The Works of Charles Sorel in the Context of the Debate on “Vraisemblance” in the French Aesthetics of the 17th Century

The article analyzes the peculiarities of understanding the most important category of verisimilitude (vraisemblance) for the French aesthetics of the 17th century from the point of view of the French writer Charles Sorel, author of the “La vraye histoire comique de Francion” (1623–1633). Sorel attaches great importance to the category of verisimilitude, even to the point that he makes “vraisemblance” the main one for building the evolutionary system of the novel genre. In this case, in order to properly understand his creative and aesthetic views, it seems necessary to determine what exactly he understands by verisimilitude. Considering two fundamental aspects of the category of verisimilitude of the 17th century – rhetorical and mimetic – we analyze the particularities in the understanding of the category of verisimilitude by Sorel. Sorel rejects everything that concerns the rhetorical aspect of verisimilitude, that is, he denies everything that concerns the moralizing attitude of the work, focusing on the mimetic aspect, that is, on the proper embodiment of reality in a work of fiction. Nevertheless, despite the apparent similarity of Sorel’s position with the concept of mimesis, when analyzing his works, we see that his views are so different from the generally accepted model, allowing researchers to talk not about mimesis, but about Sorel’s counter-mimesis. This position anticipated the specifics of the literature of libertinage of the 18th century and the laws of realism in the literature of the 19th century.

verisimilitude, vraisemblance, Charles Sorel, histoire comique, roman comique, 17th century French literature, mimesis