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Notes Preface 1. Makowiecka 125-26. See also the introduction to Russell Sebold's edition of La poltica 0 reglas de la poes(a en general y de sus principales especies and Luzan's "Proemio" (Luzan 123-24). Chapter One Regularity: Articulating the Aesthetic I, "Cette pi~ce fut mon coup d'essai, et elle n'a garded'etre dans les R~gles, puisque je ne savais pas alon qu'il y en eut" (Comeille I: 5). 2. Jean Rousset, Raymond Le~gue, Imbrie Buffum, and many others have contributed to this view; and even Picrre Charpenlrat, in attacking the concept of the "baroque," pays homage to the notion ofbaroque "illusion " in the title of his book u mirage baroque. 3. In contrast to the articulated kind of rule that dominates the poetics of tragedy, there is another, unarticulated sense of "rule" that appears in Roger de Piles's use of the term for the plastic arts. In his Cours de peinture par principes, de Piles says that in antiquity Polyclitus gave the "rule" of the male nude. By this de Piles does not mean a list of qualities or a set of injunctions but rather a "standard": "PolicJete . . . s'avisa de faire une Statue qui eut toules les proportions qui conviennenl a un homme parfaitement bien forme. II se servit pourcela de plusieurs modeles nalure!s, et apres avoir reduit son Ouvrage dans la demiere perfection, il ful examine par les habiles gens avec tant d'exaclitude, et admire avec lanl d'eloges, que celie Statue fut d'un commun consenlement appeJ1ee la RegIe" (133; emphasis added). 4. The R_ egulae were published posthumously in 1705. At the NASSCFL meeting in April 1996, George Hoffmann made an important contribution to our understanding ofthe Regulae, arguing, in an unpublished paper, that Descartes aQandoned them in favor of a simpler and more resolutely sequen" ced procedure of thought. S. Here, it should be admitted, La Mesnardiere is stating a rule about the stage (Ie Theatre) rather than about tragedy as a genre. though this is still typical of the somewhat unsettled priorities that appear iri enumerations of "rules." 6, In a note in the Pleiade edition ofComeille's works, Georges Couton draws anemion to a remarkable feature of this dedication. Comeille had it printed in subsequent editions long after Richelieu's death: "Assez normalement une epitre dedicatoire n'est pas reproduite dans les editions posterieures a I'originale; or Corneille maintient celle-ci jusqu'en 1657. ... C'est d'autant plus remarquable que Richelieu etail mort en 1642." 7, Note by Maurice Rat in his edition ofCorneille's plays, I: 655. 213 Notes to Pages 22-38 8, La Mesnardi~re's repetitious argument against happy endings (which are approved by'Aristotle) and the scorn he heaps on the multitude are a reaction against Lodovico Caste]velro's populist theory of tragedy in his Poelica d'AriSlotele vu/gariZZ(lt(l e spos/a (1576). 9. Allen G. Wood examines many of the intricacies of the satirist's voice in literary satire. Wood notes that "satire is a shorter form, allowing less scope for the development of theoretical statements, which need room to develop, clarify themselves, and provide their own context. In contrast, the satiric tone purposefully disrupts the theoretical flow" (Literary Satire alld Theory 77). 10. Boileau's Reflexions critiques sur quelques passages du rhileur Longin, however, sheds less light on Longinus than on Boileau's longstanding polemic with Charles Perrault on the occasion of the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. 11. Boileau's poem.was printed just a few months before the opening ofComeille's last tragedy, Surina, geniral des Parlhes, and one month before Racine's penultimate tragedy of Greek inspiration,lphigenie. In short, l.'art poilique coincides with the end ofthe Comelian and Racinian "canon" of French ciassical lragedy. 12. As Wood notes, "the persona portrays himself as a reader advising the future poet, the addressee" (Literary Sa/ire and Theory 73). 13. Likewise, the power of the reader appears in Boileau's preface to his French translation of Longinus: "Tout ce que Ie Lecteur n'entend point s'appelle un galimatthias, donI Ie Traducteur tout seul est responsable " (337). 14. In "De I'experience," Montaigne wrote ofthe multiplication of laws: "Qu'ont gaigne nos legislateurs a choisir cent mille especes et faicts particuliers, et y attacher cent mille loix? Ce nombre n'a aucune proportion avec I' infinie diversite des actions humaines. La multiplication...