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Record Nr. |
UNINA9910452698403321 |
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Autore |
Tsien Jennifer Shianling <1971-> |
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Titolo |
The bad taste of others [[electronic resource] ] : judging literary value in eighteenth-century France / / Jennifer Tsien |
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Pubbl/distr/stampa |
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Philadelphia, : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2012 |
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ISBN |
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1-283-89713-X |
0-8122-0512-X |
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Edizione |
[1st ed.] |
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Descrizione fisica |
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1 online resource (275 p.) |
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Disciplina |
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Soggetti |
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French literature - 18th century - History and criticism |
Aesthetics, French - 18th century |
Culture in literature |
Civilization in literature |
Electronic books. |
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Lingua di pubblicazione |
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Formato |
Materiale a stampa |
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Livello bibliografico |
Monografia |
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Note generali |
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Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph |
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Nota di bibliografia |
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Includes bibliographical references and index. |
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Nota di contenuto |
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Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter one. Too Many Books -- Chapter Two. What Is Good Taste? -- Chapter Three. The Barbaric, or Of Time and Taste -- Chapter Four. On Foreign Taste -- Chapter Five. The Obscure, or Enigmas and the Enigmatic -- Chapter Six. The Disorderly -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- Acknowledgments |
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Sommario/riassunto |
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An act of bad taste was more than a faux pas to French philosophers of the Enlightenment. To Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and others, bad taste in the arts could be a sign of the decline of a civilization. These intellectuals, faced with the potential chaos of an expanding literary market, created seals of disapproval in order to shape the literary and cultural heritage of France in their image. In The Bad Taste of Others Jennifer Tsien examines the power of ridicule and exclusion to shape the period's aesthetics.Tsien reveals how the philosophes consecrated themselves as the protectors of true French culture modeled on the classical, the rational, and the orderly. Their anxiety over the invasion of the Republic of Letters by hordes of hacks caused them to devise standards that justified the marginalization of worldy women, |
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"barbarians," and plebeians. While critics avoided strict definitions of good taste, they wielded the term "bad taste" against all popular works they wished to erase from the canon of French literature, including Renaissance poetry, biblical drama, the burlesque theater of the previous century, the essays of Montaigne, and genres associated with the so-called précieuses. Tsien's study draws attention to long-disregarded works of salon culture, such as the énigmes, and offers a new perspective on the critical legacy of Voltaire. The philosophes' open disdain for the undiscerning reading public challenges the belief that the rise of aesthetics went hand in hand with Enlightenment ideas of equality and relativism. |
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