1st Edition
Seducing the Eighteenth-Century French Reader Reading, Writing, and the Question of Pleasure
By Paul J. Young
Copyright 2008
174 Pages
by
Routledge
174 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
As he demonstrates that narratives of seduction function as a master plot for French literature in the eighteenth century, Paul Young argues that the prevalence of this trope was a reaction to a dominant cultural discourse that coded the novel and the new practice of solitary reading as dangerous, seductive practices. Situating his study in the context of paintings, educational manuals, and... Read more
Contents: Introduction; Reading, writing, and seduction; Moving beyond pleasure: writing (in) the libertine novel; Looking inside: the ambiguous interiors of La Petite Maison; Seducing the reader? Perversion and disruption in La Nouvelle Héloïse; When excess isn't enough: secrets and silences in the Sadean text; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Paul J. Young is assistant professor of French at Georgetown University, USA
'This well-written and nuanced book connects aptly the erotic novels of the eighteenth century with the rest of the more well-known novelistic corpus. The author provides the tools to read these novels in the context of a homogeneous repressive culture and of institutions that organized to stifle them. More specifically, Young manages to show how writing for these authors emerges as a place of affirmation and pleasure, and imagination. He gives us a lot to chew on and opens up the corpus of erotic texts to cultural questions beyond just textual interpretation. We can be grateful for that.' Eighteenth-Century Fiction ’... offers subtle and illuminating readings of some of its canonical and less well-known primary sources.’ Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies
