Poisoned Words
Slander and Satire in Early Modern France

Emily Butterworth

Cover of Poisoned Words

Research Monographs in French Studies 21

Legenda

24 May 2006  •  122pp

ISBN: 978-1-904350-78-1 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

EnlightenmentFrenchSatire

Slander and satire were contentious practices in early seventeenth-century France. Seeking to wound, ridicule, destroy or reform, they occupied either side of a dangerous border zone between legitimate and illegitimate criticism. In the first monograph on the subject, Emily Butterworth explores the literary and historical contexts that enabled language to become poisoned and words to wound. The legal background, the many seventeenth-century treatises on slander, early modern linguistic theory, and the satirical, moral, and polemical works of François Béroalde de Verville, Marie de Gournay and Jean-Pierre Camus are treated in this wide-ranging and original book. The study of early modern concepts of slander and satire develops significant conclusions on the nature of language, the construction of community and the responsibility of the writer.

Emily Butterworth is a Lecturer in French at the University of Sheffield.

Reviews:

  • ‘Emily Butterworth’s thoughtful and elegantly argued study... makes an important contribution to that burgeoning area of critical study where literature can never be conceived outside the notion of law, and in this case, the law itself.’ — Henry Phillips, Modern Language Review 103.3, July 2008, 852-53 (full text online)
  • ‘Her excellent book will be of interest to anybody concerned with rhetoric, polemic and the fashioning (and unfashioning) of early modern reputations.’ — Timothy Chesters, French Studies 469-70
  • ‘Butterworth’s valuable work clearly shows that slander and satire are linked to other important preoccupations of the time (such as the use of rhetoric and the formation of identity) and brings a welcome focus on three writers, each of whom addresses one of Lucian’s positions: slanderer, audience and victim.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 45.3 (2009), 351-54

Bibliography entry:

Butterworth, Emily, Poisoned Words: Slander and Satire in Early Modern France, Research Monographs in French Studies, 21 (Legenda, 2006)

First footnote reference: 35 Emily Butterworth, Poisoned Words: Slander and Satire in Early Modern France, Research Monographs in French Studies, 21 (Legenda, 2006), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Butterworth, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Butterworth, Emily. 2006. Poisoned Words: Slander and Satire in Early Modern France, Research Monographs in French Studies, 21 (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Butterworth 2006: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Butterworth 2006: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

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