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Montaigne et l'Art de Sourire à la Renaissance by Bruno Roger-Vasselin Review by: Gary W. Jenkins The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 2005), pp. 1182-1183 Published by: The Sixteenth Century Journal Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20477649 . Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:11 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . The Sixteenth Century Journal is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Sixteenth Century Journal. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:11:44 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Montaigne et l'Art de Sourire à la Renaissance

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Montaigne et l'Art de Sourire à la Renaissance by Bruno Roger-VasselinReview by: Gary W. JenkinsThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Winter, 2005), pp. 1182-1183Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20477649 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:11

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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The Sixteenth Century Journal is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheSixteenth Century Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 188.72.126.108 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:11:44 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1182 Sixteenth CenturyJournial XXXVI/4 (2005)

dents-even if only to point the reader to other sources which could amplify the context and conflicts to which Rhegius was responding-would make this edition much more valu able to students of the early modern era who may be less informed than Hendrix about the culture of German evangelicals.Yet in Hendrix's defense, those more familiar with the his tory and context of early modern German Lutheranism will probably be adequately informed about these issues and will not miss Hendrix's lack of contextual highlights.

In this new translation, Hendrix has served the scholarly community well by providing a new text with which students and scholars can gain a deeper insight into the life and times of sixteenth-century Germany. Hendrix relies on the first edition of the Latin text of Rhegius' Handbook (1535) and includes the Latin in his edition. Thus, this dual language book will also be quite helpful for those studying ecclesiastical Latin of the Reformation period.

Montaigne et I'Art de Sourire a la Renaissance. Bruno Roger-Vasselin. Saint Genouph: Librairie Nizet, 2003. ii + 414 pp. 140.00. ISBN 2-7078-1281-1.

REVIEWED BY: Gary W Jenkins, Eastern University

Though Bruno Roger-Vasselin's title betrays his emphasis on wit, humor, and irony in Montaigne and the Renaissance, the work involves as well the question of Montaigne's envi ronment, both literary and personal, and the role of sources for his genius. Montaigne's thought itself takes a noticeably ancillary role in this work, for, while it is treated, the main emphasis persistently remains Montaigne's literary world. Roger-Vasselin's approach divides his topic into three parts, the first taking up questions of"Rire en France a la Renaissance," which in five chapters covers contes, the'actre, poe'sie de cour (galante ou satirique), litte'rature politique des traite's et pamphlets, and finally les sourires de l'e'loquence. This section, concerned far more than the other two with rhetorical and heuristic concerns, is also by far the most dense of the sections, not only in its minutiae but also in its length (it takes up half of the book), and treats the seemingly vast world of late medieval and Renaissance literature, despite its length, at a fervid pace. Aside from the fifteen chapters divided equally among the three parts, Roger-Vasselin further divides each chapter into sections of varied length, many no longer than a page, with relatively few more than three pages. In this section the subdivisions tend to atomize his survey of the period's literature, though given the subject's breadth, there is little else that could be done to approach the comprehension the author hopes to obtain.

The work's second and shortest section treats Montaigne's world as regards sociabilite', i.e., that web of relations, patrons, and literary benefactors that marked the subject's life. Though roughly half the length of the first section, this part stands out not so much in its unity, which it does possess, but for the connections it posits between Montaigne and his near contemporaries, specifically Castiglione, Erasmus, and especially his friend Etienne de La Boetie.The chapter on La Boetie treats not only of Montaigne's personal and literary debt to his senior jurist, but as well the place of Montaigne and his family within France's nobility, both of the robe and of the sword. It also deals with Montaigne's beliefs about the function and place of France's parlements. Indeed, these questions dominate the chapter, with, sadly, few subsections on La Bo6tie, these merely touching the senior jurist's stoicism and the place of his death in Montaigne's life.The chapter on Erasmus draws attention to Montaigne's lit erary indebtedness to him; their mutual disregard, not of Cicero per se (though Montaigne employed Cicero, he seemingly preferred Seneca), but of those who slavishly aped Tully's style and manner; and finally Montaigne's love of Erasmian paradox. As regards Montaigne's

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Book Reviews 1183

manner and style in comparison to Erasmus's, Roger-Vasselin notes that "notre auteur marque bien le passage du vieil humanisme de l'6rudition a un nouvel humanisme de la cul ture" (218). The chapter on Castiglione goes far beyond The Courtier, inspects the relation of French renaissance culture with that of Italy, and thus necessarily takes up Montaigne's rela tion to Machiavelli, particularly the former's affinity for the rustic life. Roger-Vasselin quotes

most of Machiavelli's well-known letter toVettori on December 1513 to bring this out.The author then moves immediately from this to his treatment of Montaigne's love of Gascony and Gascon valeurs.

The book's third section seems an odd amalgamation of matters, some pertaining to neither of the first sections but arising from such a work, e.g., the moral implications of laughter in sixteenth-century philosophy and medical thought, Montaigne's ancient and

modern examples for both irony and humor, the personal context of the Essais, and finally Montaigne's first audience. The chapters on irony and humor return to matters touched upon in the first section, and this judgment may be imputed as well to the chapter on laughter in medicine and philosophy, though they are hardly mere expansions of previous

material. In some ways, obviously, this may be said of chapter 14, "Le contexte personnel des Essais," yet this, the shortest chapter in the book, addresses some of the most pertinent matters as pertain to the subject: the date of and reason for Montaigne's retirement; the place of the wars of religion in his thought (also treated elsewhere); and, intriguingly, the place of the inscriptions on his library walls. For Roger-Vasselin, this all revolves around Montaigne's realization of the precarious nature of life, owing to an accident that occurred sometime from 1568 to 1570 (and related in Essais 2.6).The expansion of this chapter would have added to the book's value.

Directing Shakespeare: A Scholar Onstage. Sidney Homan. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004. 152 pp. $32.95. ISBN 0-8214-1550-6.

REVIEWED BY: Julia Matthews, Albright College

Sidney Homan leads the beleaguered existence of a stage-struck scholar, a lonely emis sary between the territorial worlds of theater and English literature negotiating for "a collab orative relationship" between study and stage (ix). Directing Shakespeare seems especially directed toward proprietary scholars like the one Homan describes in his preface, a senior professor who never wanted to see a staged production of Shakespeare because it would "interfere with my ideal conception of the playwright" (xi). Homan tries to placate these ferocious bardolators with tales from the rehearsal hall, where he has lovingly directed many productions. To this task he brings not only a wide knowledge of critical discourse but also an exuberant enthusiasm for actors and their work.

Homan is fascinated by actors, and the liveliest sections of Directing Shakespeare describe the imaginative inventions that grew out of actor-director collaborations: how Hippolyta appropriated Theseus' law book in the first scene of Midsummer; how Edmund's resentment of his father led to his visible envy of Cordelia and Lear; how Claudius longed for his own son, and dealt with Hamlet and Laertes accordingly. Often Homan jots in the psychological subtext the actors are implying with their lines; for example, Othello thinks, "Why would a young, Christian, white woman love me, an old, pagan, black man?" (114) Homan shares these vivid details as if he were chatting with an old theatre-going friend, describing key scenes and inserting backstage anecdotes amid the larger conceptual issues of his productions.

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