Studia Litterarum (Dec 2016)
The Aphorism and Play in the Artistic Paradigm of the Novels by Crébillon-fils
Abstract
The article examines the function of ludic poetics and the role of aphorisms in the novels by Crébillon-fils: “L’Ecumoire, ou Tanzaï et Néadarné.” “Les Egarements du cœur et de l’esprit,” and “Le Sopha.” It argues that the specificity of the artistic paradigm of Crébillon’s novels draws from the synthesis of the ludic origin and aphoristic writing while their “inner measure” (N. D. Tamarchenko) is determined by skeptical and ironic attitude to the world typical for rococo. The ludic poetics creates the second level of encoding in the novels that makes them interesting to different audience. A naive reader enjoys a frivolous work that has a comical situation at its core; a more sophisticated reader peruses a “novel with a clue,” that is a novel with a metaphorical plot containing ironic insinuations and allusions to contemporary realities. Aphorisms in the dialogues reveal the absence of the shared, universal truth and demonstrate its contingency on the speaker’s viewpoint. Taken together, aphorisms of Crébillon’s characters reflect the author’s own dialogical relation to reality and relativity of the moral truths in his opinion. Blurring semantic meaning of the words related to moral and ethical sphere was typical for rococo; it allowed these words collide in a ludic manner within the aphoristic framework; it also prompted further dialogization of aphoristic statements and the establishment of dialogic relations among characters and between the author and the world. By broadening the local chronotope and establishing contacts between the novel’s conventional plot and reality, by contributing to the ongoing dialogue among the characters, the author, and the reader, by reflecting the controversies of the rococo worldview and sophisticating the style, the ludic poetics and aphoristic writing defined stylistic and generic specificity of Crébillon’s novel — intellectual in form and philosophical in content.
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