L’honneur dans l’oeuvre de Montesquieu par Federico Bonzi

Abstract

textual meaning would enrich the discussion of the generic boundaries between comedy and tragedy, as well as of the fraught relationship between politics and theater. A fine discussion of clemency underscores how the extra-legal decision to take no action in the face of crime corresponds to a redefinition of the king from executor of the law to its embodiment, an observation that illuminates readings of Cinna and Rotrou’s Vencenslas (although concluding this interpretation with Rotrou’s historically and thematically anterior Crisante does little to reinforce this argument). Returning to Racine, Bilis shows how the “king’s judgment becomes the central problem of the play, not its resolution” (185) in Mithridate and Phèdre, whose monarchs are blinded by their emotions and an over-reliance on ambiguous physical evidence reminiscent of tragicomic dénouements evoked earlier in the study. Even Racine fails in the contradictory task of constructing a moving spectacle around a faultless sovereign. Passing Judgment convincingly argues that this irreconcilable esthetic-political paradox pushed seventeenth-century playwrights toward the dynamic, original artistic practices that characterize the golden age of French tragedy. Louisiana State University Jeffrey M. Leichman Bonzi, Federico. L’honneur dans l’œuvre de Montesquieu. Paris: Champion, 2016. ISBN 978-2-7453-3052-9. Pp. 430. Bonzi’s examination of honor, the fundamental principle in Montesquieu’s definition of monarchy in the Esprit des lois, fills an important gap in Montesquieu studies. Although there have been book-length works devoted to virtue and fear—the principles of democracy and despotism respectively in the Esprit des lois—there has not been, to date, such an in-depth study of honor. Bonzi’s effort exhibits both strengths and weaknesses. First among the study’s strong points is its genetic focus. Bonzi examines all of Montesquieu’s works in order to account for the constitutive ideological, philosophical, and literary elements that would merge over time into the concept of honor as it would ultimately appear in the Esprit des lois. Additionally, Bonzi is to be praised for eschewing a purely linear, evolutionary examination. Instead, he teases out clusters of ideas surrounding five thematic nuclei: distinction, the relationship of the general to the specific, power, liberty, and nobility. Overall the book is well organized, with the exploration of these nuclei divided into chapters based on chronological periods of Montesquieu’s writing, each containing logical subsections. At the same time, however, certain stylistic and explanatory weaknesses within the organizational sub-units may present an obstacle even to highly educated readers, including professional eighteenth-century specialists. In spite of the book’s solid macro-structure, the more localized prose within subsections can be hazy, with too-frequent skips and jumps from one concept or reference to the next. Exegetic assessments are frequently made without adequate demonstration, as if the ideas go without saying, or as if 250 FRENCH REVIEW 91.4 Reviews 251 readers will understand them implicitly. References to other period works are similarly passed over in too rapid a manner without adequate context or explanation. Consequently , readers may often find themselves lost in a confused flurry of complex ideas. Bonzi clearly shows his own mastery of Montesquieu’s works and of a vast body of related literature from antiquity through the eighteenth century. However, Bonzi fails to raise readers to his level and guide them on the long, difficult journey through Montesquieu’s texts. As a result, the potential audience for this book is narrow. L’honneur is likely to appeal to professional scholars who are intimately familiar with the full gamut of Montesquieu’s works and whose research focuses specifically on the principles of government in the Esprit des lois.Other readers will find the work unsuited to their needs. Ohio University Christopher Coski Bouloumié,Arlette, éd. Modernité de Michel Tournier. Rennes: PU de Rennes, 2016. ISBN 978-2-7535-4861-9. Pp. 218. Michel Tournier nous a quittés en 2016. Ce recueil, en cinq parties de deux à trois articles, est un hommage rendu par douze spécialistes de son œuvre. Une importance nouvelle est donnée aux ouvrages“mineurs”que les succès romanesques ont pu éclipser. Un dossier de quatorze lettres et facsimilés, ainsi que...