Representations of Ancient Cynicism in French Texts, 1546-1615 Hugh Gerald Arthur Roberts Thesis Submitted for Examination for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Oxford Brookes University September 2003 ii ABSTRACT Representations of Ancient Cynicism in French Texts, 1546-1615 This thesis traces prima facie references to ancient Cynicism in a wide range of French texts from the mid-sixteenth to the early-seventeenth century. Cynicism, a popular philosophical movement in antiquity, was transmitted through a diverse tradition of sayings and anecdotes. The tradition presents the Cynics, and particularly Diogenes of Sinope, turning their lives into humorous and scandalous philosophical performances. By focusing on prima facie representations of Cynicism, I show how early modern writers understood and used Cynic performance for their own purposes. Part I of the thesis is devoted to early modern repositories of Cynicism. I establish the nature and availability of ancient and Medieval sources, and how they are used in neo-Latin and vernacular collections of sayings, miscellanies and encyclopedias. Adaptation and invention of Cynic sayings in collections show how the Cynic tradition encourages improvisation. The discursive treatment of miscellanies illustrates the diverse associations of Cynicism, from idealized, Christian portrayals to titillating discussion of Cynic public sex. Part II concentrates on more developed and playful use of Cynicism. Rabelais uses Cynicism, notably in the prologue of the Tiers Livre, to identify his work with carnival, and to raise the question of the writer's role in society. Paradoxes exploit Cynic performance, which is eminently paradoxical and thereby serves to reveal the scope of early modern paradoxes. The key Cynic practices of shamelessness and freedom of speech are used by early modern authors to raise shocking questions about morality and the body, and to articulate opposition to the status quo. Cynicism stands for a radically free and humorous way of life, which is used by early modern writers to raise strange ideas in seriocomic ways. This thesis fills a gap in intellectual and literary history by providing readings of a large number of little-known texts which allow for new perspectives upon canonical works. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis was made possible by the award of a PhD bursary by the School of Languages, now Department of Modern Languages, School of Arts and Humanities, Oxford Brookes University. My work was supervised by Valerie Worth-Stylianou. I am grateful for her constant advice, enthusiasm and encouragement. I also thank Mark Bannister, my second supervisor, for his suppor and for his comments on my work. I did preliminary work on the subject of this thesis for a Master of Studies at the University of Oxford. I owe a particular debt to my then supervisor, Carol Clark, for suggesting that I should work on Diogenes. I also wish to acknowledge the comments and advice of Robert Weninger, Andrew Petiprin and Agnieszka Steczowicz, on parts of my research. I would like to thank both Tim Chesters and Emma Herdman for informing me of important references to Diogenes. I am also grateful to Virginie le Torrec for having braved the Bibliotheque Nationale to procure me some emblems. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the help of Anthony Roberts (my father). Unless otherise stated, all translations from Latin are his. I am very grateful for his equanimity, hard work and good humour when faced with lengthy tales of Diogenes rolling his barrel, and behaving disreputably in public. 1 Chapter One Introduction Chaque siècle, et le nOtre surtout, auraient besoin d'un Diogene; mais la difficulte est de trouver des hommes qui aient le courage de l'ëtre, et des hornmes qui aient le courage de le souffrir. D'Alembert, Essai sur la societè des gens de lettres (1759) The ancient Cynics have been enduringly provocative figures from antiquity to the present day. Writers as diverse as Lucian, Diderot and Nietzsche, as well as Erasmus, Rabelais and Montaigne, have all been inspired by aspects of ancient Cynicism. The reception of Cynicism is ongoing, as is illustrated by Peter Sloterdijk's Critique of Cynical Reason, first published in 1983, which became a best-seller in Germany. 1 The humorous, scandalous, and naturally free lives of the Cynics, and, in particular, their best known representative, Diogenes of Sinope of the fourth century BC, have proved consistently fascinating. Anyone tracing the reception of Cynicism through the ages would discover a great deal about how past cultures defined themselves. Diogenes adopts an extreme position of virtue over convention, of nature over culture, and hence of freedom from taboos and freedom to speak the truth. Such a philosophy is clearly far removed from the modern sense of `cynicism'. Diogenes' radical critique of normative values led D'Alembert in the eighteenth century to claim that every epoch needs its own Diogenes, and that the Cynic's stance is courageous and therefore dangerous. The outrageous nature of Diogenes' philosophy has led successive generations to formulate their own responses to his shocking example. Analysing the nature of these responses invariably leads to understanding how the past imagined a life of radical freedom, and consequently some of the ways in which it conceived morality, the body, and the self. This thesis will trace the reception of Cynicism in French texts, focusing on one particularly rich period from the Tiers Livre (1546) to Le Moyen de parvenir (c.1615). The extreme philosophical stance of the Cynics infiltrates, or serves as a revealing comparison with, cultural tensions and uncertainties in the early modern period. Diogenes' scandalous yet humorous performance invariably encourages similarly 2 outrageous and seriocomic adaptation in early modern texts. This is true, for example, of the prologue of the Tiers Livre, in which Rabelais identifies himself and his book with Diogenes who, we are told, was a `philosophe rare, et joyeux entre mille'. 2 In his short essay, De Democritus et Heraclitus', Montaigne describes Diogenes `roulant son tonneau et hochant du nez le grand Alexandre', while in his longest essay, l'Apologie de Raimond Sebond', Diogenes' public masturbation serves as an example of radical commitment to nature and virtue. 3 Diogenes' lantern, with which he sought for a man in the crowd at midday, is illustrated in emblem books throughout the period, turned to radical political purposes in an anonymous late-sixteenth-century poem from the Spanish Netherlands, and used as a comic symbol of folly in Bruscambille's early- seventeenth-century paradoxes. The reception of Cynicism in early modern French texts is as unpredictable as it is amusing. Tracing representations of Cynicism provides unexpected insights into varied aspects of early modern thought and writing. While any division of material by time and space is bound to be fairly arbitrary, the period on which I focus nonetheless provides unusually rich pickings as far as literary representation and use of the Cynics is concerned. There are several possible explanations for this, the main one being the availability of sources. The sixth book of Diogenes Laertius's Lives, of the third century AD, which is the main source of early modern and modern knowledge of the Cynics, was unknown in the Middle Ages. Similarly, two other important sources of Cynicism, Plutarch and Lucian, returned to prominence in Western Europe in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Sixteenth-century representations of the Cynics are part of the period's general fascination with ancient material of all sorts. The aesthetic of the period, roughly characterized, encourages a mixing of registers and the abundance of examples. Generic boundaries, particularly in prose texts, are not rigidly defined, nor are they restricted by notions of bienseance. All these factors give mid-sixteenth to 1 Critique of Cynical Reason, trans. by Michael Eldred (London: Verso, 1987). 2 Francois Rabelais, CEuvres completes, ed. by Mireille Huchon and Francois Moreau (Paris: Pleiade, 1994), p. 346. 3 Michel de Montaigne, Les Essais, ed. by Pierre Villey and V.-L. Saulnier (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965), I, 50, 303-04 and II, 12, 585. 3 early-seventeenth-century French texts room fully to explore Cynicism in a way that was not true before, owing to lack of sources, or soon after, due to a marked change in aesthetic. It is also likely that the radical freedom of the Cynics resonated during this time of religious strife and moral and philosophical questioning. I shall focus on works in French, including several books printed outside France's geographical boundaries. However, to offer as full a picture of views of Cynicism as possible, I shall include selected discussion of neo-Latin works from throughout Europe. I shall also consider some texts in other European vernaculars (mostly Italian) translated into French during the period. My purpose is not to offer an exhaustive survey of representations of Cynicism, many of which are commonplace. However, in giving readings of a wide range of primary texts, I hope to have taken the vast majority of unusual and interesting instances of use of Cynicism into account. In the first part of this introduction I shall give an overview of ancient Cynicism. The second part will establish my methodology and objectives. In the third part, I shall survey previous studies of the reception of Cynicism in the sixteenth century and their shortcomings. The fourth part will outline the organization of the thesis, and survey the kinds of primary works I analyse, and the questions I ask in my reading of them. Part One Ancient Cynicism Cynicism was a popular philosophical and cultural movement which had its origins in classical Athens, and which returned to prominence in the Roman empire, thereby encompassing the period from the fourth century BC to the sixth century AD. Despite its philosophical and literary influence, Cynicism was practically ignored by modern scholarship until the late twentieth century.