Mellie Basset

Please tell us about your research project. 
My research seeks to a systematic analysis of deliberative speech in seventeenth-century long novels, through three approaches: rhetorical, narratological, and socio-cultural. As part of the deliberative genre, discourses of advice can be classified into several discursive subgenres defined by theories of oratory, including persuasion and dissuasion (suasio/dissuasio), exhortation (hortatio) and warning (monitio). The aim of my investigation is to shed light on novelists' experimentation with the precepts and models provided not only by rhetorical treatises, but also by the letter-writing art textbook. In addition to stylistic and rhetorical analysis, this project adopts a narratological approach, studying the role of advisory discourses in novel structure and character construction. It is also based on a socio-cultural approach, as the long novels of the 17th century are both the receptacle and the relay for the religious, spiritual and political crises of the period, transmitting knowledge or delivering ethical prescriptions and questioning the powers and limits of rhetoric.

Could you please tell us a bit more about your scholarship/exchange programme? 
I have been awarded a mobility grant as part of the GATES MaCI project, in partnership with Université Grenoble Alpes and the Maison Française d’Oxford. The main purpose of my stay is to present the progress of my research, receive feedback from specialists in Oxford (particularly through the Early Modern French Research Seminar) share my analytical methods, promote the work of the research unit Litt&Arts (UMR 5316) and the RARE “ Rhétorique de l’Antiquité à la Révolution" research center, exploit the resources of the Bodleian Libraries for iconographic analysis, and expand my academic network.

First impressions of Oxford/the University? 
Oxford is a place where past and present meet, imbued with the legacy of major figures such as Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, Oscar Wilde, T.S. Eliot and Stephen Hawking. Its intellectual richness, exceptional resources, and unique balance of academic vitality and quiet contemplation make it an ideal environment for research and inspiration.