Logic of Idolatry in Seventeenth-Century French Literature
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A01=Ellen McClure
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Author_Ellen McClure
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Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=DSB
Category=DSBD
Confessional Conflicts
COP=United Kingdom
D'Urfé
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Descartes
Divine
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eq_biography-true-stories
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Fractured Relationship
Human
Human Agency
Ideological Violence
Idolatry
La Fontaine
Language_English
Legitimacy
Logic of Idolatry
Molière
PA=Available
Political
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
Racine
Religious Polemics
Seventeenth-Century French Literature
softlaunch
Sévigné
Product details
- ISBN 9781843845508
- Weight: 554g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 20 Mar 2020
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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A sensitive investigation into how French writers, including Descartes and Racine, treated a central preoccupation in early modern writings.
Idolatry was one of the dominant and most contentious themes of early modern religious polemics. This book argues that many of the best-known literary and philosophical works of the French seventeenth century were deeply engaged and concerned with the theme. In a series of case studies and close readings, it shows that authors used the logic of idolatry to interrogate the fractured and fragile relationship between the divine and the human, with particular attention to the increasingly fraught question of the legitimacy of human agency. Reading d'Urfé, Descartes, La Fontaine, Sévigné, Molière, and Racine through the lens of idolatry reveals heretofore hidden aspects of their work, all while demonstrating the link between the emergent autonomy of literature and philosophy and the confessional conflicts that dominated the period. In so doing, Professor McClure illustrates how religion can become a source of interpretive complexity, and how this dynamism can and should be taken into account in early modern French studies and beyond.
ELLEN MCCLURE is Associate Professor of History and French, University of Illinois at Chicago.
