French Studies, vol. 63 no 2 (avril 2009)

French Studies is published on behalf of the Society for French Studies. The journal publishes articles and reviews spanning all areas of the subject, including language and linguistics (historical and contemporary), all periods and aspects of literature in France and the French-speaking world, thought and the history of ideas, cultural studies, film, and critical theory.

Vol. 63, no 2 (avril 2009)

Bernard Ribémont

Christine de Pizan et les arts libéraux: un modèle a géométrie variable

On a souvent souligné l'attrait de Christine pour lessciences, et l'inscription de nombreuses référencessavantes dans son discours didactique a été étudiéeà l'occasion de différents travaux. L'interprétationla plus courante de ce procédé ressortit àl'affirmation d'autorité de Christine. Le présenttravail se propose de reconsidérer cette question, àl'aune de la façon dont Christine utilise la référenceaux arts libéraux. On tentera de montrer que le systèmechristinien est instable en la matière et inscrit, defait, une profonde tension dans le didactisme christinien.

Véronique Desnain

The Origins of la vie neutre: Nicolas Caussin's Influence on the Writings of Gabrielle Suchon

This article examines the influence of Nicolas Caussin's writingon secular celibacy (vie neutre) — and especially of hisVie de Sainte Isabelle (1643) — on Gabrielle Suchon'sTraité de la morale et de la politique (1693) and Ducélibat volontaire, ou la vie sans engagement (1700).I argue that this overlooked source played a considerable partin shaping Suchon's theories regarding the subordination ofwomen and the usefulness of a celibate life in the secular world.In order to establish this source's importance, Caussin's influenceis considered in relation to Suchon's other known sources aswell as in the context of the Querelle des femmes. The similaritiesbetween the two authors' works are considered in terms of vocabulary,rhetorical issues and theological positions in order to provethat Suchon uses a number of ideas originally found in Caussinas a springboard for a far more extensive and complex argument.Unlike him, she does not take the notion of secular celibacyfor granted but examines the obstacles put in the way of thosewho would choose it (especially women), analyses dominant discourseon the place of women in society and offers counterargumentsand practical advice for potential neutralistes.

Katja Haustein

Proust's Emotional Cavities: Vision and Affect in A la recherche du temps perdu

Against the background of the ‘waning of affect'in modern times¹ and the (post-)Freudian consignment of feelingsto theories of drives, the ineluctable question emerges of wherewe can satisfactorily place emotionality at all nowadays. Whatrole do feelings play in works of art? This article reflectson these questions by examining the relationship between vision(both bodily and photographic) and affect in Proust's A la recherchedu temps perdu. Reading Proust's work as part of a growing tendencyto hollow out the Romantic idea of emotion, the article exploresthe advancing displacement of ‘holistic emotionality'by the rapid increase in ‘emotional cavities'. Theseare zones devoid of any emotional contact or correspondencebetween the narrator and the world he perceives. In close readingsof the scenes connected with the death of the grandmother andof Albertine sleeping, this article argues that Proust introducesa new understanding of affect that neither theorizes it as essentialand all-pervading nor simply disqualifies it in a modernistgesture of denial. Instead, Proust's work proposes a conceptionof affect that eventually appears as privatized, contingentand in peril.

Martin Munro

The French Creoles of Trinidad and the Limits of the Francophone

This article is framed by the argument that, for all its justifiedcondemnation of the closed nature of traditional French studies,the realm of Francophone studies constructs its own barriersand its own conventions of what constitutes Francophone writing.The influence of postcolonial theory on the field, it is argued,has focused interest almost exclusively on the literature ofthe colonized and the repressed in neocolonial and postcolonialsituations. The influence of conventional French studies has,moreover, led most Francophone scholars to work on areas whereFrance and French language retain an important presence. Whilenot denying the necessity of this dual focus, the article proposesthat attention be paid to areas where French colonial presencewas interrupted or subsumed by that of another colonial power.The body of the article considers the history and cultural legacyof the French Creoles of Trinidad as an example of a Francophonegroup that wielded considerable influence in the nineteenthcentury, but which has now all but disappeared. The analysisleads to the conclusion that the study of such forgotten pocketsof Francophone literature is one way of ensuring a creativediscordance within the realm of Francophone studies.