Author Description

This is the first comprehensive English-language study of the controversial Lettres Provinciales, Pascal's major polemical work against the Society of Jesus. Approaching the text from two related angles, Parish first analyzes judicsiously the substance and structure of the letters themselves (a process which casts light on the nature of polemic as a literary genre), and then scrutinizes, using a great deal of previously inaccessible material, the mainly Jesuit counter-polemic, thereby setting the Provinciales in the context of a broader polemical exchange. By further exploring the link between the letters and Pascal's Pens'ees, the book offers a closer connection between the two works than is generally recognized, and offers some insight into the relationship between polemics and apologetics.