The Attraction of the Contrary
Essays on the Literature of the French Enlightenment

The essays in this 1987 volume examine the ideas of contrarity and other kinds of polar opposition in French literature of the eighteenth century.

Walter E. Rex (Author)

9780521159005, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 October 2011

268 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.4 kg

The essays in this 1987 volume are concerned with ideas of contrarity and other kinds of polar opposition in French literature of the eighteenth century. Originally these ideas were merely part of an impulse to undermine the establishment, but as the century progressed the desire to invert social values and question accepted norms merged with the main groundswell of the age to form part of the movement of Revolution. Professor Rex considers some of the major writers of the period: Diderot, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Beaumarchais. He also explores minor genres such as opéras comiques, theatrical parodies, and erotic or pornographic pieces; these have been largely forgotten, but in their time they imbued the creative life of the era with vitality. In treating the literature in relation to the other arts, especially painting and music, these essays will be of interest to scholars of all aspects of eighteenth-century French culture.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Manon's hidden motives
2. Three literary approaches to the art of love
3. Inversions and subversions in the théâtre de la foire, or, the end of Piron's Arlequin-Deucalion
4. Crispin's inventions
5. On Voltaire's Mérope
6. The figure of music in the frontispiece of Diderot's Encyclopédie
7. Secrets from Suzanne: the tangled motives of La Religieuse
8. A unique and forgotten opera libretto
9. The demise of classical tragedy in France
10. The Marriage of Figaro
11. Deucalion's last eighteenth-century appearance
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB], Literary essays [DNF]