A Field of Honor

Writers, Court Culture, and Public Theater in French Literary Life from Racine to the Revolution

Gregory Brown author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Columbia University Press

Published:8th Jul '05

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

A Field of Honor cover

This 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.

Gregory S. Brown's A Field of Honor: The Identities of Writers, Court Culture and Public Theater in the French Intellectual Field from Racine to the Revolution offers a multilevel study of the intellectual, social, and institutional contexts of dramatic authorship and the world of playwrights in 18th-century Paris. Brown deftly interweaves research in archival and printed materials, case studies of individual authorial strategies, the rich, often contentious historiography on the French Enlightenment and contemporary cultural theory and criticism. Drawing on a sophisticated array of recent studies, Brown positions his work against and between the grain of alternative approaches and interpretations. He combines scholarship on the history of the book with analyses of political culture and cultural identity, leaving the reader with a strong and revealing appreciation for the tensions and crosscurrents staged at the center of the 18th-century "republic of letters."

Brown'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

ISBN: 9780231124607

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

387 pages