Politics and "politiques" in sixteenth-century France : a conceptual history

Author(s)

    • Claussen, Emma

Bibliographic Information

Politics and "politiques" in sixteenth-century France : a conceptual history

Emma Claussen

（Ideas in context / edited by Quentin Skinner (general editor) ... [et al.]）

Cambridge University Press, 2021

  • : hardback

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Note

Bibliography: p. 256-277

Includes index

Summary: "This book asks how people understood the concept of politics in sixteenth-century France, and how those who practised it were characterised. Both concept and practitioners were referred to by the same word, politique. I trace written uses of this word as a means of studying shifts in the meaning of the concept and the figure. As much as this is a conceptual history, therefore, it is a textual, and indeed, a literary one. Part of the book's argument is that sixteenth-century literary ideas and processes influenced developments in political thought and practice. It also argues that the word politique and the idea of politics hold a specific place in the literature of the period. The book is about the representation of politics and political actors in writing, the writing of politics, and writing as politics. It treats a diverse corpus, including polemical pamphlets, texts of high political thought, and works more associated with the literary canon such as Montaigne's Essais and the Satyre ménippée"

Description and Table of Contents

Description

During the French Wars of Religion, the nature and identity of politics was the subject of passionate debate and controversy. The word 'politique', in both sixteenth-century and contemporary French, refers to the theory and practice of politics - 'la politique' - and the statesman or politician - 'le politique' - who theorised and practised this art. The term became invested with significance and danger in early modern France. Its mobilisation in dialogues, treatises, debates, and polemics of the French Wars of Religion was a crucial feature of sixteenth-century experiences of the political. Emma Claussen investigates questions of language and power over the course of a tumultuous century, when politics, emerging as a discipline in its own right, seemed to offer a solution to civil discord but could be fatally dangerous in the wrong hands. By placing this important term in the context of early modern political, doctrinal and intellectual debates, Emma Claussen demonstrates how politics can be understood in relation to the wider linguistic and conceptual struggles of the age, and in turn influenced them.

Table of Contents

  • Part I. The Politique Problem: 1. Politics and politique
  • 2. Pre-histories and word histories
  • Part II. c. 1568-78: 3. Wise politiques? Jean Bodin and Loys Le Roy
  • 4. A wake-up call and a call to arms: Le Reveille-matin des Francois and Simon Goulart's Memoires de l'estat de France
  • Part III. c. 1588-94: 6. Strange meetings: the dialogue d'entre le Maheustre et le Manant, and La Satyre Menippee.

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