French Language in the Seventeenth Century

The sixty French texts edited here are all direct commentaries, by contemporary authors, on the French language in the 17th century. By this time, French had begun to assert its independence; in its written and printed form it wasbeing used for a wide variety of literary, technical and administrative purposes. Its practitioners not only successfully challenged the hitherto dominant position of Latin, but also began, for the first time, to discuss and analyse for its own sake the language which was now their preferred medium for expression - hence, in the first half of the seventeenth century, a growing number of publications on the nature and characteristics of French. Thetexts demonstrate the sustained critical preoccupationwith the welfare of the French language in the 17th century, and illustrate the various ways in which the writers of the age contributed to its development as an instrument ofliterary expression and social intercourse.

A collection of texts of real interest not only to those who practice historical linguistics, but also to a wider public which sets a high premium on all aspects of French 17th-century literature and is keen to know more about the forging of the verbal tool which was handled with such skill for so many purposes.