LINGUISTIQUE ET RHETORIQUE 'CARTESIENNES': 'L'ART DE PARLER' DE BERNARD LAMY. (FRENCH TEXT) (RHETORIC, THEORY OF LITERATURE, HISTORY OF LINGUISTICS)

This dissertation examines the innovative features of the various editions of Bernard Lamy's Art de parler and studies its impact on the history of rhetoric.; A disciple of Descartes and Malebranche, Lamy was the author of treatises on mathematics and sciences. L'Art de parler was perhaps his most important contribution, and was well known in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.; In the first editions, the four books of Lamy's Art de parler were defined as a treatise on "elocution". They were followed by a critical analysis of rhetoric, the "Discours sur l'art de persuader". In later editions, the "Discours" was incorporated as the fifth book of the manual, which was then entitled La Rhetorique ou l'art de parler. In a new introduction, Lamy defined both arts as aspects of the same discipline.; In both works, Lamy proposed a drastic transformation and reduction of traditional rhetoric. He excluded ancient techniques of "inventio", and posited a preliminary logic, the model for which, derived from the Cartesian method, he found in the Art de penser of Port-Royal. He considered philosophical grammar to be the main component of the art of speech, and tried to relate "elocutio" to Descartes' psycho-physiology of passions.; Although Lamy's rhetorical theory may have contributed inadvertently to the decline of rhetoric, it initiated the development of rationalistic thought in the various domains related to the study of language. His Art de parler is therefore relevant to various fields: rhetoric, philosophy, and the history of linguistics. In many respects, it also contributed to the theory of French classicism by setting forth the rules of proper composition. Had it not been eclipsed by Boileau's Art poetique, it might have been the most important manifesto of classicism.