This talk reconceptualizes Madeleine de Scudéry’s map “Carte de Tendre” as more than an allegorical map of love and friendship: it functions as a rule-based, (pervasive) role-playing system that operated across salon practices and narrative fiction. Drawing on Scudéry’s Clélie, salon records and related writings, I show that the Carte prescribes game rules, establishes a “magic circle” linking real and fictional players, and produces narrative outcomes through performative play.
The project envisions a three-part methodology. First, close reading allied with game-analysis reconstructs the Carte’s ludic mechanics and ontological worlds. Second, a computational-linguistic pipeline translates affective language in the texts into coordinates on the Carte to map characters’ emotional trajectories. Third, a practice-based role-play experiment will enact the Carte’s rules.
Biography
Elisa Saggioro is a PhD candidate at ILOS, University of Oslo, and a member of the JEUX project investigating literary games and novelists. Her work sits at the intersection of literature and game studies, with particular interests in maps, role-play, and digital humanities.
THIS TALK IS FREE AND OPEN TO ALL. PLEASE CONTACT PAUL WAKE (P.WAKE@MMU.AC.UK) IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.