PFSCL XLII, 83 (2015) Death, Disappearances and Ends in Seventeenth Century Life and Literature C HARLOTTE T RINQUET DU L YS (U NIVERSITY OF C ENTRAL F LORIDA ) Within the realm of the literate elite, death, disappearances and ends fascinated the seventeenth century and for that reason, still captivate us today. Out of this curiosity grew a series of reflections and responses presented by twelve scholars during three sessions at the annual conference of the SE17, organized in London, Ontario by Jean Leclerc in 2014. Reorganized into a written format, these communications propose to give an overview of these topoi throughout the century. What I find particularly significant to seventeenth-century writing is that public and private spheres and reality and fiction merge together in this ultimate moment of demise, to become an art form. This is what this collection of articles ultimately illustrates. This series of ten essays on literature is framed by two articles about the lives and deaths of real people, Louis XIII to start and the Port-Royal nuns to conclude. Within this frame we will explore diverse genres such as tragedies, novels, fables, fairy tales, and elegies. During the journey through death, we will examine not only recurrent themes in literature like unexpected and premature deaths, the voluntary end of life, the end of love, the end of marriages, but also ends resulting in responses, and the disappearance of some genres themselves. In “Les derniers jours de Louis XIII : chronique d’une mort annoncée”, Francis Assaf explores the reality of the sovereign’s last days by looking at several manuscript accounts, written from diverse perspectives and where authenticity merges with creative writing, in order to bring to life in great details the animated surroundings of the head of state’s passing. The following four articles voice the complexity of the topos of death as it is understood by contemporaries and represented in seventeenth-century Theater. In Ralph Albanese’s “De la stupeur à l’éclaircissement : les paradoxes du dénouement de Cinna”, imminent death is expected for the conspirators; however Corneille’s magnanimous Augustus conciliates private and public interests by showing clemency to his enemies, reordering at the same time the political universe and enabling the reinforcement of absolutism. Charlotte Trinquet du Lys 250 Following with “Il craint… un bon general”: Royal Fear and End Result of Absolutism in Corneille’s Suréna”, we are confronted with the other side of the spectrum and a different era. David K. Wagner draws a parallel between the fictional King Orode of Parthia and a real king, Louis XIV, and shows that Orode’s fear of Suréna and consequent assassination might reflect on the weakening of the absolute monarchy and its consequences on Louis XIV’s ability to govern. Moving on to suicide in theater, Heather Kirk’s article, “Le suicide comme revendication d’indépendance dans La Vraye Didon de Boisrobert” shows how complex the notion of voluntary death was for the seventeenthcentury contemporaries. Breaking with tradition, Boisrobert presents an emancipated Didon, the incarnation of virtue, loyalty and morals, and stoic freedom. Jennifer Tamas, in “La mort orpheline : Le suicide des mères chez Racine”, investigates the predominance of voluntary death in Racine’s theater by examining female suicide in relationship to feministic heroism. Looking at several women and mothers such as Andromaque, Phèdre, Agrippine, Athalie, Josabet, Clytemnestre, Jocaste and Antigone, J. Tamas shows how Racine’s theater is profoundly a-temporal. The next three essays explore, within the theme of disappearance, topoi such as violence, love, and education in women’s fiction of the century. In her article “The End of Marriage: Sexual Violence After Clélie”, Megan R. Kruer examines the importance of Scudéry’s radical rewriting of Lucretia’s story, presenting it as a main part of the novel, and as a literary thinking of rape and violence, framed within the narrative of love and an arch-marriage plot. Bronwyn Reddan, in “Losing Love, Losing Hope: Unhappy Endings in Seventeenth-Century Fairy Tales”, explores another genre of feminine fiction in order to show that the conventional happy ending of fairy tales is compromised by the disappearance of love, whether it is the result of death, separation or disappointment of one or both lovers. This pessimism exemplifies how salonnières examined the contemporary politics of love and marriage. Francis Matthieu, in “Louanges empoisonées” : Feinte, persuasion and éducation dans La Princesse de Clèves”, shows that the premature death of Mme de Chartres within the novel not only influences the morals and decisions of her daughter, but goes well beyond the realm of fiction into the reality of children’s education, as a precursor of modern upbringing treatises of the century. Death, Disappearances and Ends 251 In the subsequent three articles, we will explore the disappearance of models and genres during the literary construction of the seventeenth century. Tatiana Kozhanova shows in “Le dénouement de La Princesse de Clèves de Madame de Lafayette comme la réponse au dilemme pastoral” that the unfinished ending of L’Astrée, posing the question of possible amicable love, is finally closed by Lafayette’s negative response of Mme de Clèves to the dream of pastoral perfect friendship. In “La disparition des modèles antiques dans Le caractère élégiaque de La Mesnardière”, Nicholas Dion demonstrates that the death of the Greco- Roman form of elegy in the seventeenth century is necessary to the creation of the modern genre, characterized by the disappearance of eclecticism typical to this old type of poetry. Similarly, Antoine Biscéré shows in his article “Le crépuscule d’une idole. La déchéance du mythe ésopique au XVII e siècle” that the death of the fictional Vie d’Ésope as well as the removal of the fabulist’s appearance in frontispieces are indispensable to the creation of the pre-modern genre of the fable, based on a new image and new poetics. To conclude this exploration of seventeenth-century death, disappearances and ends, Agnès Cousson takes us back into the reality of the Grand Siècle’s religious life. With an exploration of the epistolary writings of Port Royal’s resisting abbesses after the closure of the Parisian Abbey, she explores the significance of their writings as a reinforcement of their faith, as a means to inscribe their place into history, and as a way to transmit their memory and the identity of their group. These articles on death and disappearance, on the concept of the end in seventeenth-century life and literature, show the importance and significance of the topoi’s place in the collective memory of the elite. These studies also demonstrate that fiction is infused with reality, explaining it, exemplifying it, forging it, and codifying it. By the same token, life becomes a fiction when entering the realm of posterity, exposing, interrogating and exploiting its disorder, crudeness and cruelty in order to explain its authenticity. Equally, public and private spheres are often two faces of the same coin, constantly intermingling and informing each other, creating new realities. Through exploring the ends, we learn how to create new beginnings.