French Literature Reviews - 2026
Thibault Catel, Le Sentier de l’exemple. Morales des histoires tragiques (1559-1630)
Medieval and Renaissance Studies
Thibault Catel
“Le Sentier de l’exemple”. Morales des histoires tragiques (1559-1630)
Paris, Classiques Garnier, Lire le XVIIe siècle, 2023
Amid a surge of interest in exemplarity, tragic histories (1559-1630) employ diverse exemplary frameworks and deploy a type of exemplarity rooted in the power of bad examples and the singularity of the case, capable of capturing the obscurity of contemporary history.
Readers interested in the evolution of early modern narrative forms, moral philosophy, and the rhetoric of exemplarity in French literature may find this study relevant. Thibault Catel examines how tragic histories from 1559 to 1630 employ diverse exemplary frameworks and deploy a type of exemplarity rooted in the power of bad examples and the singularity of the case, capable of capturing the obscurity of contemporary history.