Journal essays by P.K. de Marivaux, collected in sever-al books by the writer himself, have only lately attracted the attention of academic scholars. Meanwhile, his essays not only deepen our under-standing of the genius of the writer, who is considered now as one of the most significant Enlightenment playwrights and novelists, but also help to explain the special traits of some forms of philosophizing originated in the eighteenth century both within the Enlightenment and non-Enlightenment circles. The analysis of some genre innovations in "The French Spectator", "The Cabinet of the Philosopher", and "The Indigent Philosopher" contributes to our better understanding of the ways of evolution of essay in that period and reveals special relations between journalist narrative and poetics of Rococo.
Marivaux; essay; criticism; philosophy; narration; rococo.