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ThePrécieuses (French:la préciosité[lapʁesjɔzite], i.e. "preciousness") was a17th-century Frenchliterary style andmovement. The main features of this style are the refined language of aristocratic salons,periphrases,hyperbole, andpuns on the theme of gallant love. The movement was similar to the Italianmarinism, Spanishculteranismo, and Englisheuphuism.[1]
The movement arose in the 17th century from the lively conversations and playful word games ofles précieuses (French pronunciation:[lepʁesjøz]), the intellectual, witty and educated women who frequented thesalon ofCatherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet. HerChambre bleue (the "blue room" of herhôtel particulier) offered a Parisian refuge from the dangerous political factionalism and coarse manners of the royal court during the regency ofLouis XIV.
One of the central figures of the salon that gathered at theHôtel de Rambouillet wasMadeleine de Scudéry. She wrote voluminous romance novels that embodied the refinements ofpreciosité including the concepts of feminine elegance, etiquette and courtlyPlatonic love that were hugely popular with female audiences, but scorned by most men, includingMolière, who satirized theprécieuses in his comedyLes Précieuses ridicules (1659). The "questions of love" that were debated in theprécieuses' salons reflected the "courts of love" (fictional courts which judged lovers' behavior) that were a feature of medievalcourtly love.
None of the women ever actually used or defined the termPrécieuse themselves.[2] Myriam Maître has found inpréciosité not so much a listable series of characteristics "as an interplay of forces, a place to confront and resolve the tensions that extended through the century, the court and the field of literature".[3] In assessing the career ofPhilippe Quinault, which began at theHôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, Patricia Howard noted, "For if in French theatre in the second half of the century, women's roles are preeminent, it was the précieux movement which made them so."[4]
Onepréciosité parlor game, the retelling offairy tales as if spontaneously (though the tales were in fact carefully prepared), was to have great effects.[5] Many of these fairy tales, in thepréciosité style, were written, mostly notably byMadame d'Aulnoy. This fashion for fairy tales, and the writers themselves, were a notable influence later uponCharles Perrault,[6] andGabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, the author ofBeauty and the Beast.[7] The stories tended to vary from the folk tradition, for example the characters were made to be of genteel origin.[8] Whilst the heroes and heroines of fairy tales written by theprécieuses often appeared as shepherds and shepherdesses, inpastoral settings, these figures were often secretly royal or noble.[9]
Theprécieuses are also remembered through the filter ofMolière's one-act satire,Les Précieuses ridicules (1659). After years touring the provinces, this bittercomedy of manners brought Molière and his company to the attention of Parisians and attracted the patronage ofLouis XIV.Les Précieuses ridicules is considered to be the origin of thepejorative connotation ofprécieuse as "affected".
The phenomenon of theprécieuses in establishing French literary classicism was first revived by Louis Roederer in 1838. HisMémoires pour servir à l'histoire de la société polie en France, evoked an atmosphere of nostalgia for thedouceur de vivre of theAncien Régime and the aristocratic leisure of its authors, at least for the upper classes. Later, Roxane, a critical character inEdmond Rostand's 1897 playCyrano de Bergerac, is described as aprécieuse.
René Bary (died in 1680) a Frenchhistoriographer and rhetorician wroteLa Rhétorique française où pour principale augmentation l'on trouve les secrets de nostre langue published in Paris in 1653 for the female audience of the précieuses.