French Literature Companion:
Claude-Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon
Crébillon, Claude-Prosper Jolyot de (1707-77). French novelist. Son of Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon , ‘Crébillon fils’ wrote a number of novels and tales, using a wide variety of forms. His first published work, Le Sylphe (1730), is a short conte. Later he produced two much longer tales, L'Écumoire (1734) and Ah! quel conte (1754). These are satirical in tone, using fairies and magical effects in pseudo-oriental settings. L'Écumoire, however, touched on religious and political issues (the ‘skimmer’ symbolizes the Bull Unigenitus), and earned Crébillon a brief spell in the Bastille. For Le Sopha (1742) he was exiled from Paris for three months. In this work Amanzéi relates various scandalous encounters he witnessed when, in a previous incarnation, his soul inhabited a sofa. Crébillon had already published a more conventional memoirnovel, Les Égarements du cœur et de l'esprit (1736-8). He wrote three epistolary novels: Letters de la marquise de M*** (1732) and his two final works, Letters de la duchesse de*** (1768) and Letters athéniennes (1771). The marchioness and the duchess have serious love-stories to tell. In the ‘Athens’ (= Paris) of the last novel there are several correspondants, chief of whom is Alcibiades, a cynical libertine. The second half of Les Heureux Orphelins (1754) also consists of letters. Crébillon was probably helped in this work by his English wife, as the first part is translated from Elisa Haywood's The Fortunate Foundlings. Finally he wrote two accomplished and entertaining contes dialogués, La Nuit et le moment (1755) and Le Hasard du coin du feu (1763). In 1759, somewhat paradoxically in view of his literary reputation, he became one of the royal censors [see Censorship].
Crébillon fils used to be dismissed as a minor licentious author. Due to the current interest in narratology and the interpretation of ambiguous texts, as well as changes in moral standards, he now attracts more appreciative critical attention. His style, always chaste as to vocabulary, is complex and relies on implications and sous-entendus. The works themselves are often morally ambivalent: while he ridicules promiscuous women and rakes, the scenes of libertinage are written with an engaging zest. Moreover, his preferred forms—letters, memoir-narratives, dialogues—preclude any qualifying comments from an external narrator. Just as many of his characters mask their true intentions, so Crébillon himself leaves us to deduce his own values.
[Vivienne Mylne]
Bibliography
- B. Fort, Le Langage de l'ambiguïté dans l'œuvre de Crébillon fils (1978)
