This section contains 6,673 words (approx. 23 pages at 300 words per page) |
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SOURCE: McFarlane, Ian. “A Reading of La Veuve.” In The Equilibrium of Wit: Essays for Odette de Mourgues, edited by Peter Bayley and Dorothy Gabe Coleman, pp. 135-49. Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1982.
In the following essay, McFarlane explores stylistic aspects of The Widow, particularly Corneille's use of language, action, and characterization.
In the Letter-preface to La Suivante, Corneille quotes from Montaigne (I, 37): “Qu'on me donne l'action la plus excellente et pure, je m'en vais y fournir vraisemblablement cinquante vicieuses intentions.” This points to a persistent fascination with the relations between state of mind and outer gesture and with the difficulties that face us when we try to find out what people are really about: one of the factors in play is language, curiously inadequate as a vehicle of communication, concealing as much as it reveals, and working according to some strange principle of refraction. Corneille no doubt found...
This section contains 6,673 words (approx. 23 pages at 300 words per page) |
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