French Literature Reviews - 2026

Bonnes lettres/belles lettres.
Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Bonnes lettres/belles lettres.

Proceedings of the symposia held by the Centre d'Études et de Recherches Éditer/Interpréter of the University of Rouen
April 26-27, 2000 & Feb 6-7, 2003
Edited by Claudine Poulouin and Jean-Claude Arnould,

Honoré Champion
"Colloques sur la Renaissance" series
2007
ISBN: 978-2-7453-1369-0
Ean 13 : 9782745313690
486p
89.00 €

Publisher's presentation:

Bonnes or belles-lettres. Discourse on the usefulness of letters in the mid-16th century; The reception of Horace's odes in the Renaissance, or the beauty of bonnes-lettres?; From commonplace to witticism: the example of cynical maxims in 16th-century collections; The virtues of bonnes-lettres in the authors of tragic histories (P. Boaistuau, F. de Belleforest, J. Yver, V. Habanc, B. Poissenot); The new pedagogy and bonnes-lettres in 16th-century France; Montaigne between two worlds; Bonnes-lettres or pedantry? A strategic choice in 16th-century France; The Muses and the Sirens, or Bonnes and belles-lettres and the economy of knowledge. Belles-lettres in question. Writing within the framework of belles-lettres; The "belles-lettres" practiced by a "physician-poet": Hippolyte-Jules Pilet de La Mesnardière (1610-1663) faced with the contradictions of a model; Pedantry, erudition, and comic literature in the 17th century; The inscription of the novelistic experience in literate culture; The "antipathies": academies of learned ladies and the salons of the précieuses, a polemical discourse within the space of belles-lettres; Belles-lettres and music in the library of Pierre-Daniel Huet: science, taste, sociability. Belles-lettres and literature. Tensions and debates surrounding the writing of scholarly history at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres; Belles-lettres and philosophy at the Academy: speaking of knowledge, speaking of power in academic eulogies; From belles-lettres to literature: the pedagogical revolution of Abbé Batteux; Functions of belles-lettres at the dawn of the Enlightenment: the ethics of sociability and social control; Belles-lettres and "literature" in the 18th century; Letters, belles-lettres, literature, philosophy: Voltaire as witness and actor in the redistribution of the writer's knowledge and powers; Mme de Staël: De la littérature or Des belles-lettres?; Mathematics, literature, and the vernacular

This volume collects proceedings from symposia held by the Centre d'Études et de Recherches Éditer/Interpréter of the University of Rouen, edited by Claudine Poulouin and Jean-Claude Arnould. The collection gathers contributions addressing the discourse on the usefulness of letters in the mid-16th century, the reception of Horace's odes, and the transition from commonplace to witticism through cynical maxims. Further topics include the virtues of bonnes-lettres in tragic histories, new pedagogical approaches, the strategic choice between bonnes-lettres and pedantry, and the relationship between the Muses, the Sirens, and the economy of knowledge in Renaissance France.

The volume extends its scope to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century developments, examining practices of belles-lettres among physician-poets, comic literature, novelistic experience, and salon culture. Additional contributions discuss scholarly history at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, academic eulogies involving philosophy and power, the pedagogical revolution of Abbé Batteux, and the ethics of sociability at the dawn of the Enlightenment. Figures such as Pierre-Daniel Huet, Voltaire, and Mme de Staël also feature in discussions concerning the redistribution of knowledge and powers. Readers interested in early modern French literary history may find these proceedings relevant.