Regressive Fictions

Robin Howells author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Maney Publishing

Published:2nd Aug '07

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In a cultural shift around the mid-point of the French eighteenth century, the mode of wit is increasingly displaced by bourgeois pathos. Social sophistication and sexual experience are rejected in favour of a retreat into ideal imagination. Instead of the novel of worldliness, we encounter fictions of better worlds: original, natural, familial, innocent and harmonious, protected against reality and time. The regressive shift is traced in this study in general terms, and then through detailed analysis of three of the best-selling novels of the period. The turning-point is represented by Mme de Graffignys Lettres dune Peruvienne (1747, 1752) with its profound ambivalence towards knowledge. A new order is revealed and set out, but still declared lacking, in Rousseaus Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise (1761). The visionary return to the organic wholeness of nature is offered by Bernardins Paul et Virginie (1788).

This book is composed with the reader in mind: the prose is lively, the structure clear, and the argument convincing. There is no doubt that it will be of great interest not only to scholars working on Graffigny, Rousseau, or Bernardin, but to anyone interested in fictional narratives of the eighteenth century. Moreover, the individual chapters would serve as an excellent complement to the primary texts in an intermediate or advanced classroom setting. Howellss exploration of regressive fictions in socio-cultural context makes it a fresh and significant contribution to eighteenth-century French literary studies.' -- French Review 82.4 French Review 82.4

ISBN: 9781904350866

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 476g

148 pages