The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi in Early Modern Europe: Encounters with a Certain Something - Hardcover

Scholar, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199274401 ISBN 13: 9780199274406

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2005

Synopsis

What is the je-ne-sais-quoi, if it is indeed something at all, and how can it be put into words? In addressing these questions, Richard Scholar offers the first full-length study of the je-ne-sais-quoi and its fortunes in early modern Europe. He examines the expression's rise and fall as a noun and as a topic of philosophical and literary debate, its cluster of meanings, and the scattered traces of its "pre-history." Placing major writers of the period such as Montaigne, Shakespeare, Descartes, Corneille, and Pascal alongside some of their lesser-known contemporaries, Scholar argues that the je-ne-sais-quoi serves above all to trace a series of first-person encounters with a certain something as difficult to explain as its effects are intense, and which can be expressed only by being expressed differently. He shows how the je-ne-sais-quoi comes to express that certain something in the early modern period, and suggests that it remains capable of doing so today.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Scholar is a Fellow & Tutor in French, Oriel College, Oxford. He was previously a Lecturer in French at the University of Durham and the Astor Junior Research Fellow of New College, Oxford.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199274401
• ISBN 13: 9780199274406
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 350