Il catalogo onomastico dell’Histoire comique de Francion di Charles Sorel

Abstract

The Histoire comique de Francion, the baroque, libertine, multiform novel by Charles Sorel (1623, 1626 and 1633) presents a rich, multi-faceted, onomastic repertoire, consistent with the complexity of styles, tones, and narrative levels of the environments described and the disparate stories of which the text is composed. The onomastic catalogue consists, on the one hand, of common names that sometimes involve an ultra-popular, (almost) phonetic transcription, producing a powerful realistic effect, and, on the other, of names invented by the author according to a series diversified procedures. Another onomastic procedure involves taking names from the literary tradition, but often in an antiphrastic function. This paper focuses on the naming mechanisms which converge in the creation of the composite onomastic catalogue of the text.