Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewEighteenth-century specialists are well acquainted with the controversies surrounding the premieres of Charles Palissot's Les Philosophes and Voltaire's Le Caffé; ou, L'Écossaise at the Comédie-Française in 1760. […] Connors offers new perspectives on the conflict by delving deeply into the pamphlet literature and periodical reviews of the affair. For example, there is an insightful analysis of the short pamphlet Les Philosophes manqués by André-Charles Cailleau, written in the form of a play but never intended for the stage, which demonstrates how participants in the controversy appealed to both readers and spectators.
[…] [T]his book is a welcome addition to recent interdisciplinary approaches to the interplay of public theatre and political culture in Old Regime and Revolutionary France.
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French StudiesConnors’s rich description of the political and personal calculations involved in Voltaire’s decision to enter the fray convincingly buttresses the argument that these plays assume a new genre identity by being mobilized for publicity purposes that far exceed the boundaries of the stage.
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Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern EraTable of ContentsAcknowledgements
List of illustrations
Introduction: decision makers,
doctes and theatre
1. Culture wars:
philosphes and anti-
philosophes in eighteenth-century France
2. The anatomy of a crime: polemics, pamphlets and preconditioning
3. A critical performance:
Les Philosophes hits the boards
4. Parterre and balcony, spectator and reader: Palissot’s dramaturgical strategies
5. Pamphlets on the stage: Voltaire’s
riposte philosophique6. Spectators or readers? Voltaire’s ‘public’ concerns in
L’Ecossaise7. The affair continues: critical uncertainty in eighteenth-century France
8. (Re)Creating the event: performance criticism as intellectual war
9. Following the event: new definitions of theatre and criticism
10. Aftermath: theatre and polemics in pre-Revolutionary France
Conclusion:
le cri publicBibliography
Index
