Paul J. Smith

Deceit plus desire equals violence : a Girardian study of the Spanish "comedia"

Contens: A theoretical, sociological approach to the 17th-Century Spanish dramas known as comedias examines 18 plays by the two best known dramatists of the Golden Age period.

Bornons ici cette carrière … La fin du Premier Recueil et les pratiques sérielles dans les fabliers pré-lafontainiens

Le present article se propose d’etudier la serie des fables qui ferment le Premier Recueil des Fables choisies (1668) de La Fontaine. Afin de contextualiser la pratique serielle de La Fontaine, nous donnons un bref survol historique des pratiques serielles dans les fabliers avant La Fontaine.

Joachim Camerarius’s Emblem Book on Birds (1596), with an Excursus on America’s Great Seal

This interdisciplinary volume aims to address the multiple connections between emblematics and the natural world in the broader perspective of their underlying ideologies – scientific, artistic, literary, political and/or religious.

L’émergence des études sur l’emblème français: à propos d'un article de Daniel Russell dans Neophilologus

Before presenting a critical appreciation of Daniel Russell’s article on the emblem, first a brief historical survey is given of the concerns of Neophilologus within the domain of French literature.

Naked Indians, Trousered Gauls: Montaigne on Barbarism

In the early modern and modern reflections on the concept of barbarian—from Shakespeare, Rousseau, and Chateaubriand to Lévi-Strauss and Todorov— Montaigne’s essay “On the Cannibals” (“Des Cannibales”) plays a key role because of the far-reaching and subversive relativism it preaches. Such a key role might cultivate the assumption that this canonical text delivers a transparent and logically conclusive argument on the subject. However, this turns out not to be the case: Montaigne’s essay is an open text, from which its readers always freely drew inspiration for their own thinking, as can be seen in the numerous but very diverse early modern readers’ reactions. In this essay, I will analyze in more detail the very unconventional way in which Montaigne gives structure to this essay. Starting with the essay’s abrupt closing sentence, I will take into account the early modern readers’ responses insofar as they provide information on the argumentative operation of the essay.

Folly Goes French

The early-modern French translations of Erasmus’ Praise of Folly show an astonishing adaptability to its ever changing readerships. Much attention has been paid recently to the two sixteenth-century translations (1518 and 1520) and their intended readers—royal and bourgeois respectively. The three French translations of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are less known but all the more intriguing. In 1642 Folly addresses herself to the French pre-classicist readers, adepts of Richelieu’s new Academie Francaise—although her translator, Helie Poirier, was a Protestant refugee, recently settled in the Netherlands. In 1671 Folly seeks her readers in the Parisian salons, satirizing the same societal wrongs as her great contemporary Moliere in Tartuffe and Les femmes savantes. The successful translation by Nicolas Gueudeville (22 editions from 1713 onward) is also a chameleon: originally translated and printed in Leiden, the text gradually becomes more Parisian with each passing edition. Folly’s language is bowdlerized according to the principles of bienseance, and Vianen’s illustrations, based on Holbein, are discarded as rude and old-fashioned. In 1751 they are replaced by Charles Eisen’s elegant, long-limbed, periwigged figures, dressed to the latest fashion. Although she changes her name (Moria/Stultitia—Dame Sottise—Dame Folie), her language (from humanist Latin to Parisian French), her appearance and attire (from Holbein to Eisen), Folly remains much the same through the ages—everlasting and omnipresent, just as the vices she laughs at.

Jean Thenaud and François Rabelais: Some Hypotheses on the Early Reception of Erasmus in French Vernacular Literature

Francois Rabelais is certainly one of the most spectacular disciples of Erasmus, although his precise Erasmian roots remain partly obscure. This chapter summarises what is already known about Rabelaiss reception of Erasmus. It gives some biographical information, necessary for the argument. The chapter turns in greater detail to the presence of Erasmus in Jean Thenauds text. It proposes to consider these authors in their interrelationship, and more specifically in their interplay in the reception of Erasmus. Thenauds Erasmianism, however, has its limits: Thenaud, on account of his Franciscan background, and because of the didactic nature of his work, was refractory to the ironic versatility of the Praise of Folly . He regularly lent this masterpiece a new tone in a way that is strongly reminiscent of the work of Rabelais, the best known follower of Erasmus in French literature. Keywords: Erasmus; Francois Rabelais; French literature; Jean Thenauds Erasmianism

A l’aune du sublime : autour du « Parallèle de Corneille et Racine » (1688) de La Bruyère

Transformation, often accompanied by a revision of the tradition, is a conspicuous feature of early modern developments of the sublime. This chapter on Jean de la Bruyeres comparison between Corneille and Racine in the fourth edition of his Caracteres (1689) illustrates this particularly well. At first sight the comparison is simply another instalment in the well-established genre of the parallel between authors, statesmen, temperaments and so on of which Plutarchs Parallel Lives is the best-known classical case. But La Bruyeres comparison, in which Corneille is praised as sublime, original, inimitable but unequal, and Racine as just, regular and touching, is in fact an extremely subtle and ambiguous exercise in defining the sublime: what it is, what kind of figure of speech, and where it enters into a tragedy. Keywords: Caracteres ; Jean de La Bruyere; Poetic Art; Treaty of the sublime

Thirty-first Annual Erasmus Birthday Lecture: The First French Translations of the Praise of Folly

This essay studies the two sixteenth-century translations of Erasmus’ Praise of Folly: the anonymous De la Declamation des louenges de follie, printed in 1520, and Jean Thenaud’s translation of 1517, which survived in three manuscripts intended for the royal family. It examines their translation practices and use of sources, and it addresses questions of (co-)authorship, such as the possible identification of Georges Haloin as the translator of the Declamation and the role of Francois Rabelais in his friend Thenaud’s translation. Furthermore, this essay pays particular attention to the illustrations that appear in the printed editions of the 1520 translation, which were copied from the French editions of Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools.

From Meditation To Reverie: Montaigne And Rousseau

This chapter begins with Montaigne and his use of the concept meditation . For Montaigne, reveries word, mostly applied to his own reflections and writings, denotes, rather negatively, unpredictable, unordered and useless discourses, and therefore implies an ironic self-deprecation. The chapter on prayer never becomes an actual prayer as is the case in Pascals later Pensees, for instance. For Montaigne, his library is the material concretization of spiritual retirement, of philosophical solitude. The chapter demonstrates that Montaigne inspired Rousseau to the thematic linking of reverie, promenade and solitude . This connection between the three terms enabled Rousseau to create a new theme, soon to be adopted by a host of romantic writers, all solitary, ambulant, introspective reveries . Keywords: Montaigne; reverie; Rousseau