Sublime Worlds: Early Modern French Literature

by Emma Gilby

Some of the language we come across, in reading other peoples' works or listening to others speak, moves us profoundly. It requires a response from us; it occupies and involves us. Writers, always readers and listeners as well, are fascinated by this phenomenon, which became the subject of the classical treatise On the Sublime, traditionally attributed to Longinus. Emma Gilby looks at this compelling and complex text in relation to the work of three major seventeenth-century Pierre Corneille, Blaise Pascal and Nicolas Boileau. She offers, in each case, intimate critical readings which spin out into broad interrogations about knowledge and experience in early modern French literature.

160 pages, ebook

Published July 5, 2017