#Mademoiselle de Scudéry

[venicepearl]

Madeleine de Scudéry (15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701), often known simply as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, was a French writer.

Her works also demonstrate such comprehensive knowledge of ancient history that it is suspected she had received instruction in Greek and Latin. In 1637, following the death of her uncle, Scudéry established herself in Paris with her brother, Georges de Scudéry, who became a playwright. Madeleine often used her older brother's name, George, to publish her works. She was at once admitted to the Hôtel de Rambouillet coterie of préciosité, and afterwards established a salon of her own under the title of the Société du samedi (Saturday Society). For the last half of the 17th century, under the pseudonym of Sapho or her own name, she was acknowledged as the first bluestocking of France and of the world. She formed a close romantic relationship with Paul Pellisson which was only ended by his death in 1693. She never married.

[lesmislettersdaily]

The First Sketch Of Two Unprepossessing Figures

Volume 1: Fantine: Book 4: To Confide Is Sometimes To Deliver Into A Person's Power; Chapter 2: The First Sketch Of Two Unprepossessing Figures

The mouse which had been caught was a pitiful specimen; but the cat rejoices even over a lean mouse. Who were these Thénardiers? Let us say a word or two of them now. We will complete the sketch later on. These beings belonged to that bastard class composed of coarse people who have been successful, and of intelligent people who have descended in the scale, which is between the class called “middle” and the class denominated as “inferior,” and which combines some of the defects of the second with nearly all the vices of the first, without possessing the generous impulse of the workingman nor the honest order of the bourgeois. They were of those dwarfed natures which, if a dull fire chances to warm them up, easily become monstrous. There was in the woman a substratum of the brute, and in the man the material for a blackguard. Both were susceptible, in the highest degree, of the sort of hideous progress which is accomplished in the direction of evil. There exist crab-like souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness, retrograding in life rather than advancing, employing experience to augment their deformity, growing incessantly worse, and becoming more and more impregnated with an ever-augmenting blackness. This man and woman possessed such souls. Thénardier, in particular, was troublesome for a physiognomist. One can only look at some men to distrust them; for one feels that they are dark in both directions. They are uneasy in the rear and threatening in front. There is something of the unknown about them. One can no more answer for what they have done than for what they will do. The shadow which they bear in their glance denounces them. From merely hearing them utter a word or seeing them make a gesture, one obtains a glimpse of sombre secrets in their past and of sombre mysteries in their future. This Thénardier, if he himself was to be believed, had been a soldier—a sergeant, he said. He had probably been through the campaign of 1815, and had even conducted himself with tolerable valor, it would seem. We shall see later on how much truth there was in this. The sign of his hostelry was in allusion to one of his feats of arms. He had painted it himself; for he knew how to do a little of everything, and badly. It was at the epoch when the ancient classical romance which, after having been Clélie, was no longer anything but Lodoïska, still noble, but ever more and more vulgar, having fallen from Mademoiselle de Scudéri to Madame Bournon-Malarme, and from Madame de Lafayette to Madame Barthélemy-Hadot, was setting the loving hearts of the portresses of Paris aflame, and even ravaging the suburbs to some extent. Madame Thénardier was just intelligent enough to read this sort of books. She lived on them. In them she drowned what brains she possessed. This had given her, when very young, and even a little later, a sort of pensive attitude towards her husband, a scamp of a certain depth, a ruffian lettered to the extent of the grammar, coarse and fine at one and the same time, but, so far as sentimentalism was concerned, given to the perusal of Pigault-Lebrun, and “in what concerns the sex,” as he said in his jargon—a downright, unmitigated lout.

His wife was twelve or fifteen years younger than he was. Later on, when her hair, arranged in a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Megæra began to be developed from the Pamela, the female Thénardier was nothing but a coarse, vicious woman, who had dabbled in stupid romances. Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity. The result was that her eldest daughter was named Éponine; as for the younger, the poor little thing came near being called Gulnare; I know not to what diversion, effected by a romance of Ducray-Dumenil, she owed the fact that she merely bore the name of Azelma. However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which may be designated as the anarchy of baptismal names. By the side of this romantic element which we have just indicated there is the social symptom. It is not rare for the neatherd’s boy nowadays to bear the name of Arthur, Alfred, or Alphonse, and for the vicomte—if there are still any vicomtes—to be called Thomas, Pierre, or Jacques. This displacement, which places the “elegant” name on the plebeian and the rustic name on the aristocrat, is nothing else than an eddy of equality. The irresistible penetration of the new inspiration is there as everywhere else. Beneath this apparent discord there is a great and a profound thing,—the French Revolution.

[holybridget]

Marie Stuart

1542 - 1587

Reine d’Ecosse.

[mebwalker]

About Marguerite de Navarre

About Marguerite de Navarre

Madame de La Fayette (labibliothèquedesev.wordpress) I taught La Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves) year after year for several decades and told my students who the characters were, including their ancestry. It was easy then, but eighteen years later, it is no longer so easy. I remember the main names, but a few names confused me. Some characters have several titles and several…

[your-disobedient-servant]

Voltaire’s Paméla Letters Translated: Intro and Letter #1

The letters that Voltaire rewrote in the vein of Richardson’s Paméla after his falling out with Frederick the Great have intrigued me ever since I first heard of them in November or December. Only discovered to have been a rewrite and not originals in the late 20th century, it’s hard to say how much of it is authentic and how much exaggerated or made up, but for me, the fact that they have been altered only adds to the fascination.

Six months into learning French, I’m still not sure I’m quite ready to use this as translation exercises, but I’m impatient, I found the book for very cheap, and besides, I feel that to translate Voltaire you must channel some of the hubris, so bring it on. Poetry (to my surprise, it turns out I actually enjoy translating poetry in some masochistic way) and all. In the end, I am proud of the result.

This is not a very juicy letter, but I’m sure one will come along soon enough. I’m not sure how many will I be able to complete because there’s about fifty of them altogether, but I hope I manage at least a few.

Big thanks to everyone who helped me out with the draft. The rest under the cut for brevity, English followed by original French.

FIRST LETTER

In Clèves, July 1750

It is to you, please, niece of mine, to you, woman of a wit superb, philosopher of the selfsame kind, to you who, like me, of Permesse, knows the many paths diverse; it is to you I now address this disarray of prose and verse, recount my long odyssey's story; recount unlike I back then did when, in my splendid age's glory, I still kept to Apollo's writ; when I dared, perhaps courting disaster, for counsel strike for Paris forth, notwithstanding our minds' worth, the god of Taste, my foremost master!

This journey is only too true, and puts too much distance between you and me. Do not imagine that I want to rival Chapelle, who has made, I do not know how, such a reputation for himself for having been from Paris to Monpellier and to papal land, and for having reported to a gourmand.

It was not, perhaps, difficult when one wished to mock monsieur d'Assoucy. We need another style, we need another pen, to portray this Plato, this Solon, this Achilles who writes his verses at Sans-Souci. I could tell you of that charming retreat, portray this hero philosopher and warrior, so terrible to Austria, so trivial for me; however, that could bore you.

Besides, I am not yet at his court and you should not anticipate anything: I want order even in my letters. Therefore know that I left Compiègne on July 25th, taking my road to Flanders, and as a good historiographer and a good citizen, I went to see the fields of Fontenoy, of Rocoux and of Lawfeld on my way. There was no trace of it left: all of it was covered with the finest wheat in the world. The Flemish men and women were dancing, as if nothing had happened.

Go on, innocent eyes of this bad-mannered populace; reign, lovely Ceres, where Bellona once flourished; countryside fertilised with blood of our warriors, I like better your harvests than all of the laurels: provided by chance and by vanity nourished Oh! that grand projects were prevented by doom! Oh! fruitless victories! Oh! the blood spilled in vain! French, English, German so tranquil today did we have to slit throats for friendship to bloom!

I went to Clèves hoping to find there the stage stations that all the bailiwicks provide, at the order of the king of Prussia, to those who to go to philosophise to Sans-Souci with the Solomon of the North and on whom the king bestows the favour of travelling at his expense: but the order of the king of Prussia had stayed in Wesel in the hands of a man who received it as the Spanish receive the papal bulls, with the deepest respect, and without putting them to any use. So I spent a few days in the castle of this princess that madame de La Fayette made so famous.

But this heroine and the duc of Nemours, we ignore in these places the gallant adventure; for  it is not here, I vow, the land of novels, nor the one of love.

It is a shame, for the country seems made for the princesses of Clèves: it is the most beautiful place of nature and art has further added to its position. It is a view superior to that of Meudon; it is a land covered in vegetation like the Champs-Élysées and the forests of Boulogne; it is a hill covered in gently sloping avenues of trees: a large pool collects  the waters of this hill; in the middle of the pool stands a statue of Minerva. The water of this first pool is received by a second, which returns it to the third; and at the foot of the hill ends in a waterfall pouring into a vast, semi-circular grotto. The waterfall lets the waters spill into a canal, which goes on to water a vast meadow and joins a branch of the Rhine. Mademoiselle de Scudéri and La Calprenède would have filled a volume of their novels with this description; but I, historiographer, I will only tell you that a certain prince Maurice de Nassau, the governor, during his lifetime, of this lovely solitude devised nearly all of these wonders there. He lies buried in the middle of the forest, in a great devil of an iron tomb, surrounded by all the ugliest bas-reliefs of the time of the Roman empire's decadence, and some gothic monuments that are worse still. But all of it would be something very respectable for those deep minds who fall into ecstasy at the sight of poorly cut stone, as long as it is two thousand years old.

Another ancient monument, the remains of a great stone road, built by the Romans, which led to Frankfurt, to Vienna, and to Constantinople. The Holy Empire devolved into Germany has fallen a little bit from its magnificence. One gets stuck in the mud in the summer nowadays, in the august Germania. Of all the modern nations, France and the little country of Belgium are the only ones who have roads worthy of Antiquity. We could above all boast of surpassing the ancient Romans in cabaret; and there are still certain points on which we equal them: but in the end, when it comes to durable, useful, magnificent monuments, which people can come close to them? which monarch does in his kingdom what a procosul did in Nîmes and in Arles?

Perfect in the trivial, in trifles sublime great inventors of nothing, envy we excite. Let our minds to the supreme heights strive of the children of Romulus so proud: they did a hundred times more for the vanquished crowd than we solely for ourselves contrive.

In the end, notwithstanding the beauty of the location of Clèves, notwithstanding the Roman road, in spite of a tower believed to have been built by Julius Caesar, or at least by Germanicus; in spite of the inscriptions of the twenty-sixth legion that quartered here for the winter; in spite of the lovely tree-lined roads planted by prince Maurice, and his grand iron tomb; in spite of, lastly, the mineral waters recently discovered here, there are hardly any crowds in Clèves. The waters there are, however, just as good as those of Spa or of Forges; and one cannot swallow the little atoms of iron in a more beautiful place. But it does not suffice, as you know, to have merits to be fashionable: usefulness and pleasantness are here; but this delicious retreat is frequented only by a few Dutchmen, who are attracted by the proximity and the low prices of living and houses there, and who come to admire and to drink.

I found there, to my great satisfaction, a well-known Dutch poet, who gave us the honour of elegantly, and even verse for verse, translating our tragedies, good or bad, to Dutch. Perhaps one day we will be reduced to translating the tragedies of Amsterdam: every nation gets their turn.

The Roman ladies, who leered at their lovers at the theatre of Pompeii, did not suspect that one day, in the middle of Gaul, in a little town called Lutèce, we would produce better plays than Rome.

The order of the king regarding the stage stations has finally reached me; so my delight at the princess of Clèves' place is over, and I am leaving for Berlin.

***

LETTRE PREMIÈRE

À Clèves, juillet 1750

C'est à vous, s'il vous plaît, ma nièce, vous, femme d'esprit sans travers, philosophe de mon espèce, vous qui, comme moi, du Permesse connaisez les sentiers divers ; c'est à vous qu'en courant j'adresse ce fatras de prose et de vers, ce récit de mon long voyage ; non tel que j'en fis autrefois quand, dans la fleur de mon bel âge, d'Apollon je suivais les lois ; quand j'osai, trop hardi peut-être, aller consulter à Paris, en dépit de nos beaux esprits, le dieu du Goût mon premier maître !

Ce voyage-ci n'est que trop vrai, et ne m'éloigne que trop du vous. N'allez pas vous imaginer que je veulle égaler Chapelle, qui s'est fait, je ne sais comment, tant de réputation, pour avoir été de Paris à Montpellier et en terre papale, et en avoir rendu compte à un gourmand.

Ce n'était pas peut-être un emploi difficile de railler monsieur d'Assoucy. Il faut une autre plume, il faut une autre style, pour peindre ce Platon, ce Solon, cet Achille qui fait des vers à Sans-Souci. Je pourrais vous parler de ce charmant asile, vous peindre ce héros philosophe et guerrier, si terrible à l'Autriche, et pour moi si facile ; mais je pourrais vous ennuyer.

D'ailleurs je ne suis pas encore à sa cour, et il ne faut rien anticiper : je veux de l'ordre jusque dans mes lettres. Sachez donc que je partis de Compiègne le 25 de juillet, prenant ma route par la Flandre, et qu'en bon historiographe et en bon citoyen, j'allai voir en passant les champs de Fontenoy, de Rocoux et de Lawfeld. Il n'y paraissait pas : tout cela était couvert des plus beaux blés du monde. Les Flamands et les Flamandes dansaient, comme si de rien n'eût été.

Durez, yeux innocents de ces peuples grossiers ; régnez, belle Cérès, où triompha Bellone ; campagnes qu'engraissa le sang de nos guerriers, j'aime mieux vos moissons que celles des lauriers : la vanité les cueille et le hasard les donne. Ô que de grands projets par le sort démentis ! Ô victoires sans fruits ! Ô meurtres inutiles ! Français, Anglais, Germains, aujourd'hui si tranquilles fallait-il s'égorger pour être bons amis !

J'ai été à Clèves comptant y trouver des relais que tous les bailliages fournissent, moyennant un ordre du roi de Prusse, à ceux qui vont philosopher à Sans-Souci auprès du Salomon du Nord et à qui le roi accorde la faveur de voyager à ses dépens : mais l'ordre du roi de Prusse était resté à Vesel entre les mains d'un homme qui l'a reçu comme les Espagnols reçoivent les bulles des papes, avec le plus profond respect, et sans en faire aucun usage. Je me suis donc quelques jours dans le château de cette princesse que madame de La Fayette a rendu si fameux.

Mais de cette heroïne, et du duc de Nemours, on ignore en ces lieux la galante aventure : ce n'est pas ici, je vous jure, le pays des romans, ni celui des amours.

C'est dommage, car le pays semble fait pour des princesses de Clèves : c'est le plus beau lieu de nature et l'art a encore ajouté à sa situation. C'est une vue supérieure à celle de Meudon ; c'est un terrain planté comme les Champs-Élysées et le bois de Boulogne ; c'est une colline couverte d'allées d'arbres en pente douce : un grand bassin reçoit les eaux de cette colline ; au milieu du bassin s'élève une statue de Minerve. L'eau de ce premier bassin est reçue dans un second, qui la renvoie à un troisième ; et le bas de la colline est terminé par une cascade ménagée dans une vaste grotte en demi-cercle. La cascade laisse tomber les eaux dans un canal qui va arroser une vaste prairie et se joindre à un bras du Rhin. Mademoiselle de Scudéri et La Calprenède auraient rempli de cette description un tome de leurs romans ; mais moi, historiographe, je vous dirai seulement qu'un certain prince Maurice de Nassau, gouverneur, de son vivant, de cette belle solitude, y fit presque toutes ces merveilles. Il s'est fait enterrer au milieu des bois, dans un grand diable de tombeau de fer, environné de tous les plus vilains bas-reliefs du temps de la décadence de l'empire romain, et de quelques monuments gothiques plus grossiers encore. Mais le tout serait quelque chose de fort respectable pour ces esprits profonds qui tombent en extase à la vue d'une pierre mal taillée, pour peu qu'elle ait deux mille ans d'antiquité.

Un autre monument antique, c'est le reste d'un grand chemin pavé, construit par les Romains, qui allait à Francfort, à Vienne et à Constantinople. Le Saint-Empire dévolu à l'Allemagne est un peu déchu de sa magnificence. On s'embourbe aujourd'hui en été, dans l'auguste Germanie. De toutes les nations modernes, la France et la petit pays des Belges sont les seules qui aient des chemins dignes de l'Antiquité. Nous pouvons surtout nous vanter de passer les anciens Romains en cabarets ; et il y a encore certains points sur lesquels nous les valons bien : mais enfin, pour les monuments durables, utiles, magnifiques, quel peuple approche d'eux ? quel monarque fait dans son royaume ce qu'un proconsul faisait dans Nîmes et dans Arles ?

Parfait dans le petit, sublimes en bijoux, grands inventeurs de riens, nous faisons des jaloux. Elevons nos esprits à la hauteur suprême des fiers enfants de Romulus : ils faisaient plus cent fois pour des peuples vaincus que nous ne faisons pour nous-mêmes.

Enfin, malgré la beauté de la situation de Clèves, malgré le chemin des Romains, en dépit d'une tour qu'on croit bâtie par Jules César, ou au moins par Germanicus ; en dépit des inscriptions d'une vingt-sixième légion qui était ici en quartier d'hiver ; en dépit des belles allées plantées par le prince Maurice, et de son grand tombeau de fer ; en dépit enfin des eaux minérales découvertes ici depuis peu, il n'y a guère d'affluence à Clèves. Les eaux y sont cependant aussi bonnes que celles de Spa et de Forges ; et on ne peut avaler de petits atomes de fer dans un plus beau lieu. Mais il ne suffit pas, comme vous savez, d'avoir du mérite pour avoir la vogue : l'utile et l'agréable sont ici ; mais ce séjour délicieux n'est fréquenté que par quelques Hollandais que le voisinage et le bas prix des vivres et de maisons y attirent, et qui viennent admirer et boire.

J'y ai retrouvé, avec une très grande satisfaction, un célèbre poète hollandais, qui nous a fait l'honneur de traduire élégamment en batave, et même vers pour vers, nos tragédies bonnes ou mauvaises. Peut-être un jour viendra que nous serons réduits à traduire les tragédies d'Amsterdam : chaque peuple a son tour.

Les dames romaines, qui allaient lorgner leurs amants au théâtre de Pompée, ne se doutaient pas qu'un jour au milieu des Gaules, dans un petit bourg nommé Lutèce, on ferait de meilleurs pièces de théâtre qu'à Rome.

L'ordre du roi pour les relais vient enfin de me parvenir ; voilà mon enchantement chez la princesse de Clèves fini, et je pars pour Berlin.

[passer-corvusque]

Alright, so let's talk about one of the most intriguing German authors: E.T.A. Hoffmann.

This man's œuvre is incredible. He was one of the most prolific writers of the late Romantic era and as such, he showed interest in both dark, supernatural elements and a nonlinear structure of narration. He was also a talented musician, which brought him a position as conductor and contact with Beethoven. For this reason, he changed one of his middle names to Amadeus to honour Mozart.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

He was born in 1776 and died in 1822.

His character gave the opportunity for much idealisation. While he worked as a respectable lawyer by day, he allegedly devoted himself to writing and drinking by night, thereby creating the image of an artist struggling with society that we are well familiar with today. While this is not entirely true, he did struggle greatly with censure offices due to his satirical caricatures. Important for the reception of Hoffmann as a person was in particular the opera "The Tales of Hoffmann" by Jacques Offenbach.

Some of his most remarkable works are:

The Sandman, a novella detailing the descent into madness of the young student Nathanael. After receiving childhood trauma, he falls in love with a machine resembling the perfect woman. In this piece, the Sandman doesn't bring people to sleep. He steals their eyes.

Mademoiselle de Scudéri, a novella about an elderly crime-solving poet in Louis XIV's Paris. When a young man knocks at her door, leaving behind precious jewellery, this leads to murder investigations. Hoffmann makes use of compelling psychological arguments that motivate the crimes.

The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr, detailing the biography of the ideal artist, who is, in fact, a cat. Hoffmann approaches the Romantic era conflict of artists versus philistine citizens in a very modern, nonlinear manner.

And last, but definitely not least:

The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, a novella. Yes, this is the basis for the Tchaikovsky ballet and the Christmas films. The idea of objects coming to life fits in with the fascination the dark romantics had with parallel lives and machines, as seen before in The Sandman.

There are of course many more stories, but these are some of the most influential. Many of his works can be found online in the original German as well as in translation.

[wolfsnape]

Top 5 femmes historiques?

Mme d’Aulnoy parce que VOILA

Mlle de Scudéry

Rosa Parks

Olympe de Gouges

Sappho

Mentions spéciales pour :

Jeanne d’Arc, Emilie du Châtelet, Marie Curie, Simone Weil, Hannah Arendt, Anne Frank, Joséphine Baker, Marie Shelley, Maya Angelou, Ruby Bridges, Catherine II de Russie, Margaret Hamilton, Mary Jackson, Beyoncé, Ella Fitzgerald, Amelia Earheart, Mlle Le Prince de Beaumont et toutes les conteuses précieuses, Sarla Thakral, Anne-Marie-Louise d’Orléans dite La Grande Mademoiselle, Louise Labbé, Marsha P. Johnson, Stormé DeLarverie et Sylvia Rivera, Malala, Angela Davis, Marylin Monroe, Katherine et Audrey Hepburn, Zénobie, Cléopâtre, Hatchepsout, Nettie Stevens, Marie de Bourgogne, Maud Wagner, Frida Khalo, Brunehaut, Caterina Sforza, Valentina Terechkova, Christine de Pizan, Anne de Bretagne, Aliénor d’Aquitaine, Irène l’Athénienne, Catherine de Médicis, Lucrèrce, Hildegarde de Bingen

et TOUTES LES AUTRES

(Je vous laisse chercher)

[muspeccoll]

Today we are celebrating the 411th birthday of Mademoiselle de Scudéry, famed French intellectual and author of what is often cited as the world's longest novel. This portrait of Diana is the frontispiece to volume 6 of that nearly 2,000,000 word work: Artamène, or Cyrus the Great.⠀ PQ1922 .A8 1650⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ .⠀ #bluestockings #womenwrite #novels #diana #goddess #bibliophile #bookstagram #booklover #rarebooks #specialcollections #librariesofinstagram #iglibraries #mizzou #universityofmissouri #ellislibrary #ifttt

[gay-impressionist]

Harold, they're lesbians

i can't stop laughing

i'm reading a letter from Mademoiselle de Scudéry, written in 1644. it was edited in 1923 in a book with other letters written by women. and I can't stop laughing because her surname is freaking Sapho, she never got married, in the letter she talks about how she thinks of all her female friends to cheer herself up and can't stop talking about how they're beautiful BUT in the introduction written by the author of the anthology, it says that maybe she loved Pelisson, one of her male friend, because she was very faithful to him.

Harold, they're lesbians.

[atomicwitchdreamer-blog-blo-blog]

Sono stato travolto da questo libro, un vero e proprio tourbillon di personaggi, salotti, feste, pettegolezzi, aforismi, versi, lettere, facezie ed eleganti stilettate. Anche se farò sempre confusione fra le varie Madame de Sévigné e Madame de La Fayette, Madame Scarron, poi Marchesa de Maintenon, e Ninon de Lenclos, Madame de Sablé e Mademoiselle d'Attichy, Mademoiselle de Scudéry e Madame de Rambouillet... (per non parlare dei loro mariti, dei loro amanti, dei loro amici, dei loro figli, degli amici dei figli e dei figli degli amici...) – cioè tutte quelle dame sfaccendate ma curiose e intelligenti, tutte quelle signore e signorine più o meno belle, più o meno di nobili natali, più o meno ricche, più o meno "virtuose", che costituirono le cercle attorno al quale ruotava quel mondo frivolo e raffinato, pettegolo e colto, galante e spietato, chiamato le beau monde, la società dell'Ancien Régime della Francia del ‘600/700 – anche se già i loro nomi e i loro ritratti si confondono e si mescolano nella mia mente trasformandosi in una fascinosa idra vestita di seta e trine, l'ambiente, o per meglio dire l'esprit de société che Benedetta Craveri ha meticolosamente ricostruito (v. anche la ricchissima bibliografia) mi ha coinvolto piacevolmente per tutte le cinquecento pagine del saggio. #libridisecondamano #ravenna #bookstagram #booklovers #bookstore #instabook #igersravenna #instaravenna #ig_books #benedettacraveri (presso Libreria Scattisparsi) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4wSv78Ilr-/?igshid=y3v5bb2l58il

[party-like-1660-blog]

Mademoiselle de Scudéri by E. T. A. Hoffmann

Mademoiselle de Scudéri by E. T. A. Hoffmann

For some strange reason, I have never quite gotten to read E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Mademoiselle de Scudéri, A Tale from the Times of Louis XIV… but I had it in my mailbox the other day and read it thus, while I totally was not supposed to engage in other activities.   Madeleine de Scudery Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann was a Prussian Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer,…

[roundaboutmidnight]

02 de junho

Bom dia a todos!...

Neste dia:

Morreu, em 1701 a importante escritora francesa Madeleine de Scudéry.

Morreu, em 1990, o fabuloso ator britânico Rex Harrison.

Morreu, em 2008, o ótimo músico estadunidense Bo Diddley.

Bo Diddley nasceu em McComb, Mississippi no dia 30 de dezembro de 1928 e morreu em Archer, Flórida em 2 de junho de 2008. Foi um influente cantor, compositor e guitarrista de blues norte-americano. Foi considerado o 27º melhor guitarrista de todos os tempos pela revista norte-americana Rolling Stone.

Sir Reginald “Rex” Carey Harrison nasceu em Huyton, Lancashire no dia 5 de março de 1908 e morreu em Nova Iorque em 2 de junho de 1990. Foi um ator de teatro e cinema britânico e ganhador do Oscar e do Tony Award. Estreou na Broadway no espetáculo Sweet Aloes, na década de 1940 e seu desempenho fez com que ele conquistasse o público americano. Quando ele foi contratado por Hollywood para fazer Anna e o Rei do Sião (Anna and the King of Siam), em 1946, ao lado de Irene Dunne ele já era um ator muito popular no Reino Unido. Mas foi na década de 1960 que ele escreveu seu nome na galeria dos grandes atores ao participar de filmes como Cleopatra, ao lado de Elizabeth Taylor e Richard Burton, vivendo o personagem Júlio César; Doctor Dolittle (1967); Agonia e Êxtase (The Agony and the Ecstasy), em 1965, como o Papa Júlio II e My Fair Lady, ao lado de Audrey Hepburn, desempenhando o papel do arrogante Professor Henry Higgins, personagem que lhe valeu o Oscar de melhor ator em 1964.

Madeleine de Scudéry, também conhecida como Mademoiselle de Scudéry nasceu em Le Havre no dia 15 de novembro de 1607 e morreu em 2 de junho de 1701. Foi uma escritora francesa. Era conhecida pelo pseudónimo de Safo. Era a irmã mais nova do escritor Georges de Scudéry. Nasceu em Le Havre, Normandia. Estabeleceu-se em Paris junto com o seu irmão. Durante a última metade do século XVII, sob pseudónimo ou com o próprio nome, ficou conhecida como a primeira mulher literata de França e do mundo. Teve uma grande amizade com Paul Pellisson.

É seu o interessante texto:

Regras para a Conversação

“– Da minha parte, disse Amithone, confesso que gostaria muito que existissem regras para a conversação, assim como há para muitas outras coisas. – A regra principal, retomou Valérie, é jamais dizer alguma coisa que fira o juízo. – Mas ainda, acrescentou Nicanor, desejaria saber mais precisamente como vós concebeis que deva ser a conversação. – Concebo, retomou ela, que no falar em geral, ela deva versar com mais frequência sobre coisas comuns e galantes do que sobre grandes coisas. Mas concebo, entretanto, que não há nada que não possa caber ali; que ela deve ser livre e diversificada, segundo os momentos, os lugares, e as pessoas com quem se está; e que o segredo é falar sempre nobremente das coisas baixas, e bastante simplesmente das coisas elevadas, e muito galantemente das coisas galantes, sem ansiedade, e sem afectação. Assim, embora a conversação deva ser sempre igualmente natural e ponderada, não deixo de dizer que há ocasiões nas quais mesmo as ciências podem entrar de bom grado ali e nas quais os agradáveis desatinos também podem encontrar o seu lugar, contanto que sejam engenhosos, modestos e galantes. De modo que, para falar ponderadamente, pode-se assegurar, sem mentira, que não há nada que não se possa dizer na conversação, contanto que se tenha espírito e juízo; e que se considere bem onde se está, com quem se fala e quem se é. Contudo, embora o juízo seja absolutamente necessário para nunca se dizer despropósitos, é necessário entretanto que a conversação pareça tão livre que se dê a entender que ninguém rejeita nenhum dos seus pensamentos, e que se diga tudo o que vem à fantasia, sem ter nenhuma intenção declarada de falar mais de uma coisa que de outra. Pois não há nada mais ridículo do que essa gente, que em certos assuntos diz maravilhas e que fora deles diz apenas tolices. Assim, quero que não se saiba nunca o que se deve dizer e que, entretanto, saiba-se sempre bem aquilo que se diz.”

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