Volume 43, Number 10 · June 6, 1996
The Pleasures of Abstinence
By Roger Shattuck
We must beware of standard accounts. In tracing the development of the novel, or perhaps its fall, from idealized romances to particularized realism, literary historians have too often overlooked one of the most significant and enthralling novels of the seventeenth century. Madame de Lafayette's La Princesse de Clèves was published in 1678, halfway between Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe. Abstract terms like duty, gallantry, and esteem, which characterize its formal style, make the novel sound more like an episode from King Arthur's court than like the investigation of everyday life it really undertakes.
Feature, 3870 words
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