SOURCE: Thweat, Vivien. “Style, the Self, and Society in La Rochefoucauld's Réflexions diverses.” French Forum 3, no. 2 (May 1978): 99-112.

In the essay below, Thweat contends that the Réflexions diverses deserve to be studied in their own right because they offer an account of the author's concept of the social self, and provide insight on seventeenth-century social life.

More often than not La Rochefoucauld's Réflexions diverses are considered primarily as they relate to the Maximes or as background material for the Classical concept of wit and taste. On occasion they have also been presented as proof of La Rochefoucauld's somewhat dubious Epicureanism, and they are frequently proposed as a companion piece to the purely aesthetic art de plaire propounded by the Chevalier de Méré. Little is known about the composition of the various essays that make up the work. Although it would seem likely that they...