Figures of Chance I

Figures of Chance I: Chance in Literature and the Arts (16th–21st Centuries) proposes a transhistorical analysis that will serve as a reference work on the evolution of literary and artistic representations of chance and contingency. Alongside its multidisciplinary companion volume (Figures of Chance II), it considers how the projective and predictive capacity of societies is shaped by representations and cultural models of a reality that is understood, to varying degrees, to be contingent, unpredictable, or chaotic. Giving special emphasis to the French context while also developing broad cross-cultural comparisons, this volume examines the dialogue between evolving conceptions and changing representations of chance, from Renaissance figures of Fortune to the data-driven world of the present. Written by recognized specialists of each of the periods studied, it identifies and historicizes the main fictional and factual modes of portraying, narrating, and comprehending chance in the West.

The Prologue and Introduction of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Anne Duprat, principal director of the international Collaborative Research Project ANR-ALEA (2020–2023), is the general editor of the work. Professor of comparative literature at the Université de Picardie-Jules Verne, Anne Duprat is the author of recognized works on the theory of fiction and on the relationships between literature, cultural anthropology, and intellectual history. A member of the Institut Universitaire de France, her publications include Vraisemblances. Poétique et théorie de la fiction (Droz, 2009), Fiction et cultures (ed. with Françoise Lavocat, 2010) and Histoires et savoirs. Anecdotes scientifiques et sérendipité aux XVIe et XVIIIe siècle (ed. with F. Aït-Touati, 2012).

Fiona McIntosh-Varjabédian (Pr., U. Lille) is a specialist of literature of ideas (politics, historiography, science) in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Anne-Gaëlle Weber (Pr., U. Artois) is a specialist of relationships between science and literature.