Two French Moralists

Among seventeenth-century classical French writers La Rochefoucauld owes his renown to his maxims and La Bruyère to his stylised portraits, or caractères. This book starts from the basic assumption that both writers were 'moralists', and as such were concerned with a universal picture of man and society within the limitations of nature and reason. The two moralists are studied separately. Professor de Mourgues stresses their individual characteristics, and the complexity of their views. She draws attention to the problems of literary diction they had to face, and comments on the artistic achievement to be found in the Maximes and the Caractères. This study shows that the position of La Rochefoucauld and la Bruyère as 'moralists' is more ambiguous than the usual neat definitions of the term would allow. This study raises delicate questions of interpretation, and adds equally to the fascination of the two writers' work.