French Salons

Challenging many of the conclusions of recent historiography, including the depiction of salonnières as influential power brokers, French Salons offers an original, penetrating, and engaging analysis of elite culture and society in France before, during, and after the Revolution.

"The world of the 18th century salon has long been lauded as a meritocratic setting where writers, philosophers, and women created the Enlightenment. Based on a thorough study of archival sources and using methodology derived from cultural history, social history, and the history of literature, The World of Salons proposes a completely new reading of salons' sociability in eighteenth-century Paris. It challenges the commonly accepted vision of salons as literary circles that were part of the Republic of Letters. It argues, instead, that salons were institutions of worldly sociability, had helped shape 'the world' (le monde) and high society. They have been essential places where the aristocratic elites of the capital met and interacted with literary figures. These interactions based on the mastery of the codes of polite conversation but also on the circulation of news and of personal reputations are the subject of this book. The World of the Salon looks at the way in which eighteenth-century social elites redefined themselves through their practices of worldly sociability. It highlights why some men of letters of the Enlightenment attended the salons. Moving from the salons to worldliness permits taking on some broader debates as well. What relations did worldly sociability maintain with the public sphere? How did the Parisian nobility use the idea of worldly merit and the figure of the man of the world (homme du monde) to preserve its social preeminence? Was the new political culture characterized by an appeal to the public compatible with the monarchical apparatus and with court intrigues? The World of the Salons is suitable for an Anglophone audience of early modern European cultural, political, and intellectual historians"--Provided by publisher.

Biographical sketches of French women who participated in salons which reveal their intellectual and cultural influence.

Expand your vision of what a fantasy story can be with tales by Peter S. Beagle, Lucius Shepard, Catherynne M. Valente, Paul Di Filippo, and others. Winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology Inspired by the literary salons of eighteenth-century France, Salon Fantastique brings together renowned authors to create and share new tales that show the fantasy form at its best. The resulting stories form a conversation between established and emerging writers, historical and contemporary fiction, timeless folklore themes and the immediacy of modern politics, traditional linear narratives, and more experimental storytelling. Kicking off the collection is Delia Sherman’s “La Fée Verte,” in which a nineteenth-century prostitute takes a lover among the other women in a Parisian bordello, a mysterious wraith who sees the past, present, and future. In Catherynne M. Valente’s “A Gray and Soundless Tide,” a woman shelters a selkie and learns her tragic story, while in Paul Di Filippo’s “Femaville 29,” a tsunami gives birth to a glorious new city rising from the imagination of children. In the intimate company of today’s master fantasists, you’ll be gifted with stories that will take the genre in directions you never could have imagined . . . “Bring[s] together mostly new fantasy writers, most of them contributors to previous Datlow/Windling books and perhaps forming a distinct ‘school.’ Call it American magic realism.” —Publishers Weekly “A roster of fifteen contributors to make any lover of literary fantasy go weak at the knees. . . . an anthology that rewards reflection.” —Strange Horizons

The first half of the book is a detailed study of how the salons influenced the development of literature. Beasley argues that many women were not only writers, they also served as critics for the literary sphere as a whole. In the second half of the book Beasley examines how historians and literary critics subsequently portrayed the seventeenth century literary realm, which became identified with the great reign of Louis XIV and designated the official canon of French literature. Beasley argues that in a rewriting of this past, the salons were reconfigured in order to advance an alternative view of this premier moment of French culture and of the literary masterpieces that developed out of it. Through her analysis of how the seventeenth century salon has been defined and transmitted to posterity, Beasley illuminates facets of France's collective memory, and the powers that constituted it in the past and that are still working to define it today.

The first half of the book is a detailed study of how the salons influenced the development of literature. Beasley argues that many women were not only writers, they also served as critics for the literary sphere as a whole. In the second half of the book Beasley examines how historians and literary critics subsequently portrayed the seventeenth century literary realm, which became identified with the great reign of Louis XIV and designated the official canon of French literature. Beasley argues that in a rewriting of this past, the salons were reconfigured in order to advance an alternative view of this premier moment of French culture and of the literary masterpieces that developed out of it. Through her analysis of how the seventeenth century salon has been defined and transmitted to posterity, Beasley illuminates facets of France's collective memory, and the powers that constituted it in the past and that are still working to define it today.