L’écriture éditoriale à la Renaissance: genèse et promotion du récit sentimental français (1530–1560) par Anne Réach-Ngô (review)

Reviews 285 Chateaubriand’s study of exile, which is evident through his analysis of René and Chactas, as well as Mme de Staël and Napoléon: “les figures par excellence de l’exil” (162). Piva contests that this fracturing of the author’s identity through the plurality of figures in his writing reflects the loss of unity and continuity so prevalent at that time. Overall, Piva illuminates the literary and ideological frameworks that inform Chateaubriand’s relationship with his sources. This innovative work is an indispensable resource for Chateaubriand scholars and an invaluable contribution to modern nineteenth-century studies. Saint Louis University Arline Cravens Réach-Ngô, Anne. L’écriture éditoriale à la Renaissance: genèse et promotion du récit sentimental français (1530–1560). Genève: Droz, 2013. ISBN 978-2-600-01605-6. Pp. 508. 87 a. This remarkable study argues that the circle of Parisian publisher-bookseller Denis Janot created a new genre, the sentimental novel, from whole cloth. In so doing, RéachNg ô develops the notion of “l’écriture éditoriale,” the appropriation of texts in the course of their material rendering as books. She simultaneously surveys successive editions of a range of sixteenth-century narratives and conducts an intensive case study of the Angoysses douloureuses qui procèdent d’amour of Hélisenne de Crennes— the first French sentimental narrative and the exemplary account of a story’s journey from oral utterance through its appearance in print. Chapter one surveys Renaissance peritexts, arguing that this new space, which proffers an image of publisher as well as author, depicts the printed book as the product of multiple contributors. Chapter two examines the strategies whereby Janot and his confrères helped readers identify a given book’s place within the larger “paysage éditorial,” while chapter three analyzes the visual structuring of sentimental narratives on the printed page. Chapters four and five contrast the treatment of part one of the Angoisses douloureuses in Janot’s inaugural edition (1538) and Denis Harsy’s Lyonnais edition (1539). Whereas the former’s structuring of the narrative in paragraphs designated by an array of typographical signs favored interiority over plot, the latter, reinterpreting the text for a different readership,added chapter titles that foregrounded familiar scenarios of adulterous love. These strands culminate in chapter six,“Le ciseau, l’aiguille et le plomb, ou la fabrication éditoriale du premier récit sentimental français.”Demonstrating that the Angoisse’s numerous intertextual borrowings stem principally from editions produced by Janot and his cohorts, Réach-Ngô proposes that they commissioned the work as a “vitrine de l’actualité éditoriale française,” a “livre-catalogue,” showcasing the European novelties in which they specialized in a new French package (364). Central to this promotional enterprise was the construction of an author-figure in dynamic relationship with her female readers, whose identity and authority were retrospectively legitimated by the publication of other writings and by their“monumentalisation”in her complete works. Briefly broaching the question of historical authorship, Réach-Ngô deems it unlikely that Marguerite Briet, the provincial figure often advanced as the woman behind the pseudonym Hélisenne, could have had the necessary access to Janot’s latest publications (425). She stresses, however, that her interest lies not with attribution, but with the way the narrative invents and the publishers promote the stance of “femme auteur” (426–27). This book is a major achievement. Meticulously researched and methodologically rigorous,it is sometimes provocative in its conclusions,but measured in its judgments. Aided by abundant page reproductions, Réach-Ngô demonstrates how deeply printers and compositors shaped readers’experience and reveals the graphic dimensions of intertextuality. In so doing, she more than fulfills her larger aim of illuminating what it means to read a book rather than merely a text (11). While her study will become indispensable reading for specialists in early modern print culture, book history, and the narrative, it has much to teach anyone who has ever opened an early modern book. Dartmouth College Kathleen Wine Redouane, Najib, éd. Les écrivains maghrébins francophones et l’islam: constance dans la diversité. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2013. ISBN 978-2-343-01720-4. Pp. 453. 46...