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Changing France

Literature and Material Culture in the Second Empire

Anne Green author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Anthem Press

Published:1st Dec '13

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Changing France cover

A fresh insight into the rich possibilities of expression opened up to French Second Empire writers through apparently trivial aspects of modern material life.

Focusing on cultural areas such as exhibitions, transport, food, dress and photography, ‘Changing France’ shows how apparently trivial aspects of modern life provided Second Empire writers with a versatile means of thinking about deeper issues.

The French Second Empire (1852-70) was a time of exceptionally rapid social, industrial and technological change. French literature also underwent fundamental changes during this period as writers embraced ‘modernity’ and incorporated new technologies, fashions and inventions into their work. Focusing on cultural areas such as exhibitions, transport, food, dress and photography, ‘Changing France’ shows how apparently trivial aspects of modern life provided Second Empire writers with a versatile means of thinking about deeper issues. This volume brings literature and material culture together to reveal how writing itself changed as writers recognised the extraordinarily rich possibilities of expression opened up to them by the changing material world.

‘This book reveals how certain specific features of literary texts, many already familiar to the reader, shed their particularity or their peculiarity and gain a new general, illustrative significance in the light of the various trends that were part of the culture of the age… [T]he book is greatly to be recommended and a pleasure to read.’ —David Baguley, ‘French Studies’

ISBN: 9781783080700

Dimensions: 229mm x 153mm x 26mm

Weight: 454g

208 pages