Nicolas Boileau - Œuvres diverses du Sieur D*** avec le traité du sublime ou du merveilleux dans le discours - 1674

BOILEAU-DESPRÉAUX (Nicolas) Various works by Sieur D*** with the treatise on the sublime or the marvelous in speech.

Paris, Claude Barbin, 1674. 2 parts in 1 volume in-4 (18x24. 5cm) . 178 pages + 102 pages. Rear binding in full dark green morocco. Spine with 5 raised bands decorated with the title and the year (at the tail) . Double golden fillet on the cuts. Framed with floral garland, double gilded fillet and dotted fillet on the contreplats. Marbled guards. Golden slices.

First collective edition, partly original.

Illustrated with a frontispiece engraved by Landry and a plate engraved by Chauveau at the head of the Lectern.
In addition to the first nine Satires, the Discourse on Satire and the Epistle to the King, the edition contains the first four Epistles, the complete Poetic Art, and the first four songs from the Lectern (in the original edition) .

“Boileau's Various Works, published in 1674, included his translation - previously unpublished in French - of Peri Hupsous attributed to Longinus (Du sublime) , followed by Critical Reflections on some passages by the rhetorician Longinus.
This ineffable was announced from the preface regarding the presentation of the historical Longinus: the singular value of the Treatise on the Sublime did not reside, according to Boileau, in the sole aptitude of its author to analyze the sublime, it was contained in life itself by Longinus. By interpreting the sublime work in the light of a life itself sublime, Boileau underlined the high rank of Longinus - talented orator, critic, minister of state and philosopher and saw in him a character worthy of being highlighted. parallel with Socrates and Cato (Complete Works, p. 336) . Feeling the intimate presence of the author in his text, Boileau then declared: His feelings have something that marks not only a sublime spirit, but a soul very elevated above the common. The master of the neoclassical order thus found himself confronted with an intangible and indefinable trait, a je ne sais quoi which drew attention less to the sublime than to the critic's incapacity to offer a positive description of it. » (Louis Martin)

This work by Nicolas Boileau, with great resonance, also had its place in the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns. Indeed, Boileau led the classics and supported a theory of literary creation which is based on respect and fair appreciation of the heritage of antiquity.

Very nice copy. Immaculate white interior devoid of foxing. Superb copy in full Jansenist morocco, except for the slightly exposed spine.