A Once and Future Greatness: Raymond Aron,Charles de Gaulle andthe Politics of Grandeur

Charles de Gaulle devoted his life to cultivating French grandeur, a politics that attempted to carve out an equal and independent role for France among the great powers of the world. One who frequently criticized de Gaulle's ideas of grandeur was the eminent social theorist, Raymond Aron. Although Aron was generally supportive of de Gaulle and supported him ‘every time there was a crisis’, he never hesitated to criticize de Gaulle, sometimes quite sharply. Aron's lifelong friendship with de Gaulle was thus marked by alternating bouts of mutual irritation and respect: Aron worried that de Gaulle's theatrics were sometimes detrimental to French national interests while de Gaulle fretted that Aron's commitment to French greatness was less enthusiastic than it should havebeen.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Aron's reaction to de Gaulle's politics of grandeur. Despite his reputation for ‘lucidity’, Aron was often ambivalent about de Gaulle's ambitions for France. We argue that Aron's ambivalence stemmed from his political creed, or from his commitment to a political philosophy that - as de Gaulle sensed - allowed for few settled convictions. This paper reviews Aron's assessment of two issues at the heart of de Gaulle's politics of grandeur, namely, the effort to promote a sense of national unity and the effort to create a nuclear force. In both areas, we witness a remarkably ambivalent Aron, one who struggled to soften the harsher edges of the excesses of what he considered to be the excesses of grandeur and find his way to a more moderate and coherent position.     

List of figures

Although the general historical context of Christine de Pizan's Livre du corps de policie (LCP), the Orleanist-Burgundian feud occasioned by the periodic insanity of King Charles VI, has long been recognised, the precise argument that the author wages through her unique configuration of the third part of the body politic has not been explored. This essay reads the LCP as an intervention into the escalating struggle for power between Charles VI's brother, the duke of Orleans, and his cousin, the duke of Burgundy. Christine's purpose emerges most clearly in her peculiar arrangement of the third part of her body politic, le peuple, where two points bear particular consideration: her inclusion of the University and her division of the ‘merchants’ across two separate categories, a repartition which seems to refer to the contemporary distinction between the highly-placed merchants of Paris and the butchers. Christine seems to be arguing that if the University were to make common cause with the ruling burghers and well-placed merchants, they could force into submission their more restless brothers and sisters, the butchers and their thuggish followers, whom the duke of Burgundy would finally convince to rise up in 1413 in what has become known as the Cabochian Revolt.     

Perspectivismo Narrativo y Enjuiciamiento Social en La familia de Pascual Duarte

The phenomenal ambiguity and irony in Camilo José Cela's La familia de Pascual Duarte has led to many often differing conclusions regarding its social message. While some scholars regard its protagonist as a victim of society and of the new regime that followed the Civil War, others have argued that Pascual is the evil perpetrator of unspeakable crimes who is rightly punished by the new order. This article proposes to reconsider the picaresque nature of this novel, focusing on two features of the picaresque genre, namely its political commitment (or poética comprometida) and the determinism versus free will foil. This analysis will show that Cela replicated the Quevedian vilification of the protagonist and the Alemanian presentation of a false conversion at the end of the story with one purpose: to present Pascual as an unremorseful murderer who lived an irreligious life, killed his mother, and supported the Republican repression in his village killing the local aristocrat, before the new regime makes justice by executing him.     

Maurofilia y maurofobia en el Libro del conde de Castilla

The Poema de Fernán González (or Libro del conde de Castilla) is not a crusade song, nor is it an epic poem or a historical account commemorating the foundation of San Pedro de Arlanza Monastery. It is rather a hybrid text that employs all the literary and historical resources available around the middle of the thirteenth century to an educated poet who was intent on transmitting to future generations the memory of the Count who made possible the independence of Castile. All episodes in the poem point to Castile's unique place in history, describing through the protagonist's bellicose deeds its hegemonic ascendency as the most important kingdom of the Iberian peninsula. Its destiny is determined by the hero's combative character against all enemies, whether Christians or Moors, and more specifically by confronting the powerful kings of neighboring states León and Navarre.     

The long goodbye: Hugo Grotius’ justification of Dutch expansion overseas, 1615–1645

This article examines Grotius’ lifelong support for Dutch expansion overseas. As noted in other publications of mine, Grotius cooperated closely with the directors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the years 1604–1615. Right up to his arrest for high treason in August 1618, he contributed towards Dutch government discussions about the establishment of a West India Company (WIC). Three years of imprisonment at Loevestein Castle and, following his escape, long years of exile could not weaken his dedication to the cause. His relatives in Holland, in particular his brother Willem de Groot and his brother-in-law Nicolaas van Reigersberch, kept him up-to-date on the fortunes of the VOC and WIC. His expertise on maritime affairs was in high demand. For example, Cardinal Richelieu invited him in November 1626 to become actively involved in the establishment of a French East India Company. As itinerant ideologue of empire, Grotius sought to further his own career and those of his nearest family members, without damaging the interests of the United Provinces. Through Willem de Groot and Nicolaas van Reigersberch, he provided informal advice on Dutch imperial policy to the VOC directors and government officials in The Hague. He was rewarded with the appointment of his brother and his second son, Pieter de Groot, as VOC lawyers (ordinaris advocaten) in 1639 and 1644, respectively. They served as his proxies in diplomatic disputes involving the VOC, the States General and the Portuguese ambassador in autumn 1644, when Pieter and Willem de Groot wrote a defense of VOC claims to the cinnamon-producing areas of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), liberally citing De Jure Belli ac Pacis. Grotius’ vision of empire hardly changed in the course of 40 years. In his view, the Dutch had gone to the Indies as merchants, not conquerors, and should regulate themselves according to natural law and the law of nations. Thus he contributed to the creation of two political orders, one for Europe and one for the Indies. European diplomatic relations counted for little beyond the Line. VOC and WIC officials could act as judges and executioners in their own cause, without reference to indigenous rulers, other colonial powers, or even the political authorities back home.     

The long goodbye: Hugo Grotius’ justification of Dutch expansion overseas, 1615–1645

This article examines Grotius’ lifelong support for Dutch expansion overseas. As noted in other publications of mine, Grotius cooperated closely with the directors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the years 1604–1615. Right up to his arrest for high treason in August 1618, he contributed towards Dutch government discussions about the establishment of a West India Company (WIC). Three years of imprisonment at Loevestein Castle and, following his escape, long years of exile could not weaken his dedication to the cause. His relatives in Holland, in particular his brother Willem de Groot and his brother-in-law Nicolaas van Reigersberch, kept him up-to-date on the fortunes of the VOC and WIC. His expertise on maritime affairs was in high demand. For example, Cardinal Richelieu invited him in November 1626 to become actively involved in the establishment of a French East India Company. As itinerant ideologue of empire, Grotius sought to further his own career and those of his nearest family members, without damaging the interests of the United Provinces. Through Willem de Groot and Nicolaas van Reigersberch, he provided informal advice on Dutch imperial policy to the VOC directors and government officials in The Hague. He was rewarded with the appointment of his brother and his second son, Pieter de Groot, as VOC lawyers (ordinaris advocaten) in 1639 and 1644, respectively. They served as his proxies in diplomatic disputes involving the VOC, the States General and the Portuguese ambassador in autumn 1644, when Pieter and Willem de Groot wrote a defense of VOC claims to the cinnamon-producing areas of Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka), liberally citing De Jure Belli ac Pacis. Grotius’ vision of empire hardly changed in the course of 40 years. In his view, the Dutch had gone to the Indies as merchants, not conquerors, and should regulate themselves according to natural law and the law of nations. Thus he contributed to the creation of two political orders, one for Europe and one for the Indies. European diplomatic relations counted for little beyond the Line. VOC and WIC officials could act as judges and executioners in their own cause, without reference to indigenous rulers, other colonial powers, or even the political authorities back home.     

Rebel with a cause? From traitor prince to exemplary martyr: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's representation of San Hermenegildo

El mártir del sacramento, San Hermenegildo is an auto sacramental or Eucharistic play, written in the 1680s by the Mexican nun and literary superstar, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The play centres on the story of a (purportedly Catholic) Visigothic prince who died in Seville in 586 by order of his Arian father, Leovigild. Contempary sources vary in their portrayal of Hermenegild, with most painting him as a traitor who rebelled against his father for political gain. Gregory the Great, however, championed Hermenegild as an exemplary martyr who died in defence of the Faith. One thousand years on, Spain saw a revival of its Visigothic ‘Golden Age’, and Hermenegild was among those to be venerated; he was canonised in 1585 and his memory was brought to life in various artistic forms; in poetry, paintings and even on the stage. This paper will examine the part that Sor Juana's auto played within this tradition, exploring the purpose of the play and the various historical and biblical sources used to create it.     

A few words for Axel Vander: John Banville and the pursuit of deconstruction

The revelations about Paul de Man’s activities in Belgium during the Second World War placed him, and by extension deconstruction, on public trial. The affair gave rise to a series of novels, such as Gilbert Adair’s The Death of the Author (1992) or Bernhard Schlink’s Homecoming (2008), that dismiss critical theory as ethically bankrupt charlatanism. John Banville’s Shroud (2002) and Ancient Light (2012) place the enigmatic theorist Axel Vander, a figure resembling de Man, in the dock, but these novels form no decisive judgement about his guilt. The texts reflect on memory, mourning, forgetting and responsibility, and about what writing might consign to the future, questions persistently raised by de Man and Jacques Derrida. As such, they might be said to speak to, or “inhabit”, deconstruction, rather than condemning it. This essay traces how Banville reckons with Axel Vander, and pursues the thought of de Man and Derrida, by means of three words: shroud, ash and cleave. These words at once connote concealment, destruction and separation and also preservation, survival and connection. As the discussion suggests, such words testify to the memory work performed by deconstruction.     

Reply to My Critics

Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men stands as one of the great works of American literature and has been interpreted as offering powerful lessons about the nature and problems of democratic politics. Many of these interpretations attempt to ascertain meaning by looking at the effect of Willie Stark on the other characters. The author argues that a more enriching interpretation of the book can be found by interpreting the text through a Tocquevillian lens, whereby the focus of inquiry is the "king's men," embodied in the character of Jack Burden. This focus reveals that the novel illuminates many of the dangers Alexis de Tocqueville identified as originating in the democratic social state, while also offering important supplements to Tocqueville's proposed solutions to these problems.     

Pure and impure gestes: the generation of history in Jean d’Outremeuse's Myreur des histors

ABSTRACT

Scholars have long debated the place in medieval historiography of Jean d’Outremeuse's Myreur des histors, a universal history in celebration of Liège written in French around 1399. The abundance of Old French epic material in a chronicle that, according to its author, contained translations of only Latin sources, was once a source of outrage. The Myreur now holds significant interest, however, for its evidence of late medieval narrative strategies. This study demonstrates the Myreur's deliberate adaptation of epic material to glorify Liège. The author reimagines the Carolingian past as a source for future historical narratives by knowingly altering the genealogical framework of the chanson de geste universe. Carrying tales of sexual impurity, he describes the demise of the Carolingian line and transforms figures from epic to function within his linear history. This inventive approach allowed him to create a new hero- and history-generating lineage for his universal history.     

Montesquieu's anti-Machiavellian Machiavellianism

Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu, mentions Niccolò Machiavelli by name in his extant works just a handful of times. That, however, he read him carefully and thoroughly time and again there can be no doubt, and it is also clear that he couches his argument both in his Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline and in his Spirit of Laws as an appropriation and critique of the work of the predecessor whom he termed ‘this great man’. In this paper I explore the manner in which the Frenchman redeployed the arguments advanced by the Florentine for the purpose of refuting the latter's conclusions.     

The Europeanization of Prehispanic tradition: Bernardino de Sahagún’s transformation of Aztec priests (tlamacazque) into classical wise men (tlamatinime)

The Nahua wise men known as tlamatinime have been treated as core figures of Prehispanic indigenous culture in Mexico. Most scholars, basing their opinions heavily on the works of Bernardino de Sahagún (Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, Coloquios y doctrina cristiana, and the Florentine Codex) portraying the tlamatinime as scholars, philosophers, scribes, poets, and physicians who reflected the advanced and highly civilized nature of Prehispanic Mexico. However, in this article, I argue that in their search for indigenous intellectuals, scholars have overlooked one of Bernardino de Sahagún's pet projects: ‘taming’ or domesticating Aztec religious authorities, turning them from threatening shaman-like figures into misguided but otherwise professional teachers, thinkers, and public speakers, thereby stripping them of their religious authority.     

RECENT ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN THE SOUTHWESTERN CANADIAN PLAINS

This paper examines 20th-century environmental change in the subhumid southwestern Canadian Plains, specifically in relation to the dominant agricultural landscape and to the climate of the past millennium as reconstructed from proxy data. Anthropogenic landscape change in the last century has been dominated by the conversion of grasslands to ranchland and cropland. This has heightened landscape vulnerability to climatic fluctuations, especially drought. Instrumental climate records, extending back to the 1880s, highlight the variability of precipitation in this region. Proxy environmental records, derived from lake cores and tree-ring analysis, extend this picture into the last millennium and show that drought has been a recurring theme of the Prairie climate. Tree-ring records suggest that some droughts in the last millennium may have exceeded in severity any in the instrumental record. The sustainability of Prairie agriculture depends on adaptation to the amplitudes of climatic change and variability evident in these proxy records. Dans cet article nous examinons les changements environnementaux qui sont survenus pendant le 20^ème siècle dans les plaines canadiennes sèches du sud-ouest, spécifiquement par rapport au paysage agricole dominant et au climat du dernier millénaire qui a été déterminéà partir de données de procuration. La transformation des prairies en ranchland et cropland est le changement du paysage le plus important dont l'homme est responsable, pour le dernier siècle. À cause de ce changement, le paysage est plus vulnérable aux fluctuations climatiques - à la sécheresse en particulier. Les enregistrements instrumentaux de climat, qui reculent jusqu'aux années 1880, mettent en évidence la variabilité des précipitations dans cette région. Les enregistrements environnementaux de procuration, dérivés d'échantillons pris dans les lacs et de la dendroanalyse, étendent cette image dans le dernier millénaire et prouvent que le thème de la sécheresse est apparu souvent dans les analyses du climat du prairie. Les enregistrements de boucles d'arbre suggèrent que, dans le dernier millénaire il y avait des sécheresses qui étaient peut-être si sévères que les instruments n'ont pas pu les enregistrer. Si l'agriculture veut survivre comme entreprise dans les prairies, il faudra qu'elle s'adapte aux amplitudes de changement et de variabilité du climat qui ont été constatées dans les données de procuration.     

Rousseau’s reception as an Epicurean: from atheism to aesthetics

ABSTRACT

What did Rousseau's readers mean when they called him an ‘Epicurean’? A seemingly simple question with complex implications. This article attempts to answer it by reconstructing Rousseau's contemporary reception as an Epicurean thinker. First, it surveys the earliest and most widely read critics of the second Discourse: Prussian Astronomer Royal Jean de Castillon, Jesuit priest Louis Bertrand Castel, and Hanoverian biblical scholar Hermann Samuel Reimarus. These readers branded Rousseau an Epicurean primarily to highlight his atheism, his anti-providential and materialist natural philosophy. Then, it discusses Genevan pastor Jacob Vernet's positive assessment of Rousseau as a critic of ‘fashionable’ Epicureanism, before reconstructing Rousseau's critique of the reception of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man as an Epicurean text. These sources elucidate Rousseau's engagement with a range of ideas and argumentative positions that would inform his later self-identification as a ‘refined’ Epicurean. In particular, they highlight his interest in how a sentimental awareness of beauty might mitigate the potentially vicious effects of hedonism. The article concludes with novelist Mme. de Genlis’ critique of Rousseau's Wise Materialism, using his thoughts on the imagination to suggest some of the ways the neglected aesthetic dimensions of Rousseau's reception of Epicureanism might be developed.     

The Humanism of André Malraux

In this essay, I explore the influence of Byzantine literature in the New World from a transatlantic perspective. Specifically, I examine the Scala paradisi of Juan Clímaco (570–649) as it is found in the Peregrinación de Bartolomé Lorenzo (1586) by the Jesuit José de Acosta (1539–1600), a text from the colonial period. Surprisingly, this text has received almost no critical attention. I focus on the study of the text (and the context in which it was produced and received), basing my analysis on a comparison of Acosta's text with other similar works. By using a comparative method, I explore the ideological and aesthetic tensions that underlie Acosta's work. Moreover, this analysis makes manifest the cultural and literary continuities (or traditions) and ruptures which, coming as much from the East as from the West of Europe, arrived in the Vice-regency of Peru in the second half of the sixteenth century.     

The biography of Ignatios the Deacon: a reassessment of the evidence

Abstract

The recently published critical editions of three of Ignatios the Deacon's works, his correspondence and two of his hagiographical texts, may have enhanced our familiarity with an important scholarly figure, but have apparently not established a consensus as regards his educational curriculum and ecclesiastical career. This is not surprising in view of the lack of explicit information on crucial periods of his life and the wide diversity of the literature associated with his name. However, the discussion has become all the more confused as some of Ign.'s autobiographical references have been called into question (to my mind, not reasonably) or not taken into account in their entirety. Setting aside the divergences between the biography sketched by Cyril Mango and that by myself, which mainly concern the tentative period of Ign.'s episcopate and the period he became skevophylax, a very different interpretation of Ign.'s biographical data has been offered by Georgios Makris, the editor of the Life of St. Gregory the Decapolite. And a more recent reconsideration of his biography, presented in the Berliner Prosopographie der mittelalterlichen Zeit and published in full length by Thomas Pratsch in this journal, without radically disputing the basic chronological framework of Ign.'s lifetime as proposed by Mango, has tried to rearrange the scattered pieces of his puzzling career. Several hypotheses regarding Ign.'s ecclesiastical career were also put forward by Michel Kaplan in his inquiry into Ign.'s letters dateable to his period as metropolitan of Nicaea. Finally, in his posthumously published History of Byzantine Literature, Alexander Kazhdan, demonstrating excessive skepticism, distinguished the author of the anonymously preserved correspondence from Ignatios the Deacon, as well as denied him the composition of other works that have been assigned to him. The purpose of the present note is to re-assess the biographical evidence provided in Ign.'s own work.     

Baudelaire's “Teacher”: Joseph de Maistre and Le Spleen de Paris

For a total of twenty years (1856–76), Gustave Flaubert corresponded with a woman whom he would never meet and who had first written to him to express her admiration for his novel, Madame Bovary. These forty-five letters are among the most fascinating and important that he was to write, reflecting on his life, on art and esthetics, and on his determined dedication to the practice of writing. The letters to Marie-Sophie Leroyer de Chantepie occupy a central role in Flaubert's Correspondence, between the long series of letters he wrote to two other women, Louise Colet and George Sand. They are all dominated by the idea of the centrality of art, literature, and the activity of writing, and of the subordinate status of all other experiences and interests.     

The (Ir)relevance of the Aside in Golden Age Drama

The professionalization of public theatre in late sixteenth-century Spain transformed the public street drama of playwrights and actors such as Lope de Rueda into an activity whose survival and success depended on ticket sales and attendance. It is within this context that the aside became one of the most popular dramatic techniques of Spain's Golden Age theater. This article seeks to answer two questions about the aside: (1) Do Golden Age playwrights utilize the aside in the same manner? and (2) Does the subgenre of a comedia dictate the use of a particular category of aside? I propose to answer these questions, focusing in particular on the different ways that the following comedias utilize the aside to transform the audience from mere spectators to active accomplices of what they witness on stage: Calderón de la Barca's El alcalde de Zalamea (comedia de honor), Antonio Mira de Amescua's El esclavo del demonio (comedia hagiográfica), and Tirso de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla (comedia moral).     

Teresa de Ávila: Portrait of the saint as a young woman

ABSTRACT

Teresa de Jesús (known as Teresa de Ávila in the English-speaking world) began life in a comfortable, merchant-class family. The daughter and granddaughter of conversos, she was one of twelve children (two from the first marriage of Don Alonso de Cepeda, Teresa's father, and ten from the second). She received a good education for a girl of her period and class, probably learning to read and write from parents and tutors, and then studying at a convent boarding school. She undoubtedly learned the importance of letter writing from her father, as business in early modern Europe was conducted largely through correspondence. Although traditional biographers paint a romanticized view of Teresa's girlhood, a careful reading of her Vida, letters, and other documents reveals that there were many strains on the Cedepa-Ahumada household. Among the causes were the Cepedas' deteriorating financial situation, societal pressures on conversos, the death of Teresa's mother, tensions among the siblings, the departure of Teresa's brothers for the New World, and Teresa's illness.