This book explores the place of enquiries into literality and fictiveness in early modern French thought, making a historically sensitive contribution to the study of early modern narrative and the relationship between logical clarity and persuasive pragmatics.
Introduction 1. Sun Worshippers 2. Anecdote, Example, Method: Renaissance Accounts of the Death of Pliny the Elder 3. Image and Idolatry: The Case of Louis Richeome 4. The Book of Nature and the Book of Metaphors 5. Anecdotes and Affects 6. Novel Proofs: Villedieu's Les Désordres de l'amour 7. François Bernier: Philosophers' Fictions / Traveller's Visions 8. Language, Image, and the Double
