Les Provinciales (ed. 2)
- Langue:
- anglais
- État:
- Œuvre complète
- Paternité:
- Écrite par l'auteur
- État du texte:
- Texte propre
- Étendue:
- ~120 000 mots · 575 passages
Citer cette œuvre
- APAPascal. (n.d.). Les Provinciales (ed. 2). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/blaise-pascal/lettres-provinciales
- MLAPascal. "Les Provinciales (ed. 2)." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/blaise-pascal/lettres-provinciales.
- ChicagoPascal. Les Provinciales (ed. 2). SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/blaise-pascal/lettres-provinciales.
De quoi il s'agit
L'original français des « Provinciales », de 1656-57 : le texte qu'il faut citer, et celui qui créa la prose française moderne.
Contexte et histoire
Le catalogue contient aussi une traduction anglaise avec introduction historique ; ceci est l'ouvrage tel que Pascal l'écrivit, et cela importe car en l'occurrence la langue est l'argument. Ce qui fit le triomphe de ces dix-huit lettres anonymes ne fut pas seulement ce qu'elles disaient contre la casuistique des jésuites, mais la manière : en français courant, en dialogue, avec ironie et phrases brèves, en un temps où une dispute théologique s'écrivait en latin et pour les spécialistes. Voltaire dit que c'était le premier livre de génie écrit en prose française. Elles furent brûlées par ordre du roi et mises à l'Index en 1660.
Contexte éditorial, non une source citable : contrairement aux passages de l'œuvre, ces données ne peuvent pas être vérifiées dans le corpus.
We were entirely mistaken. It was only yesterday that I was undeceived. Until that time I had laboured under the impression that the disputes in the Sorbonne were vastly important, and deeply affected the interests of religion. The frequent convocations of an assembly so illustrious as that of the Theological Faculty of Paris, attended by so many extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances, led one to form such high expectations that it was impossible to help coming to the conclusion that the subject was most extraordinary. You will be greatly surprised, however, when you learn from the following account the issue of this grand demonstration, which, having made myself perfectly master of the subject, I shall be able to tell you in very few words. Two questions, then, were brought under examination; the one a question of fact, the other a question of right. The question of fact consisted in ascertaining whether M. Arnauld was guilty of presumption, for having asserted in his second letter that he had carefully perused the book of Jansenius, and that he had not discovered the propositions condemned by the late pope; but that, nevertheless, as he condemned these propositions wherever they might occur, he condemned them in Jansenius, if they were really contained in that work. The question here was, if he could, without presumption, entertain a doubt that these propositions were in Jansenius, after the bishops had declared that they were.…