Lire l'épistolaire (review)

Book Reviews cachet" as an example of the "one-way communication of tyranny," contrasted with the reciprocal economy of affection structuring most epistolary novels. Beebee's is a very dense and informative study, which also offers some real gems of literary interpretation, presented almost casually along the way. He considers visual representations of epistolary practices as well, for example, in a remarkable description of the conjoined signs of letter writing, aristocracy, and woman in David's famous painting A Marat. The book is so tightly packed with examples that at times the thread of the argument is lost, but this is a small price to pay for what will be an important resource for anyone interested in the cultural and literary history of letters. The volume includes bibliographies of epistolary fiction, theory, and criticism. Elizabeth C. Goldsmith Boston University Marie-Claire Grassi. Lire ¡'épistolaire. Paris: Dunod, 1998. Pp. xi + 194. This book, part of Dunod's "Lettres SUP" series for French university students, is designed to orient readers to the wide variety of French texts written in letter form. Grassi provides historical background and critical perspectives for reading published and unpublished letters and epistolary novels. Like Geneviève Haroche-Bouzinac's L'Epistolaire (1995), published in die same Hachette series, Grassi's volume provides a useful, well-informed introduction to a field that has inspired courses, seminars, colloquia, and considerable research in the last 20 years. The first section, "Perspectives historiques" (2-30), sketches the history of postal service and the development of civility codes that subtended the flowering of epistolary literature in France. Grassi outlines the contributions of influential classical and medieval authors—Cicero, Seneca, Pliny the Younger, Abelard and Heloise. She locates the birth of epistolary literature in the seventeenth century with Pascal (Lettres provinciales), Guilleragues (Lettres portugaises), and Sévign é; she situates its apogee in the eighteenth century with the rise in the use of the letter by pedagogues , philosophes, and novelists. Turning to "La lettre réelle: la rhétorique épistolaire" (32-61), Grassi describes the way that the classical rhetoric of oratory was transformed by French neoclassical writers into an etiquette for epistolary conversation. She shows how the thresholds of epistolary intimacy subsequently developed, using recent analyses of Sade and Flaubert to illustrate the stylistic and social complexity of a writer's "private" letters. In "Approches du style" (64-89), Grassi uses extracts to illustrate five types of style in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the poissard style in Vadé's Lettres de la Grenouillère, "provincial" style in the manuscript letters of a Provençal noble, "natural" style in Sévigné, "simple" style in the recently published Correspondance littéraire of the abbé d'OIivet, and "precious " style in Voiture. In "Types de lettres" (92-120), Grassi presents five types of letters favored by the eighteenth century. Extracts from Rousseau illustrate the love letter, the autobiographical "lettre confession," and the pamphlet letter. Montesquieu transformed the "lettre morale, curieuse et exotique" in the Lettres persanes, while Chesterfield's letters to his son, in French translation, illustrate the tradition of the "lettre didactique." In "Lettre et littérature" ( 122-50) Grassi discusses the incorporation of letters into the French novel (Lafayette, Rousseau, Balzac, Yourcenar). She then turns to debates about the relationship between an author's correspondence and his literary work, using the case of Flaubert. An "Anthologie" (156-72) of excerpts from recent scholarship, well situated by Grassi, opens up other critical perspectives on the relationship between epistolary literature and political history, art history, and literary theory. This book has two limits, which are presumably a function of its intended audience. There are no references to important scholarship published in languages other than French. Secondly, Vol. XL, No. 4 97 L'Esprit Créateur me need to furnish a brief overview of so many broad areas undercuts the book's laudable effort to provide historical perspective. However, the range of references to French research, including excellent summaries incorporated within each chapter, should be of considerable value to all students and scholars. Janet Gurkin Altman The University of Iowa Guy Ducrey, éd. Romans fin-de-siècle ¡890-1900. Paris: Robert Laffont, Coll. "Bouquins," 1999. Pp...