SOURCE: Furber, Donald. “The Myth of amour-propre in La Rochefoucauld.” The French Review 43, no. 2 (December 1969): 227-39.

In this essay, Furber analyzes La Rochefoucauld's concept of self-love, which the critic argues is at once a principle of unity and disunity in the human personality and a mysterious aspect of human nature.

It is difficult not to accept the critical position which emphasizes the futility of searching for a system in the writings of La Rochefoucauld.¹ Contradictory in their affirmations, ambiguous in their moral point of view, paradoxical in their composition, the seventeenth-century Maximes and Réflexions diverses continue to pose an intricate problem of synthesis and comprehension. Having rejected the traditional viewpoints which saw in these writings a rigid, superficial thesis on human behavior, recent critics tend to agree with Will G. Moore who has stated flatly: “La Rochefoucauld n'est pas un auteur facile à comprendre.”² There is still, however...