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‘The Despair Of His Tutor’: Latin As Socioeducational Marker In Les Trois Mousquetaires, Emily A. Mcdermott

Classics Faculty Publication Series

A significant motif in Les Trois Mousquetaires is to communicate the four heroes’ differing natures through their differing relationships with the Latin language. The separate academic pedigrees thus suggested for the three actual musketeers, Porthos, Athos and Aramis, each represent one of the major education models of early 17th century France: the courtly academy, private tuition, and the Jesuit collège. In the case of the up-and-coming d’Artagnan, by contrast, Dumas proffers less a type of 17th century education than an updating of the social values of that period to coincide with those of his own time. The successes of this …