Rococo Fiction in France, 1600–1715: Seditious Frivolity by Allison Stedman (review)

This thought-provoking study aims to rehabilitate a branch of French prose writing that has been traditionally overlooked or treated with disdain. Characterized by generic hybridity, independence from political authority, and a passion for innovation, these texts fail to conform to the standard narratives of the evolution of seventeenth-century thought (absolutist ideas giving way to the Enlightenment) or literary genre (lengthy, digressive, historical/pastoral novels giving way to shorter, linear, psychological ones).

The works that Stedman labels as rococo are quite diverse, including mélange collections that group together texts from a variety of genres, the duchesse de Montpensier’s collection of literary portraits, and most notably, Donneau de Visé’s gazette, Le Mercure galant, which mixed news (much of it relating to gossip and daily life) with literary works such as poems and short stories. The last is especially remarkable in that it was aimed at a diverse public, in which no one was to be excluded on the basis of gender, social rank, nationality, or location. Montpensier likewise eschewed hierarchy in her portrait volume: in the early editions the king and royal family were not accorded pride of place, and even some of the author’s servants were included. In addition, both Montpensier and de Visé spurred readers to become participants, rather than passive recipients, in their collective enterprise as writers and critics.

While Stedman uses the term rococo to cover genres often viewed today as marginal, the majority of the works she studies are novels or short stories. However, she notes that rococo fiction differs from salon-inspired fiction in its choice of characters and locales: instead of being limited to elite groups, these works include people from different social classes; they sometimes mix elegance with vulgarity and cover a wide variety of places. In many cases the characters consciously attempt (often successfully) to create their own society away from Versailles, following their own rules and priorities. Criticism of absolutist ideas, while frequently present, is carefully camouflaged, sometimes even masquerading as praise of the king.

Stedman views Montaigne as the pivotal figure in the inception of the rococo aesthetic: his creation of a brand new genre reflected his need for self-expression and he realized that existing literary forms were inadequate for his purposes. Nonetheless, Montaigne in his Essais took a bifurcated approach to innovation: in the literary sphere, in regard to both form and content, novelty is to be prized, whereas in the areas of politics and religion it constitutes a danger to the stability of the state. This paradigm would be challenged during the first half of the seventeenth century, as reflected in a series of literary quarrels, especially that over Le Cid. In the view of Richelieu and the Académie française, realizing France’s cultural ambitions required the adoption of formal principles of regularity as criteria for literature. This development had its parallel in the increasing linkage between literary experimentation and freethinking in the areas of morality, politics, and religion; Stedman cites the pejorative connotation attached to words like “licence” as an example.

Another of this book’s main arguments relates to the rise and fall of salon society during the course of the seventeenth century. The decline has often been linked to two developments that occurred simultaneously: the king’s insistence on controlling the nobility by herding them into Versailles and carefully regulating their activities; and the increasing prominence of women authors who entered the world of public authorship rather than limiting their creativity to salon gatherings. According to Stedman’s theory, salons lost much of their relevance because the rococo notion of communities that created inclusiveness through texts (shared readership and participation in the Mercure or new books that appealed to the wider public) came to overshadow the notion of communities formed through spatial proximity (such as Versailles or the salons, where one had to be physically present in order to participate and be recognized). She further links the transformation of...