Themes and Images in the Fictional Works of Madame de Lafayette (review)

180 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 4:2 Ce faisant, l'auteur présente une tentative cohérente d'analyse littéraire des œuvres pornographiques du XVIIIe siècle. Sa réflexion sur le processus même de lecture de ce genre de littérature est également intéressante. Mais Goulemot s'évertue à vouloir arracher à ces ouvrages un "secret" qui ne s'y trouve probablement pas. Le succès du genre pornographique au XVIIIe siècle n'est-il pas dû, en partie du moins, à la transgression que représentait alors la publication ou l'achat d'un de ces livres? L'auteur néglige de s'interroger sur les auteurs de ces romans, sur leurs lecteurs, et sur la place privilégiée que les ouvrages libertins accordaient à Ia pornographie. Or cette dernière, affirmation brutale du monde physique, peut-elle être vraiment détachée de toute préoccupation philosophique ou même politique? La présence de plus en plus marquée du politique dans les ouvrages pornographiques du dernier tiers du XVIIIe siècle semblerait bien démontrer le contraire. Marie-France Silver Collège Glendon, Université York Ruth Willard Redhead. Themes and Images in the Fictional Works ofMadame de Lafayette. New York: Peter Lang (American University Studies, Series II [Romance Languages and Literature], Vol. 54), 1990. 144pp. US$43.95. ISBN 0-8204-1392-5. This book started off as a 1971 University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation on "Love and Deatii in die Fictional Works of Madame de Lafayette." Chapter 2 was given as a paper at a meeting in Davis in March 1988 and dien published in the Actes de Davis (pp. 74—79); important parts of chapters 1 and 4 were published under the title "Images of Conflict in the Fictional Works of Madame de Lafayette" in Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature (vol. 17, pp. 481-516). Madame de Lafayette's admirably terse style leaves little room for what could really be called images, so Rudi Willard Redhead understandably broadened her topic to include tiiemes. The result is tiiat die text goes back and forth between die two, sometimes justifiably, sometimes less so, and often wanders into old-style psychological interpretation. The audior has made great efforts to group the skimpy and dispersed elements of her study. Her slim volume (126 small pages of text) is divided into five chapters. In die first, entitled "The Mask," Redhead studies "éclat," "dissimulation," and "disguise." In the second, one of tile most interesting, she treats "images of tile enclosure, rivers, nets, courtyards, moats, parks, woods, walls, windows, trees, willow branches, tombs, hedges, walks, alleys, padis, cabinets, palisades and dreams" (p. 37) seeking to show diat tiiey serve "to make vivid die disillusionment and isolation of the characters" (p. 37). In the third, "images of war, exile, Paris, me country, enchantment, obstacles, bonds, torrents, penetration and the labyrindi express the intensity of the conflict" (p. 64). Next, in die best part of the book, we are shown that "contrastive images used by Madame de Lafayette underline the tension in the psychological conflict, conventional images of REVIEWS 181 light and obscurity, heat and cold, elevation and die abyss, reason and folly, as well as contrasting colors, are used repeatedly widi special significance" (p. 65). The last chapter is devoted to die problem of sincerity. There is no introduction. The page-and-a-half conclusion may seem somewhat inadequate . We are told diat Madame de Lafayette's "dominant theme of the solitude of the individual, victim of his fate, in a world where sincere communication is impossible, is a universal theme that has meaning today" (p. 129) and that "Her careful choice of images played a significant role in achieving die conscious and deliberate concision that Mme de Lafayette sought" (p. 130). But this conclusion does not really do justice to an honest, careful, unpretentious study. Adrienne D. Hytier Vassar College ...