La République des Lettres

by Marc Fumaroli

"Extérieurement j’ai vécu à l’époque où l’expression République des Lettres désigne, plus ou moins ironiquement, le petit échiquier étroitement parisien ou festivalier, plus que jamais agité, dont les pièces du jeu annuel sont des centaines de romans, et la récompense des parties gagnées, des dizaines de prix littéraires. Intérieurement, pendant plus d’un demi-siècle, j’ai malgré tout vécu, privément avec quelques amis et, depuis moins longtemps, dans l’actuelle Académie des Inscriptions, au sein d’une République européenne des Lettres d’un tout autre genre et d’une tout autre époque. Tel aura été mon "engagement". Me dégageant de l’actualité présente sans pour autant l’ignorer, j’ai cherché à comprendre l’actualité disparue d’une société de savants lettrés solidaires où je me plaisais et qui évoluait étrangement avec une jalouse liberté de mouvement et d’esprit dans des régimes politiques et religieux qui, selon nos critères actuels, passent pour despotiques. Cette étrangeté ou, si l’on préfère, ce paradoxe continue à me fasciner, bien que peu à peu j’aie mieux compris le secret avantage dont jouissaient, en pleine connaissance de cause, mes amis (et objets d’étude) : celui de savoir vivre sur deux étages du temps, l’un se réfléchissant dans l’autre, l’un hors du temps parce que fruit mûr du temps, l’Antiquité gréco-romaine, et l’autre dans un tout autre temps historique, en voie à son tour de mûrissement, mais cette fois sans le réflecteur des "humanités", et de plus en plus déboussolé depuis que ce miroir lui a été ôté.

Marc Fumaroli

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Renaissance

496 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

Marc Fumaroli was a scholar of French classical rhetoric and art. He is acknowledged for the revival of Rhetoric as field of study of European culture, in a sharp move away from both structuralism and post-modernism.

He was born in metropolitan France, in Marseille, but he grew up in the Moroccan city of Fez. He was educated at the university of Aix-Marseille and at the Sorbonne. He began his academic career in Lille but continued it it Paris. Following his appointment to a chair in Seventeenth Century Studies at the Sorbonne, he was elected to a chair in Rhetoric and Society in Europe (16th and 17th century) at the Collège de France. He held it from 1986 until mandatory retirement in 2002, and then became an emeritus professor.

He was a member of the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Société d'Histoire Littéraire de la France, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and the Académie Française. Before being elected a member in 1995, Fumaroli received from the Académie Française the Monseigneur Marcel Prize in 1982 and the Critique Prize in 1992. He was promoted to the title of commander of the French Legion of Honor in 2008, after previously being named chevalier in 1993 and officer in 2002.

After his death on 24 June 2020, the office of French President Emmanuel Macron praised Fumaroli as one of the country's greatest ever storytellers and historians.

Reviews

[Alberto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro de esos que te descubren mundos nuevos y cientos de obras más por leer. Muy bueno.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A scholarly and magisterial account of the concept of the Republic of Letters from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment, translated from the original French.

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fumaroli is a professor emeritus at the Collège de France and a member of the British Academy, the Académie française, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Société d’histoire littéraire de la France. Vergnaud is an editor and literary translator who has translated works from the French by authors such as Mohand Fellag, Joy Sorman, Marie-Monique Robin, and Scholastique Mukasonga.

An interesting history of the flow of ideas through Europe from the 15th to the 18th Century. The letters were a source of exchanging ideas in the time when communications across distances were very primitive. Examining the writings of Petrarch, Erasmus, Descartes, Montaigne, and others Fumaroli creates the web of exchange. The idea of mass-produced journals was still a long way away. Also, the ideas exchanged may not be readily accepted by those in power. Humanism versus the clergy would extend into the 18th century. Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of banned books from the Roman Church. The Spanish Inquisition did not officially end until 1834. Too public of exchange of ideas could bring serious consequences.

An interesting study of the flow of intellectual history in Europe. The spread of ideas from Rennesance Italy throughout Europe. The moral and social questions that became the modern Western world are captured in their earliest stages. The Republic of Letters was an unofficial university for a state without a state. A complex book and not for those looking for an easy read.