Brenda M. Hosington
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198737261
- eISBN:
- 9780191800740
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198737261.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
In 1639, Susan Du Verger translated selections from two of Jean-Pierre Camus’s collections of short stories, Les Euenemens singuliers (1628) and Les Relations morales (1631). She followed this in ...
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In 1639, Susan Du Verger translated selections from two of Jean-Pierre Camus’s collections of short stories, Les Euenemens singuliers (1628) and Les Relations morales (1631). She followed this in 1641 with a translation of one of his novels, Diotrephe. Histoire Valentine (1626). Camus, in his prefaces, explained his belief that works of fiction should be based on fact, since they then serve as moral exempla rather than frivolous entertainment, inducing readers to follow the paths of virtue, not vice. By carefully reproducing much of Camus’s metadiscourse, Du Verger communicated his redirection of secular fictional forms to moral and religious ends. This chapter discusses Camus’s concept of blending fact and fiction, and his views on the moral and spiritual worth of ‘truthful’ narratives, and examines the transmission of Camus’s ideas by Du Verger in her English translations and their accompanying paratexts, within the socio-cultural context of the Caroline court.Less
In 1639, Susan Du Verger translated selections from two of Jean-Pierre Camus’s collections of short stories, Les Euenemens singuliers (1628) and Les Relations morales (1631). She followed this in 1641 with a translation of one of his novels, Diotrephe. Histoire Valentine (1626). Camus, in his prefaces, explained his belief that works of fiction should be based on fact, since they then serve as moral exempla rather than frivolous entertainment, inducing readers to follow the paths of virtue, not vice. By carefully reproducing much of Camus’s metadiscourse, Du Verger communicated his redirection of secular fictional forms to moral and religious ends. This chapter discusses Camus’s concept of blending fact and fiction, and his views on the moral and spiritual worth of ‘truthful’ narratives, and examines the transmission of Camus’s ideas by Du Verger in her English translations and their accompanying paratexts, within the socio-cultural context of the Caroline court.
