French Literature Reviews - 2026

T.B. Cuillé, Narrative Interludes: Musical Tableaux in Eighteenth-Century French Texts
Novel and Narrative Prose

CUILLÉ, Tili Boon, Narrative Interludes: Musical Tableaux in Eighteenth-Century French Texts, University of Toronto Press, 2006, 320 p.

ISBN : 0802038425

French authors in the eighteenth century traditionally used music to enhance literary love scenes. Jean-Jacques Rousseau considerably expanded contemporary notions of music's expressive power, yet distinguished between the capacity of different nations and sexes to wield it. Rousseau's controversial statements led his readers to interrogate the relationship between music, meaning, and morality. They depicted their resistance to his claims in musical tableaux, or musical performances staged for a beholder inscribed within the text. Tili Boon Cuillé's Narrative Interludes chronicles the emergence of the musical tableau in French literature.

Spanning the latter half of the eighteenth century, Cuillé brings the cultural discourse on music and musicians to bear on the works of Diderot, Cazotte, Beaumarchais, Charrière, Cottin, Krüdener, and Staël. She turns attention from the representation of music to its moral repercussions, from aesthetic innovation to social resistance, and from national to gender politics. Juxtaposing pre-eminent and popular writers, Cuillé reads their fictional works in light of their treatises on art and society, exploring the significance of musical tableaux that have previously fallen outside the scope of literary analysis but that revolutionized the form and function of music in the text.

Tili Boon Cuillé is an assistant professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Washington University in St. Louis.

Book awaiting a reviewer for Acta Fabula.

During the Enlightenment, the intersections of sound, performance, and narrative held a prominent place in aesthetic debates across Europe, particularly as thinkers debated the emotional and moral impact of the arts. The broader tradition of French prose fiction frequently engaged with contemporary musical theory, reflecting wider anxieties surrounding national identity, sensibility, and the role of the arts in society, while engaging with the period's evolving discourses on representation and expression.

Tili Boon Cuillé chronicles the emergence of the musical tableau in French literature, spanning the latter half of the eighteenth century and bringing the cultural discourse on music and musicians to bear on the works of Diderot, Cazotte, Beaumarchais, Charrière, Cottin, Krüdener, and Staël. The volume explores the significance of musical tableaux that have previously fallen outside the scope of literary analysis, shifting attention from the representation of music to its moral repercussions, from aesthetic innovation to social resistance, and from national to gender politics. Readers interested in eighteenth-century French literature and cultural history may find it relevant.