SOURCE: Schweitzer, Jerome W. “Almahide: Its Component Parts, Composition, and Style” and “Conclusion.” In George de Scudéry's Almahide: Authorship, Analysis, Sources and Structure, pp. 105-54. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1939.

In the excerpt that follows, Schweitzer investigates a number of themes, devices, motifs, and techniques deployed in Almahide.

With the exception of an analysis of the plots of the several histoires in Almahide, this study has thus far been concerned primarily with an examination of the novel as it is related to its predecessors, its authorship, its place in French literature, and its relationship to its sources. It has been pointed out that it includes elements of the historical novel and the novel of chivalry, and mention has been made that it is a social study of Seventeenth Century society with its echoes from the salons of the period, the painting of word portraits, the composition of...