Too Paradoxical for Paradoxes: The Role of the Cynics in Two Mid-Sixteenth-Century French Texts, Charles Estienne's Paradoxes and Philibert de Vienne's Le Philosophe de Court

Abstract

This article proposes an analysis of the role of the ancient Cynics in two mid-sixteenth-century French paradoxes or mock encomia. The Cynics, most famously represented by Diogenes of Sinope, constituted the most paradoxical school of ancient philosophy, since they devoted their lives to challenging convention (doxa) through seriocomic performance. The tradition of the mock encomium, particularly as inspired by Lucian, is seen to have influenced Erasmus, Rabelais, Montaigne and Bruscambille. The Cynics stand for a provocative paradoxical extreme to be rejected, sanitized or embraced. In Charles Estienne's Paradoxes, the Cynics are rendered less paradoxical than in other contemporary works so as to maintain the purely rhetorical nature of the text. In Philibert de Vienne's Le Philosophe de court, the paradoxical nature of ancient Cynicism is recognized but rejected as an unacceptable extreme. The presence of Diogenes is none the less disturbing: he not only unsettles the uneasy equilibrium between sociable anti-courtliness and neo-Cynicism, he also stands out as a dangerously radical example of self-fashioning. The Cynics are thereby seen to have the unusual effect of obliging playful texts to reveal their ideological ground.