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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2020
Moralist literature of seventeenth-century France can be characterized by a human dialectic in which the author is in dialogue with himself or with an aspect of his personality, or in which there is a dialogue between the moi and autrui or between moral principles. In La Rochefoucauld's case, there is a stylistic withdrawal, an absence of intervention of the person of the author which allows for an imaginative interplay between the various personae in the style of the Maximes. This tendency creates an imaginary framework that supports an extended and more dramatic development of personification. In the successive versions of any given Maxim personification is generally sharpened, and what emerges from the overall literary texture of the Maximes is a veritable dramatis personae of extraordinary diversity and vitality. By dramatizing moral values in their multifaceted, contradictory nature, the moraliste tries to resolve the paradox inherent in them, while at the same time allowing moral ideas the freedom to remain paradoxical.
Note 1 in page 255 Recent critics, such as Moore, have alluded in passing to the dramatic qualities of La Rochefoucauld's Maximes. See W. G. Moore, La Rochefoucauld: His Mind and Art (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), pp. 31, 72, 91.
Note 2 in page 255 “Person as Figure of Ambiguity and Resolution in Pascal,” PMLA, 84 (1969), 312–30.
Note 3 in page 255 La Rochefoucauld, Maximes, ed. Jacques Truchet (Paris: Classiques Gamier, 1967), p. 254. Unless otherwise noted all references are to this edition. Because of certain lacks in each of the authoritative editions, I have been obliged to refer to more than one edition in the course of this article.
Note 4 in page 255 Œuvres de La Rochefoucauld, ed. D. L. Gilbert and J. Gourdault, 3 vols., Les Grands Ecrivains de la France (Paris: Hachette, 1881), I, 43, n. 3.
Note 5 in page 255 This is not the case for all the Maxims. See n. 7.
Note 6 in page 255 Cf. No. 255, pp. 65–66. “Tous les sentiments ont chacun un ton de voix, des gestes et des mines qui leur sont propres. Et ce rapport bon ou mauvais, agréable ou désagréable, est ce qui fait que les personnes plaisent ou déplaisent.”
Note 7 in page 255 Although the precise meaning of the words “goût” and “mérite” is not clear, and the nature of the personification itself is uncertain, I would like to suggest that “mérite” and “goût” can be seen to represent two persons in a hierarchical social order. If the one, “mérite,” lowers himself in relation to principle, then the other, “goût,” lowers himself in relation to quality. See also Maximes, ed. Truchet, p. 90, n. 1. For other Maxims where the final versions are more abstract—less vivid—than the earlier versions, see Nos. 9 and 101. In both cases, the MS version is more markedly animated than the final version. Compare Liancourt No. 164, p. 428, with No. 9, p. 9; and Liancourt, No. 133. p. 425, with No. 101, p. 29.
Note 8 in page 255 Moore draws attention to the artistic use of paradox in La Rochefoucauld's handling of images. See Moore, p. 92.
Note 9 in page 255 The power of personification might also be related to the tendency toward concreteness found in the Maximes. See Sister Mary Francine Zeller, O. S. F., New Aspects of Style in the Maximes of La Rochefoucauld (Washington, D. C: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1944), p. 107.