Description
Book SynopsisThis study of eighteenth-century French playwriting and playwrights reviews individual authorial strategies for self-fashioning and the playwrights' intellectual, social, and institutional contexts, using research in original sources and analysis of the contentious historiography and competing analytic contructs in cultural theory and criticism.
Trade ReviewBrown's book provides a fascinating analysis of the world of dramatic authors during the Old Regime...Effectively challenges aspects of historians'current understanding of the political culture of Old Regime France while providing new interpretations of dramatic writers and their relationship with that culture... And its overall quality is certainly equal to that of the best historical monographs published in the traditional manner. American Historical Review How giants like Voltaire and Beaumarchais managed to beat the system, turn it to their advantage, and, in the case of Beaumarchais, make the Comedie work more in the interests of the profession. But Brown does not neglect the authors whom the system beat... An exceptional contribution to theater and cultural history. H France An important contribution to studies of cultural politics in the... eighteenth century and is sure to become required reading. -- Katherine Astbury British Journal of Eighteenth-Century Studies
