The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi in Early Modern Europe: Encounters with a Certain Something

What is the je-ne-sais-quoi? How-if at all-can it be put into words? In addressing these questions, Richard Scholar offers the first full-length study of the je-ne-sais-quoi and its fortunes in early modern Europe. He describes the rise and fall of the expression as a noun and as a topic of debate, examines its cluster of meanings, and uncovers the scattered traces of its 'pre-history'. The je-ne-sais-quoi is often assumed to belong purely to the realm of the literary, but in the early modern period it serves to articulate problems of knowledge in natural philosophy, the passions, and culture, and for that reason it is approached here from an interdisciplinary perspective. Placing major figures of the period such as Montaigne, Shakespeare, Descartes, Corneille, and Pascal alongside some of their lesser-known contemporaries, Scholar argues that the je-ne-sais-quoi serves above all to capture first-person encounters with a 'certain something' that is as difficult to explain as its effects are intense. When early modern writers use the expression in this way, he suggests, they give literary form to an experience that twenty-first-century readers may recognize as something like their own.

Table of Contents:
Part I: Word History 1: A Modish Name Part II: Critical Histories 2: A Secret of Nature? Descartes and the Philosophers 3: The Stroke of Passion: Pascal and the Poets 4: A Sign of Quality: Bouhours and the Polite Circle Part III: Pre-history 5: A Certain Something: Montaigne 6: Beyond Pre-history: The Case of Shakespeare

About the Author :
Richard Scholar is a Fellow and Tutor in French, Oriel College, Oxford

Review :
Richard Scholar's book is a cheerful and exhaustive attempt to describe this phenomenon, readily - and consciously - embracing its inarticulability even while exploring nearly every corner of its territory...I applaud...Scholar's willingness, throughout the book, to attempt to explain something that by definition cannot be explained: as his own argument clearly shows, if you know what it is, it's not what you're looking for David M. Posner, Renaissance Quarterly [a] wonderfully rich and challenging study of the je-ne-sais-quoi. It is extraordinary how [...] relatively little work has been done on the provenance and history of the term. This book fills the gap triumphantly, covering fields as diverse as theology, natural science, poetry, philosophy, and theatre Nicholas Hammond, Modern Language Review riveting...I try to keep an eye on the university press ads because occasionally great delights and surprises turn up ...The history of the je- ne-sais-quoi tells us a good deal about how human beings inhabit the world. Jenny Diski, LRB Richard Scholar's wonderfully rich and challenging study of the je-ne-sais-quoi ... the elegance, detail and...scholarship of Scholar's book. Nicholas Hammond, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge