«MENAGIANA» IN THE CONTEXT OF DEBATES ON LANGUAGE WITHIN THE XVIIth CENTURY FRENCH INTELLECTUAL CULTURE

The article analyzes the book «Menagiana» (1693) in the context of the debate about the status of language and the source of its norm in the XVIIth century French academic and salon culture. «Menagiana» became a kind of tribute («l’hommage») to the French philologist Gilles Ménage (died in 1692) made by a group of admirers and visitors of his salon. This book differs significantly from others ana, which appeared during the XVIIth century: the witty man replaced the image of pedant. The article deals with the reasons for this transformation, which is associated with the status of the language and state cultural politics initiated by Cardinal Richelieu embodied in the works by Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, Claude Favre de Vaugelas, Dominique Bouhours. The relevance of this study is due to the need to introduce a little-known literary work into scientific use, as well as to clarify how linguistic debates contribute to literary heritage. There is a special feature of the approach revealed in the article which relies on the methodology of historical poetics that is the study of «Menagiana» in the context of genre dynamics of ana against the background of significant changes typical XVIIth century language perception. «Menagiana» breaks with the traditions of scientific ana («Scaligerana», «Thuana», «Perroniana», etc.) and the reason for this gap is the new status of the language: now the source of the linguistic norm are both the royal court and salon culture but not the scholarly community. The results presented in the article contribute to the correct interpretation of both «Menagiana» and the strategies for asserting «high life» linguistic ideals in French culture.