In Honor of. ..: Festschrifts for Anne-Marie Chouillet and Raymond Trousson

Science, musiques, Lumières. Mélanges offerts à Anne-Marie Chouillet. Ulla Kölving and Irène Passeron, eds. (Ferney-Voltaire : Centre International d'Etude du XVIIIe Siècle, 2002). Pp. 640. € 90.00.

Vérité et Littérature au XVIIIe siècle. Mélanges rassemblés en l'honneur de Raymond Trousson. P. Aron, S. Basch, M. Couvrer, J. Marx, E. van der Schuerer and V. van Cragten-André, eds. (Paris: Honoré Champion Editeur, 2001). Pp. 346.

Whether one likes the Festschrift or not, one cannot help but respect the sense of admiration and friendship for both Chouillet and Trousson that inspires the contributions to these two publications. Maybe it is here that we find the true value of the Festschrift, as a testimony to those who, through their dedication and intellectual work, motivate and inspire us.

As it is the case with many a Festschrift, the curious reader will find in the collection honoring Trousson a great number of articles of varying length and quality. These Mélanges are certainly no exception to the rule. In addition to the "Introduction" by Valerie van Crugten-André and a "Préface" by Roland Mortier, the volume contains 23 articles by "les plus grands spécialistes" (7) according to van Crugten-André, a "Notice biographique" including a detailed bibliography of Trousson's impressive body of work, as well as an "Index." While some of the articles are comparative in nature requiring extensive background knowledge in both philosophy and literary history beyond the eighteenth century, others are the fruit of extensive and specialized archival research and thus of little interest for those outside this area. Consequently, neither specialist nor novice in the field of French and/or eighteenth-century literature will find the volume satisfying in its entirety.

Because there were no thematic or other restrictions imposed on the contributors, we find a wide range of topics and approaches. However, one third of all articles deal directly or indirectly with the life and work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which is not surprising considering Trousson's considerable contributions to Rousseau scholarship. By themselves, these seven articles mirror what has been said above about the entire collection. Jean-Daniel Candaux's "Un Hommage à Jean-Jacques Rousseau dans la mouvance du Prince de Ligne" is a rather cursory analysis of a little-known eulogistic poem by the eighteenth-century officer Marc-Etienne-Emmanuel Frossard entitled "Sur la mort de Jean-Jacques Rousseau." Candaux's only noteworthy finding about the poem is the claim that Brossard "tente ici de sauver le Contrat social en neutralisant et banalisant son message politique" (63). One can only rejoice that the author of the poem refrained from continuing his poetic career before he reached his thirtieth birthday. Henri Coulet's "Rousseau, Diderot, les amants et la courtisane" is an interesting argument on the close relationship between the well-known Amours de Milord Eduard (in La Nouvelle Héloïse) and the story of the Marquis des Arcis and Mme de La Pommeraye (in Jacques le fataliste). The question of whether Diderot knew Rousseau's story is, in the final analysis, irrelevant. What remains is a focused and convincing textual analysis of interest to both scholar and student. Equally to the point is Jürgen von Stackelberg's "Du Paysage de l'amour au paysage de L'âme: Pétrarque et Rousseau." Through a close reading of three letters from La Nouvelle Heloïse, the author demonstrates how Rousseau slowly distances himself from his model Petrarca to find his own originality as a "paysagiste" (268). Lionello Sozzi's "Jean-Jacques Rousseau à Turin," on the other hand, demands a great deal of sympathy and patience from those readers who are not interested in a "Who's who?" in Turin during Rousseau's stay in this city. More than anything else, the lengthy account (twice as long as most other articles) is a...