De La Nouvelle Research Articles

O inventário das curiosidades botânicas da Nouvelle France de Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1744)

The article explores the botanical contributions of Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix's book Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France vis-à-vis the contributions of previous researchers, his use of iconographic and discursive representations and its relevance to the project of French colonization. It investigates why he refused Linnaeus' taxonomic model and what he intended with his catalogue of botanical curiosities. The unfolding of his philosophical and religious trajectory allows to understand his stance regarding the classification of nature, the meanings of ethnological information, his forms of intellectual appropriation, and his use of discourse and botanical iconography as political and emotional propaganda to encourage colonial settlement.

ONTOLOGICAL STANDARDIZATION FOR HISTORICAL MAP COLLECTIONS: STUDYING THE GREEK BORDERLINES OF 1881

Abstract. Historical maps deliver valuable historical information which is applicable in several domains while they document the spatiotemporal evolution of the geographical entities that are depicted therein. In order to use the historical cartographic information effectively, the maps' semantic documentation becomes a necessity for restoring any semantic ambiguities and structuring the relationship between historical and current geographical space. This paper examines cartographic ontologies as a proposed methodology and presents the first outcomes of the methodology applied for the historical map series «Carte de la nouvelle frontière Turco-Grecque» that sets the borderlines between Greece and Ottoman Empire in 1881. The map entities were modelled and compared to the current ones so as to record the changes in their spatial and thematic attributes and an ontology was developed in Protégé OWL Editor 3.4.4 for the attributes that thoroughly define a historical map and the digitised spatial entities. Special focus was given on the Greek borderline and the changes that it caused to other geographic entities.

Hume's "Malezieu Argument"

At T 1.2.2.3 Hume offers an argument against the infinite divisibility of finite extension, which he ascribes to "Mons. Malezieu." Scholars have long been aware that the ultimate source of the argument is the Élémens de Géométrie de Monseigneur le Duc de Bourgogne , first published in 1705. Although the argument has figured prominently in several recent discussions of Hume's metaphysics, there exists as yet no adequate English translation of Malezieu's text. Furthermore, very little is known about Hume's immediate sources for the argument. In this article, I provide the original French text with translation. I then inquire into Hume's knowledge of the text. Drawing on evidence internal to the Treatise passage itself, I consider two plausible sources: a contemporary review of Malezieu's work in the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres and a critical discussion of the argument in Le Gendre's Traité de l'opinion (1735). Based on the available evidence, I suggest that the latter was most likely Hume's source.

Postcolonial Perspectives on Early Modern Canada: Champlain's Voyages de la Nouvelle France (1632)

The early modern dimension of francophone postcolonialism has yet to be fully explored. This paper adds historical depth to postcolonial studies by applying post-colonial theory to an early seventeenth-century French colonial text: Samuel de Champlain’s Voyages de la Nouvelle France (1632). A postcolonial reading of Champlain’s Voyages reveals the ambivalence latent in a text traditionally seen as a straightforward narrative of the coming of French civilization to the Americas. After evaluating the applicability of postcolonial theory to works such as Champlain’s Voyages , discussion focuses on an episode from the text in which, on the eve of a battle against the Iroquois, Champlain has a dream predicting the defeat of the enemy by his Huron allies. As the author had previously dismissed, with sceptical superiority, the Amerindian faith in portentous dreams, this apparent shift in cultural allegiance raises interesting questions. Postcolonialism’s insights into colonial power relations can shed new light on Champlain’s complex relationship with his Amerindian allies and on the identity issues faced by colonizers in ‘white settler’ colonies. This paper traces Champlain’s transformation from Frenchman in Canada to incipient French-Canadian, and ultimately tests the limits of taking a postcolonial perspective on the early modern.

The Canadian Ethnocultural Council and Evolving Multiculturalism

Following the announcement of the multicultural policy in October of 1971, the Federal Government appointed members of ethnic communities to the newly created Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism to participate in the formulation of recommendations which would address the challenges of implementing that policy. When the work of that committee was concluded, some of the ethnocultural groups took the initiative to create a new body which would continue addressing policy matters of concern to the cross section of communities. Thus, the Canadian Ethnocultural Council, a grassroots organization comprised of voices representing many ethnic and racially diverse communities and organizations, was established in 1980. It played a key role in shaping the implementation of the policy. This paper discusses that role and the precedent set by the Canadian Ethnocultural Council in implementing cross cultural cooperation at the grassroots level. Suite à l'annonce de la politique du multiculturalisme en octobre 1971, le Gouvernement fédéral a nommé des membres des communautés ethniques au Conseil consultatif canadien sur le multiculturalisme nouvellement créé, pour contribuer à l'élaboration de recommandations qui visent à répondre aux défis posés par la mise en place de cette politique. Une fois que ce comité a eu terminé son travail, quelques groupes ethnoculturels prirent l'initiative d'en créer un second pour continuer à traiter de sujets qui préoccupent une variété de communautés. Ils ont donc fondé en 1980 le Conseil ethnoculturel du Canada, une organisation de base qui comprend des voix d'un nombre communautés ethniquement et racialement diverses. Cet organisme a joué un rôle clé dans la définition et la mise en oeuvre de la nouvelle politique. Cet article porte sur ce rôle et sur le précédent créé par le Conseil ethnoculturel du Canada dans la mise en place d'une coopération interculturelle au niveau de la base.

Writing a New France, 1604-1632: Empire and Early Modern French Identity (review)

Reviewed by: Writing a New France, 1604-1632: Empire and Early Modern French Identity Gordon M. Sayre (bio) Writing a New France, 1604-1632: Empire and Early Modern French Identity. Brian Brazeau. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. 132 pp. Many early Americanists have read excerpts from the Jesuit Relations, the series of reports from missionaries in New France published in Paris from 1632 to 1673. The product of the herculean effort of Reuben Gold Thwaites and colleagues to translate the Relations, along with "Allied Documents" from missionaries in Illinois and other colonies and from after 1673, is now available online, and anthologies such as Allan Greer's make the texts even more accessible for classroom use. But few anglophone scholars are aware of the intellectual and religious issues in New France prior to the Jesuit Relations, or of the writings of the first Jesuit to come to Canada, Pierre Biard, who voyaged to Acadia in 1611-13. Biard promoted in his writings "New France, this new land, first discovered in the last century by our countryman, a twin land to ours, subject to the same influences, lying in the same latitude, and having the same climate" (Brazeau 4-5, qtng. from Thwaites). Brian Brazeau's book analyzes the idea of New France as a reflection of European France, of the colony as a twin, a mirror, or a reexamination of the metropole. In the early seventeenth century the wars of religion in France had subsided, and colonial writers such as Biard and Marc Lescarbot sought to promote the colony in Canada as a chance to remake France or to return to its glorious origins. In 1606-07 Lescarbot sailed to Port Royal in what is now Nova Scotia with the Sieur de Poutrincourt, an ally of Henri IV and like him a former Protestant. Lescarbot was a lawyer, a humanist historian, and a poet, and though he lived in America for less than a year, when he returned to Old France he wrote a six-volume Histoire de la Nouvelle France, which included redactions of previous exploration texts by Verazzano, Cartier, Laudonnière, Champlain, and others. In a chapter titled "Nos Ancêtres les Américains" Brazeau shows how the sixth volume, an ethnography of the local native people, the Armichiquiou, presents Lescarbot's theory that the indigenous Americans were descended not from Ham nor from a lost tribe of Isreal, but directly from Noah: "Noah, patriarch of the Amerindian, is revealed as not only the biblical father of humanity but also specifically as [End Page 191] the progenitor of the Gauls. The French and the Amerindians share a common ancestor" (89). Drawing on a 2001 book about European theories of the origins of the American Indians by Giuliano Gliozzi, Brazeau explains the ideology behind Lescarbot's theory. The Amerindians preserved some of the primitive virtues of the Gauls, and the French should be inspired to recapture the valor of the medieval Crusades, and to "Christianise the peoples of the West, who of their own will give us their lands" (qtd. 73). Brazeau argues that in spite of a resistance among the French landed aristocracy (the noblesse d'épée) to engaging in commercial activity, and in spite of tensions between Protestants and Catholics, the ideologists of French colonization formulated a coherent appeal to the crown. Brazeau emphasizes the work of Antoine de Montchrétien, who appealed to the king: "vous pouvez planter et provigner de nouvelles Frances" ("you can plant and spread [or 'layer'] New Frances") (112). The root "vigne" in that line becomes significant as well, for Brazeau shows how Lescarbot and Champlain (and one could add Cartier, although his writings are not analyzed in the book) emphasized that Canada, as Biard had noted, was at the same latitude as France and that grapes were found growing there. For Champlain "the presence of grapevines is a condition for the habitability of any area" (31), but the significance of grapes goes beyond the role of wine in French identity, which "was nebulous at the time" (29): "Without the work of man, vines are simply a common plant. Wine is thus a victory over nature. The place of the wine producer is...

The British Library and the History of Dancing

In 1746, Hester Booth (nee Santlow) moved into a house toward the eastern end of London's Great Russell Street, just a few doors away from Montagu House, the neglected town residence of the second ...

“Mais où est le cul?”: Life and Form in Sade's Les Infortunes de la vertu and La Nouvelle Justine

I borrow Diderot's distinction between “esquisse” and “tableau” to explore the formal evolution of Sade's writing in relation to his representation of political economies. In comparing a specific scene in Les Infortunes de la vertu (1787) and La Nouvelle Justine (1799), I suggest that in the final version of Justine's story, amplification blurs generic categories and limits readerly involvement in the narrative. Sade's sketch, in contrast with his overblown pornographic tale of social chaos, provides an unmediated, livelier, and altogether more original commentary on social relations in the eighteenth century. Unburdened by archetypes and repetition, Sade's first version of Justine's misfortunes draws the reader's attention to the realist aspects of the story and to a surprisingly nuanced reflection on the nature of human rationality.

"Mais où est le cul?": Life and Form in Sade's Les Infortunes de la vertu and La Nouvelle Justine

I borrow Diderot's distinction between "esquisse" and "tableau" to explore the formal evolution of Sade's writing in relation to his representation of political economies. In comparing a specific scene in Les Infortunes de la vertu (1787) and La Nouvelle Justine (1799), I suggest that in the final version of Justine's story, amplification blurs generic categories and limits readerly involvement in the narrative. Sade's sketch, in contrast with his overblown pornographic tale of social chaos, provides an unmediated, livelier, and altogether more original commentary on social relations in the eighteenth century. Unburdened by archetypes and repetition, Sade's first version of Justine's misfortunes draws the reader's attention to the realist aspects of the story and to a surprisingly nuanced reflection on the nature of human rationality.

Marc Lescarbot Reads Jacques Cartier: Colonial History in the Service of Propaganda

Marc Lescarbot Reads Jacques Cartier: Colonial History in the Service of Propaganda Carla Zecher The Newberry Library The parliamentary lawyer Marc Lescarbot (ca. 1570-1641) lived at the tiny French settlement of Port-Royal in Acadia (present-day Annapolis, Nova Scotia) for 13 months, beginning in July 1606.1 The colony's commander, Jean de Biencourt, sieur de Poutrincourt, had invited Lescarbot to join the 1606 expedition as its chronicler. Poutrincourt, an impoverished Catholic nobleman and former soldier, hoped to re-make his family's fortune overseas. Lescarbot, a bachelor in his mid-thirties, disillusioned with corruption in Parliament, was pleased to escape Paris and embark on a colonial adventure.2 Funding for Port-Royal was provided by the Protestant merchant Pierre Du Gua de Monts, whom king Henri IV had named his lieutenant general for the "païs et territoires de la Cadie" in 1603, at the same time granting him a monopoly over the Canadian fur trade.3 During the summer of 1606, however, while Poutrincourt's group of new colonists was settling in at Port-Royal, Du Gua and his business associates suffered heavy losses in a skirmish with merchants from Amsterdam in the St. Lawrence valley. As a result, Du Gua's party disbanded, Henri IV revoked the fur trade monopoly, and the colonists were repatriated in September 1607. Back in Paris, Lescarbot amply fulfilled his duties as chronicler by drafting his remarkable Histoire de la Nouvelle France, an 888-page book printed in February 1609. Du Gua having now ceded the abandoned property at Port-Royal to Poutrincourt, the latter hoped to persuade the king to reinstate the colony, and Lescarbot's book therefore took on a promotional as well as a documentary function. The Histoire de la Nouvelle France represents an early example of what would soon become the standard French colonial handbook for the Americas: a work in two or three volumes, one devoted to the author's personal travel narrative, the other(s) presenting an ethnography and/or a natural history. Lescarbot's particular innovation was to combine this genre with another one, already favored in the later sixteenth century: the travel anthology. The first book of the Histoire presents a compilation of historical narratives of the sixteenth-century French voyages to Florida and Brazil. The Canadian voyages of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries follow, in the second book, culminating with Lescarbot's account of his year in Acadia. Book three presents an extensive ethnography of the Indians of North and South America. [End Page 107] Lastly, Lescarbot appended to the volume a 66-page collection of his own poetry titled Les Muses de la Nouvelle France, much of which he had composed in Acadia—what some have called the first text of Canadian literature.4 Throughout the 400 years since the first printing of the Histoire de la Nouvelle France, the travel anthology that opens the volume has consistently attracted less attention than the later sections. Translators, editors, historians, and literary scholars have, not surprisingly, gravitated to the more original material contained in the work: the account of the Acadia colony, the ethnography, and the poetry. They have also focused on the third edition of the Histoire (1617), which is the most comprehensive of the three, since Lescarbot's practice was to add material to successive editions, replacing or updating dedicatory epistles and inserting new chapters. This custom has tended to obscure the fact that Lescarbot did make revisions to the anthology portion of his book for the second edition—specifically, in the section devoted to the narratives of the sixteenth-century explorer Jacques Cartier, a historical figure whom Lescarbot particularly wished to highlight, as a forerunner to Poutrincourt, for the purpose of promoting the Acadia colony to Henri IV. The revisions were necessitated by the acquisition of new information regarding Cartier's voyages to Canada, and in some respects they weakened Lescarbot's initial portrayal of Cartier as a hero...

"L'Ouragan de Flammes" ("The Hurricane of Flames"): New Orleans and Transamerican Catastrophe, 1866/2005

This essay takes its cue from a nineteenth-century New Orleans poem, "Pour les Incendiés de Saint Domingue," which was dedicated to the victims of a great fire that burned Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1866. Reading both the poem and the disaster it memorialized as productive lenses upon the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the author seeks to understand the 1866 fire and the 2005 hurricane as instances of transamerican catastrophe: disasters that were insistently narrated in their respective moments as national tragedies, but which tell very different stories when examined within the wider and more complex geopolitical context of the American hemisphere, and particularly the Caribbean. 'Pour les Incendiés'first appeared in the earliest African American daily newspaper in the United States, La Tribune de la Nouvelle Orleans, a francophone journal that elaborated an alternative discourse of racial politics and historical understanding and helped to shape a transamerican public sphere. At the same time, the poem itself, and the varied modes of formal agency it exercises upon its poetic content and within its historical context, speaks powerfully to our current political moment. The poem provides a kind of mediating text between the two transamerican catastrophes, clarifying the historical and discursive trajectory from the nineteenth-century Haitian fire to the contemporary political and public discourse emerging from Katrina's aftermath.

Preserving A Heritage? South African Archive Documentary: 1910-1940

Le documentaire occupait une place aussi importante que la fiction dans la production de l’African Film Productions Ltd., le premier studio Sud-africain. Financés par plusieurs départements de la nouvelle fédération de l’Union Sud-africaine, les documentaires de l’AFP jouèrent un rôle crucial dans le développement d’une nouvelle conception de l’Afrique du Sud entre 1910 et 1940. Ce rôle devient évident quand on place les documentaires de l’AFP dans le contexte de la politique législative de l’Afrique du Sud de l’époque.

Images of a Colonial Kalunga

Images of a Colonial Kalunga Benjamin Abdala Júnior Universidade de São Paulo trans. by Russell G. Hamilton Musical Movement As is well known, the intellectual field of the European left's mode of thought, during that historical period, became revitalized by Jean-Paul Sartre's manifest empathy for black causes. Sartre expresses this empathy in "Orphée noir" ("Black Orpheus"), the preface to his Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française (Anthology of the New Black and Malagasy Poetry in French). The musical ambience of that title was an echoing of Sartre's narrative La nausée, first published in 1938, in which the first-person narrator Antoine de Roquentin becomes aware of his existential condition upon hearing a jazz song intoned by an African American woman. All elements of the notion of the protagonist's awareness manifest themselves in the musicality and reflections that the tune unleashes. There are two opposing worlds—that of the daily routine, with the individual adhering to established habits, and that which is disdained by consciousness. It was the tension between not being consciousness of the automatic actions of the observed world (for example, characters playing cards in a bar) and the symbolic process of identification that one finds in musical notes. During the brief duration of a musical piece, Roquentin finds a critical order of what "we are." That feeling of identification reveals itself in the individual and not in connecting with the other (for Sartre, the "other" is oppressive), thus forming a social collective, differing from that which one can verify in Agostinho Neto's work. The musical movement of the composition that motivated "jazz" presupposes integration, expansion, doubt, life, and death. What follows is a succession of notes that leads to the idea of continuous adventure. The manifestation of the new, when materialized by means of the musical note, already becomes old. It is in that order in process, continuously new, that Roquentin will "cure" himself of existential nausea. There is a difference between the world as a dealing of cards and the form of consciousness experienced by the character. In that instant of consciousness the character finds happiness and the sensation of plenitude. It is a matter of an experience that expands consciousness, a praxis that permits one to observe the world with the hope that things can be better than they are. The Waters of Kalunga The character in Sartre's narrative discovers at that instant a feeling for the facts of his existence. That feeling differs from that experienced by Elder João, the [End Page 68] protagonist in Agostinho Neto's Náusea. There is, nevertheless, an implicit dialogue with the Sartrean matrix, an updating that is already something else, as Roquentin himself pondered. It is a note that would be a differentiated updating of conjunctions of multiple symbolic notes. Moreover, it is another ambiance; it leaves Paris for Luanda and goes from a closed environment to the openness of a beach that possesses a history. There intersect the ocean's waters, joining with the colonial ebbs and flows, and the sands of time of the Angolan land marked by that domination. Elder João, a fisherman's son, had just been expelled from the beach as a result of the presence of the colonial civilization. It was the waters of Kalunga, a deity identified with the sea who has a negative symbolization for members of the Kimbundu ethnic group. Kalunga is associated with death, with slavery. With respect to the latter, in one movement the colonial waters imprison and carry off, for the Americas and for Europe, the human capital and the riches of the land. And, in a reverse movement, the way of being of Kalunga was implanted for the land's native peoples. It was the action and also Kalunga's attraction that made Elder João, while he was still young, end up moving away...

Images of a Colonial Kalunga

s is well known, the intellectual field of the European left's mode of thought, during that historical period, became revitalized by Jean-Paul Sartre's manifest empathy for black causes. Sartre expresses this empathy in Orph&e noir (Black Orpheus), the preface to his Anthologie de la nouvelle podsie negre et malgache de languefranqaise (Anthology of the New Black and Malagasy Poetry in French). The musical ambience of that title was an echoing of Sartre's narrative La nausee, first published in 1938, in which the first-person narrator Antoine de Roquentin becomes aware of his existential condition upon hearing a song intoned by an African American woman. All elements of the notion of the protagonist's awareness manifest themselves in the musicality and reflections that the tune unleashes. There are two opposing worlds-that of the daily routine, with the individual adhering to established habits, and that which is disdained by consciousness. It was the tension between not being consciousness of the automatic actions of the observed world (for example, characters playing cards in a bar) and the symbolic process of identification that one finds in musical notes. During the brief duration of a musical piece, Roquentin finds a critical order of what we That feeling of identification reveals itself in the individual and not in connecting with the (for Sartre, the other is oppressive), thus forming a social collective, differing from that which one can verify in Agostinho Neto's work. The musical movement of the composition that motivated jazz presupposes integration, expansion, doubt, life, and death. What follows is a succession of notes that leads to the idea of continuous adventure. The manifestation of the new, when materialized by means of the musical note, already becomes old. It is in that order in process, continuously new, that Roquentin will cure himself of existential nausea. There is a difference between the world as a dealing of cards and the form of consciousness experienced by the character. In that instant of consciousness the character finds happiness and the sensation of plenitude. It is a matter of an experience that expands consciousness, a praxis that permits one to observe the world with the hope that things can be better than they are.

Dialectic or Dissemination? Anti-colonial Critique in Sartre and Derrida

Sartre's writing on colonialism and anti-colonial critique is diverse, protean and frequently self-contradictory, and for this reason has generated a good deal of controversy. His celebrated and notorious 'Orphée noir', written as the preface to Senghor's Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française, has been read as both veneration and critique of the negritude movement, and he has been named both spokesman and traitor of anti-colonial resistance in Africa. Explicating the dynamics of an assertion of black identity in contradistinction to colonial influence, Sartre introduced revolutionary black poetry to the European audience it was directed against, only to be condemned by some of the other negritude thinkers, such as Alioune Diop, as eurocentric and blinded by his own position as a metropolitan, and therefore colonial, intellectual. The version of negritude promoted in 'Orphée noir' was criticised by such thinkers for being too rigid and essentialist, yet conversely, Fanon objected that Sartre's stress on the movement as transitory and provisional meant that was insufficiently immersed in 'authentic black experience'. In addition, Sartre's more journalistic writing, which called for the withdrawal of the French presence in Algeria during the war of independence, aptly served to draw attention to dissension about the Algerian question within French society, but, as Robert Young points out, the Marxist approach underpinning many of these pieces has also been seen as universalising.

Correspondance de Pierre Bayle, Vol. III: Janvier 1678-fin 1683. Lettres 147-241 by Elisabeth Labrousse , Antony McKenna , Laurence Bergon , Hubert Bost , Wiep van Bunge , Edward James , Eric-Olivier Lochard , Dominique Taurisson , Annie Leroux , Caroline Verdier (review)

MLR, IOI .4, 2006 II17 There are some problems relating to procedure. Inevitably, given the range of tar gets, the overarching approaches considered at fault are rarely explained fully in their own terms. Goldmann's perspective is actually more complex than it seems from the account given here (arising certainly from a thesis on Jansenism discredited by histo rians almost as soon as it appeared in print). In this way, we are not always privy to the complete intellectual background accounting for the statements under scrutiny. Else where, the statements under scrutiny do not seem always to emerge from a system, but are picked off simply for being misguided. These are rather discrete differences of opi nion. One question arises: is attention to 'Racine' all bad? The problem arising from Campbell's adjudicatory approach (was it really necessary for Jean Rohou, themost frequently quoted broken idol, to be so systematically brought to book?) is that the positive elements aremissing. I think itwas Goldmann who argued that, if there were insights in his work on Racine, these arise precisely because of the system he adopted. Should we not at least be grateful for that? It isnot unknown for those who otherwise disagree with the systematicists even to use their insights as corroborative. Clearly, we should beware of letting the facts, or, as Campbell tellingly demonstrates, the exceptions, spoil a good theory, and, indeed, the empiricist never has toworry about that, although the empiricist rarely justifies empiricism as such, contending that the points he or she ismaking (not explicitly a position adopted by Campbell, but present to the reader none the less) stand to reason, and could have been arrived atwithout the system. Moreover, Campbell himself has recourse to terms he never questions or defines, except through reference toAristotle's authority, such as 'the tragic plot', 'the tragic hero', 'the tragic genre', and 'a truly tragic identity'. On the other hand, the em piricist always leaves us with the disturbing and unsatisfactory feeling that our claims are only ever limited to the individual work. There are no maps, just the road we are going down at themoment. There isno experience, just experiences. With Racine, the rallying cry isRacine the supreme plot-maker, where each plot is adequate to its needs in producing emotional effect on the spectator. Do we have nowhere to go from there? UNIVERSITYOFMANCHESTER HENRY PHILLIPS Correspondance de Pierre Bayle, vol. Iv: Janvier i684-juillet i684. Lettres 242-308. Ed. by ANTONYMcKENNA, LAURENCEBERGON,HUBERT BOST,WIEP VANBUNGE, EDWARD JAMES,ELISABETHLABROUSSE, ANNIE LEROUX, and CAROLINEVERDIER. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. 2005. xxii+ 287 pp.; I6 plates. ?85. ISBN o 77294-o853-I. Anyone who studies history, literature, and philosophy in the late seventeenth and entire eighteenth centuries knows that Pierre Bayle is one of themost important nuts to crack. Was he an atheist or a fideist? A monarchist or a republican? How, and in what ways, did his thinking evolve over his lifetime? How did his private life affect his ideas and writings? These are important questions because he was one of themost influential thinkers of his time. This is the latest volume in one of themost significant projects to help us under stand him: a new edition of his correspondence that is expected to run to twenty volumes. It is a splendid edition, with ample notes to all references to people, places, and books in the letters. From the first known letter of Bayle to the end of this volume it contains 308 letters from, to, and about Bayle. Elisabeth Labrousse's Inventaire critique comments on 275 letters for the same period. This volume covers the first half of I684, when Bayle is settled inRotterdam. I am quite comfortable in asserting that Bayle was a better philosopher than Descartes or Leibniz. But this is not the volume to prove that: he does not say much III8 Reviews about philosophy in these letters. Rather, we read about his reasons for embarking upon the editorship of the Nouvelles de la republique des lettres and the enthusiastic (and sometimes critical) response ofmany of his friends and contacts. Bayle seems sur prisingly optimistic. One gets the impression that Protestant-Catholic polemics are treated somewhat light-heartedly...

Bayle, Saint-Evremond, and Fideism: A Reply to Thomas M. Lennon

In a recent article published in this journal Thomas M. Lennon returns to the controversial question of BayIe's attitude towards religion. The point he debates is the particular use that, in expounding his conception of the relationship between faith and reason, Bayle makes of a passage from Saint-Evremond. In Lennon's view the correct interpretation of this point would show that Bayle's fideism is to be at face value any hint of irony and with no suspicion of dissimulation or insincerity.1 This would cast doubt on and greatly weaken the interpretation I proposed in my Bayle philosophe.2 My aim here is to respond briefly to Lennon's arguments and to clarify even more briefly what in my opinion is the right perspective in which to consider Bayle's position on this topic.The context in which Bayle quotes Saint-Evremond is to be found in the Eclaircissements he added to the second edition of his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1702) to counter the Dutch religious authorities' harsh criticism of the first edition. In particular the Walloon Consistory accused Bayle of taking a skeptical position that undermined the most important dogmas of Christian faith. In response Bayle wrote the Eclaircissement sur les Pyrrhoniens, a clumsy mosaic of quotations from the Scriptures and from patristic and profane texts, with which he sought to show that his skeptical fideism was not in the least heterodox but indeed the position that most closely reflected true Christianity. The quotation from Saint-Evremond, almost at the end of this text, is taken from the Conversation du Marechal d'Hocquincourt et du Pere Canaye (written in about 1654).3 The final passage gives a clear idea of the general tone: after having disputed with a churchman the need to subject one's intellect to the yoke of faith, the marshal concludes by saying that he is ready to be crucified without knowing why. Father Canaye replies: reason! That is the true religion. No reason! God has granted you a fine grace, mylord. So, and here Lennon obviously agrees (229), Saint-Evremond's is a with no shadow of mystical inspiration, indeed strongly tending in the libertine direction, as is clear from the blatant way it pours scorn on the fideist approach.In my interpretation Bayle's use of this quotation does not at all demonstrate his atheism or unbelief, for in my view that question is undecidable. However, the quotation from Saint-Evremond is sufficient-and this is the only reason I mentioned it4-to show that Bayle's approach to fideism is in no way innocent and naive as is sometimes claimed. On the contrary, his texts on this subject contain what amounts to provocations aimed at orthodox readers (to which they immediately reacted). This, together with other more important reasons, leads me to believe that Bayle's professions of Christian faith, though frequent, are generally far from being above suspicion: indeed, almost every line of them raises questions about their actual significance.The provocation contained in the quotation from Saint-Evremond appears in all its rhetorical weight if we associate this with three other passages from Bayle's works. The first is from the Nouvelles de la republique des lettres of December 1686, in which Bayle stresses the unedifying nature of the religious maxims contained in Saint-Evrcmond's Conversation (which, incidentally, he himself had just had printed in the collection Le Retour des pieces choisies)? The second is taken from a letter by Jean d'Ouies to Bayle, written in 1696, in which the author deals with exactly the same passage from the Conversation that was later to be reproduced in the Eclaircissement. In this letter d'Ouies quotes the full passage which he considers to be a naughty text deliberately written to throw ridicule on the fanatical fideism of Pierre Jurieu.6 The third passage is from Bayle's Continuation des pensees diverses of 1704 in which, shortly after the death of Saint-Evremond, he publicly reveals the poet's lack of religiosity, citing him as a typical example of a virtuous atheist. …

Pierre Bayle: la nature et la 'nature des choses' by Jean-Jacques Bouchardy

460 Reviews Gender is also at the heart of Derval Conroy's contribution, which is well informed and presents some interesting arguments, but the conclusion that Racine challenged contemporary ideas about women's aptitude to exercise power is not altogether convincing since one of the chosen examples, Athalie, appears to fail to retain power precisely because ofthe re-emergence of so-called 'feminine' qualities. Jane Conroy's chapter on constructions of identity offersa nice follow-up in its examination of the 'other' and its links to gender. Edric Caldicott goes back to Jean Orcibal and Rene Jasinski to challenge their historical interpretation of Racine's biblical plays before moving on to examine the function of music in tragedy, while Robert McBride analyses Racine's and Moliere's responses to La Querelle du theatre. The firsthalf of Riviere's chapter on Voltaire's response to Racine ties in with the chapters on gender, exposing Voltaire's rather misogynist attitudes and selective use of accounts written by women. It stresses once again that Voltaire the polemicist always wins over Voltaire the editor or historian, while the second half offersmore of a profile of a section of the female audience, with Mme de Graffignyas a representative example. Louis Van Delft's contribution seems the most controversial, listing over six pages the most damning reviews of recent pro? ductions and suggesting that audiences, and therefore, presumably, directors, are no longer able to appreciate the subtlety of Racine's craft. He relates this to the notion of tristessemajestueuse as a component of tragedy. While the follow-up argument about the problems raised by putting on seventeenth-century plays for twentieth-century audiences makes interesting reading, I could not help but feel that this chapter was rather downhearted and that itwould have been useful to offersome positive examples of recent productions (there must be some) or suggestions. Two chapters (Susanne Hartwig, and Berthold Warnecke and Grainne Gormley) concentrate on music, and more specifically on the import of Jean-Baptiste Moreau's work for Esther. Finally, Alain Viala suggests vanity as a central subject in Racine's plays, and his conclusion on tristesseseems to support Van Delft's own views on its role in tragedy. University of Edinburgh Veronique Desnain Pierre Bayle: la nature et la 'nature des choses'. By Jean-Jacques Bouchardy. (Vie des Huguenots, ed. by Antony McKenna, 14) Paris: Champion. 2001. 349 pp. 350 F. ISBN 2-7453-0385-6. In this densely argued book Jean-Jacques Bouchardy studies Pierre Bayle's views on Nature and the 'nature of things'. He devotes chapters to a range of questions, includ? ing the study of Nature, Cartesianism, the problem of evil, and the nature of God, and covers issues such as the role of reason, the place of free will, atheism, attitudes to science, and the importance of inner conviction in religious matters. Bouchardy shows how Bayle adopts reason as a major reference in Pensees sur la comete (1683) and, untypically for him, is enthusiastic about science and scientific progress in the Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres (1684-87). Reason and experience are here pre? sented as complementary rather than opposed to one another, for reason, while being vital forhumans, is not in itself a sufficientguide. In later works (such as the Diction? naire historique et critique {1697) and the Reponse aux questions d'un provincial {1703)) he becomes much more critical and sceptical, in many ways using reason against itself (e.g. in the article 'Manicheens', where he presents difBculties for Christians). In these later works Bayle extends his arguments to the limit, admitting that, given the amount of evil in the world, it is difficultto accept that God exists and is good, but he ultimately emphasizes the role of faith, i.e. the need simply to believe in the essentially incomprehensible. The potential for the excessive exercise of reason to MLR, 98.2, 2003 461 lead to atheism is evident here, but Bouchardy agrees with Elisabeth Labrousse that, in spite of doubts he may have entertained, Bayle nevertheless remained a believer. As well as remindingus ofwell-known comparisons with Montaigneand Rousseau, Bouchardy draws some more unusual links to writers with whom Bayle is...

A Solution to the Multitude of Books: Ephraim Chambers's "Cyclopaedia" (1728) as "The Best Book in the Universe"

Since late twentieth century caption age has been a dominant characterization Western and, increasingly, global culture. These observations have been joined by complaint that it is difficult for individuals to locate information they require, to discriminate between reliable and unreliable sources, and to distinguish between knowledge and information-- issues exacerbated by divide between so-called information rich and information poor societies. It is common, in both academic and public spheres, for this set problems to be ascribed to impact electronic information technologies and encapsulated in term explosion.' But this phenomenon is not unprecedented, for as historians book and print culture are beginning to demonstrate, some its essential features were apparent in early modern Europe.2 As Ann Blair has shown, concerns about increasing number were expressed as early as first century after invention printing. By seventeenth century this issue had attracted attention some major figures such as Johann Heinrich Alsted, Jan Amos Comenius, Pierre Bayle, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. he arrived in London in 1641, Comenius was astonished by vast number on display-far more, he thought, than at great Frankfurt book fair. In following year he declared that bookes are grown so common ... that even common countrey people, and women themselves are familiarly acquainted with them.3 His educational program dictated that unity knowledge, once mastered by scholars, must be shared and hence simplified. This required an abbreviation knowledge, some kind magnetic directory for people lost in a sea books.4 In 1680 Leibniz spoke that horrible mass which keeps on growing, so that eventually, he feared, the disorder will become nearly insurmountable. He also argued that this plethora made it more difficult for Republic Letters and academies to communicate any consensus on fundamentals, and so he recommended that royal academies arrange for the quintessence best books to be extracted and to have added to them unrecorded observations best experts each profession.5 More generally, within wider Republic Letters extending beyond learned academies, problem was not just too many but differential access to them in various parts Europe. This is way Pierre Bayle posed issue in his Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres (from 1684), and he offered his Dictionnaire as a book to stand in place of a library to a great many people.6 Thus, for Leibniz and Bayle, both large number and their uneven availability made abridgement imperative. From another perspective Jonathan Swift in 1704 lamented and parodied what he called Index learning, referring to growth epitomes, abridgements, and alphabetical indexes.7 These, he said, were advertised as methods for not reading whole book. Against this background, by mid-eighteenth century there were some extreme responses to rapidly growing number books. But most commentators acknowledged that printing could save and hence knowledge from agents that destroyed manuscripts in past, such as fire, flood, and actions warring armies; there were also calls for aggressive selection, if not culling, books. Indeed, Edward Gibbon, who lamented fate Library Alexandria, was able to console himself with thought that by seventh century it held many not worth preserving: But, if ponderous mass Arian and Monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in public baths, a philosopher may allow, with a smile, that it was ultimately devoted to benefit mankind.8 Placed in this light, David Hume's famous threat 1748 to consign all metaphysical or otherwise worthless to flames can be interpreted not just as a philosophical preference but also as a means managing information overload: When we run over libraries, persuaded these principles, what havoc must we make? …

Voices from Madagascar: An Anthology of Contemporary Francophone Literature / Voix de Madagascar: Anthologie de littérature francophone contemporaine

There is currently in Madagascar a rich literary production (short stories, poetry, novels, plays) that has not yet reached the United States for lack of diffusion outside the country. Until recently, Madagascar suffered from political isolation resulting from its breakup with France in the 1970s and the eighteen years of Marxism that followed. With little hope that their voices would be heard outside the island, writers nevertheless have continued to express themselves in French (alongside a literature written in the Malagasy language). Malagasy literature in French had begun in the colonial era with three poets: Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, Jacques Rabemananjara, and Flavien Ranaivo, all three presented in Leopold Senghor's celebrated Anthologie de la nouvelle poesie negre et malgache (1948). More recently, although a few Malagasy writers living outside the country have been published in France, the bulk of Malagasy literature today has remained largely unpublished, circulating locally mostly in manuscript form. Voices from Madagascar will bring a wide selection of these texts, both in French and in English, to the North American public.