Valincour - The Limits of Honnetete (Hardcover)

Jean-Baptiste Henri du Trousset de Valincour (1653-1730) was both government official and man of letters. In his governmental career, he occupied prominent posts in the household of le comte de Toulouse, son of Louis XIV and Admiral of France. As a man of letters he made his mark as the author of the first critical appraisal of Madame de Lafayette's masterpiece, "La Princess de Cleves". He was a poet, literary critic, historian, and polemicist for the Church of France. Despite the fact that Valincour's papers were in part destroyed by fire in 1726, the author has established a bibliography of Valincour's writings and, on the basis of that record, investigates Valincour's life and career. Williams argues that Valincour with his original mind and critical spirit exemplifies both the ideal of "honnetete" with its complex limits of social and intellectual constraints and the transformation of that ideal that occurred from the last decades of the 17th century to the first decades of the 18th. Thoroughly researched, this comprehensive study should stand as the definitive account of Valincour's life and career.