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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
René Descartes (1596–1650), Thomas M. Carr Jr.
René Descartes (1596–1650), Thomas M. Carr Jr.
French Language and Literature Papers
Mathematician and founder of modern philosophy, known for his distrust of formal rhetoric. The Cartesian method and effort to achieve philosophic certainty are often cited as a challenge to rhetoric; yet, given Descartes's frequent deployment of rhetorical strategies, it is not surprising that his system makes provision for their provisional use. Furthermore, in spite of Descartes's aspiration toward a philosophy beyond rhetoric, postmodern critics find his system an entirely rhetorical construct.
Port-Royalists, Thomas M. Carr Jr.
Port-Royalists, Thomas M. Carr Jr.
French Language and Literature Papers
Seventeenth-Century French Jansenists, authors of the so-called Port-Royal Logic and Grammar. Of the many textbooks written by the Jansenists with ties to the monastery of Port-Royal near Paris, two have significant rhetorical implications: Antoine Arnauld's and Claude Lancelot's General Grammar (1660) and, especially, Arnauld's and Pierre Nicole's Logic or Art of Thinking (1662). The Logic privileges a spare style in which any recourse to the figures must be justified by the subject matter, a distrust of rhetorical methods of invention, and an ideal of transparent language. This approach is born of a convergence of Cartesian epistemology and an Augustinian …
Sharing Grief/Initiating Consolation: Voltaire's Letters Of Condolence, Thomas M. Carr Jr.
Sharing Grief/Initiating Consolation: Voltaire's Letters Of Condolence, Thomas M. Carr Jr.
French Language and Literature Papers
The letter of condolence has generally been neglected by students of epistolary discourse in spite of being located at the intersection of a number of recent critical concerns. Interest among historians of death is shifting from the ars moriendi that prepared the dying for a holy death to the grief of those who mourn the deceased. Second, letters of condolence raise the problem of the representation of grief and the adequacy of language to convey it. Finally, a rhetoric of consolation is implicit in the topoi of condolence selected by the letter writer, and while the consolatory discourse of antiquity …
De Didascalie En Diégèse: Le Fantastique Moderne Et «Un Coeur Simple», Marshall C. Olds
De Didascalie En Diégèse: Le Fantastique Moderne Et «Un Coeur Simple», Marshall C. Olds
French Language and Literature Papers
Rattachée à l'étude des genres chez Flaubert, une question qui reste à approfondir concerne le soin qu'a mis le romancier à éviter l'anachronisme dans ses images diégétiques ainsi que dans ses diverses formulations de la causalité, les deux réseaux appartenant souvent à un même ensemble de données culturelles. On voit dans cette attention de Flaubert un souci d'exactitude historique, certes, mais qui va de paire avec le statut générique de son ouvrage. Déjà dans le conte oriental de sa jeunesse, Flaubert savait que c'était le cas pour le merveilleux: certains genres admettent volontiers l'intervention du surnaturel et se définissent même …
Scientific Verses: Subversion Of Cartesian Theory And Practice In The "Discours A Madame De La Sabliere", Russell J. Ganim
Scientific Verses: Subversion Of Cartesian Theory And Practice In The "Discours A Madame De La Sabliere", Russell J. Ganim
French Language and Literature Papers
Study of the relationship between science and La Fontaine's Fables has a limited, but thought-provoking past. Beverly Ridgely asserts that while La Fontaine represents himself mainly as an "artist" and "moralist" concerned with depicting the irony and comedy of life, he "also had a genuinely studious and reflective side... [with] a real aspiration to write scientific philosophical verse in emulation of such ancient masters as Lucretius and Virgil" (180). Ridgely analyzes the influence of late seventeenth-century cosmic theory on L'astrologue qui se laisse tomber dans un puits and L'horoscope. The two poems attack the concept of judicial astrology, which …
Mallarmé And Internationalism, Marshall C. Olds
Mallarmé And Internationalism, Marshall C. Olds
French Language and Literature Papers
Bertrand Marchal’s welcome new edition of Mallarmé’s early correspondence will surely invite a fresh look at the often subtle intersections between text and hors-texte. The question is an engaging one not only because of Mallarmé’s own pronouncements questioning the mimetic function of literary language but because the oblique referentiality that does occur, sometimes in spite of the poet's overt intentions, points to unexpected structures of thought. I have shown elsewhere how these are at work in the verse, where Mallarmé’s cherished notions of friendship among poets and ideal readership play upon his use of the muse figure. A somewhat …