17th CENTURY
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THE CLASSICAL AGE
After the Wars of Religion, only a centralized government could restore peace.
The Cardinals Richelieu, followed by Mazarin, both Royal Ministers,
reconsolidated political power and managed to control religious disturbances in
France.
Louis XIV  from 1661 onwards he ruled as an absolute king in a centralized
government as never seen before. Mazarin was his right hand.
His person, represented by the Sun, embodied the whole state. He governed
directly, without the influence of a Parliament.
In 1682  The court moved to Versailles.
In 1685  Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes.
Life in Versailles was ruled by strict rules of etiquette. The nobleman ceased to
be a soldier and was exclusively a courtier, depending on Royal favor to advance
in life. Royal pensions came at a high price.
Centralization of power  Centralization of culture. Every aspect of culture
revolved around the King.
The crown controlled a number of printing houses, issued permits to publish,
censored writers, set the tone for literature.
Paris had about half million inhabitants, but editions of books were rarely larger
than 1500 copies. The problem of copyright (publishers own the work once they
published it).
Plays belonged to theater companies.
Authors could have their own troupe, such as Molière.
Artists (writers, actors, etc) finally acquired a better status. They were viewed as
important instruments to support centralized monarchy. Louis XIV was
extremely generous towards some artists. They never ceased to be, however, a
servant of the crown.
Preciosity  efforts to refine language and literature after decades of war. This
new fashion was born in salons and reflected affectation far more than artistry.
Marie de Gournay, “adopted daughter” of Montaigne, advanced the woman’s
cause and fought for education.
The Classical Ideal
 Most poets from the 16th century were then considered excessive and extravagant.
The new taste favored technique above inspiration and control above imagination.
 Order and discipline in language.
 Descartes and his “Discourse on Method.”
 Theater should be a lesson of good manners and taste to the public.
 Love should not recall personal experiences, but reflect the Ideal of love.
 Imitation of nature in its simplicity. Human nature X Lack of common sense.
 Important terms:
 Bienséance (tact): respecting the manners of the public
 Vraisemblance (credibility)  respecting nature and reason
 Honesty: courtesy, taste.
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Rationalism  Reason was the surest way to identify and present universal truths.
New Science  Nature operates through the laws of physics (Newton, Pascal,
Descartes)
 Rules of Classic Art  Unity of action, space and time.
Literature
 Poetry  The noblest of genres.
 Theater was written mostly in verse (Racine, Corneille). The Fables of La
Fontaine were also in verse.
 Theater  popular entertainment. Musical plays (by Lully), Ballets, Comedies,
Tragedies.
 An act could last as long as candles took to burn down. The audience in the
popular theater was loud.
 Comedy should be a mirror of society and not of human soul.
 Tragedy reflected
Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) 1622-1673
 Abandoned formal studies, took the name “Molière” (1644) and followed a
company of actors through Italy for thirteen years.
 Back to Paris in 1658, he established a name for himself both as an actor and a
writer.
 He made enemies within the court, the Church and among doctors, but he did not
seek controversy openly.
 He was considered an enemy of the Church, an atheist, but in fact he was just
against dogmatism and extremism in religion. He was an enemy of hypocrisy and
impostors who abused fools, as represented in Tartuffe. Without being a
pessimistic type, Molière instead amused himself with the follies he observed in
society.
 For him, theater has a moral obligation. The purpose of comedy is to correct
manners, but it should, above all, please and entertain: “No one laughs according
to rules,” he believed.
 He produced pure farces, but also developed a new kind of farce, in which he
depicted human nature and its foibles.
 He does not recommend automatic obedience to authority and promotes tolerance,
spontaneity.
 Common sense should prevail in all matters.
 He was protected by the King, but his best protection came from a faithful public.
 He repeated situations, plots and characters from play to play. His unit came from
a consistent concern with human behavior, the knowledge of people and their
ways.
 Favorite topics: incompetent doctors, religious zealots, bigots, prudes, forced
marriages and their consequences, smart servants who fool their masters, and
monomaniacs of all sorts.
 There is constantly the preoccupation of showing the contrast between self-image
and reality. When the mask falls, the characters can finally be judged.
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He paints characters indirectly, through the comments of other characters, and
through demonstration, when personality appears in actions. Simple comments
made by characters also reveal who they really are.
Racine
Editor of Montaigne: Marie de Gournay (1565 - 1645) by Maya Bijvoet
1) "She was the only woman whose work appeared in the Parnasse Royal of
1635 published in honor of Louis XIII and was among the seventy most famous
women of all time celebrated in Jean de la Forge's Circle of Learned Women in
1663." page 3
2) "As an autodidact and a scholar of international reputation, she became an
advocate of women's rights to education and intellectual fulfillment. In France,
she was also the most scholarly female critic before Mme de Stael." page 4
3) "Marie was not a feminist in the modern sense, of course, She was not even
so radical as the male feminist Poulain de la Barre (1647 - 1723), whose writings
questioned the conventional notion of male superiority with Cartesian rigor and
advocated concrete social and political reform. Marie simply made intelligent,
highly readable, and entertaining contributions to the debate concerning women's
rights and roles. The fifteenth-century querelle des femmes had never really died,
and around 1615 it flared up again in full force, ignited by a pamphlet by Jaques
Olivier called Alphabet of the Imperfections and Malice of Women." page 7
4) "In The Equality of Men and Women and The Ladies' Grievance, Marie,
somewhat prudishly perhaps, completely avoids the medical and biological
aspects of the problem and in fact underplays - if not altogether ignores the
physical differences between the sexes. Instead, she focuses on the theological
questions and searches the philosophers for evidence in favor of Eve's equality,
for ideas to counter the low regard in which women's intelligence was generally
held. Since the vast majority of the female population of France at the time was
completely illiterate, it is no wonder that women were equated with ignorance,
incompetence, and mere physicality. Marie herself, however, provided living
proof that education could make a woman intelligent, rational, articulate, and also
independent. As opposed to many other advocates of women's rights, Marie de
Gournay does not claim that women are superior to men; she believes that, given
the same opportunities, privileges, and education usually granted to men, women
can equal men's accomplishments. The discrepancy in intelligence and
achievements between men and women results from differences in education,
circumstances, and attitudes, not form an inherent, predestined, intellectual
inequality. While these ideas are almost completely commonplace today, they
were still outlandish in Marie's time, and she needed to enlist the support of all
great minds ancient and modern to make a legitimate case for them.
The Equality of Men and Women was first printed in 1622." page 8
5) Marie believed that "Since all the great minds of the past and present
acknowledge the merits of women, those men who do not must lack intelligence."
page 9
6) "When Marie de Gournay gets very angry, she writes great prose. In the
much shorter and more vehement tract The Ladies Grievance, written in 1626,
who gives full rein to her satirical talent. . . . Her essay ends on an ominous note:
one day women will have their revenge. Since they have read the books written
by men and know their minds, they also know how little it takes to rise above
them." page 10
7) "This deep religious feeling was alien to Marie de Gournay. Anna Maria
van Schurmann was undoubtedly a greater scholar, with more modesty and tact
than Marie de Gournay, but she lacked the imagination and the fire which make
much of Marie's writing so appealing." page 12
From The Equality of Men and Women (1622)
1) "Yes, for some men it is not even enough to place themselves above
women; they also judge it necessary to limit women's activities to the distaff and
to the distaff alone. But women may take solace in the fact that this disdain comes
only from those men they would least want to resemble, people who, if they
belonged to it, would lend probability to the ugly things vomited about the female
sex, and who feel in their hearts that they have nothing to recommend themselves
but the fact that they belong to the other. They have heard it blazoned out in the
streets that women lack dignity and intelligence, and their eloquence triumphs
when preaching these maxims, especially since dignity, organs, and temperament
are such handsome words. These men have not learned, on the other hand, that the
most important quality of an inept person is to rely on popular belief and hearsay.
See how such minds compare the two sexes: for them, the highest point of
excellence to which a woman may aspire is to resemble the most ordinary of men.
It is difficult for us to imagine that a great woman could call herself a great human
being as to acknowledge that a man could rise to the level of a god. These men are
braver that Hercules himself, for he defeated twelve monsters in twelve battles,
while they undo half the world's population by one single word. Yet who will
believe that people who strive to elevate themselves and strengthen their position
through the weakness of others are capable of elevating and strengthening
themselves on their own?" pages 15- 16
2) "Even though men in many places have deprived our sex of its share of the
best advantages, this larceny and the suffering it causes is clearly due to the
difference in physical strength rather than to a lack of mental capacities or moral
worth on our part." part 19
3) "Hence, if Saint Paul, to continue my journey through the testimonies of
holy men, excludes women from the priesthood and forbids them to speak in the
Church, he clearly does not do this out of contempt for women but rather out of
fear that they would lead some men into temptation if they showed so publicly
and openly the beauty and grace they have in greater measure than men, which
would be inevitable when ministering and preaching." page 20
4) "If men pride themselves on the fact that Jesus Christ was born of their sex,
the answer is that this was necessary for the sake of decency, for if he had been a
woman, it would have been impossible for Jesus to go out at all hours of the day
and night and mingle with the crowds to convert them and to help save mankind,
without creating a scandal, especially in the face of the malice of the Jews." "
page 22
5) "Suppose we believed that the Scriptures indeed order woman to submit to
the authority of man because she cannot think as well as he can, see here the
absurdity that would follow: women would be worthy of having been made in the
likeness of the Creator, worthy of taking part in the holy Eurcharist, of sharing the
mysteries of the Redemption, Paradise, worthy of the vision, even possession, of
God, but not of the status and privileges of men. Wouldn't we be saying then that
men are more precious and sacred than all these things, and wouldn't that be the
most grievous blasphemy?" page 23
From The Ladies Grievance (1626) by Marie de Gournay (1565 - 1645)
1) "Let me add to this that not only the lower ranks among the literati stumble
like this, putting down women, for even among the authors, alive and dead, who
have acquired quite a literary reputation in this century, sometimes with very
serious works, I have known some who thoroughly despised all books written by
women without even bothering to read them to see of what stuff they are made,
and without wanting to find out first whether they themselves could produce
books worthy to be read by all kinds of women. This indeed is ca convenient
habit, in accordance with popular taste which enhances the brilliance of their
intelligence. For in order to be respected by general opinion, that many-headed
beast, especially at court, all a man needs to do is despise a few people here and
there and swear that as far as he is concerned he is the prime del monde, just like
that poor fool who thought she was a picture of beauty and ran through the streets
of Paris with hands on her hips, shouting: "Come and see how pretty I am." " page
25
2) "But we do know several women who would never pride themselves on
such a small accomplishment as outshining men. . . " page 26