{"id":2402,"date":"2012-12-18T10:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T08:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=2402"},"modified":"2012-12-17T15:49:04","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T13:49:04","slug":"from-barbarism-to-universality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=2402","title":{"rendered":"From barbarism to universality"},"content":{"rendered":"
From barbarism to universality<\/strong>: Language and identity in Early Modern France. By Christopher Coski<\/strong>. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2011. Pp. 216. ISBN\u00a09781611170368<\/a>. $49.95 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Heather Pardee<\/strong>, Northeastern Illinois University<\/em><\/p>\n

Christopher Coski chronicles the rise of the French language between 1549 and 1784 by examining the works of several notable authors and placing them in conversation. C\u2019s own voice is confined to summarizing each text and identifying sections relevant to individual and national identity, the reputation of the French language, and the linguistic connection between reality and thought.<\/p>\n

Ch. 1 examines Joachim du Bellay\u2019s Deffence et illustration de la langue fran\u00e7oyse<\/em> (1549). Since French remained in the shadow of the ancient languages, du Bellay argued against the view that Latin was better suited for literary work. Du Bellay recognized the disadvantages of the French language but remained optimistic, calling on poets to stop writing in Latin and to perfect their own language. Michel de Montaigne\u2019s Essais<\/em> (1580), discussed in Ch. 2, employed French vernacular writing for a new genre: the creative, nonfiction essay. Montaigne justified writing his Essais<\/em> in French rather than Latin because writing in his native language was consistent with his individual identity. C devotes Ch. 3 to Discours de la method <\/em>by Ren\u00e9 Descartes (1637), which demonstrates that French is adequate and even preferable for intellectual writing. C calls it an act of intellectual rebellion to write this philosophical work in French. Descartes, diverging from the fluid, changeable nature of Montaigne\u2019s self-expression, describes his method as a process that privileges artificial and systematic reason.<\/p>\n

In Ch. 4, Claude Favre de Vaugelas, one of the original members of the Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise and author of Remarques sur la langue fran\u00e7oise<\/em>, defended the purity of the French language through the prescriptive criterion of \u2018good usage\u2019. Usage can be judged on aesthetic quality by the authority of the social elite. His work acknowledged that French had evolved into a state of perfection, hence the necessity to codify the language to avoid corruption. Ch. 5 resumes the topic of language and thought with Essai sur l\u2019origine des connaissances humaines<\/em> by \u00c9tienne Bonnot, Abb\u00e9 de Condillac (1746). Condillac asserted that language is inseparable from rational thought. Perception and sensation can exist without language, but as perception builds towards reason, so instinct grows towards sophisticated human language. This process is what Condillac calls the liason des id\u00e9es,<\/em> wherein individual sensations are connected to signs that create the symbolic system of language. In Ch. 6, Antoine Rivarol\u2019s De l\u2019Universitalit\u00e9 de la langue fran\u00e7aise <\/em>(1784) claims with overwhelming nationalism that the French language has reached maturity and is now on par with the classical languages. While Rivarol concedes that French is too logical for music and poetry, as the language of reason, it is ideal for philosophy.<\/p>\n

An appendix offers a concise overview of the French language from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century and provides historical context for the works discussed in the previous chapters. C\u2019s text is a helpful tool for those wishing to familiarize themselves with this period of French literature, since it is, in essence, a biography of the emerging French language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From barbarism to universality: Language and identity in Early Modern France. By Christopher Coski. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2011. Pp. 216. ISBN\u00a09781611170368. $49.95 (Hb). Reviewed by Heather Pardee, Northeastern Illinois University Christopher Coski chronicles the rise of the French language between 1549 and 1784 by examining the works of several notable authors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2403,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402\/revisions\/2403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}