L’Écrivain éditeur , Vol. I: Du Moyen Age à la fin du XVIIIe siècle ed. by François Bessire (review)

Abstract

210 Reviews adapted her own fictions for the stage, without making genre-related changes to the text, and seemed unconcerned with the 'scenicity' of theatre. In the final chapters these contrasting attitudes to genre are convincingly related to Duras's theme of love as 'fusion avec l'autre' (p. 28), as opposed to Beckett's central theme ofthe search for Self, a self of which the Other marks the limits. Of course this theme has been the fo? cus of intense controversy, and Engelberts's vigorous challenge to the postmodernist critics, who find in Beckett a Derridean deconstruction of the Self, is an original con? tribution. He concludes that as the author pushes at the limits of theatre, he defines an irreducible essence of theatre, and similarly he is able to 'aller a la limite du moi et faire de la sorte l'experience la plus radicale du moi' (p. 364). So, not always easy reading, but well worth the effortfor the subtlety and range of its argument, based on very detailed textual analysis. Overall an ambitious and thoughtful study. University of Leeds John Rothenberg L'Ecrivain editeur, Vol. i: Du Moyen Age a lafin du XVIIIe siecle. Ed. by Franc;ois Bessire. (Travaux de Litterature publies par l'Adirel, 14) Geneva: Droz. 2001. 402 pp. 94.21 SwF; ?61.40. ISBN 2-9507341-9-7. Readers familiar with the Association pour la Diffusion de la Recherche Litteraire will know that this admirable series of publications (one per year) engages with wideranging themes that only a collaborative approach can properly address. Two volumes (of which this is the first)will explore the topic of authors as editors (either of their own or of someone else's works), with the aim of offering 'une histoire de la maitrise de I*ecrivain sur le livre, une histoire de l'ecriture du livre' (p. 8). What this amounts to in practice is an examination of the author's attempts to control the transmission, reception, and survival of his or her own work, and (for the period after the invention of printing) the complex relationship between authors, printers, and booksellers, censorship, and the changing legislationon copyright. Preceded by a good, contextual? izing overview by Francois Bessire, twenty-one studies are presented in chronological order. There are three essays on the medieval period: Monique Leonard on the dit; Patricia Michon on Deschamps's Double lay de la fragilite humaine; Gerard Gros on Martin le Franc as a reader of Charles d'Orleans. The omission of Christine de Pizan from this section, touched upon at p. 8 n. 6, is particularly regrettable, given that she was also omitted from Travaux de Litterature, Vol. 11, on the literary manu? script. Since it is now established that over fifty autograph manuscripts have survived, these would have provided a unique corpus of material for study. Six further essays concern the Renaissance (Adrian Armstrong on the Grands Rhetoriqueurs; Gerard Defaux on Marot, Rabelais, and Dolet; Florian Presig on Clement Marot as editor of his father,Jean; Louis Lobbes on Erasmus as editor of Plutarch; Nicole Cazauran on Boaistuau and Gruget as editors of the Heptameron; Jean-Claude Arnould on Marie de Gournay); six on the seventeenth century (Guido Saba on Georges de Scudery and Jean Mairet as editors of Theophile de Viau; Bernard Barbiche on Sully's (Economies royales; Denis Donetzkoff on Robert Arnauld d'Andilly as editor of the letters of Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbe de Saint-Cyran; Alain Niderst on Madeleine de Scudery, Menage, and Pellisson as editors of Sarasin; Jean Lafond on La Rochefoucauld; Myriam Maitre on strategies adopted by women writers); six on the eighteenth century (Frederic Deloffre on Robert Challe; Laurent Versini on Diderot; Roger Marchal on Diderot and Salomon Gessner; Marie-Emmanuelle Plagnol on Carmontelle; Veronique Sarrazin on legal and economic aspects; Patricia Gray and Wallace Kirsop on the prospectus, the author, and his public). From this wealth of material, one could perhaps single out for special mention Presig's fascinating exploration of Clement Marot's activities as editor of his father's works (it is shown that MLR, 98.1, 2003 211 these activities have as much to do with Clement's...