Joan E. DeJean Bücher

Although not a direct parody like his Virgile travesti, Scarron's Roman comique is nevertheless one of the works of seventeenth-cen- tury French prose fiction most conscious of literary tradition and most self-conscious with regard to its own narrative techniques. The role of the narrator, the functioning of rhetoric and the structure of the novel are all examined from the point of view of these notions, to show why the Roman comique may be termed a novelist's novel, a novel about novels and the paradox on which they are based - the making of credible fiction.

Writing with great elan, DeJean explains how the glittering world of Louis XIV set the standards of sophistication, style, and glamour that still rule today's lifestyles.