Anger, Gratitude, and the Enlightenment Writer (review)

Patrick Coleman's monograph, as the cover material and Preface make clear, focuses on the French Enlightenment writer. Anyone interested in how eighteenth-century writers of other nationalities wrote about anger and gratitude will have to undertake their research elsewhere, although the present study will be an excellent starting point. Coleman has intelligently identified a fascinating question in early modern socioliterary studies. The role of these two antithetical emotions in social interaction, how they are portrayed in eighteenth-century fiction, whether descriptively or prescriptively, and what they say about social status, particularly that of the rising figure of the writer, are all explored. As the author writes: 'Placing discussions of gratitude alongside those of anger gives us [. . .] a focused and economical way of framing what is new in Enlightenment debates about human interaction' (p. 2). Structuring the book by theme (an approach explicitly rejected in the Preface) rather than by author, in case-study fashion, might have strengthened the clarity of the argument. Alternatively, a fuller synthesis in the Conclusion, drawing links between the chapters, would have been welcome; as it is, the Conclusion enlarges on the material in the main text, opening out perspectives beyond the French Revolution into the nineteenth century, with particular attention to the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville. The chosen form does, however, allow ample space for some very fine analyses of Marivaux's Vie de Marianne and Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloïse. Other main texts examined here are Challe's Illustres Françaises, all of Rousseau's works, and Diderot's Neveu de Rameau. In the chapter devoted to Diderot, Coleman branches out from anger and gratitude into other notions, among which are dependence (especially intellectual dependence), ridicule and embarrassment, and literary posterity. One wonders whether more space might have been given to Montesquieu: the président is only mentioned a few times in passing. Given the exclusively French focus of this study and the untranslated use of a few terms, such as tendresse, politesse, égards, and Vicaire, the (editorial) choice systematically to provide translations of passages quoted from the French, even the shortest and most basic (for example, difficilement, p. 220), is a curious and distracting one. It is hard to imagine how the reader who needs such translations will use an index that contains entries for amour-propre and pur amour (under 'P'!), not to mention Challe's neologism olouvrir (given its own entry, separate from Challe). These minor quibbles aside, two further great strengths of this book are worth mentioning. One is its extensive notes and bibliography (Michelle Lee is acknowledged for the latter), which contextualize the examples and provide the interested reader with a fil d'Ariane for further explorations. The second is the constant presence in the text of the pertinent points of contact between eighteenth-century writing and its classical heritage. Anger, Gratitude, and the Enlightenment Writer will bring useful material and reflection to any study of Enlightenment sociability or of the figure of the Enlightenment writer.