The Poet and the King, described by the New York Review of Books as “the finest and most perceptive of all the innumerable accounts of La Fontaine,” is being offered for the first time in an English translation. La Fontaine, whose works are still memorized by French schoolchildren, is regarded by Fumaroli, and countless others, as the greatest French lyric poet of the seventeenth century. La Fontaine is best known, however, for his fables and Contes. Marc Fumaroli’s grand study is almost as much about Louis XIV as it is about La Fontaine. He provides a detailed analysis of the absolutist politics and attempts by the king and his ministers to enforce an official cultural style. Fumaroli’s work is a meditation on the plight of the artist under such a ruler during the imposition of a tyrannical, centralized political regime. Of particular interest to Fumaroli is Nicolas Foucquet, whose fall from power is the central event of the book. Foucquet, La Fontaine’s patron, was arrested and imprisoned by order of Louis XIV on false charges of embezzlement and treason. For La Fontaine, the arrest was a disaster. Foucquet had generously supported and protected La Fontaine, who remained loyal to him for decades, helping in his defense and writing pleas for pardon. Many of Foucquet’s associates were arrested. Others, including La Fontaine, prudently left town. During the reign of Louis XIV, the basic role of literature in the eyes of the court was that of an official propaganda machine. The royal cultural policy supported only tragedy and the heroic ode, and demanded works that praised the king. In the years that followed Foucquet’s arrest, La Fontaine had to rely on support from groups unconnected with the government, including Jansenists, Protestants, and the libertine, homosexual circle of the Duc de Vendôme. Fumaroli reads history with an eye on the modern world. His La Fontaine and his Foucquet, his world of free culture in opposition to state power, are models for the liberal vision of the possible role of culture in modern society. The Poet and the King offers not only a captivating history of one of France’s greatest poets, but also carries the message that great literature and art can be created in spite of repressive cultural and political regimes.

Poet and the King: Jean de La Fontaine and His Century

Biographies & Memoirs

Fumaroli, Marc

Arts & Literature

University of Notre Dame Press

Catalogue of the exhibition France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections, which appeared in 1982 at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris (29 January–26 April); the Metropolitan Museum (26 May–22 August); and the Art Institute of Chicago (18 September–28 November).The exhibition and catalogue celebrate the richness and depth of American collections of seventeenth-century French painting, and present a panorama as varied and complete as possible of works from France during its period as a political and economic power. 124 works by more than fifty artists are represented, including those by La Tour, Lorrain, Millet, Poussin, Valentin, and Vouet. Includes introduction, timeline, catalogue of entries, checklist. [This book was originally published in 1982 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]

France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections

Arts & Photography

ROSENBERG, Pierre

History & Criticism

Metropolitan Museum of Art

A provocative exploration of intellectual exchange across four centuries of European history by the author of When the World Spoke French In this fascinating study, preeminent historian Marc Fumaroli reveals how an imagined “republic” of ideas and interchange fostered the Italian Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. He follows exchanges among Petrarch, Erasmus, Descartes, Montaigne, and others from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, through revolutions in culture and society. Via revealing portraits and analysis, Fumaroli traces intellectual currents engaged with the core question of how to live a moral life—and argues that these men of letters provide an example of the exchange of knowledge and ideas that is worthy of emulation in our own time. Combining scholarship, wit, and reverence, this thought‑provoking volume represents the culmination of a lifetime of scholarship.

The Republic of Letters (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

History

Europe

Yale University Press

Montaigne (1533-1592), the personification of philosophical calm, had to struggle to become the wise Renaissance humanist we know. His balanced temperament, sanguine and melancholic, promised genius but threatened madness. When he started his Essays, Montaigne was upset by an attack of melancholy humor: He became temperamental and unbalanced. Writing about himself restored the balance but broke an age-old taboo―happily so, for he discovered profound truths about himself and about our human condition. His charm and humor have made his writings widely enjoyed and admired.

Montaigne & Melancholy: The Wisdom of the Essays

Literature & Fiction

Screech, M. A.

Essays & Correspondence

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

A New York Review Books Original
During the eighteenth century, from the death of Louis XIV until the Revolution, French culture set the standard for all of Europe. In Sweden, Austria, Italy, Spain, England, Russia, and Germany, among kings and queens, diplomats, military leaders, writers, aristocrats, and artists, French was the universal language of politics and intellectual life. In When the World Spoke French, Marc Fumaroli presents a gallery of portraits of Europeans and Americans who conversed and corresponded in French, along with excerpts from their letters or other writings. These men and women, despite their differences, were all irresistibly attracted to the ideal of human happiness inspired by the Enlightenment, whose capital was Paris and whose king was Voltaire. Whether they were in Paris or far away, speaking French connected them in spirit with all those who desired to emulate Parisian tastes, style of life, and social pleasures. Their stories are testaments to the appeal of that famous “sweetness of life” nourished by France and its language.

When The World Spoke French (New York Review Books Classics)

NYRB Classics

L'Antiquité rêvée: Innovations et résistances au XVIIIᵉ siècle

COLLECTIFS

Gaehtgens, Thomas W.

Michel, Christian

Gallimard]

Exercices de lecture: De Rabelais à Paul Valéry

Product description 
"Extrieurement j'ai vcu l'poque o l'expression Rpublique des Lettres dsigne, plus ou moins ironiquement, le petit chiquier troitement parisien ou festivalier, plus que jamais agit, dont les pices du jeu annuel sont des centaines de romans, et la rcompense des parties gagnes, des dizaines de prix littraires. Intrieurement, pendant plus d'un demi-sicle, j'ai malgr tout vcu, privment avec quelques amis et, depuis moins longtemps, dans l'actuelle Acadmie des Inscriptions, au sein d'une Rpublique europenne des Lettres d'un tout autre genre et d'une tout autre poque. Tel aura t mon "engagement". Me dgageant de l'actualit prsente sans pour autant l'ignorer, j'ai cherch comprendre l'actualit disparue d'une socit de savants lettrs solidaires o je me plaisais et qui voluait trangement avec une jalouse libert de mouvement et d'esprit dans des rgimes politiques et religieux qui, selon nos critres actuels, passent pour despotiques. Cette tranget ou, si l'on prfre, ce paradoxe continue me fasciner, bien que peu peu j'aie mieux compris le secret avantage dont jouissaient, en pleine connaissance de cause, mes amis (et objets d'tude) : celui de savoir vivre sur deux tages du temps, l'un se rflchissant dans l'autre, l'un hors du temps parce que fruit mr du temps, l'Antiquit grco-romaine, et l'autre dans un tout autre temps historique, en voie son tour de mrissement, mais cette fois sans le rflecteur des "humanits", et de plus en plus dboussol depuis que ce miroir lui a t t." Marc Fumaroli. 
 From the Back Cover 
"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.

La République des Lettres

La Diplomatie de l'esprit: De Montaigne à La Fontaine

Chateaubriand : Poésie et Terreur

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