Why did people talk so much about avarice in late Renaissance
France, nearly a century before Moliere's famous comedy, L'Avare?
As wars and economic crises ravaged France on the threshold of
modernity, avarice was said to be flourishing as never before. Yet
by the late sixteenth century, a number of French writers would
argue that in some contexts, avaricious behaviour was not
straightforwardly sinful or harmful. Considerations of social rank,
gender, object pursued, time, and circumstance led some to question
age-old beliefs. Traditionally reviled groups (rapacious usurers,
greedy lawyers, miserly fathers, covetous women) might still
exhibit unmistakable signs of avarice - but perhaps not invariably,
in an age of shifting social, economic and intellectual values.
Across a large, diverse corpus of French texts, Jonathan Patterson
shows how a range of flexible genres nourished by humanism tended
to offset traditional condemnation of avarice and avares with
innovative, mitigating perspectives, arising from subjective
experience. In such writings, an avaricious disposition could be
re-described as something less vicious, excusable, or even
expedient. In this word history of avarice, close readings of
well-known authors (Marguerite de Navarre, Ronsard, Montaigne), and
of their lesser-known contemporaries are connected to broader
socio-economic developments of the late French Renaissance
(c.1540-1615). The final chapter situates key themes in relation to
Moliere's L'Avare. As such, Representing Avarice in Late
Renaissance France newly illuminates debates about avarice within
broader cultural preoccupations surrounding gender, enrichment and
status in early modern France.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(1)
