Disenchantment, Skepticism, and the Early Modern Novel in Spain and France by Ann T. Delehanty
Forty years ago, Alexandre Cioranescu's Le Masque et le visage: du baroque espagnol au classicisme français narrated a history of how Spanish literature's engagement with illusion was received into French literary culture (Geneva: Droz, 1983). Ann T. Delehanty's concise new book revisits this trans-Pyrenean terrain from a philosophical perspective. Setting aside national categories and the tired 'baroque' and 'neoclassical' labels, the book considers how key works of early modern Spanish and French prose fiction take up the tradition of scepticism in interrogating the relationship between truth and appearances. Beginning with a crisp, lucid review of the ancient philosophical sources, Delehanty characterizes scepticism as a habit of mind that suspends judgement in the face of aporia, either to attain ataraxia by renouncing the need to form an opinion, or to embark on a [End Page 329] fuller exploration of a situation's irresolvable complexity. Early modern fiction offers an abundance of aporiae for readers' contemplation: wondrous and unfamiliar things, surprise occurrences, acts of deception, and unstable narrative authorities. Through these devices, fiction trains its readers to adopt a sceptical frame of mind. While carefully avoiding the claim that any of the authors studied would consciously ally themselves with scepticism, Delehanty makes a strong case that sceptical modes of thought permeated early modern European culture and that the prose fiction of the period encodes a sceptical outlook in its key formal features. Across five relatively self-contained chapters (each followed by its own notes and bibliography), the book examines five texts and the specific lesson in scepticism that each offers to its readers: Don Quixote shows what to do with the shock of encountering the unexpected or bizarre; María de Zayas's Desengaños amorosos [Disenchantments of Love] trains us not to take conventional signifiers of identity at face value; Paul Scarron's Roman comique undermines our faith in narrators and interpreters; Cyrano de Bergerac's two-part L'Autre Monde treats matter itself as potentially deceptive while reserving the possibility for friendship to transcend the perils of illusion; Mme de Lafayette's Zayde characterizes even intimate relationships as plagued by deception and self-delusion. The book's Conclusion makes a bold case for literature's role as a 'tool of discernment and judgment' (p. 162). Making connections between the early modern and more contemporary contexts, Delehanty considers how literature's capacity to shock, embrace chaos, and remain 'other' can encourage the individual reader to develop an open, critical mind. This refreshing expansiveness offers a compelling framework for communicating the value of early modern fiction to new audiences (including students). At the same time, the Conclusion's shift from the 'early modern novel' to 'literature' as the object of analysis also raises questions about the specificity of the book's main corpus. Why is the prose fiction of early modern Europe so dense with sceptical features? Might the disguise plots and surprising occurrences of early modern theatre hone the sceptical mind equally well, or are the resources of prose narrative unique in this regard? Like the works it analyses, this book keeps its reader stimulated and engaged. Delehanty excels at explaining complex ideas in a clear and lively way. Her intelligent analyses will be a welcome companion for those discovering early modern fiction and those rediscovering it through this new lens.
