D’Addison à Marivaux : le modèle du Spectator à l’épreuve des contraintes françaises

The present articles focuses on the freedoms that were taken by Marivaux when he wrote three French periodicals framed after Addison’s Spectator. The aim of this study is to show that rather than taking freedoms, Marivaux was rather constrained by the political, technical, professional, and cultural...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Alexis Lévrier
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Institut du Monde Anglophone 2014-12-01
Series:Etudes Epistémè
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/306
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Summary:The present articles focuses on the freedoms that were taken by Marivaux when he wrote three French periodicals framed after Addison’s Spectator. The aim of this study is to show that rather than taking freedoms, Marivaux was rather constrained by the political, technical, professional, and cultural circumstances that long were a strain on the development of the French press. In the Spectator, Addison and Steele would cover topical, political and social themes in a straightforward manner, a feat that was just not possible in a French context. Although in the first six issues of the Spectateur français Marivaux provides a picture of the social life of the Parisian people, using the Spectator’s device of a rambling eidolon yet, he never narrates events directly. Scenes are reported in a roundabout sort of way ; the essays focus on side events that comment on the main unreported event. His essays may be polemical, scathing and to the point ; they may be prompt replies to an adversary’s attacks ; but they are always limited to the literary quarrels and debates admitted by French censorship.
ISSN:1634-0450