'Moral Maxims' by the Duke de la Roche Foucault. Translated from the French. With notes by Irwin Primer (review)

Abstract

774 Reviews assigned to LTllusion comique, Phedre, and Tartuffe. In the second section, 'Comedy and the World', we see that the perception of the world as theatre was often a negative one, emphasizing illusory aspects of human existence, as in Claire Carlin's startling 'The Staging of Impotence: France's last Congres'. Similarly, while Delia Gambelli argues that Moliere's women give voice to a constant, iffragile, moral code involving their defence of an interior identity under threat of suppression, Giovanni Dotoli demonstrates that Dom Juan's 'civilite burlesque' enables him to denounce a civiliza? tion based on a purely superficial concept ofpoliteness. In 'Tragedy: Pure and Mixed', we are treated to interesting studies of the seventeenth-century tragic perception of horror, as against terror (Jean Emelina); of the contemporary fascination with the changing theme of monstrosity as physical manifestations gradually give way to the moral aberrations they represent (Buford Norman); ofthe nature ofpassion in classical tragedy (Georges Forestier); and ofthe 'self-conscious theatricality' ofthe Racinian hero (William Cloonan). In the final section ('Modern Perspectives'), perceptive es? says by Antoine Compagnon, Noel Peacock, and Marie-France Hilgar explore the current tendency to redefine Racine and Moliere on stage and on the screen. In search of new insights and the need to escape from tradition, they argue, not altogether disapprovingly , that Moliere in particular has been imbued with more tragic undertones than in the preceding generation. Inevitably, a single volume cannot do justice to the critical vision of a writer like Tobin. But this volume comes fairlyclose. University of Leeds David Shaw 'Moral Maxims' by the Duke de la Roche Foucault. Translated from the French. With notes. [London: A. Millar, 1749]. A dual-language edition with introduction and furthernotes by Irwin Primer. Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated University Presses. 2003. 218 pp. $39.50. ISBN 0-87413-820-5. This edition of the Maximes will be of value to all those interested in the recep? tion, in eighteenth-century England, not only of La Rochefoucauld's text but also of seventeenth-century French literature in general. The edition of 1749, the firstanno? tated edition of La Rochefoucauld's Maximes in English, is a fascinating palimpsest as the French moraliste is mediated via the anonymous translator, who drew in turn on the French edition published by Amelot de la Houssaye in 1714. Amelot's edition has a number of particularities. It was the firstedition to arrange the maxims under alphabetical headings, rendered in English as 'Ability', 'Benefits', 'Civility', and so on. Amelot was also the firstto add annotations and commentary to La Rochefoucauld's text: these are designed to place La Rochefoucauld in parallel with a number of works of classical antiquity, and in particular to present La Rochefoucauld as the literary heir of Tacitus, a view not favoured by modern scholarship. As forthe text, Amelot's edition attributes to La Rochefoucauld a number of maxims which are actually the work of Madame de Sable and the abbe d'Ailly. The translator of the 1749 edition retains these features, adding further notes which cite a small number of modern French authors (Voltaire, Bouhours, and the abbe de la Roche) as well as English authors (Thomas More, Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Pope, and Swift), whose presence is presumably designed to appeal to the taste of English readers. The accommodation of La Rochefoucauld's text to the contemporary intellectual climate is also seen in the translator's own commentaries, particularly his refutation of the famous maxim on amour-propre, the opening remark in the firstFrench edition, here no. cccxcn: SelfLove , according to the translator, is 'implanted by Nature in Animals with a twofold View; the Good ofthe Individual, and that ofthe Species'. La Rochefoucauld's stress on the role of self-interest is thus modified in the direction of the prevailing notion MLR, 99.3, 2004 775 of benevolence. The translation itself, though incomplete and not always authentic , is, as the modern editor observes, still quite readable after two hundred years. It also raises interesting questions about translation theory, as the translator has at times chosen to make the Maximes both more colloquial and more concise than the French original. The modern editor retains...