant documentary value and cannot be so easily rejected as disaffirming the original jeu de scène. A close reading of the 1669 text as a script for performance reasserts the continuity between the text and these illustrations despite the hermeneutics of suspicion that pervade recent interpretations that rightly seek to emphasize the illustrations’ material function as liminary engravings within books.”
SIVADIER, JEAN-FRANÇOIS, dir. Le Misanthrope. L’Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, Paris. June 2013.
Review : M. Le Roux in QL 1086 (du 15 au 30 juin 2014), 26 : “Jean-François Sivadier monte Le Misanthrope comme naguère La Dame de chez Maxim, avec le même brio, la même maîtrise de l’espace, la même alacrité de chef de troupe. Dommage que son souci très louable de rendre accessible à tous les grands textes du répertoire, et de faire de cette pièce un spectacle populaire, selon ses propres termes, l’ait conduit à sacrifier sa lecture personnelle, sensible et convaincante de la pièce, développée dans le Journal de l’Odéon !”.
PODALYDÈS, DENIS, dir. Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Paris, 23 June 2012.
Performance review: C. Young in TJ 65.2 (2013): 273-75. A production that “wound up showcasing France’s own struggles with integration.” In a country “with about 5 million Muslims and an immigrant population that often seems socially alienated and politically marginalized, the dilemma of how to produce Le Bourgeois gentilhomme at state-supported theatres reveals fraught tensions between France’s past and future.” Reviewer has high praise for many aspects of the production, including Pascal Rénéric’s performance as Jourdain, but not totally convinced by director’s attempt to “mock the mockers” and to make the French characters in “Ottoman drag” the real objects of ridicule.
POMMIER, RENÉ. Explications littéraires vol. 5: Molière — Bossuet — Montesquieu. Cazaubon: Euredit - Européenne d'Édition, 2012.
Review: U. Gonthier in FS 67.4 (2013): 555-56. The fifth in a series of ‘anti-theoretical’ close readings in which the author reproduces a textual extract, including scenes from L’Avare and Tartuffe as well as Bossuet’s Oraison funèbre de Louis de Bourbon, then proceeds to an old-fashioned, ostensibly naïve explication de texte for the passage in question. Reviewer: “admirably detailed, but the author’s ideological stance belies his pretension to naivety.”
STEIGERWALD, JÖRN. “De la comédie érudite à la comédie de salon : Les appropriations de l’Arioste par Molière (L’École des maris, L’École des femmes, La Critique de L’École des femmes.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 337-61.
Studies how Molière transforms Ariosto’s trinity of home, family, and sex from “comédie érudite” into “comédie de salon.”
STEDMAN, ALLISON. "Lafayette Rewrites History, Murat Rewrites Lafayette: the Novel and the Transfiguration of the Social Sphere in Old-Regime France." CdDS 14 (2012): 1-21.
Explores the textually mediated social field, in which "authors and readers used generically heterogeneous novelistic production to communicate with one another in a variety of ways." The first part focuses on the importance of the geographic space of Coulommiers, as a revolutionary new option for the princess' self-definition. The second part shows how Murat's Voyage de Campagne, in revising Lafayette's novel, reveals an altered understanding of the public sphere.
KRÜGER, ANNIKA CHARLOTTE. Lecture sartrienne de Racine: Visions existentielles de l'homme tragique. Tübingen: Narr, 2011.
Review: N. Ekstein in CdDS 15.1 (2013): 101-103. This comparatist study seeks to juxtapose Racine's and Sartre's conception of human being and of the human condition. "First, Krüger demonstrates the similarities between Sartre’s ideas and those emanating from Racine’s circle, primarily Pierre Nicole and Pascal. Second, the author traces in great detail the manifestation of these ideas in Racine’s Britannicus, Bajazet, and Andromaque." In particular, amour-propre (Racine) and mauvaise foi (Sartre) seem to be closely tied and constitute major points of contacts. The reviewer however mentions one major flaw of this promising scholar's work: this is a dissertation that should have been reworked for publication and several major adjustments should have been made.
BRIGGS, ROBIN. “The Gallican context for Pascal’s Writings on Grace.” SCFS 35.2 (2013), 125-135.
“This article sets Pascal’s views on grace in the context of the intense disputes within the Catholic Church of his time, which were particularly divisive in France. The effective repudiation of St Augustine’s teachings on grace, to which the church would never openly admit, was largely driven by the pastoral needs of the Catholic Reform, yet the Jansenists, themselves determined but conservative supporters of such reform, could never accept such compromises with the world. For all the charm of his writings, Pascal advocated an austere form of Christianity which reflected both his own deep inner tensions and the radical pessimism of Jansenism.”
CANTILLON, ALAIN. “Mais comment donc écrire sur la Grâce.” SCFS 35.2 (2013), 116-124.
“Cet article prend en compte les conditions historiques de cette écriture-ci d’écrits sur la grâce, les problèmes philologiques posés par la prolifération de copies inachevées, et les caractéristiques structurelles de l’énonciation écrite en général. Il a donc alors fallu écrire sur la grâce, sans même être autorisé à le faire, sans même parvenir à achever aucun de ces écrits, et sans même aucune perspective de publication. Les copies font comme un ressassement sans fin. Dans ce ressassement quasi illisible, inaudible, qui est aussi reprise bégayante du mouvement traditionnel de la définition des doctrines par l’Église catholique, peut s’entendre cependant soudain par moment la voix d’une raison humaine qui tente d’avancer au plus loin dans la formulation de vérités qui, par définition, doivent toujours pourtant lui échapper.”
CROPPER, CORRY. “Prosper Me´rime´e’s ‘Federigo,’ or How to Cheat God and Beat Pascal.” Neophil 95 (2011), 395-401.
C.’s study, instead of ignoring or dismissing the story as many past critics have done, argues that M.’s originality lies in attempting “to undermine Blaise Pascal and his famous celestial wager” (395). Helpful inclusion of brief literature review, references to similar elements in folk tales (including a Grimm version), and a synopsis of the story. Challenging and thought-provoking argument of ‘‘Federigo,’’ as a “Pascalian parody” (401).
HAMMOND, NICHOLAS. “Pascal’s Fragments d’un discours amoureux.” SCFS 35.2 (2013), 169-178.
“In this article, Pascal’s Écrits sur la Grâce is considered from an unusual angle. Using Barthes’s Fragments d’un discours amoureux as an intertext, it is argued that the Écrits, seemingly so intractable and impersonal, is Pascal’s most deeply personal work, to be read on both theological and existential levels. Through the writings of Donald Winnicott, which feature prominentl¬y in the Barthes text, the crucial role played by abandonment (délaissement) is explored in the Écrits and in other Pascalian works.”
JOHNSON, CHRISTOPHER D. Hyperboles: The Rhetoric of Excess in Baroque Literature and Thought. Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature 52. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010.
Review: C. Braider in Ren Q 64.1 (2011), 234-236. Highly appreciative review notes that J.’s exploration of hyperbole extends far beyond the figure of speech to the very “nature of language, of imaginative conception and so of thought as a whole” (B. 234). Chapters on the theory of hyperbole from Antiquity to the baroque provide a rich backdrop against which well-informed close readings examine several relevant genres. For France, chapters on Descartes and on Pascal explore the figure in its relation to literature, doctrine, theology, and apologetics. Highly recommended for “as wide and enthusiastic readership as hyperbolic praise can give it” (B. 236).
KRÜGER, ANNIKA CHARLOTTE. Lecture sartrienne de Racine: Visions existentielles de l'homme tragique. Tübingen: Narr, 2011.
Review: N. Ekstein in CdDS 15.1 (2013): 101-103. This comparatist study seeks to juxtapose Racine's and Sartre's conception of human being and of the human condition. "First, Krüger demonstrates the similarities between Sartre’s ideas and those emanating from Racine’s circle, primarily Pierre Nicole and Pascal. Second, the author traces in great detail the manifestation of these ideas in Racine’s Britannicus, Bajazet, and Andromaque." In particular, amour-propre (Racine) and mauvaise foi (Sartre) seem to be closely tied and constitute major points of contacts. The reviewer however mentions one major flaw of this promising scholar's work: this is a dissertation that should have been reworked for publication and several major adjustments should have been made.
LACOSTE, JEAN. “Petites déambulations philosophiques: 3. Les Paris de Pascal.” NQL 1096 (Du 1er au 15 Janvier 2014), 32.
Lacoste continue une série de” promenades” qui sont pour sujet Pascal à Paris. Cette fois l’auteur parcourt la rive gauche, et après un résumé des résidences du philosophe, il donne quelques réflexions sur l’abbaye de Port Royal.
PARISH, RICHARD. “Preliminary remarks on Pascal’s Écrits sur la grâce.” SCFS 35.2 (2013), 101-105.
“The volume’s first introductory essay shows how the Écrits sur la grâce throw up many challenges and puzzles for the reader, while still revolving around a core set of problems and definitions. The first is the attempt to situate Augustinian teaching on grace in the middle (and by implication orthodox) ground between Calvinism and (neo-) Pelagianism, in a way which appeals both to authority and to common sense; the second is to underline the double nature both of finding and of losing grace in a range of co-operative sequences. Finally there are the linked imperatives of ignorance and incuriosity, allowing Pascal to conclude only that the gift of grace or its lack is due to ‘un jugement juste quoique caché’, without which mystery the hubristic risk of antinomianism becomes all too apparent.”
PÉCHARMAN, MARTINE. “Les Écrits sur la grâce, ou de la bonne manière d’être augustinien.” SCFS 35.2 (2013), 106-115.
“This article forms part of the introduction to the volume. It first emphasizes the strata in Pascal’s exegesis of the Decree on justification of the Council of Trent. For Pascal, a logico-grammatical analysis of the proposition ‘God’s commandments are not impossible’ is enough to refute its Molinist interpretation as a permanent power. But, strategically, the Écrits sur la grâce make Molinism a theological error symmetrical to the negation of actual grace by Lutheranism. The same error recurs structurally in theology: Molinists vs Lutherans are to be considered as the new Pelagians vs new Manicheans. The second part of the article focuses on the question that Pascal claims to have considered fully in the Écrits: God’s ‘double délaissement’ of man. The article shows that the target, when asserting the dependence of continued justification on continued prayer (while this latter is not in man’s power) is to differentiate true Augustinism from pseudo-Augustinism.”
SCHOLAR, RICHARD. “Epilogue: Co-operations.” SCFS 35.2 (2013), 179-186.
In this article, the author responds to all the contributions in a special edition of Seventeenth-century French Studies on the subject of Pascal’s Écrits sur la grâce. “This response to the foregoing essays argues that the essays establish a useful critical distance from which to view the Écrits and that they do so by placing the text in a series of contexts: biographical, textual, doctrinal, sacramental, and institutional. It goes on to suggest that a different kind of context — the intentional context — remains relatively understudied here and to sketch various possibilities and problems that would attend any study of that context for the Écrits.”
TONNEAU, OLIVIER. “‘Sur les fonts plus belle et plus lumineuse que le soleil’: Analyse sacramentelle et sociologique de la grâce.” SCFS 35.2 (2013), 136-147.
“La doctrine exposée dans les Écrits sur la grâce est généralement analysée dans une perspective psychologique et théologique: la psyché de l’homme étant foncièrement mauvaise, son salut dépend de la libre décision de Dieu. Cette analyse met face-à- face un Dieu arbitraire qui maintient l’homme dans une indétermination psychique radicale. En nous appuyant sur des écrits de Pascal, sa sœur Jacqueline, Jansénius et surtout Saint-Cyran, nous montrerons cependant que les jansénistes ne vivent ni dans la haine de soi, ni dans l’angoisse perpétuelle de l’abandon. Pour comprendre ce qui fonde leur confiance en Dieu, il faut donner son importance au baptême qui restaure la bonté originelle de l’homme, au Prince de ce monde qui menace de le faire déchoir à nouveau, et à l’Église qui est le milieu dans lequel l’homme peut échapper au Diable. Le conflit inhérent à la condition humaine ne se joue pas dans l’intériorité de l’esprit mais dans l’extériorité du monde où sont aux prises l’Église et le Diable.”
BECKER, SANDER. “Perrault aux Prises avec La Fontaine: Imitation, Compétition et Correction dans Les Fables de Faërne (1699).” Neophil 96.2 (2012), 205-220.
Stimulating close analysis of P.’s French translation of Gabriel Faërne’s Neo-Latin Fabulae Centum (1564). B. examines P.’s rewriting in comparison to La Fontaine’s Fables, focusing on versification (including detailed attention to rimes), vocabulary, and apostrophe. B finds occasional “recycling” of an entire verse of La F., significant use of identical or similar adjectives, yet giving these “une tournure nouvelle” (214). B. concludes that beyond many resemblances, there seems to be a certain “competition” and P. does not hesitate to “correct” what he judges to be in La F. a “choix de mots un peu trop malheureux” (218). B. argues that despite a certain “anxiety of influence” (H. Bloom 1973), P. manages to emancipate himself from his model, “en adoptant une attitude à la fois admirative, compétitive et critique” (219).
RABINOVITCH, ODED. “Versailles as a Family Enterprise : The Perraults, 1660-1700.”
The author explores how connections “between la cour and la ville relied on the urban dynamics that motivated mediators like the Perraults.” He argues that the Perraults produced different versions of Versailles for their wide range of audiences, and that therefore, the model of “cultural absolutism” and its making could be revised and reconnected to current conceptions of “absolutism in practice.”
PELLEGRIN, MARIE-FRÉDÉRIQUE. “La science parfaite. Savants et savantes chez Poulain de La Barre.” RPFE n°3/2013, 377-392.
L’auteur analyse les trois traités de Poulain de La Barre sur les femmes pour démontrer que la catégorie des femmes, qui n’est pas prise en compte dans la dichotomie traditionnelle entre le lettré et l’ignorant, “nécessite de repenser complètement le qualificatif de savant, la méthode de la science ainsi que ses enjeux.”
BRUYER, TOM. Le Sang et les larmes: le suicide dans les tragédies profanes de Jean Racine. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2012.
Review: M. Hawcroft in FS 67.4 (2013): 552-53. Bruyer uses social and political contexts as well as close readings of the plays and theories of drama to study the nine suicides in Racine’s eleven tragedies. The work is divided into two parts: one analyzes the suicides themselves, asking questions such as what constitutes a suicide and how each is committed, while the other explores the significance of the act of taking one’s life in the context of each play. Despite typographical errors, reviewer finds this a useful addition to Racine studies.
GREENBERG, MITCHELL. Racine: From Ancient Myth to Tragic Modernity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
Review: R. Racevskis in CdDS 14.1 (2012): 147-149. Greenberg's newest study builds on his previously articulated arguments and reconsiders Racine's tragedies in the light of Freudian psychoanalysis. The tensions in Racine's theater express the Oedipus myth and, ultimately, remain unresolved. While both the theoretical background and the textual analysis are convincing, there are several major errors while quoting the primary sources that could have been avoided through careful copyediting.
KRÜGER, ANNIKA CHARLOTTE. Lecture sartrienne de Racine: Visions existentielles de l'homme tragique. Tübingen: Narr, 2011.
Review: N. Ekstein in CdDS 15.1 (2013): 101-103. This comparatist study seeks to juxtapose Racine's and Sartre's conception of human being and of the human condition. "First, Krüger demonstrates the similarities between Sartre’s ideas and those emanating from Racine’s circle, primarily Pierre Nicole and Pascal. Second, the author traces in great detail the manifestation of these ideas in Racine’s Britannicus, Bajazet, and Andromaque." In particular, amour-propre (Racine) and mauvaise foi (Sartre) seem to be closely tied and constitute major points of contacts. The reviewer however mentions one major flaw of this promising scholar's work: this is a dissertation that should have been reworked for publication and several major adjustments should have been made.
LESAULNIER, JEAN, ed. Racine, Abrégé de l’histoire de Port-Royal. Édition établie, présentée et annotée par Jean Lesaulnier. Préface de Philippe Sellier. Paris: Champion, 2012.
Review: D. Reguig in PSCFL XL.79 (2013): 401-05. Editor uses extensive knowledge of Port-Royal to explicate what the reviewer refers to as “[le] texte racinien le plus énigmatique qui soit.” Text is re-established to the fullest extent possible, although reviewer regrets additional division into chapters, and would have preferred a more thorough bibliography and review of the various critical readings of the Abrégé. Ample notes and research aid in understanding this text and placing it in historical and literary context.
RACEVSKIS, ROLAND. Tragic Passages. Jean Racine's Art of the Threshold. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 2008.
Review: E. Welch in CdDS 15.1 (2013): 103-105. Welch welcomes this brilliant study that focuses on Racine's characters' suspended state that points toward the "ontological threshold" between existence and non-existence. Racevskis’ interpretation draws insights from Heidegger, Nietzsche and Derrida. He convincingly argues that "the tragedies’ distinctive quality lies in their illumination of the psychological anguish of characters self-consciously poised between past and future, action and inaction, subjection and sovereignty, life and death." Each of the book's nine chapter analyzes one secular tragedy from La Thébaide to Phèdre and offers thought-provoking readings.
TOBIN, RONALD W. and ANGUS J. KENNEDY, ed. Changing Perspectives: Studies on Racine in Honor of John Campbell. Charlottesville: Rookwood, 2012.
Review: J. Harris in FS 67.3 (2013): 404-05. A wide-ranging volume that does credit to its named honoree in that it does not limit itself to one approach to the great Racine. With a focus on the playwright rather than the historiographer, the collection includes analyses of both well-known and lesser known plays, as well as studies of reception and interpretation. The reviewer finds that while there is nothing especially dramatic or game-changing, the scholarship is sound and the volume a good contribution to Racine studies.
RADISSON, PIERRE-ESPRIT. The Collected Writings Volume 1: The Voyages. Ed. Germaine Warkentin. Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queens UP, 2012.
Review: M.G. Aune in SCN 71 (2013), 147-150: A welcome new edition of the adventure/travel memoirs of Radisson who had a storied career as explorer, coureur des bois, “he was a captive of the Iroquois, a founder of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and an aspiring courtier in Paris and London who wrote extensively if unevenly of his adventures.” Warkentin presents the first scholarly edition of Radisson’s writings since the 1960s and has augmented it by a lenthy biography/contextualization of his life as well as a series of maps, etc.
BOUTEILLE-MEISTER, CHARLOTTE, AND KJERSTIN AUKRUST, eds. Corps sanglants, souffrants et macabres, XVIe-XVIIe siècle. Paris: Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2010.
Review: S. Guyot in Ren Q 64.1 (2011), 232-233. Wide-ranging, rich, and highly interdisciplinary, these analyses examine “the history of a visual fascination with violated bodies” (B-M. and A. 351). Additionally they call for a reconsideration of the baroque, its contours, both historically and conceptually. Sections include studies which consider the moral, the erotic, ethics, body metaphors, practices of devotion, judicial ruling, actual and theatrical scenes of horror, wounds as propaganda, and so forth. The 17th c. scholar will not want to miss Lise Leibacher-Ouvrard’s essay on the Anatomical Works of Riolan which demonstrates its relation not only to the spread of his medical practice but also to the “discipline” of feminine bodies (G. 232). Index, illustrations, bibliography.
GETHNER, PERRY. "Depictions of War in the Plays of Rotrou." CdDS 14 (2012): 119-134.
Gethner argues that behind the depiction of war scenes in Rotrou's plays, we can detect his critical stance toward politics, in particular toward the system's glorification of war. Through a detailed reading of several key plays, he shows how Rotrou questions the ethos of heroism through his protagonists, and how he reveals that aggression and brute violence are behind elusive notions of heroism. At the end, however, peace and stability are usually reinstored. The endings reveal Rotrou's fascination with the theme of divine providence.
BOTLEY, PAUL et DIRK VAN MIERT, éds. The Correspondence of Joseph Justus Scaliger. 8 vols. Genève: Droz, 2012. Review: I. Pantin in BHR 75.1 (2013), 225-31:
Collection monumentale “de toutes les lettres actuellement connues de la correspondence de Joseph Juste Scaliger (lettres écrites ou reçues par lui) [1561-1609].” Excellent instrument de travail.
CARRIER, HUBERT, ed. “Un vent froid s’est levé ce matin.” Poésies diverses attribuées à Scarron (1610-1660). Paris: Champion, 2012.
Review: F. Assaf in PSCFL XL.79 (2013): 393-95. Best for research libraries, according to the reviewer, this relatively brief volume of somewhat uneven quality covers a variety of texts attributed to Scarron.
SCARRON, PAUL. The Comic Romance. Trans. Jacques Houis. Richmond, Surrey, UK: Alma, 2012.
Review: M. Slater in TLS 5729 (Jan 18, 2013): 11. A “lively new translation,” though it “doesn’t always do justice to Scarron’s vivid stylistic extravagances.” Reviewer occasionally disagrees with translator’s choices, but finds this to be “a welcome revival of a comic classic.”
BURCH, LAURA J. . “Madeleine de Scudéry : peut-on parler de femme philosophe ?” RPFE n°3/2013, 361-375.
L’auteur propose qu’un “je” féminin, savant et philosophe se trouve dans les Conversations de Madeleine de Scudéry qu’on peut donc considérer Scudéry non seulement comme romancière, poète, écrivaine, moraliste, salonnière, mais aussi comme philosophe.
HARRISON, DAVID. “Comic Epitaphs: Lucian, Scudéry, and Boileau.” SCFS 35.1 (2013), 38-53.
“This article seeks to redefine the relationship between Boileau’s Dialogue des héros de roman and Madeleine de Scudéry’s Clélie. While Boileau wishes to use his text to erase Scudéry from memory, a close reading of the Dialogue and its Lucianic model reveals Scudéry’s influence on Boileau’s wit. Indeed, the character of Amilcar from Clélie embodies the spirit of Lucianic satire that Boileau hopes to use against Scudéry. Ultimately, Boileau is indebted to a form of enjouement that is inscribed within and popularized by Clélie, and it is this debt that Boileau tries unsuccessfully to make his reader forget in his Dialogue.”
LALLEMAND, MARIE-GABRIELLE. “L’unité d’action dans les romans héroïques (Desmarets, Gomberville, La Calprenède, Scudéry).” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 291-305.
Covering the years 1640-1670, author looks at influence of Ariosto and Tasso on theories of unity of action in the heroic novel. Concludes that Tasso is the greater influence in terms of how best to create variety in the plot without sacrificing unity.
WELCH, ELLEN. "From Aesthetic to Ethical Cosmopolitanism in Scudéry's Le Grand Cyrus." CdDS 14 (2012): 37-54.
Discusses Cyrus' "cosmopolitanism" in an ethical way, rather than merely in an aesthetic and intellectual way, in particular through an in-depth analysis of the "Conversation on Foreigners". The author argues that "Scudéry shifts the parameters of the early modern understanding of cosmopolitanism away from a purely abstract, intellectual notion of open-mindedness and toward a more practical, moral stance on the correct way to treat strangers both personally and politically."
WILD, FRANCINE. “Une référence dissymétrique: Chapelain, Desmarets, Le Moyne, Scudéry, face à l’Arisote et au Tasse.” PSCFL XL.79 (2013), 277-89.
Analyzes four French epic poems of the 1650s. Shows to what extent each can be considered an imitation of Tasso or Ariosto– primarily the former–and how these preferences relate to principles of French classicism.
VERVILLE, BÉROALDE DE. Le Palais des curieux. Véronique Luzel, ed. Geneva : Droz, 2012.
Review: B. Renner in FS 67.4 (2013): 550-51. A well-executed critical edition of Verville’s 1612 oft-overlooked attempt at encyclopedic knowledge. This textual reflection of the chaos found in nature forms an important link between the humanism of the Renaissance and the neoclassicism that thrived during Louis XIV’s reign. The thought process that contributed to Verville’s treatment of various topics is revealed through Luzel’s extensive research of the author’s other writings, including a number of relatively inaccessible sources.
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