Dictionnaire des lettres françaises. Le XVIIIe siècle (review)

106 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 9:1 The double reading tiiat she advocates in chapters 4 and 5 is found too in chapter 3 in her distinctively original addition to recent studies of the ruin. Aware that artificial ruins, or "follies," are potentially risible objects in die landscape, ersatz examples of the commodification of taste, she nevertheless accords them unusual respect. Unlike Anne Janowitz who, in England's Ruins (1992), views ruins as the aestheticizing (and thus silencing) of history, Harries adopts a more nuanced perspective. The artificial ruin can serve reactionary purposes: "Designed as a meditation on the fall of empires, it reflects the continuing power of one imperial class to dictate what should be seen and valued as history" (p. 82). But as a "mock-monument that ironizes its own pseudofunction" (p. 84), the artificial ruin is an occasion for both mourning and detachment, "a token of a struggle to remember and to move away from the past" (p. 85), and an eye-catcher mat "both make[s] the work of time transparent and suggests] the possibility of renewal" (p. 94). As in her literary chapters, Harries accompanies her theories with close analysis of actual works. To show the progressive potential of ruins, for example, she provides an excellent analysis of the Temple of Philosophy at Ermenonville, and to exemplify how the nonfinito ********* Hic multa desiderantur Alistair M. Duckworth University of Florida, Gainesville At this point in the reviewer's argument the typescript abruptly ends, its jagged edges suggesting tiiat mice have nibbled it. We have decided to publish the piece, however, for it is clear that the reviewer is most favourably disposed to the book. Indeed, the truncation of the review at this point is perhaps fortuitous, for he has already far exceeded his word limit and evidently has much more to say in praise of The Unfinished Manner. [Ed.] François Moureau, éd. Dictionnaire des lettresfrançaises. Le ????? siècle. Paris: Fayard et Librairie Générale Française, 1995. 1371pp. FFr390,00. ISBN 2-213595437 . Here we have a much-needed, revised version of the outdated, inaccurate, and idiosyncratic eighteenth-century volume of the Dictionnaire des lettresfrançaises published in 1960 under the direction of Cardinal Grente, who saw no necessity to include, for example , notices on the Jansenists or on Sade, both of whom he perhaps privately classified under the same heading. The other volumes of this series are similarly in need of urgent attention. As for the current revision, however, one can only applaud the inclusiveness and the noble attempt at exhaustiveness to be found in the more than two thousand articles that fill in the enormous gaps and correct the myopic perspective of its predecessor. Henceforth, all students of die siècle des Lumières will ignore this work at their peril, especially with regard to the resuscitation of numerous names and works hitherto relegated to obscurity. This is not to say that the new Dictionnaire is entirely beyond reproach. For three main reasons, no such enterprise can ever hope to be totally accurate. First, whenever teamwork is involved, mere are always some members of the team who are more efficient than others. Second, there is often someone out there, not consulted, who knows as much REVIEWS 107 or more than a team member about a given topic. Finally, where secondary sources are concerned, it is extremely difficult, even in the age of computers, to keep abreast of and especially to assess the value of all the scholarship that is constantly produced all over the world in a wide variety of publications and languages. Not unexpectedly then, as soon as we begin to examine our own limited areas of expertise and those of the colleagues with whom we work, we discover defects, some trivial, some important. For example, the general editor of the Graffigny Correspondance is not E. Schowalter [sic] but J.A. Dainard. In the article on the history of the book (see "Livre") there is no mention, under discussion of publishers in The Netherlands, of Etienne Roger, Michel Le Cène, to name but two, and, more serious, no reference to me outstanding bibliographical work of LH. van Eeghen. In the...