The Personae in the Style of La Rochefoucauld's Maximes

Moralist literature of seventeenth-century France can be characterized by a human dialectic in which the author is in dialogue with himself or with an aspect of his personality, or in which there is a dialogue between the moi and autrui or between moral principles. In La Rochefoucauld's case, there is a stylistic withdrawal, an absence of intervention of the person of the author which allows for an imaginative interplay between the various personae in the style of the Maximes. This tendency creates an imaginary framework that supports an extended and more dramatic development of personification. In the successive versions of any given Maxim personification is generally sharpened, and what emerges from the overall literary texture of the Maximes is a veritable dramatis personae of extraordinary diversity and vitality. By dramatizing moral values in their multifaceted, contradictory nature, the moraliste tries to resolve the paradox inherent in them, while at the same time allowing moral ideas the freedom to remain paradoxical.