Preciosity - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The Préciosité is one of the current arts persons of the XVIIe century.

This movement develops between 1610 and 1660 in the living rooms. The Invaluable ones want to give price to all that surrounds them and are in perpetual search of elegance in the taste, the manners and the language. They see the love like a pure inclination of the spirit and take again heroism cornélien. The invaluable living rooms, “rested” by large aristocrats, develop initially in Provence and in Paris. To reach it, one was not to have only one nobility of blood, but a “nobility of the heart”. In these living rooms, of which most important are the “blue room” of Catherine of Rambouillet and that of Madeleine de Scudéry, one speaks about literature, one uses a very polished language and one writes Poème S (almost all on the love).

Definition

Towards first half of the 17th century, a novel mode of life, a news Philosophie is born, it is the preciosity. Women, mainly, but one counts also men, being opposed to the manners louts of the 16th century, and more particularly from the court of Henri IV (than one called the “Gallant Green” because of the great number of his adventures in love), being also opposed to violence Baroque, will create this modest movement and wanting to be refined to the extreme.

It should be added that the preciosity rests on the will to be characterized by:

purity of the language.
the elegance of the behavior.
the dignity of manners.

Living rooms

The Invaluable ones are found in living rooms (that of Madeleine de Scudéry, for example), to discuss, read poems or extracts of works, which living rooms will influence the authors of this time because creates for itself true a literature of living rooms bathing in an extreme refinement which will inspire the Libertinage . The preciosity also influenced the culture of the centuries to come because the philosophers of the Lumières, for example, will take the practice to meet in living rooms , habit which continued to us.

Influence on the French language

The linguistic sights of Invaluable also influenced the French language, mainly in two manners.

Orthography

One must with Invaluable project of simplification of a Orthographe already fixed and often considered to be too far away from the word, which proved to be difficult for the women: the access to the studies less current and was limited more. Many their corrections were retained by the dictionary of the French Academy which followed them: author ➢ author; respondre ➢ to answer ; aisné ➢ elder ; etc

Invaluable lexicon

The Invaluable ones are especially known for their lexical creation intense with an aim of indicating the modest world of manner (the “low” words are avoided, as those whose sonorities are judged cocasses or dirty, like ecu or conceived ). The use of Periphrasis S hyperbolic, of Metaphor S sought, points and Néologisme S is notable.

Some of the invaluable terms remained, like furiously , encanailler or bold while speaking about a mixed color ( of fair bold a ). Other formulas, already turned in derision at the 17th century (by Molière and Somaize, in particular) seem now ridiculous: the adviser of the graces indicates a mirror while should be translated the face of the heart by the speech or to give in the love allowed for to marry .

Conclusion

One can ultimately characterize the spirit of this movement by the refinement in the manners, the feelings, the taste and the language.

It will be necessary however to take care not to preserve only the ridiculous image of it that Molière or Somaize gave some: true literary and intellectual movement with the sights in advance over the century (a certain feminism is notable, or at least a rejection of the A priori of the male superiority), it deeply marked it, as the marks attest some which it left in the French language.

literary Women and living rooms;
literary Living room under Louis XIV;
Classicism;
Baroque.

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