Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Daughters of Eve : A Cultural History of French Theater Women from the Old Regime to the Fin de Siècle / Lenard R. Berlanstein.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2021]Copyright date: ©2001Description: 1 online resource (314 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674020818
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 792.0280944
LOC classification:
  • PN2622.W65 ǂb B47 2001eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: 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
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674020818

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Mai 2022)