SOURCE: "Crébillon fils, Mirror of His Society," in Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, Vol. LXXX–VIII, 1972, pp. 485–91.

Here, Fein contends that the actions of Crébillon's characters reflect their own desires, others' desires, and the desires of society.

The mirror, together with the mask, is one of the chief symbols of 18th century society. As Gaston Bachelard has said, 'les miroirs sont des objects trop civilisés, trop maniables, trop géométriques, ils sont avec trop d'évidence des outils de rêve pour s'adapter d'eux-mêmes à la vie onirique'. So in reality the mirror creates a dream-world. Crébillon makes use of the dream itself as a mirror in his first work Le Sylphe ou songe de mme. de R——, demonstrating that the comment is capable of inversion.

The sylph is an ideal man for mme de R., and he can read her...