Disenchantment and Re-enchantment: Rhetorical Tension in the Siècle des Lumières A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Sean P. Killackey IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Daniel Brewer DECEMBER 2020 © Sean P. Killackey, 2020 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank the members of my committee, without whom none of this project would have seen the light of day. I am deeply grateful to Dan Brewer, Juliette Cherbuliez, Mary Franklin-Brown, and Michael Gaudio for their commitment and perseverance in seeing this dissertation project through to its completion. Before this dissertation even took shape, their courses and scholarship inspired new avenues of intellectual pursuit for me. I am particularly grateful for the many conversations at workshops, in offices and hallways, and after myriad speaker events with each of them during the development of ideas that would eventually coalesce into a dissertation project. I would like to express my deep and enduring gratitude to my advisor, Daniel Brewer, who read countless revisions with patience and tirelessly gave diplomatic and insightful feedback, challenging my assumptions and posing questions that lead me to more fruitful exploration and stronger writing. His intellectual guidance for this project over the long duration is a testament to his perseverance and his passion for critical inquiry into the literature and culture of the eighteenth century. I sincerely thank Juliette Cherbuliez for chairing my committee and for her advice on the importance of working with people who “ask great questions.” Her brilliant and challenging questions impacted my thinking on this project, perhaps more than she even knows. I am grateful to her for her mentorship both in scholarly pursuits and in teaching. My long-distance thanks go to Mary Franklin-Brown who began this project with me at the University of Minnesota and endured some late hours to finish with me from Christ’s College at Cambridge in England. From allegorical thinking in the Roman de la Rose to the finer points of Foucault’s epistemology, Mary’s keen and kind guidance was invaluable and a bulwark against discouragement. From his leadership role in the Theorizing Early Modern Studies group to his course on early modern print culture and work on my committee, Michael Gaudio helped me to see interdisciplinary connections and discover the delights of engraved illustration in eighteenth- i century texts. This eventually led me to my fascination with Jacques Henri Bernardin de Saint- Pierre’s complicated relationship with illustration, type face, and his printer-publisher (and future father-in-law!). Certainly, this dissertation project did not proceed without the help of a great many people and institutions. I would like to thank the Department of French and Italian at the University of Minnesota for the generous financial support during my doctoral studies, and in particular for the two summer Doctoral Research Fellowship awards which funded undivided time to work on the dissertation. My life and work have been enriched by the many wonderful friends and colleagues I have met in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Minnesota. My faculty colleagues at St. Olaf College have been a source of enthusiastic support beyond what I could have imagined. I would be remiss if I did not mention my debt of gratitude to the University Club of St. Paul for providing the perfect, convivial, and inspiring place to write. John Rupp and Stephanie Laitala- Rupp have reason to be proud of the professional staff they have put in place to run the historic property and create a space of great conversation, fine food, and a love of higher education. For keeping the caffeine flowing and the fireplace glowing, my thanks to Sue Katsiotis, Kelli McDonald, as well as Deb, Evan, Gerardo, Jacquie, Lindsey, Liz, and Paul. My final and deepest expression of gratitude is for my family. For my daughter, Brianne, who has never known a moment of her young life when her father wasn’t working on his dissertation and yet who always encouraged me and lovingly put adorable signs on the door of my home office, forbidding interruptions and “defending” my dissertation from disturbance. For my extended family who put up with me disappearing for hours during holidays and vacations to write. Finally, though I speak multiple languages, I do not have the right words to adequately express my appreciation for my wife in this matter. Ellie was the one who encouraged me to complete my doctorate when I thought it was an unfeasible dream, sharing that it was her dream for our life together too. Her unwavering support was the only thing at times that allowed me to ford raging rivers of doubt. None of this would have been possible, or hold as much joy, without her. I am eternally grateful and look forward to the next chapters in our enchanting adventure together. ii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my father, John Killackey, who inspired in me a love of reading and sailing, and who taught me that the grandest adventure is a life filled by discovery, imagination, and reflection. iii Table of contents Acknowledgements i Dedication iii Table of Contents iv List of Figures v Introduction Disenchantment and Re-enchantment: Rhetorical Tension in the Siècle des Lumières 1 Chapter One Tabling the Matter: The Problem of Nature Made into a Conceptual Object 24 Chapter Two Pastoral novel as re-draft of encyclopedic project: Paul et Virginie as conclusion to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s Études de la nature 90 Chapter Three History of the Two Indies: a Singular Tale with Multiple Voices – History and Philosophy Collide in the Histoire des deux Indes 174 Conclusion Disenchantment and Re-enchantment: Rhetorical Tension in the Siècle des Lumières 243 Bibliography 267 iv List of figures Fig. 1: Detail from frontispiece to Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie. Design by Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Engraving by Bonaventure-Louis Prévost, 1772. Bibliothèque nationale de France...................................................................................... 1 Fig. 1.1 and 1.2: Side by side view of table of contents pages for Buffon and Daubenton’s contributions to Tome 4 of the Histoire naturelle, 4:iii–iv, 1753. ............................ 24, 64 Fig. 1.3: Example of Daubenton’s tables of comparative anatomy measurements (HN 5:30) ..... 67 Fig. 1.4: Engraved illustration of the Horse (HN 4:366). Design by Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Engraving by Jean-Charles Baquoy, 1753. Bibliothèque nationale de France ............... 80 Fig. 1.5: Engraved illustration of the Steer from Louis Liger’s Nouvelle maison rustique, 1749, Bibliothèque nationale de France ............................... 85 Fig. 2.1: First page of Paul et Virginie, appearing in Tome 4 of the Études de la nature, 1788 ............................................................................................. 108 Fig. 2.2: Engraving “Homo sum” from 1773 edition of Voyage à l'île de France. Design by Jean-Michel Moreau le jeune, Engraving by Louis-Joseph Masquelier. ...................... 133 Fig. 2.3: Engraving “Naufrage de Virginie” from 1806 edition of Paul et Virginie. Design by Pierre -Paul Prud’hon, Engraving by Barthélemy Joseph Fulcran Roger. .. 155 Fig. 2.4: Engraving “Paul et Virginie” from 1789 edition of Paul et Virginie. Design by Jean-Michel Moreau le jeune, Engraving by Abraham Girardet .................................. 161 Fig. 2.5: Engraving “Enfance de Paul et Virginie” from1806 edition of Paul et Virginie. Design by Lafitte, Engraving by Bourgeois de la Richardière. .................................... 164 Fig. 3.1: Data visualization of the Introduction to the Histoire des deux Indes, showing textual revisions over the three main editions from 1770, 1774, and 1780. Visualising Raynal Project, ed. Glenn Roe. .................................................................. 206 Fig. 3.2: Engraving “Bienfaisance d’une Famille sauvage du Canada envers des François” from frontispiece of Tome 4, Histoire des deux Indes (1780). Design by Jean-Michel Moreau le jeune, Engraving by Jean Baptiste Blaise Simonet................. 223 v Introduction Disenchantment and Re-enchantment: Rhetorical Tension in the Siècle des Lumières Little by little, science has stretched its tentacles into more and more corners formerly occupied by religion and myth. It has removed the persuasion that there is something beyond what is offered by the evidence of our senses; it has uprooted the conviction that things are what they are, and where they are, for a reason; it has eradicated mystery, order, and purpose — and in their place, it has put nothing at all, simply leaving a gaping void.1 Figure 1: Bonaventure Louis-Prévost and Charles-Nicholas Cochin, frontispiece (detail), in Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, 1772, engraving, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Figured in the frontispiece to Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, Truth is staged between the opposite actions of Reason and Imagination. Reason first strips off the veil from Truth, and then Imagination re-adorns and crowns her. Figural and 1 Joshua Landy and Michael T. Saler, The Re-Enchantment of the World: Secular Magic in a Rational Age (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009) 102–103. 1 discursive elements intermingle to point to meanings beyond what language in its literal function alone can express.2 The reading subjectivity fashioned by the text challenges