Chapter Introduction

Abstract

Figures of Chance I: Chance in Literature and the Arts (16th–21st Centuries) proposes a transhistorical analysis that will serve as a reference work on the evolution of literary and artistic representations of chance and contingency. Alongside its multidisciplinary companion volume (Figures of Chance II), it considers how the projective and predictive capacity of societies is shaped by representations and cultural models of a reality that is understood, to varying degrees, to be contingent, unpredictable, or chaotic. Giving special emphasis to the French context while also developing broad cross-cultural comparisons, this volume examines the dialogue between evolving conceptions and changing representations of chance, from Renaissance figures of Fortune to the data-driven world of the present. Written by recognized specialists of each of the periods studied, it identifies and historicizes the main fictional and factual modes of portraying, narrating, and comprehending chance in the West.