In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

BOOK REVIEWS169 soul something keeps on saying 'You are guilty, guilty, guilty!'" Similar strains are observed in the "Reminiscences of Private Ivanov," which concern an officer's feelings of personal responsibility for the deaths of his men in battle. The story "Nadezhda Nikolaievna," however, explores the psychological pathology of a different social problem. Can a "fallen woman" be ransomed by love and respect or will human jealousy intercede with tragic consequences? Concerning Garshin the answer is easy to guess. The translation by Kayden is smooth, never awkward or distracting. In a few difficult places, he finds wonderfully equivalent English phrases for Russian tropes, the literal translation of which would be misleading, as in the description of a brigadier-general's "eyebrows beetling over small glowing eyes." Indeed the versions here represent a significant addition to the English translations of Russian short stories. LEE B. CROFT, Arizona State University Julien J. Lafontant. Montesquieu et le problème de l'esclavage dans L'Esprit des lois. Sherbrooke, Québec: Editions Naaman, 1979. 164p. Professor Lafontant's thesis is an eloquent portrayal of the horrors of slavery as it existed in the French West Indian colonies in the eighteenth century and astudy of the opposing philosophical opinions of the time concerning its morality. French and English apologists of the exploitation of Black Africans for commercial profit are contrasted with writers like Helvétius and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre who spoke out sincerely against this cruel, inhuman treatment of their fellow human beings. Somewhere between these two groups stands Montesquieu, and Lafontant finds a great deal of ambiguity in the philosopher's thoughts on the subject. The famous fifth chapter of Book XV of L'Esprit des lois, entitled "De l'Esclavage des nègres," has traditionally been read as a condemnation of the enslavement of the Blacks, a condemnation by means of an ironically absurd defense of the institution. This indirect literary technique is, of course, reminiscent of Swift. What Lafontant has done is to assemble evidence from Montesquieu's writings as well as from his private life in order to show that the latter's sympathies were actually more in favor of slavery than opposed to it and that he did not fully recognize the humanity of Blacks. Lafontant demonstrates a disquieting degree of racial and class prejudice on Montesquieu's part, his advocacy of the commercial-colonial system of which slavery was a key element, and his participation in the lucrative Bordeaux-Antilles trade. For Lafontant, the philosopher's bad faith is revealed in the fact that he says very little about the mistreatment of the Blacks elsewhere in his works and that his protest against slavery is couched in ironic language subject to contradictory interpretations . If his humanist's compassion was really moved by so blatant a contemporary injustice, why did he not say more and say it more explicitly? As Giovanni Gullaci points out in his preface to Lafontant's study, Montesquieu 's mixed attitude toward slavery is revelatory of the fundamental polarity in his thought between, on the one hand, humanism and its belief in universal moral principles and, on the other, a materialistic determinism according to which evils like despotism and slavery are for certain climes to be considered in the nature of things. JAMES P. GILROY. University of Denver ...

pdf

Share