Daughters of Eve : A Cultural History of French Theater Women from the Old Regime to the Fin de Siècle / Lenard R. Berlanstein.
2021
PN2622.W65 ǂb B47 2001eb
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Details
Title
Daughters of Eve : A Cultural History of French Theater Women from the Old Regime to the Fin de Siècle / Lenard R. Berlanstein.
ISBN
9780674020818
Published
Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2021]
Copyright
©2001
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (314 p.)
Other Standard Identifiers
10.4159/9780674020818 doi
Call Number
PN2622.W65 ǂb B47 2001eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
792.0280944
Summary
Famous and seductive, female stage performers haunted French public life in the century before and after the Revolution. This pathbreaking study delineates the distinctive place of actresses, dancers, and singers within the French erotic and political imaginations. From the moment they became an unofficial caste of mistresses to France's elite during the reign of Louis XIV, their image fluctuated between emasculating men and delighting them. Drawing upon newspaper accounts, society columns, theater criticism, government reports, autobiographies, public rituals, and a huge corpus of fiction, Lenard Berlanstein argues that the public image of actresses was shaped by the political climate and ruling ideology; thus they were deified in one era and damned in the next. Tolerated when civil society functioned and demonized when it faltered, they finally passed from notoriety to celebrity with the stabilization of parliamentary life after 1880. Only then could female fans admire them openly, and could the state officially recognize their contributions to national life. Daughters of Eve is a provocative look at how a culture creates social perceptions and reshuffles collective identities in response to political change.Table of Contents: Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Setting the Scene 2 Theater Women and Aristocratic Libertinism, 1715-1789 3 Defining the Modern Gender Order, 1760-1815 4 Magdalenes of Postaristocratic France, 1815-1848 5 The Erotic Culture of the Stage 6 The Struggle against Pornocracy, 1848-1880 7 Imagining Republican Actresses, 1880-1914 8 Performing a Self 9 From Notorious Women to Intimate Strangers Conclusion Notes Index Reviews of this book: Students of French literature and culture will welcome this study of female performers, women who historically achieved great prominence because of their sexuality and public presence. Yet this is much more than simply a descriptive history. Berlanstein.puts theater women into the context of the evolving French debate over the role of women in the public sphere.This fascinating new work is an important addition to the scholarship on French gender history. Recommended for specialists in French history and culture.--Library Journal
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Access limited to authorized users.
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Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
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text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Mai 2022)
In
HUP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013 (Canada)
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
Harvard University Press eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
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