Le Siècle des Lumières: Bibliographie chronologique by Pierre M. Conlon (review)

458 LETTERS IN CANADA 1984 psychoanalysis and formalism well, but she makes no convincing case for the importance of Mauron. Moreover, she forgets that because Mauron is so little known outside France she must tell the reader more about what his method actually was. She argues that others have done this and that she is trying to engage a large theoretical issue 'inherent to the literary critical enterprise today, as it has developed over the century' (p 147): the contradiction between Mauron's desire to found a 'scientific' (or ,objective') criticism and his all-too-impressionistic and'circular' practice. Frankly, this larger issue never takes shape. Mauron is too light a figure to bear its weight. Occasional references to Kuhn (beloved of literary intellectuals) and to David ('subjective paradigm') Bleich don't do the job. Mauron's contribution to psychoanalytic criticism is less significant than that of such unglamorous figures as Simon Lesser and Norman Holland. Nor is one convinced by Hutcheon's argument that the example of Mauron, the would-be scientific critic who always finds what he expects to find, somehow helps us resist the appeal to either of the two poles - 'objective' or 'subjective' - of the modern critical experience. If one keeps score, it is clear that Hutcheon much prefers undermining Mauron's (or Freud's!) claim to 'objectivity' to trying to extract from it what measure of truth it might contain. Freud, she tells us, found what he wanted to find, and Mauron found what he wanted to find; but Linda Hutcheon finds only Truth. Be assured that when one reads, these days, of the difficulties of establishing 'objective truth' it will be within the covers of intelligent and oldfashioned 'objective' academic monographs. Apparently, when one writes on criticism's problems one somehow avoids them. 'Thatwould be scanned.' (T.H. ADAMOWSKI) Pierre M. Conlon. Le Siecle des Lumieres: Bibliographie chronologique Droz 1983-4. Vol I, 1716-22, xxii, 549; Vol II, 1723-9, xvii, 535 For the past two decades Pierre M. Conlon of McMaster University has been engaged in a bibliographical enterprise of monumental proportions and, even if his publications continue to appear annually as they have in the past, it looks as though another decade will be required before his work is complete. In the 1960s Conlon began to compile a bibliography of all works published by French writers from 1680, when Pierre Bayle began his influential career, to 1715, the end of the reign of Louis XIV. He defines a French writer as someone who lived within the boundaries of modern France or who lived elsewhere but whose language was French. He also includes the French works of those who occasionally wrote in that language. The result was a massive six-volume publication entitled Prelude au Siecle des iumieres en France: Repertoire chronologique de 1680 a HUMANITIES 459 1715 (Droz 1970-5). The Prelude has already become the most important bibliographical source for the pre-Enlightenment period. Conlon then decided to continue his investigations up to 1789 after which Andre Monglond, La France revolutionnaire et imperiale (Arthaud 1930-63), and Andre Martin and Gerard Walter, Catalogue de l'histoire de la Revolution fran~aise (Editions des Bibliotheques nationales 1936-69), are the recognized authorities. The first two volumes of Conlon's new bibliography have now appeared and an examination ofthem should give a good indication of the scope and value of the project as a whole. For his sources Conlon has consulted the Catalogue general (1887-1981) and the Catalogue de l'histoire de France (1855-95) of the Bibliotheque Nationale and also such unpublished material as the catalogue des anonymes, catalogue des theses de medecine, catalogue de liturgie and catalogue des actes episcopaux. The holdings of other Parisian libraries and special collections have also been analysed as have those oflibraries in the French provinces, in Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland. An entryis made for each itemwhose date ofpublication falls within the period under review. Each entry contains the author's name (in square brackets if it does not appear on the title-page and has been established by other. means), a short title in the original orthography, the place of publication, publisher, date...