The Age of ConversationNew York Review Books, 2005 - 488 páginas In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between the reign of Louis XIII and the Revolution, the French nobility of the ancien regime turned their energies to developing the art of sociability, a refined code of manners, and an ideal of gallant, spirited conversation that became a model for social and intellectual life. Benedetta Craveri's history of this leisured, worldly society begins in the 1620s with the celebrated Blue Room of the Marquise de Rambouillet, one of the first in a long series of women who resided over conversations among nobles, writers, prelates, and diplomats. The women Craveri profiles played a significant part in the development of new literary forms such as the novel and the maxim, the codification of language, taste, and behavior, and debates over religion, philosophy, and science. Some, like Madame de Lafayette and Madame de Stael, were gifted writers themselves. Some were involved in the major events of their time, like the Grande Mademoiselle and the Duchesse de Longueville during the Fronde rebellion. Later, the Marquise de Lambert, Madame de Tencin, and Julie de Lespinasse opened their salons to intellectuals such as Fontenelle, Montesquieu, d'Alembert, and Diderot, thus helping to spread the ideas of the Enlightenment. In demonstrating the diversity of these women's accomplishments, Benedetta Craveri brings to life this brilliant, vanished culture that perfected the pleasure of living. In her pages, the world of La Rochefoucauld, Louis XIV, and Votaire, of Jansenism, preciosity, Mlle de Scudery's literary portraits, and Mme de Sevigne's letters, appears in all its fascinating complexity. |
Contenido
Daughters of Eve | 9 |
The Blue Room | 27 |
The Âme du Rond | 45 |
Derechos de autor | |
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Abbé admiration aristocratic beautiful behavior bienséances Blue Room Bussy-Rabutin Comte Comtesse Condé conversation Correspondance court culture d'Alembert daughter Duchesse edited Éditions esprit femmes Ferté-Imbault française France François French friends friendship Fronde galant Grand Histoire Historiettes homme honnête honnêteté hôtel de Rambouillet ideal intellectual Jansenist Jean Julie Julie de Lespinasse La Ferté-Imbault ladies letters literary literature littéraire littérature Louis XIV Madame Mademoiselle Marc Fumaroli marquise marquise's Maure Maximes Mémoires Méré Mlle de Lespinasse Mlle de Scudéry Mme de Lafayette Mme de Lambert Mme de Longueville Mme de Maintenon Mme de Motteville Mme de Rambouillet Mme de Sablé Mme de Sévigné Mme de Tencin Mme du Deffand Mme Geoffrin Monsieur moral Ninon nobility novel passion pleasure politesse political Port-Royal Précieuses Princesse Rancé Rochefoucauld Sablière salon seventeenth century siècle Paris social société society Tallemant taste tion Voiture Voltaire volumes Paris women worldly writing wrote XVIIe siècle