‘L'intelligence des L umières’: On Clair‐Obscur as a Case Study for Early Modern Metaphor

This article considers clair‐obscur within recent thinking on metaphor, considering a range of eighteenth‐century discussions from musical theatre that are irreducible to paraphrase. In the context of the breakdown of ‘imitationist’ theories of the arts in eighteenth‐century F rance, increasingly viewed as having specificities in terms of medium and the psychology of perception, theatre increasingly adopts visual analogy, so that, as the fields of discussion become more specialised, it allows for terminological and conceptual specificities that can be borrowed in meaningful ways. Yet because these uses are irreducible to paraphrase, they require individual analysis, as shown by a few case studies.