Tuesday 23rd November 2021, 5:15-6:30pm

Hovenden Room, All Souls College

Anna Glieden (Oriel) - History of Polemic? The ideal ‘homme de lettres’ Voltaire in Irailh’s Querelles littéraires (1761)

Even though the Querelles littéraires, ou Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire des Révolutions de la République des Lettres, depuis Homère jusqu’à nos jours (1761) by the Abbé Augustin Simon Irailh is considered the first history of querelles littéraires that marked the Republic of Letters and is frequently referred to as such, it has rarely been looked at in greater detail. On closer examination, the historicity of this anthology must be questioned. On the one hand, Irailh’s anthology shows that an intellectual pursuit emerged decades earlier through querelles littéraires and has conditioned the ‘gens de lettres’ ever since and, thus, corresponds to the development of a ‘literary field’ such as Bourdieu defines it a century later. On the other hand, Irailh’s anthology is not a real historical narrative; it is above all a polemical writing that engages itself in querelles littéraires. Behind the veneer of a historical anthology of quarrels and in a time where Voltaire was well known for his querelles littéraires, Irailh not only legitimises the querelleur Voltaire, but even elevates him to a mythical figure, to the ideal ‘homme de lettres’ of a new ‘literary field’.

Harriet McKinley Smith (Jesus) - 'But O! He could not speak': the mute voice in Mary Robinson's 'The Savage of Aveyron

(This paper will be given via Zoom)

In 1800, the English Romantic poet Mary Robinson learned of a French feral child found living in the woods near Saint Sernin. The real-life boy’s discovery inspired her to write the ballad ‘The Savage of Aveyron’ and the poem raised several questions about the child’s rudimentary existence: who, or what, was he? How did he come to be in the woods? How can he communicate his story if he could not speak? The boy’s mutism is central to his characterisation within the poem, reflecting simultaneously his natural innocence, but also his experience of trauma; his mother is murdered by ‘ruffians three’ and he is then forced to live a solitary life in the woods. This paper examines how Robinson portrays the feral child’s identity to navigate the complex relationship between mutism and narrative voice.