qu’ils présentent. Parce qu’ils veulent rendre compte du réel avec justesse, ces écrivains sont tous préoccupés du rapport entre éthique et esthétique littéraire, entre représentation du monde et langage. La partie consacrée à Roubaud retient particulièrement l’attention en raison des multiples facettes de ce poète/poéticien,prosateur,mathématicien , oulipien, traducteur du provençal et de l’anglais qui fusionne le rythme du vers et de la phrase au langage mathématique. Mais alors que l’originalité de Roubaud repose surtout sur l’adoption de contraintes formelles, celle de Limet, de Siméon et de Bégaudeau vise à mettre en scène la parole—sa théâtralité—pour exposer des situations sociales, parfois limites, parfois déchirantes, tout en privilégiant la vie mentale individuelle. Pour ces trois écrivains, faire entendre la voix des sans-voix, tel que le préconise Salvayre, est une nécessité. Cet ouvrage a le mérite de faire connaître des œuvres aux multiples formes stylistiques qui en appréhendant notre temps et notre société interpellent inévitablement les lecteurs d’aujourd’hui. Fairfield University (CT) Marie-Agnès Sourieau Cousson, Agnès. L’écriture de soi: lettres et récits autobiographiques des religieuses de Port-Royal. Paris: Champion, 2012. ISBN 978-2-7453-2404-7. Pp. 636. 135 a. At Port-Royal between 1620 and 1684, the Abbess Angélique Arnauld, her sister Agnès, and their niece Angélique de Saint-Jean wrote over 2,678 letters, not including those that have been lost. Cousson thus works with an epistolary corpus a little less than twice the size of the Sévigné correspondence (albeit less stylistically variable) in this exhaustive study, whose central paradox takes shape around the troubled notion of the self in the seventeenth century.As the introduction shows, writing about oneself is strongly discouraged in the convent, as the dangers of corruption by vanity and emotion constantly threaten to divert novice and superior alike from the path to selfless devotion to God. Still, as the archives of Port-Royal attest, there is a vast and richly-layered place for individual identity in letters. The separation into the Parisian cloister and Port-Royal-des-Champs motivated correspondence; the persecutions carried out against the controversial Jansenist order fueled apologetic narratives in defense of the community and eventually captivity narratives, as the nuns refusing to sign a formal abdication of Jansenist doctrine were incarcerated at the behest of the “Assemblée du Clergé.” Under duress and intent on preserving community and maintaining faith, the women of Port-Royal wrote in a variety of rhetorical modes to justify their cause; Cousson analyzes the textual evidence skillfully and in detail. Despite the injunctions to detach themselves from worldly matters,the initiates at PortRoyal show strong concern for one another while also maintaining ties with friends and family through correspondence. Cousson even detects an “influence des sentiments humains sur les sentiments religieux” (207), against the grain of Augustinian selfabnegation . If anything, the letters are proof that the pursuit of the“vide intérieur”or 206 FRENCH REVIEW 88.3 Reviews 207 “la mort au monde” (219) remained asymptotic, even in the most fervent practices. Additional distractions came from the frequent illnesses and deaths in the community and from changes in political and historical circumstances, some of which receive epistolary documentation. Although faith is to be disembodied, the body remains present in the letters, mainly when illnesses strike. The focus on the body is two-edged: on the one hand, contemplating oneself is an infraction of conventual duty; on the other hand, sickness provides fertile terrain for humiliation and self-abnegation before God. Cousson painstakingly analyzes the pragmatics of this suspicion of self as the letters mobilize strategies for avoiding the pronoun “je” by using “on,” imperatives, impersonal expressions, and other grammatical alternatives to the first person. The most learned of the writers,Angélique de Saint-Jean frequently uses biblical intertexts to avoid subjectivity. She would become historiographer of Port-Royal in 1652, treading a fine line between using eloquence to defend the community and incurring the charge of rhetorical vanity...
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Aug 7, 2024
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