Clélie: histoire romaine. Cinquième et dernière partie (review)

This is the fifth and final volume of Chantal Morlet-Chantalat's magisterial edition of Madeleine de Scudéry's novel Clélie, published in 1660, like the preceding volumes, under the name of her brother, Georges. It marks a change in the tastes and practices of seventeenth-century fiction. The only romans to be published after this, Almahide (1660-63), by Georges de Scudéry in collaboration with his wife, and Faramond (1661-70) by La Calprenède, enjoy relatively modest success; and Scudéry herself will soon turn to other narrative forms, exploring the shorter nouvelle in her Célinte, published in 1661. In her characteristically sensitive introduction, Morlet-Chantalat draws attention to the development of aesthetic across the five volumes, and to the increasingly frequent (and transparent) references to contemporary events and personalities. Not unrelated to this is the equally clear increase in the number and extent of portraits (of the novelist's contemporaries) and of descriptions (not least of well-known gardens and houses). In Scudéry's hands, the world of fiction is coming closer to the world of the reader. Of particular interest, and doubtless unexpected by those who may still associate this novelist with escapist idealization, is the more sombre tone which creeps into the text, its pessimistic questioning of heroic ideals. Morlet-Chantalat explores the unusual complexity of Plotine, one of the most original and suggestive of all Scudéry's characters, who may sketch out an ideal vision of harmonious understanding and unchanging feelings, but who acknowledges the discrepancy between theory and practice. Irreducible to some caricatured notion of préciosité, her detachment brings together courage and fear, self-esteem and awareness of human fallibility; her character suggests interesting parallels and contrasts with La Princesse de Clèves and looks forward in different ways to the worlds of Marivaux, Graffigny and Diderot. Like its predecessors, this volume offers an invaluable summary of the plot, but it includes also other equally useful appendices covering Clélie as a whole: tables of the different conversations on sentimental, social, moral and literary topics, of portraits, and of descriptions and illustrations; and an index of the principal themes and characters. It provides in this way the means to navigate and explore one of the most important novels of the seventeenth century; Morlet-Chantalat at deserves our congratulations and thanks for giving us this resource.