Literary Knowing in Neoclassical France: From Poetics to Aesthetics by Ann T. Delehanty (review)

more prone than men to physical decay and moral degeneration. De Falco’s in-depth discussion of the cultural evolution of beauty and fashion clarifies the role that toilettes play in revealing the psychological, social, economic, and historical situations of the Goncourts’female characters.Whether their clothing impedes spiritual transcendence (as in Madame Gervaisais), provides emotional protection (Sœur Philomène), negates personal identity (La fille Élisa),or whether it appears thread-bare (Germinie Lacerteux), immaterial (Chérie), or even useless (Manette Salomon), the disappearing tenue of these protagonists mirrors the“volatilisation”(147) to which they eventually fall victim. Along similar lines, the incremental loss of language, both voluntary and involuntary, signals the incapacity of these characters to communicate, their inability to function in society, and in the end, their silencing. De Falco concludes this study of fictional women with a look at how the Goncourt brothers described a historical figure,Princesse Mathilde, the niece of Napoleon Bonaparte, in their nonfictional Journal. Although they considered her salon among the best of the century and certainly enjoyed the privilege of frequenting it, they clearly abhorred its descent into cultural “métissage” (286), which, for them, signaled an end to the golden era of salons that had begun in the eighteenth century. Those interested in Edmond and Jules Goncourt, or more broadly, in the literary undercurrents and cultural history of this period, will enjoy De Falco’s thorough and thought-provoking analysis. Brandeis University (MA) Hollie Markland Harder Delehanty,Ann T. Literary Knowing in Neoclassical France: From Poetics to Aesthetics. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2013. ISBN 978-1-61148-489-2. Pp. x + 209. $80. While the prestige and popularity of literary theory and its history have been declining of late, the present volume effectively demonstrates the valuable contribution these areas of academic study can still bring to our understanding and appreciation of bygone ages. A notable merit of Delehanty’s essay is to bring to our attention a revealing characteristic of the period in question, i.e., the end of the seventeenth century, an age in which “the exploration of the power and nature of the human intellect was very much at the center of critical inquiry” (15). Moreover, this exploration represents a shift in the kind of thinking that has traditionally been taken to be a characteristic of the classical age, namely the idea that it is rules and standards that determine excellence in literature and the arts. The central topic of Delehanty’s study revolves around the notion of literature’s capacity for providing a transcendental, spiritual experience.Accordingly, while the critics in question—Dominique Bouhours, Nicolas Boileau, René Rapin, John Dennis, and Jean-Baptiste Dubos—all recognize the power and preeminence of reason in intellectual and creative pursuits, they nevertheless are driven to posit a “faculty of thought equal to reason but responsible for knowledge outside of reason’s bounds” (64). It is a faculty that points to the 208 FRENCH REVIEW 88.3 Reviews 209 limitations of the Cartesian method by denying the role of transcendent observer to the human subject. It points instead to the possibility of gaining access to the ineffable and—ultimately—the realm of the divine. The influence of Pascal was key in this regard, and Delehanty identifies a “Pascalian attitude” that informed all the thinkers she studies, even the Jesuits Bouhours and Rapin (26). Critics thus elaborate, each in his own distinctive way, the Pascalian notion of an esprit de finesse, deemed to provide an access to the truth of the ineffable. For Bouhours, the notion of a “je ne sais quoi” is what makes it possible to equate “the greatest literary beauty with the divine” (55). Boileau theorizes the notion of the sublime as that which makes human creativity capable of revealing “the nature of the divine realm” (63). The experience of the sublime is brought down to earth by Rapin, who locates it in the moral character of rare individuals, even“suggesting that Louis is on par with Christ himself”(118). The case of John Dennis, an English admirer of Boileau, is noteworthy because he “inaugurates the study of the sublime” in England in the following century (128). Similarly, Dubos’s...