Les Égarements du cœur et de l'esprit
Les Égarements du cœur et de l'esprit ou Mémoires de M. de Meilcour (French: Strayings of the Heart and Mind, or Memoirs of M. de Meilcour) is a novel by Crébillon fils, which appeared in three parts from 1736 to 1738. It is apparently unfinished, though critics differ on whether this was a deliberate decision of the author or whether he intended to finish it.
 1779 Maastricht edition | |
| Author | Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Genre | Libertine novel |
| Published | 1736-1738 |
It concerns the "education" of a rich young nobleman, M. de Meilcour, at the hands of characters including his first lover, the middle-aged Mme de Lursay; his mentor, the libertine Versac; the female libertine Mme de Sénanges; and his true love, the young and virtuous Hortense de Théville.
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos may have included an allusion to Les Égarements in his novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, in naming a minor character Vressac.[1]
The novel was translated into English as The Wanderings of the Heart and Mind in 1751, and by Barbara Bray as The Wayward Head and Heart in 1963.
Bibliography
- Title: Les égarements du coeur et de l'esprit; ou, Mémoires de Mr. de Meilcour
- Author Claude-Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon
- Editor Dufour, 1779
- 346 pages
References
- Versini, Laurent (April–June 1961). "De quelques noms de personnages dans le roman du XVIIIe siècle". Revue d'histoire littéraire de la France. 61 (2): 177.
- Cusset, Catherine (1999). "Mme. de Lursay, or Vanity". No tomorrow: the ethics of pleasure in the French Enlightenment. University of Virginia Press. pp. 65–88.
- Feher, Michel (1997). "Ways of the World". The libertine reader: eroticism and enlightenment in eighteenth-century France. Zone Books.
- Kavanagh, Thomas M. (2000). "Crébillon's Chaotics of Desire". In Braun, Theodore E.D.; McCarthy, John (eds.). Disrupted patterns: on chaos and order in the Enlightenment. Rodopi. pp. 135–146.
- Taylor, Karen L. (2007). The Facts on File companion to the French novel. Infobase Publishing. pp. 445–446.
- Turnell, Martin (1978). The rise of the French novel: Marivaux, Crébillon fils, Rousseau, Stendhal, Flaubert, Alain-Fournier, Raymond Radiguet. New Directions Publishing. pp. 81–103.
