The monograph deals with a subject that is rarely covered by Russian philologists: préciosité and the gallant tradition of 17th c. French culture. The author singles out the French and Russian approaches to interpreting preciousness, noting their differences and the fact that Russian scholars are lagging behind the French on the subject of salon literature. A. V. Golubkov rejects the principle of ‘neutrality’ towards the subject of the study, which is evident from his context-based use of psychoanalytical tools, including the term ‘frigidity’ to describe the social genesis of the gallant tradition and the habitus of préciosité. In his examination of the sources of these French cultural phenomena (‘academy’, ‘préciosité’, ‘gallantry’, and ‘salon’) the author shows their association with types of creative activity, Baroque and Classicism, and oral and written practices of salon culture, and portrays linguistic and genre-specific experiments of the précieuses. He stresses their preference of the salon literary genres over rhetorical skills, identifies elements of dialogue-based poetics, and reveals the principal indicators of a new language art.