L’Organe des Anciens? Retour sur les rééditions des Caractères de La Bruyère

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Schuwey

Abstract Cet article renouvelle l’étude d’un cas aussi célèbre que singulier de la littérature française, à savoir, les six éditions augmentées des Caractères de Jean de La Bruyère. En replaçant celles-ci dans leur contexte éditorial, on démontre que, contrairement à ce qu’une majorité de la critique a voulu croire depuis le milieu du dix-neuvième siècle, ces rééditions ne constituent pas les brouillons d’une œuvre en cours d’élaboration. Elles correspondent plutôt à une logique de périodicité, révélant Les Caractères comme une plateforme médiatique qui permit à La Bruyère d’intervenir dans la politique et les querelles contemporaines, de proposer une alternative au Mercure galant (le grand périodique  à la mode du règne de Louis XIV) et de faire progresser sa carrière. Au fil des rééditions, La Bruyère modifia subtilement sa posture afin d’être élu à l’Académie, transformant opportunément son ouvrage en monument littéraire. Sous le voile vénérable de la philosophie, Les Caractères se révèlent comme un livre dynamique, résolument impliqué dans les querelles contemporaines, conçu selon des stratégies médiatiques  sophistiquées et qui constitue, en creux, un cas d’école pour l’historiographie des études littéraires. This article challenges fundamental assumptions about Jean de La Bruyère’s Les Caractères and the eight reissues of the work that were published in just six years — a unique case in canonical French literature. Contrary to critical refrains since the mid-nineteenth century, these editions should not be considered as drafts that preceded a definitive version. Following early modern editorial practices, the reissues are better understood within a concept of periodicity: Les Caractères functioned as a media platform that allowed La Bruyère to compete with the Mercure galant (the fashionable official media outlet of Louis XIV’s reign) to intervene in topical debates and secure election to the Académie française. Throughout the editions, he subtly re-oriented his positioning and moulded his work into a literary monument. Behind its venerable philosophical tone, Les Caractères reveals itself to be a dynamic book, tightly linked to contemporary issues and elaborated from sophisticated media strategies, as well as a textbook case in the historiography of French studies.

Author(s):  
M. J. Freeman

Alan William Raitt (1930–2006), a Fellow of the British Academy, went up to Magdalen College at the University of Oxford from King Edward's Grammar School in Morpeth, in 1948. He progressed from being an undergraduate there to graduate student, Fellow by Examination, Fellow, Tutor, and Senior Tutor, as well as serving the college as a distinguished Vice-President from 1983 to 1985. Raitt had by then already been named in 1976 Special Lecturer in French Literature for the university and, three years later, University Reader. In 1992 he received the accolade of an ad hominem Chair. Raitt had a gift for friendship; one of his greatest friends was Pierre Castex. His reputation as an international authority on nineteenth-century French literature is second to none. Unlike some British and American scholars, Raitt is widely read and admired by the French themselves, and his name figures prominently in all bibliographies devoted to Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Gustave Flaubert. Despite his many commitments, both in Oxford and in the sphere of French studies generally, he remained a consistently prolific scholar.


Author(s):  
Yiying Pan

Abstract This article investigates the collective responsibility organizations among boatmen in nineteenth-century Chongqing, when the city became one of the most important metropolises on the southwest Qing frontier. It also introduces two successive turning points in self-organization that were associated with two different classes of boatmen – skippers and sailors. First, in 1803, skippers gained the authority to institutionalize their organizations through their negotiations with the local state regarding official services and service fees. Second, when similar service and fiscal tensions emerged between skippers and sailors in the mid-nineteenth century, the skippers facilitated and supervised the institutionalization of collective responsibility organizations that were run by the sailors themselves. By contextualizing this expansion of collective responsibility organizations within the multilayered interactions between skippers and sailors, this article proposes that the perspective of interclass networks is crucial for deepening the study of state−society interactions, the capital−labor relationship, as well as the tension between imperial integration and regional diversity in early modern China.


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