Freedom, Slavery, and Absolutism
Subtitle: Corneille, Pascal, Racine (Bucknell Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Cultur)
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Published: July 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 196
ISBN-13: 9780838755488
Subjects: Literary studies: general; History and criticism; European - French; Literature - Classics / Criticism; French; Literary Criticism; Liberty in literature; History & Theory - General; Drama; Religious; 17th century; Authoritarianism in literature; French literature
Description: "Ziad Elmarsafy explores the concept of freedom by reading the works of Corneille, Pascal, and Racine as political theories in the guise of literature. Within this framework, a certain model quickly becomes apparent, namely that of absolute sovereignty as the guarantor of freedom. The three writers under consideration share the view that freedom is ensured only by absolute authority rather than the absence of such authority.

From Corneille, who modulates freedom through an erotic link to the monarch as a means through which the glorious individual is brought into the state's fold, to Pascal, who traces the liberation of the will via absolute submission to God, to Racine, for whom absolute submission to the most Christian king is the only route to political and personal salvation, Elmarsafy studies a politics of taking charge that differs markedly from the contemporary orthodoxy that privileges individual freedom."--Jacket.