The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi in Early Modern Europe Encounters ith a Certain Something [Hardcover]

What is theje-ne-sais-quoi, if it is indeed something at all, and how can it be put into words? In addressing these questions, Richard Scholar offers the first full-length study of theje-ne-sais-quoiand its fortunes in early modern Europe. He examines the expression's rise and fall as a noun and as a topic of philosophical and literary debate, its cluster of meanings, and the scattered traces of its pre-history. Placing major writers of the period such as Montaigne, Shakespeare, Descartes, Corneille, and Pascal alongside some of their lesser-known contemporaries, Scholar argues that theje-ne-sais-quoiserves above all to trace a series of first-person encounters with a certain something as difficult to explain as its effects are intense, and which can be expressed only by being expressed differently. He shows how theje-ne-sais-quoicomes to express that certain something in the early modern period, and suggests that it remains capable of doing so today.

Part I: Word History
1. A Modish Name
Part II: Critical Histories
2. A Secret of Nature? Descartes and the Philosophers
3. The Stroke of Passion: Pascal and the Poets
4. A Sign of Quality: Bouhours and the Polite Circle
Part III: Pre-history
5. A Certain Something: Montaigne
6. Beyond Pre-history: The Case of Shakespeare

Richard Scholar is a Fellow & Tutor in French, Oriel College, Oxford. He was previously a Lecturer in French at the University of Durham and the Astor Junior Research Fellow of New College, Oxford.