Medieval and Early Modern French Studies – serie

This collection is dedicated to John D. Lyons, Commonwealth Professor of French at the University of Virginia and a preeminent scholar of early modern France and Italy. Lyons’s long and influential academic career has been instrumental in shaping generations of undergraduates, postgraduates and early career researchers through his teaching, advising, mentorship and critical reading. Bringing together original chapters from leading scholars in North America, Great Britain and France in the fields of medieval and early modern literature and culture, this volume will build upon the breadth and depth of Lyons’s wide-ranging corpus that spans a remarkable array of genres, including philosophy, the novel, theatre and history. The studies are organized around the key themes of Lyons’s research throughout his illustrious career and engage with authors ranging from Saint Augustine, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and María de Zayas to François Rabelais, Michel de Montaigne, Madeleine and Georges de Scudéry, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette, Pierre and Thomas Corneille, Molière, Jean Racine, Jean le Rond d’Alembert and Voltaire.

Of particular significance for an understanding of early Church history are the Waldensians, members of a dissident religious movement which originated in France in the twelfth century and resided primarily in the Duchy of Savoy and Northern and Southern Italy, before moving to other parts of Europe. Bringing together contributions by leading scholars in the field, this volume of essays discusses the construction and transmission of Waldensian identity through discourse and cultural production. It highlights in particular the religious and political significance of the Waldensians at an international level, not least with regard to the Reformation and its aftermath. Fundamental to the research presented are the rich holdings of Waldensian manuscripts in the Old Library of Trinity College Dublin and also in Cambridge, Geneva and Grenoble. The volume is divided into two parts and its first section, «Editing Waldensian Texts and Manuscripts», considers Waldensian texts and manuscripts, their circulation, physical characteristics, language and textual sources. The second section, «Constructing Waldensian Identity», examines the shifting representation of Waldensian identity through stereotypes, modern literature, the visual arts and historical accounts; the role played by specific libraries, individuals, gifts, and countries in promoting and fashioning Waldensian identity is also brought to light. A key aim of the volume is to offer a review of research to date and to point to future directions for study.

Rich with examples of Racine’s impact across generations on stage and page, of the inspiration of leading actors across borders, and of the influence of his tragedies, their mostly classical and biblical themes brought in the finest verse or in translation, on European courts, townships, amateur theatre, education at home and school, opera and oratorio, other literatures, art and sculpture, this book follows these many echoes far beyond performances in Paris and at Versailles alone and opens up vistas for further exploration across cultural and political borders. The promotion of Racine’s mastery to champion or to challenge successive regimes at home, or to assert French cultural supremacy abroad, and the sheer volume of translations, musical adaptations and borrowings of each play across Europe, are brought together for the first time, offering a fresh perspective not just of reception but of dissemination and active response.

«In this readable and closely argued study, Charles Stone sheds light on a phenomenon that has baffled generations of scholars: why did plays about Christian martyrs grip seventeenth-century French audiences? After all, these tragedies are not very tragic. Stone unravels this mystery of the plays’ success, showing how martyr-themed plays tackled wider questions of theology, language and performance. In this thought-provoking book, Stone relates not only why these plays mattered to their first spectators but also why they should matter to us.»(Professor Paul Scott, University of Kansas, USA)This study examines the genre of tragedy through the lens of one of its most curious manifestations: the martyr play. The equation of Christianity with tragedy has often been seen by literary and theological scholars as specious at best, sacrilegious at worst. During the mid-seventeenth century, however, a group of French playwrights saw fit to produce tragedies that drew not on Roman or Greek mythology, as was the norm, but on stories of Christian heroism. The author examines a broad corpus of plays ranging from the famous works of Pierre Corneille to near-forgotten examples of female-authored tragedy. Drawing on the writings of Michel Foucault as well as a host of contemporary and modern-day theologians, the author shows the martyr to be a major figure in theatrical performance and religious thought alike, exposing the porosity of the boundary separating the spaces of stage entertainment and church worship. The martyr plays, whether they threaten to destabilize the genre or define it, are ultimately shown to be integral to our understanding of what constituted tragedy in early modern France.

Paul-Louis Courier (1772–1825), after being a comparatively discreet critic of Napoleon in his letters, became a scourge of the Restoration Establishment, both secular and clerical, in pamphlets which he published from 1816 onwards. His writings were incendiary enough to attract death threats, two prosecutions, and one term of imprisonment. Unlike other pamphleteers, he was concerned with defending the rights and material security of the humble, particularly the smallholders who had bought land after the Revolution. They struggled to survive because, in addition to the normal hazards of farming, they were burdened by onerous taxation, conscription, and legislation, which restricted their freedoms in order to protect Catholic observance. His writing was distinguished not only by his preferred subject matter, but also by his lucidity of thought and by the economy and elegance of his expression.

This volume is the first book-length study devoted to gossip in early modern France. Whereas many works that focus on other countries and periods have concentrated on the relationship between gossip and women, none has explored the crucial link between gossip and same-sex desire. Using material that has never been published before and touching on different social spheres, from valets to the immediate circle of Louis XIV, the author reveals a world radically different from the traditional image of France under the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. An in-depth analysis of the theory and practice of gossip is followed by an examination of songs, poems, memoirs, letters and anecdotes from the time, bringing the milieu of what was known as ‘the Italian vice’ vividly to life. The book concludes by bringing these insights on gossip to a refreshing new reading of one of the period’s groundbreaking novels, Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves.

Taking conflict as its collective theme, this book brings together the work of early modern specialists to offer a range of insights into the political, social and religious climate in Savoy between 1400 and 1700. The contributors focus on the broader context of early modern European history, making clear the sometimes overlooked political and historical significance of Savoy. The volume explores the diverse mechanisms whereby political, social and religious conflicts were articulated with reference to a wide range of primary sources, many of which are unpublished. The chapters offer important perspectives on subjects such as: the diplomatic relations between the court of Savoy and certain foreign powers during a time of European unrest; the role of propaganda; the construction of national and religious identities; and persecution and resistance, notably in relation to the Reformation and the Waldensians. The conclusions that are established advance a better understanding of the history of Savoy and of the broader conflicts shaping Europe in the early modern period.

This collection of essays by leading scholars from France, Great Britain and North America is published in honour of Peter Bayley, former Drapers Professor of French at the University of Cambridge and a leading scholar of early modern France. The volume reflects his scholarly interest in the interface between religion, rhetoric and literature in the period 1500–1800. The first three sections of the book are concerned with the early modern period. The contributors consider subjects including the eloquence of oration from the pulpit, the relationship between religion, culture and belief, and the role of theatre and ceremony during the seventeenth century. They engage with individuals such as the theologian Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, the dramatists Molière, Racine and Corneille, and the philosophers Bayle and Pascal. The volume concludes with a section that is concerned with critical influences and contexts from the sixteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Throughout, the authors offer stimulating new perspectives on an age that never ceases to intrigue and fascinate.

Hellenic Whispers builds a picture of how Greek literature was received and reworked by the authors of seventeenth-century French tragedy. Using case studies, the author establishes a new methodology for exploring the variety of responses and creative processes involved in these encounters with classical Greek material. The book explores the complex interactions surrounding these adaptations of Greek dramatic material, involving the input of scribes, editors, translators and earlier authors, and asks the important question of what these dramatists conceived of themselves as doing. Focusing on a time and place where cultural predilections and a lack of linguistic training made engagement with the original Greek texts problematic, the book explores the creative role of intermediary sources, the build-up of chain reactions between sources and the cumulative processes of recreation involved in the genesis of seventeenth-century dramatic texts. The volume also goes on to explore wider questions relevant to the classical tradition and issues of ‘source study’ and reception.

Of all the playwrights from the age of Louis XIV, only Molière’s work is still regularly performed in France and beyond. This book analyses certain elements of the plays that may explain Molière’s longevity: a plausible chain of events peppered with shocks and surprises; tensions between opposites; intellectual concerns that had not previously been the province of comedy; and plots founded on situations that are anything but comic. These hallmarks added up to an intense type of comic theatre, meaningful in ways that gave the genre a new dimension. The author of this study does not treat Molière’s plays as variations on a single prototype, but brings a fresh approach to each. The book’s witty, learned and penetrating readings examine critical issues such as the ambiguous anti-feminism of Les Femmes savantes, Molière’s revisions of the myth of Don Juan, ‘conversion’ as the theological starting point of Le Tartuffe, contrariety as the basis of comedies such as George Dandin and Le Misanthrope, and coded satire in the comédie-ballets. Each play is revealed to have a seamless comic design, while at the same time speaking to the wider world. Molière’s works are shown to be entirely and immediately involved in human society, in the social dimension of the human condition.