ABSTRACT

"Theories of memory and fictional recreations of the remembering mind have occupied a central place in French literature since Montaigne. The author investigates the shifting relation between cognitive or ""scientific"" memory and emotional or spiritual recollection in a series of major writers from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Her study focuses on the 18th century, where the interplay between memory and imagination and the link between self-knowledge and self-presentation are shown to be exceptionally fertile. The philosophical, scientific and fictional writings of Diderot and the novels and autobiographical works of Rousseau are central to this ground-breaking work, which should be of interest to all readers concerned with the specificity of the French literary tradition."

chapter |9 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|19 pages

Breaking the Mould

chapter 2|31 pages

Eighteenth-Century Histoires

chapter 3|24 pages

Recording and Rewriting

chapter 4|26 pages

Diderot: The Limits of Experience

chapter 5|27 pages

Rousseau: Person and Memory

chapter 6|24 pages

The Soul and the Self

chapter |6 pages

Conclusion