Reeuws 459

bangcr$-on, comtuners, and dbiributon rather than producers ofideas'; 'We wouM
a^id that any intcliectuai movement needs such devoted MJowers to carrv' its
message to a wide audietK*.' T ^ parallel wa« no doubt unintentional, but the
aatimrs are certainly to be congratulated cm collecting t^cther a wealth rf
information in what will surely become one of the sundard rriertmce books few
students rfthe eig^t^nth century.
UwvERsrry OF STIRUNO PETER Jt»«A{at

Le Rmiit dam U md. By JEAK STAROBINSKI. (NRF Es«ais) Paris: Callimard, i ^i%.
287 pp. 90 F.
The very eminent enjoy a right to respectful attention which the rest of us must envy,
J ean Starobinski's book demonstrates not so much the occasional noddii^ of Homrr
as the entirely relative criteria of bookworthinras. Were the author less sure than he
appears to be that the essays gathered in this volume possess<Mj unity, his critic
might be less troubled by their evident unevenness and disconnectedness; but
Starobinski's assertion that the different studies 'comporteni entre elks des liens
assez evidents pour rendre inutiies toute preface ou tout chapitre condusif is
contestable enough (o provoke a combative response.
Not that Li Remedt dans tt mat n without its manifesi excellencies. Bu( if the
requirement for critical reverence be laid aside, it must be admitted that the book is a
hotch-potch ofthe good, the less good, and the indifferent. The (wo best pieces (all
are modified reprints of articles or prefaces to other writers' books, publisried over a
period of twenty or so years) arc the essay which provides the collection with its title
and the following one, which deals with fable and myth in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. For what it is worth, they are also the two mos! directly
concerned with what Starobinski describes as his overall subject, the perceived
status of artifice in the age of Enlightenment. Thefirst-nameddiscusses Rousseau's
propetisity for finding salvation in what seems todo harm, either to himselfor to the
subject ofhis writing. Starobinski traces the themes of healing and hopeless disease
over a range of Rousseau's works, highlighting his ingrained morbidity and
conviction ofthe social world's sickliness. Given ihe medical advances we associate
with the eighteenth century, this is a fertile topic, and Starobintki does il full justice,
though without drawing attention to the influence which ancient philoiiopher«
surely exercised on Rousseau in this regard. He cleverly integrate* the familiar fact
that Rousseau is ever-ready !o be hoist with his own petard (writing imaginatively
while condemning imaginative writing) into the larger paradox Rousseau proposca:
namely, that one man's meat is another's pcrison. As the first and second prefaces to
La Nmmette HeUist in their different ways have it, the morally *ound are auite
differently affected by art from thcwe who have been socially corrupted. (Had
Starobinski really had the synthetic intent implied in his own preface, he would
sureJy have developed this theme in his sulwequent discussion of mytholc^'.) And
as ^ale tells us, echoing the physicianly procedures adc^Med by Wdlmar in La
NmtvlU Httriu, 'On n'a de prise sur les pa^ions que p ^ les passions'. Vet, as
Starolnpski does not remind us, both La NtmMi HUeise and the draft continuation to
Emit, Enuk et Sephit, reveal the miguidedness of this notion.
To be healthy, the individual must leant seif-undmtanding (the underlying
theme of all Rotisseau's imaginative and autobic^aphical writing) and avoid the
mortal peril ofto$ingcontact with hu being. The concept of self-possession throu^
possesiaon of one's &bkd past, the source of humanity's cdl«sive con«3ousne»«, is
the suUect of *Fable et mythcdogie aux X V i r et XVIIF siecies*. There is much to
recall Yico and Herder in this, but Stan^ndci's enay shottrs his own blend of
460
inteUectual duing, psychcJogical anitencss, and hisumcal awarenos at iu b«^,
and further recalls the fact that, while myth it to a greaKr or lesser extent part c^
common culture, mythcrfogy is the province crf^the cultivated. Its de]doy0tent in tbe
literature and art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in rococo as well as
classical works, was no part of a folk tradition.
Compared with these two fine essays, the remaining five of the collection are a
disappointment. One or two are little more than orderly assemblages of &cts, and
smack of ihefiMer, and it is a little surprising to find a critic c^Starobinski's stature
contenting himself with paraphrasing a weil-known text, as he does for most ofthe
essay on the Lettres persatus. But here, perhaps, part c^the fault lies with Starobinski's
publishers, who seem content to print the preface to a popular edition of Montes-
quieu's work cheek-by-jowl with intellectually more challenging trfTerin^. There is,
in other words, no more a prevailing tone to this collection than there ts a guiding
concept behind it. One tone, however, wit! be found trying by many readers. It
permeates two of the three essays originally published in ajoumal of psychiatry, and
contains much psychoanalytical jargon: a suspect rhetoric, not the 'rhetorique du
soupfon' descrit>ed in the essay' "Je nais comme tes port« d'Hades" .. .\ Le Remide
dans ie mat could with advantage have been purged of it.
It is understandable that Galiimard, witha great eminence on their books, should
yield to the temptation to have him deliver material at whim. But Starobinski's
reader need show no such indulgence. Le Remide dans le mal is, on balance, a
less-than-necessary publication, and likely to leave those who were dazzled by
Starobinski's marvellous Jian-Jacgues Rousseau: ta transparence et robstaclt unhappily
yearning. Perhaps the book on Diderot which he promises us will make amends.
ST HILDA'S COLLEGE, OXFORD .\NGELICA GOODDEN

Corpus des notes marginales de Voltaire. Edited by T. VORONOVA and S. MAN^VITCH.

Four volumes. Berlin: Akademie. 1979-1988. iv + 6 7 i p p . + 20 plat^;
iv + 895pp. + so plates; iv-t-727 pp. + 22 plates; iv+733pp. + 22 plates.
£60.00 each.
With the publication of Voiume iv of Voltaire's marginalia, schc^ars now have at
their disposal a rich, very substantial, and indispensable research tool. The Corpus
exposes the great man's thought processes as refracted through the comments,
undertinings, annotations, and other markings, such as those mysterious bits of
paper ('papillons') that he stuck over certain words, all of which are scattered
generously over the pages ofthe books contained in his library. That library of more
than 6800 items (inditing manuscripts), collected by Voltaire during the courae of
the last two decades of his life when he was living at Femey, was acquired by
Catherine II in 1778 through Mme Denis's prompt fgaoA offices just after Voltaire's
death, and it was duty transported to the Hermitl^;e in St Petersburg in 1779. There
the collection stayed until iWai, -whca it was Dransferred to the Imperial Library,
now the Saltikov-Scheddn State PuUic Library in Leningrad.
Miraculously, it survived unscathed through wai^ and revolutions, remaining in
fact untouched until the early i96os, when it started to receive the expert attention it
deserved from outstanding Soviet bibUc^raphers such as M. P. Aiekseev, V. S.
Liublinsky, and N. V. Vaurbanetz, and Westsri dix-hidtiemistts sudi as George
Havens and Nonnan Torrey. Since then, a team c( dedicated Rissian scbcrfan,
under the general directic» of Mme O. Gcdubieva (JDepiuy Director ofthe Saltikov-
Schedrin Libnuy) have worked for many yean with outstandii^ skill and dedica-
tion tHi the analysis and documentatiem tk A e marginalia. TIK; first fruits cf this