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  • À l'ombre des Lumières: littérature et pensée françaises du XVIIIe siècle
  • Felicia Gottmann
À l'ombre des Lumières: littérature et pensée françaises du XVIIIe siècle. Edited by Trude Kolderup and Svein-Eirik Fauskevåg. Paris: L'Harmattan; Oslo: Solum, 2008. 266 pp. Pb €29.00.

This volume is made up from contributions to two conferences organized as part of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's research project 'À l'ombre des Lumières' in 2007, structured around the themes 'À l'ombre des Lumières', 'Liberté et nécessité', and 'L'autre dans l'ethnographie'. Anyone doubting the usefulness of the shadow-light binary as a guiding principle will be convinced by Colas Duflo's brilliant opening essay, which discerns three strands in the Lumières writers' usage of the binary in their efforts at self-definition: shadow as opponent of Enlightenment (the darkness of prejudice and superstition), shadow as a limit to Enlightenment (the philosophers' lights only able to shine so far), and the shadow cast by the Enlightenment (the autocritique of the Lumières by Rousseau and Bernadin de Saint-Pierre). Sadly, this exposition is not fully explored in the essays. Kolderup refers to the binary when situating fictional humanizations both in the shadow and at the heart of the Lumières, employing both irrational, fantastical elements and Enlightenment anthropology. However, Øyvind Gjems Fjeldbu's contribution on Rousseau's use of cognitive images in Emile makes no reference to it, except perhaps implicitly in the imploded opposition of passion and raison. Two further essays explore 'grey zones'. Franck Salaün discusses what he takes to be the Lumières' 'blind spot' when it comes to the status of fiction, and Sophie Audidière examines the difficulties materialist philosophes encountered when positing the origin of thought in the sensations of pain and pleasure. The second section is more tightly thematic but also less wide-ranging, with three of the five essays focusing on Diderot and two of these exclusively on Jacques le fataliste. Yves Citton's analysis of the Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse proves a welcome exception, but is balanced against a somewhat disappointing discussion of Sade's Epicureanism in Fauskevåg's own article, which comes to the predictable conclusion that Sadean libertines are as much subject to materialist determinism as their victims. The third section is perhaps the strongest and most interesting. Michel Delon's analysis of Sade's transformation of his ethnographic source materials is nuanced, well documented, and engaging. Sylvain Menant's contribution is equally interesting, arguing that Voltaire's depictions of foreign cultures fall short of real relativism, not only owing to the [End Page 98] philosophe's predilection for his own civilization, but also to his wish to maintain a flattering 'pact' with his projected readers. Ingvild Hagen Kjørholt's stimulating essay explores notions of nationality, identity, and cosmopolitanism in Voltaire's Ingénu, evoking both contemporary understandings of nationhood and Voltaire's wider work, especially his often neglected contribution to the Encyclopédie. The collection closes with a welcome return by Martin Wâhlberg to the topic of Laplanders. Informative as well as entertaining, the article demonstrates how leading philosophes consciously exaggerated the 'otherness' of Laplanders, ignoring evidence to the contrary, in order to support their own theories, be those monogenesis, polygenesis, or climate determinism. Like most collective works, the volume is uneven in quality and will disappoint readers whose hopes for a nuanced exploration of the lights and shadows of the Lumières had been raised by Duflo's initial essay. Nevertheless, it does contain some excellent articles, making this, on the whole, a worthwhile if eclectic collection.

Felicia Gottmann
University of Warwick
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