Environmental Concerns in Bernardin de Saint Pierre's Paul et Virginie
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9346263 |
|---|---|
| Authors | G Pacini (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 87-103 |
| Publication date | 2011-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | ISLE Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1076-0962 • E-ISSN: 1759-1090 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/isle/isr006 |
| OpenAlex | W2078689283 |
| Language | FR |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 2 |
Paul et Virginie"Man [. ..] upsets the plans of nature" is an alarm that has sounded throughout human history, but concerns about the negative consequences of climate change erupted with particular force in the eighteenth century when Europeans realized that the plantation economies of their colonies were damaging the Earth's natural landscape. 1 The following essay traces a French perspective on these worries, focusing in particular on the philosophy and science at work in Bernardin de Saint Pierre's best-selling novel Paul et Virginie, a text first published in 1788 in the third edition of a multi-volume philosophical treatise entitled Etudes de la Nature.Because of its great popularity, the fictional story was soon reprinted independently, and as such it has traditionally been read.This interpretation has come at a cost, however, because, as Bernardin stated in 1806, the novel was in part "an application" of the Etudes' laws. 2 When read as an integral part of the Etudes, Paul et Virginie emerges as a scientifically informed, albeit poetically constructed, commentary on the effects of current economic and agricultural practices on the Ile de France, a small island in the Indian ocean, now known as Mauritius.Although it presents itself as a "pastoral" tale ("pastorale," 29), the novel is carefully set in a precise historical and geographical location.The story is said to have taken place between 1726 and 1745, and is linked to verifiable historical events such as La Bourdonnais's tenure as French governor of the island, and the shipwreck of the Saint-Ge ́ran.Critics have therefore noted that Paul et Virginie oscillates between an idyllic representation of a harmonious past and a forceful cultural critique of
Art · Art history · Humanities · SAINT · Bee Products Chemical Analysis · Historical and Literary Studies · Rousseau and Enlightenment Thought
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,29 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2022 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |