Research Catalog

Title

The contested parterre : public theater and French political culture, 1680-1791 / Jeffrey S. Ravel.

Author

Ravel, Jeffrey S.

Publication

Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1999.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xi, 256 pages : illustrations, map; 24 cm

Summary

"In the playhouses of eighteenth-century France, clerks and students, soldiers and merchants, and the occasional aristocrat stood in the pit, while the majority of the elite sat in loges. These denizens of the parterre, who accounted for up to two-thirds of the audience, were given to disruptive behavior that culminated in full-scale riots in the last years before the Revolution. Offering a commoner's eye view of the drama offstage, this fascinating history of French theater audiences clearly demonstrates how problems in the parterre reflected tensions at the heart of the Old Regime. Jeffrey S. Ravel vividly depicts the scene in the parterre where the male spectators occupied themselves shoving one another, drinking, urinating, and confronting the actors with critiques of the performance. He traces the futile efforts of the Bourbon Court--and later its Enlightened opponents--to control parterre behavior by both persuasion and force. Ravel describes how the parterre came to represent a larger, more politicized notion of the public, one that exposed the inability of the government to accommodate the demands of French citizens. An important contribution to debates on the public sphere, Ravel's book is the first to explore the role of the parterre in the political culture of eighteenth-century France."--Publisher's description.

Subject

• 1600-1799
• Theater > France > Paris > History > 18th century
• Theater > France > Paris > History > 17th century
• Theater audiences > France > Paris
• Théâtre > France > Paris > Histoire > 18e siècle
• Théâtre > France > Paris > Histoire > 17e siècle
• Théâtre > Publics > France > Paris
• 15.70 history of Europe
• 24.06 history of theatre
• Theater
• Theater audiences
• Politische Kultur
• Publikum
• Toneel
• Publieke opinie
• France > Paris
• Frankreich

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-247) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Introduction: Political Culture, Print, and Performance -- 1. Parterre Practices in Eighteenth-Century Paris -- 2. Origins of the Contested Parterre, 1630-80 -- 3. "The Parterre Becomes an Actor," 1680-1725 -- 4. Policing the Parisian Parterre, 1697-1751 -- 5. Policing the Parterre in Paris and the Provinces, 1751-89 -- 6. The Parterre and French National Identity in the Eighteenth Century -- Appendix. List of Spectators in Paris Parterres by Social Category and Theater, 1717-68.

ISBN

• 0801435447
• 9780801435447
• 080148541X
• 9780801485411

LCCN

99010072

OCLC

• 40861900
• SCSB-12446145

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library