Pascal: a-t-il écrit les ‘Pensées’? (review)

The unfinished form of Pascal’s Pensées has long been considered a key source of its many mysteries. As is well known, this text is composed of fragments — roughly eight hundred jottings, many randomly scribbled — found in a state of semi-ordered chaos after Pascal’s death. Several friends of Port-Royal edited them, projecting an order on to them, and publishing them in 1670. Since that moment editors have constructed roughly two hundred different orders for these fragments. For decades many scholars debated their true order, and thus Pascal’s goal and intention. Or was disorder the true order and part of a larger rhetorical strategy? This volume adds a new dimension to this debate. It begins with the observation that Pascal’s fragments are remarkably diverse, both stylistically and in their range of developed thought. They extend from a single word, or a poetic image, to expansive discursive reflections. At times Pascal speaks in his own name; at other moments he speaks with other voices. This volume questions the notion of Pascal as ‘author’, since there is little evidence to suggest that Pascal himself sought to construct a text as a singular and unified object. The Pensées’ unfinished state puts in question some of our oldest assumptions about literary studies. To be sure, Pascal was the author of the notes found on his desk. But what status do those notes have? Was he the author of the reconstituted text known as the Pensées? This volume reconfigures the standard l’homme et l’œuvre literary approach, exploring the boundaries between these concepts. Some contributors address this question by considering the internal evidence. For example, Michel Le Guern analyses the Pensées’ style, comparing it to that of his other writings. Noticing a marked continuity, Le Guern ultimately affirms the solidity of Pascal as author. Other contributors, such as Pierre Force, Marie Pérouse, and Alain Cantillon examine the Pensées’ external evidence, focusing on the moment Pascal’s nephew, Étienne Périer, prepared the scattered notes in decisive ways that would shape how this text came to be read. In this case, the boundaries between the man and his work are more blurred, prompting the question of what it means to be an author. This volume raises a fascinating theoretical question about the nature of authorial authority, an issue Pascal himself directly raises. The contributors address it through very detailed textual and extra-textual analyses. The level of careful detail means that this book is solidly argued, but also that it will probably appeal more to the Pascal specialist than to the generalist.