Le Mariage et l''amitié courtoise' dans le dialogue et le récit bref de la Renaissance (review)

This work treats a theme in Renaissance literature which has already been extensively (some would say exhaustively) explored in a number of major studies. Whilst Screech's Rabelaisian Marriage remains an important touchstone for Renaissance scholars, the critical interest in relationships between the sexes in recent years has resulted in discussions of the social and literary constructions of friendship and marriage in a number of works. These themes have recently been examined by such authorities as Évelyne Berriot-Salvadore, Constance Jordan, John D. Lyons and Ullrich Langer, whose studies have often provided analysis of the same primary texts that feature in Leushuis's book. In spite of this impressive range of existing scholarship, Leushuis manages to consolidate and build on existing knowledge by constructing his argument around three central concepts. He uses the notions of philia (the classical ideal of friendship, equivalent to that described by Montaigne), eros (passionate love or concupiscentia) and agape (the fraternal love that bonds the Christian community) as tools in his analysis, tracing their permutations in the major works of the period. This is certainly a horizontal rather than a vertical study: Leushuis offers a panorama of marriage and courtly friendship in Renaissance Europe, rather than an in-depth analysis of their representation in any one type of discourse or language area. Whilst the relevance of this approach cannot be denied, one is left to wonder what would have transpired if Leushuis had explored the different representations of marriage in the proliferation of comparatively unknown texts (especially dialogues) on the subject in each of the languages. These texts are often considered to have little thematic or stylistic interest, but they were printed extensively in the sixteenth century and make up by far the greater part of the dialogue and short narrative genres that this monograph claims to address. At times, the interest of the study lies more in the close readings of individual texts rather than in the overall conclusions offered by the study: for example, few specialists would be surprised to hear that the Heptaméron transposes the problematics of courtly relationships into the setting of contemporary aristocratic life. The close readings are interesting and thought provoking and enable the texts in question to be viewed in a new light. One possible difficulty concerning the usefulness of this work is Leushuis's own erudition. He offers no translation of the source texts which he quotes from in Latin, French and Italian. Furthermore, he refers to extensive secondary material in English and German. The relevance of the volume for undergraduate study is therefore limited, which is a shame considering the current trend towards thematically informed undergraduate teaching, which might otherwise have benefited from this overview of the philosophy of marriage in Renaissance Europe.