French Literature Reviews - 2026
Alain Boureau, Casanova: A Generator of Chance
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs
Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798), a towering writer and thinker, gradually forged his identity as a subject throughout the writing of the Histoire de ma vie, perpetually doubting whether he could ever overcome his two greatest adversaries: chance and necessity.
Driven by need and pleasure alike, he ceaselessly reinvented himself. His myriad ventures—often translated into practice—spanned mathematics and finance, industry and agriculture, journalism and theatre. Yet his primary avenue was entregent, that art of discerning the connections and relationships between others in order to weave oneself into them with joy and profit. His career as a self-proclaimed occultist, recounted with great wit, relied on this astute perception, though he ultimately preferred the role of stage director, casting himself among the actors, of which he left behind delightful examples.
Naturally, one cannot overlook the long procession of erotic adventures that nevertheless make Casanova the exact opposite of the operatic Don Juan. Amid the fluid sequence of Giacomo’s adventures, a persistent dream—pursued and repeatedly taken up anew—aimed at the ever-elusive coherence of the self: he harbored the ambition to master the tickle of chance and the passivity of sensation. Alongside several female philosophers, he sought another path, one that would narrow the gap between his two languages (his mother tongue and his adopted tongue), between spirit and flesh, between fidelity and fickleness. Thus, his romantic pursuits did not stem from cumulative addition, but rather derived from a process of subtraction leading to diurnal, infinitesimal core of uniqueness.
Alain Boureau is a Director of Studies at the EHESS and a specialist in the history of medieval scholasticism. His recent publications include En somme… Pour un usage analytique de la scolastique médiévale (2011), L’Errance des normes (2016), as well as a critical bilingual edition of Richard of Middleton’s Disputed Questions (six volumes published by Les Belles-Lettres since 2011) and Quodlibets (three volumes since 2015). At Les Belles-Lettres, he also co-directs the "Histoire" series with Michel Desgranges and the "Bibliothèque scolastique" series with Ruedi Imbach.
Table of Contents
Introduction. Biribi
Selection
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. Neapolitan Renaissances
Naples, 1743: Initial Laughter
Naples, 1743: Inventing a Cousin
Rome, 1743: Bad Blood
Writing to the Mother (1752–1782)
A Late Conversion to the French Language
A Proper Distance: Translations of Incest
1761: Return to Naples
Dark Wedding and Clear Desire
Chapter 2. Casanova’s Essays
Industrious Translations (1780–1782)
The Language of a Stipendiary Redemption (1784–1785)
Gallicization of Pamphleteering Acidity
Il duello: Original Version with French Subtitles
The Initial Break from a Leaden Silence: The Story of My Flight
Casanova and the Inquisitors
Economy of Narration: Supply Exceeds Demand
Chapter 3. A Poetics of Speech
Speech and Torpor
E pur si muove!
A Dialectical Elevation
Debates and Brawls of a Theologian
A Female Talmud
Casanova in the Ghetto
Lia’s Speech
Chapter 4. The Paradox of the Stage Director
The Necessity of Staging
Early Talents
The Gaze on Display
When He Was Twelve Years Old
Lisabetta’s Ostentatious Desires
The Plot Thickens
A Staging That Outshines Competing Scenarios
Chapter 5. The Games of the Occult and Chance
A Triumph of Chance: The Healing of Bragadin
Oracular Service
The Pyramid
Casanova as Treasure-Hunt Entrepreneur and Magician of Chance
The Imagined Physician of the Duchess of Chartres
Apotheosis: The Marquise d’Urfé
Endgame
Esther, or the Games of Love and Chance
The Prison of the Supernatural
Recycling the Pyramid into Biribi
Chapter 6. The Mad Resolution
Personality Disorders
Thérèse is My Name
Henriette, or Decision
Casanova and Henriette as Philosophers
Chapter 7. Desertion of the Self and Alterities
Pauline, 1763
A Malefic Resolution
Acts of Force and the Costs of Violence
Casanova as Anthropologist
Anatomy of Suicide
In Praise of Contradiction
Go east, young man. Measured and Dominated Alterity
Chapter 8. Difference and Repetition: The Unique and Its Doubles
Closing Accounts and Concluding Tales
A Supposed Literary Model: Don Juan
The False Pretexts of Repetition
The Unique Woman of Murano: A Muse and Mentor
Echoes of M. M.
Mirrors and Mirages of the Unique
A Usurped Identity
Conclusion. Pharaoh
A Brief Chronology of Giacomo Casanova’s Life and of the Episodes from the Histoire de ma vie Cited in This Essay
Bibliography
Giacomo Casanova remains one of the most widely recognized figures of the eighteenth century, celebrated primarily for his voluminous memoirs, the Histoire de ma vie. Beyond the traditional popular perception of him as a serial seducer, intellectual history and literary studies have increasingly approached his life and writings as a complex site of philosophical inquiry, linguistic negotiation, and self-invention. Scholars often examine how figures of the Enlightenment navigated the tensions between personal identity, social mobility, and the unpredictable forces of fortune during a transformative era in European culture.
Alain Boureau's study examines Casanova's ongoing efforts to forge an identity through his writings while confronting the opposing forces of chance and necessity. The book traces his various ventures across journalism, mathematics, and the occult, alongside his romantic pursuits and his distinct relationship with language. Readers interested in eighteenth-century autobiography, intellectual history, and the literary construction of the self may find this volume a relevant exploration of Casanova's complex intellectual profile.