From Rhetoric to Aesthetics: Wit and Esprit in the English and French Theoretical Writings of the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries

Klára Bicanová

• Publisher: Masarykova univerzita
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9788021066625
• eBook ISBN: 9788021082304
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism Theory
• Index: Literature

The thesis deals primarily with the term wit and its modern and historical usage in literary and aesthetic theories. Further, it concerned with the literary and aesthetic implications of the terms wit and esprit as they were theorized in critical writings of several authors of the early modern England and France. The thesis has two primary goals. The first goal is to re-assess the English concept of wit, nowadays regarded as an out-dated device of past poetic systems, and to present it as vital and useful part of the contemporary discourse. The second goal is to provide comparative reading of early modern English and French theoretical texts dealing with wit and esprit, respectively. Presenting ideas on the English term wit as employed in the theoretical writings in the light of its French equivalent esprit, I wish to demonstrate a gradual development of the terms from rhetoric to aesthetic.

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 T heoretical and Historical Prolegomena
• 2 Official and Alternative Classical Aesthetics: Bouhours, Méré, and Boileau
• 3 True and False Wit: Dryden, Pope, and Addison
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Endnotes
• Index