Download or read book Richelieu s Desmarets and the Century of Louis XIV written by H. Gaston Hall and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A reassessment of the career of Desmarets in the context of Richelieu's cultural policies. Desmarets was first Chancellor and founder-member of the Académie française, a star performer in court ballets, novelist, playwright, poet, and architect.
Download or read book Richelieu and His Age written by Joseph Bergin and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of Cardinal Richelieu's career as chief minister to Louis XIII of France presents the original research of eight experts in the field. Linking their work is the belief that Richelieu's ministry was a significant moment in the history of early modern France. The authors reject the traditional picture of Richelieu as the single-handed creator of the French absolute state and the original exponent of Realpolitik. Instead they paint a collective portrait of a statesman politically astute but none the less devout. The Richelieu who emerges is in many respects a conservative figure, but one driven by a genuine desire to establish a more just and peaceful society (both in France and in Europe). The emphasis here, then, is more on Richelieu the Cardinal than on Richelieu the secular statesman. The tragedy and irony of his ministry, as the authors also show, was that to maintain himself in power, Richelieu had to behave more like a Renaissance prince than a Counter-Reformation prelate.
Download or read book Space and Self in Early Modern European Cultures written by David Warren Sabean and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of 'selfhood' conjures up images of self-sufficiency, integrity, introspectiveness, and autonomy characteristics typically associated with 'modernity.' The seventeenth century marks the crucial transition to a new form of 'bourgeois' selfhood, although the concept goes back to the pre-modern and early modern period. A richly interdisciplinary collection, Space and Self integrates perspectives from history, history of literature, and history of art to link the issue of selfhood to the new and vital literature on space. As Space and Self shows, there have at all times been multiple paths and alternative possibilities for forming identities, marking personhood, and experiencing life as a concrete, singular individual. Positioning self and space as specific and evolving constructs, a diverse group of contributors explore how persons become embodied in particular places or inscribed in concrete space. Space and Self thus sets the terms for current discussion of these topics and provides new approaches to studying their cultural specificity.
Download or read book A Theater of Diplomacy written by Ellen R. Welch and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-03-16 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seventeenth-century French diplomat François de Callières once wrote that "an ambassador resembles in some way an actor exposed on the stage to the eyes of the public in order to play great roles." The comparison of the diplomat to an actor became commonplace as the practice of diplomacy took hold in early modern Europe. More than an abstract metaphor, it reflected the rich culture of spectacular entertainment that was a backdrop to emissaries' day-to-day lives. Royal courts routinely honored visiting diplomats or celebrated treaty negotiations by staging grandiose performances incorporating dance, music, theater, poetry, and pageantry. These entertainments—allegorical ballets, masquerade balls, chivalric tournaments, operas, and comedies—often addressed pertinent themes such as war, peace, and international unity in their subject matter. In both practice and content, the extravagant exhibitions were fully intertwined with the culture of diplomacy. But exactly what kind of diplomatic work did these spectacles perform? Ellen R. Welch contends that the theatrical and performing arts had a profound influence on the development of modern diplomatic practices in early modern Europe. Using France as a case study, Welch explores the interconnected histories of international relations and the theatrical and performing arts. Her book argues that theater served not merely as a decorative accompaniment to negotiations, but rather underpinned the practices of embodied representation, performance, and spectatorship that constituted the culture of diplomacy in this period. Through its examination of the early modern precursors to today's cultural diplomacy initiatives, her book investigates the various ways in which performance structures international politics still.
Download or read book Into the Dark Night and Back The Mystical Writings of Jean Joseph Surin written by Moshe Sluhovsky and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-12-24 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The French mystic Jean-Joseph Surin (1600–65) was the chief exorcist during the infamous demonic possession in Loudun in 1634–37. During the exorcism, a demon entered Surin’s own soul, and the exorcist became demoniac. He spent the following eighteen years of his life mute and paralyzed. All the while his troubled mind conversed with God, and he composed hymns and poems that tried to comprehend his agony. Surin left detailed descriptions of the dramatic events that shaped his life and fascinated his fellow Jesuits. But Surin was also an author of spiritual texts, a spiritual director of souls, a poet, and a prolific correspondent. This volume is the first to offer English readers a comprehensive selection of Surin’s mystical writings.
Download or read book Early Modern French Thought written by Michael Moriarty and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an examination of three major French thinkers of the seventeenth century, Descartes, Pascal, and Malebranche, of whom the latter two are comparatively little studied in the English-speaking world. It deals with a common attitude of suspicion towards everyday experience, which theysee as dominated and obscured by sensation, imagination, and the presence of the body. This attitude, however, obliges them to develop detailed and sophisticated accounts of the shaping of experience not only by the body but by interpersonal and social relationships, and of the tension between humannature as it is and as we experience it. The treatment of Descartes thus challenges the interpretation that sees him as eliminating the body from 'subjectivity', while that of Pascal and Malebranche shows how their critical attitude towards experience (a fertile source for twentieth-century Frenchthinkers) is linked with their religious doctrines, especially their Augustinian emphasis on Original Sin.
Download or read book Fallen Nature Fallen Selves written by Michael Moriarty and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2006-05-25 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth centuries, French writing is especially concerned with analysing human nature. The ancient ethical vision of man's nature and goal (we achieve fulfilment by living our lives according to reason, the highest and noblest element of our nature) survives, even, to some extent, in Descartes. But it is put into question especially by the revival of St Augustine's thought, which focuses on the contradictions and disorders of human desires and aspirations. Analyses of behaviour display a powerful suspicion of appearances. Human beings are increasingly seen as motivated by self-love: they are driven by the desire for their own advantage, and take a narcissistic delight in their own image. Moral and religious writers re-emphasize the traditional imperative of self-knowledge, but in such a way as to suggest the difficulties of knowing oneself. Operating with the Cartesian distinction between mind and body, they emphasize the imperceptible influence of bodily processes on our thought and attitudes. They analyse human beings' ignorance (due to self-love) of their own motives and qualities, and the illusions under which they live their lives. Their critique of human behaviour is no less searching than that of writers who have broken with traditional religious morality, such as Hobbes and Spinoza. A wide range of authors is studied, some well-known, others much less so: the abstract and general analyses of philosophers and theologians (Descartes, Jansenius, Malebranche) are juxtaposed with the less systematic and more concrete investigations of writers like Montaigne and La Rochefoucauld, not to mention the theatre of Corneille, Molière, and Racine.
Download or read book French classical Theatre Today written by Philip Tomlinson and published by Rodopi. This book was released on 2001 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arising from the activities of the Centre for Seventeenth-Century French Theatre, this volume proposes a selection of eighteen essays by internationally renowned scholars aimed at all those who value and work with the theatre of seventeenth-century France, whether in teaching, research or performance. Frequently seeking out the interfaces of these areas, the essays cover historiography (including that of opera), the theory and practice of textual editing, visualizing - in terms of both theatre architecture and the significance of playtext illustration -, approaches to study and research (including the most recent applications of computer technology), and performance studies which relate the classical canon to contemporary French and other cultures. Always suggesting new directions, challenging the epistemological bases of the very concept of French classical theatre, the essays provide a snapshot of scholarship in the field at the dawn of a new millennium, and offer an ideal opportunity to reassess its past whilst looking to its future. blurb van Faux 205 - Tomlinson
Download or read book Sacral Kingship in Bourbon France written by Sean Heath and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-28 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians of the ancien régime have long been interested in the relationship between religion and politics, and yet many issues remain contentious, including the question of sacral monarchy. Scholars are divided over how - and, indeed, if - it actually operated. With its nuanced analysis of the cult of Saint Louis, covering a vast swathe of French history from the Wars of Religion through the zenith of absolute monarchy under Louis XIV to the French Revolution and Restoration, Sacral Kingship in Bourbon France makes a major contribution to this debate and to our overall understanding of France in this fascinating period. Saint Louis IX was the ancestor of the Bourbons and widely regarded as the epitome of good Christian kingship. As such, his cult and memory held a significant place in the political, religious, and artistic culture of Bourbon France. However, as this book reveals, likenesses to Saint Louis were not only employed by royal flatterers but also used by opponents of the monarchy to criticize reigning kings. What, then, does Saint Louis' cult reveal about how monarchies fostered a culture of loyalty, and how did sacral monarchy interact with the dramatic religious, political and intellectual developments of this era? From manuscripts to paintings to music, Sean Heath skilfully engages with a vast array of primary source material and modern debates on sacral kingship to provide an enlightening and comprehensive analysis of the role of Saint Louis in early modern France.
Download or read book The Enlightenment in Practice written by Jeremy L. Caradonna and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 531 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public academic prize contests—the concours académique—played a significant role in the intellectual life of Enlightenment France, with aspirants formulating positions on such matters as slavery, poverty, the education of women, tax reform, and urban renewal and submitting the resulting essays for scrutiny by panels of judges. In The Enlightenment in Practice, Jeremy L. Caradonna draws on archives both in Paris and the provinces to show that thousands of individuals—ranging from elite men and women of letters artisans, and peasants—participated in these intellectual competitions, a far broader range of people than has been previously assumed. Caradonna contends that the Enlightenment in France can no longer be seen as a cultural movement restricted to a small coterie of philosophers or a limited number of printed texts. Moreover, Caradonna demonstrates that the French monarchy took academic competitions quite seriously, sponsoring numerous contests on such practical matters as deforestation, the quality of drinking water, and the nighttime illumination of cities. In some cases, the contests served as an early mechanism for technology transfer: the state used submissions to identify technical experts to whom it could turn for advice. Finally, the author shows how this unique intellectual exercise declined during the upheavals of the French Revolution, when voicing moderate public criticism became a rather dangerous act.
Download or read book Plays Poems and Miscellaneous Writings associated with George Villiers Second Duke of Buckingham written by Robert D. Hume and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-03-22 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham (1628-1687) was one of the most scandalous and controversial figures of the Restoration period. He was the principal author of The Rehearsal (1671), an enormously successful burlesque play that ridiculed John Dryden and the rhymed heroic drama. Historians remember Buckingham as an opponent who helped topple Clarendon from power in 1667, as a member of the 'Cabal' government in the early 1670s, and as an ally of the Earl of Shaftesbury in the political crisis of 1678-1683. The duke was prominent among the 'court wits' (Rochester, Etherege, Sedley, Dorset, Wycherley, and their circle); he was closely associated with such writers as Butler and Cowley; he was a conspicuous champion of religious toleration and a friend of William Penn. No edition of Buckingham has been published since 1775, partly because his work presents horrendous attribution problems. He was (probably) adapter or co-author of six plays (two of them vastly successful for more than a century) including one in French that appears here in English for the first time. He is also associated with nine topical pieces (variously political, religious, and satiric) and some twenty poems of wildly varying type. The 'Buckingham' commonplace book has previously been published only in fragmentary form. Almost all of these works present major difficulties in both attribution and annotation, here seriously addressed for the first time. This edition is a companion venture to Harold Love's important edition of Rochester (OUP, 1999).
Download or read book The Age of Louis Xiv written by F.M. Arouet and published by Рипол Классик. This book was released on with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Meaning of Literature written by Timothy J. Reiss and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this searching and wide-ranging book, Timothy J. Reiss seeks to explain how the concept of literature that we accept today first took shape between the mid-sixteenth century and the early seventeenth, a time of cultural transformation. Drawing on literary, political, and philosophical texts from Central and Western Europe, Reiss maintains that by the early eighteenth century divergent views concerning gender, politics, science, taste, and the role of the writer had consolidated, and literature came to be regarded as an embodiment of universal values. During the second half of the sixteenth century, Reiss asserts, conceptual consensus was breaking down, and many Western Europeans found themselves overwhelmed by a sense of social decay. A key element of this feeling of catastrophe, Reiss points out, was the assumption that thought and letters could not affect worldly reality. Demonstrating that a political discourse replaced the no-longer-viable discourse of theology, he looks closely at the functions that letters served in the reestablishment of order. He traces the development of the idea of literature in texts by Montaigne, Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, and Cervantes, among others; through seventeenth-century writings by such authors as Davenant, Boileau, Dryden, Rymer, Anne Dacier, Astell, and Leibniz; to eighteenth-century works including those of Addison, Pope, Batteux and Hutcheson, Burke, Lessing, Kant, and Wollstonecraft. Reiss follows key strands of the tradition, particularly the concept of the sublime, into the nineteenth century through a reading of Hegel's Aesthetics. The Meaning of Literature will contribute to current debates concerning cultural dominance and multiculturalism. It will be welcomed by anyone interested in literature and in cultural studies, including literary theorists and historians, comparatists, intellectual historians, historical sociologists, and philosophers.
Download or read book From Criminal to Courtier written by David Kunzle and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-10-11 with total page 717 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The art of the Netherlands (Dutch and Flemish) is unique in Early Modern Europe in its concern for military cruelty against civilians, principally the peasantry. Decimated by time and changes in taste, this popular iconography proves varied and extensive, stretching from Bruegel to and past Rubens. 'Massacres of the Innocents' continue to be a favourite subject through the Eighty Years War, in contrast to ruling-class glorifications of war. Dutch patriotic siege prints lay claim to 'scientific' precision in landscapes free of military terror, while the idea of military conquest is presented as generous rather than cruel in the ever-popular figure of Scipio Africanus. Most of the pictorial material is unfamiliar, some of it even to specialists and never before published; new light is shed on the more familiar phenomena of the civic guard groups and Ter Borch courtier-officers, 'good soldiers' overcoming a bad image.
Download or read book The Contested Parterre written by Jeffrey S. Ravel and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-05 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the playhouses of eighteenth-century France, clerks and students, soldiers and merchants, and the occasional aristocrat stood in the pit, while the majority of the elite sat in loges. These denizens of the parterre, who accounted for up to two-thirds of the audience, were given to disruptive behavior that culminated in full-scale riots in the last years before the Revolution. Offering a commoner's eye view of the drama offstage, this fascinating history of French theater audiences clearly demonstrates how problems in the parterre reflected tensions at the heart of the Old Regime.Jeffrey S. Ravel vividly depicts the scene in the parterre where the male spectators occupied themselves shoving one another, drinking, urinating, and confronting the actors with critiques of the performance. He traces the futile efforts of the Bourbon Court—and later its Enlightened opponents—to control parterre behavior by both persuasion and force. Ravel describes how the parterre came to represent a larger, more politicized notion of the public, one that exposed the inability of the government to accommodate the demands of French citizens. An important contribution to debates on the public sphere, Ravel's book is the first to explore the role of the parterre in the political culture of eighteenth-century France.
Download or read book French Forum written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 802 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Age of Louis XIV written by Voltaire and published by . This book was released on 1779 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
