Overview

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'Urfe, Descartes, La Fontaine, Sevigne, Moliere, 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.

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9781843845508

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[W]hat makes McClure's case so compelling emerges in her case studies. [...] There follow sensitive yet game-changing readings of Sevigne, Moliere, and Racine, with McClure's reading of Phedre crowning the analysis. One of the subtler qualities of McClure's study is how the readings grow finer as the work advances. * Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Reforme *

Author Information

ELLEN MCCLURE is Associate Professor of History and French, University of Illinois at Chicago.

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