Les Formes brèves de la description morale: Quatrains, maximes, remarques (review)

Focusing on the quatrain, the maxim and the remark, which succeed each other as dominant forms of moral discourse in the period between 1574 and 1701, the author aims to show that the 'forme brève' is not simply a superficial ornament of moral discourse, but is organically linked to it. The first part of Tourette's study seeks to understand why the quatrain was so consistently employed for moralistic poetry. He points to the notions of concision and brevity, and concludes that 'La brièveté du quatrain serait alors le symbole permanent de la brièveté de la vie' (p. 53). These qualities are reinforced by the austerity often associated with the quatrain and which the author links to the tone of reprobation which the poet adopts towards his subject. 'Tel est le monde que construisent les quatrains: bas, sale, abject, mais aussi trompeur, opaque, insaisissable' (p. 104). The poet's technique thus serves to reinforce his moral stance, which is to 'minimiser l'importance que l'homme s'attribue à lui-même' (p. 108). The second part of the book aims to elaborate a poetics of the maxim, whose formal characteristics are that: [1] it is principally concerned with the realities of human psychology; [2] it is prose; [3] each maxim is written as 'une forme isolée' and not integrated into a continuous discourse; and [4] maxims are gathered into collections consisting exclusively of linguistically comparable forms. Tourette notes that the maxim, like the quatrain, is concerned with discernment, achieved through a neutral tone, without the use of exclamation marks. Thus the author concludes: 'Règles de la politesse mondaine, recherche d'une formulation non prescriptive, réduction des attri-buts de l'homme et effort permanent vers la concision: tels nous semblent être les principes essentiels qui orientent la création du maximiste' (p. 288). In the final section of the book, Tourette asks why the remarque was also adopted by writers whose concern is to discern, distinguish and classify. A key element here is the notion of retrait: the writer of the remarque seeks to stand back from his subject, which he describes in 'un ton particulier, fait de froideur et de détachement narquois' (p. 351). The remark itself can take various forms, including the récit, the sentence or the portrait, but this, asserts Tourette, is because 'Les multiples visages de la remarque reflètent idéalement les multiples visages de l'objet le plus instable qui soit: l'homme' (p. 382). Whatever the form, however, the essential features of the remark is 'la coupure, l'inter-ruption, la relance' (p. 394), for these lead to what the author, citing Doris Kirsch, calls 'la déspiritualisation de l'homme' (p. 467). Thus, finally, Tourette's attempt to define 'une écriture moraliste' points to discontinuity as its most central stylistic feature, and to discernment as the most important aspect of the task which moralists set themselves. He concludes that the formes bràves are, therefore, the ideal tool for that 'art de la démystification lucide' (p. 499) which is the preoccupation of the moralist.