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French Salons - by Steven D Kale & Steven Kale (Hardcover)
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About this item
Highlights
- Among the most enduring of French cultural institutions, the salon, is among the most misunderstood.
- About the Author: Steven Kale is a professor of history at Washington State University.
- 320 Pages
- History, Europe
Description
About the Book
Challenging many of the conclusions of recent historiography, including the depiction of salonnières as influential power brokers, French Salons offers an original, penetrating, and engaging analysis of elite culture and society in France before, during, and after the Revolution.Book Synopsis
Among the most enduring of French cultural institutions, the salon, is among the most misunderstood. Seen primarily as a venue for apolitical social gatherings, the salon's influence is generally believed to have ended during the French Revolution. In French Salons, Steven Kale challenges conventional thinking about the salon. Drawing on an impressive range of primary sources, he offers a nuanced history of this institution from the eighteenth century through the Revolution of 1848 which emphasizes continuity and evolution over disjuncture and highlights its shifting political character and relevance.
Salons, Kale shows, originally provided opportunities for the exchange of literary and philosophical ideas among the French aristocracy. Central to the maintenance of salon culture were salonnières, aristocratic women such as Madame de Staël who opened their homes to fellow elites and nurtured a sociability that united the members of high society. Salons provided ready-made venues for aristocratic politics during the early years of the French Revolution, when salons were transformed into places where the upper classes could express their political opinions and concerns. Even at the height of the Terror, salons did not dissolve but, rather, were displaced as aristocrats moved their social networks of influence to such cities as Coblenz, Brussels, and London. Napoleon sought to manipulate salon culture for his own ends, but with his fall from power, salons reemerged and proliferated. Although never intended to serve as political clubs, salons became informal sites for the cultivation of political capital and the exchange of political ideas during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy.
By 1848, the conditions that sustained aristocratic sociability declined, and salons became increasingly marginal to French public life. At the same time, new political institutions--parties, the press, legislative bodies--emerged that more effectively disseminated and shaped political opinion and led to real political change.
Challenging many of the conclusions of recent historiography, including the depiction of salonnières as influential power brokers, French Salons offers an original, penetrating, and engaging analysis of elite culture and society in France before, during, and after the Revolution.
Review Quotes
The usual portrait of the salon, its importance in private and public spheres, and the role of the salonniere emerge considerably revised in this clearly written, expertly researched study.
--Choice
[Kale] has accomplished the tremendously useful task of writing an important book that will be controversial in many ways and therefore productive of continued research.
--Katharine Hamerton, Journal of Modern History
Kale's analysis emphasizes the fluidity between the public and private spheres for aristocratic women and political men.
--Claire A. Sanders, History: Reviews of New Books
Kale's book provides an important corrective to prevailing views of salons, and his argument about the ways in which aristocratic women did and did not involve themselves in politics deserves our attention.
--Denise Z. Davidson, H-France
Kale's most original insights come across in the five chapters at the heart of the book devoted to the period from 1792 to 1848 . . . One of the merits of Kale's work is its judicious evaluation of women's political influence.
--Stephen Miller, Canadian Journal of History
Kale's thesis widens the parameters on salon scholarship.
--Rosamond Hooper-Hamersley, Libraries and Culture
Makes a shrewd contribution to understanding how a sample of French elite women perceived changes in culture and society from the Old Regime to the Second Empire.
--David Higgs, American Historical Review
The fact that Kale's prose is elegant and precise allows him to present the glories and wit of le monde with its richness altogether preserved.
--Robert A. Nye, Journal of Social History
Well-organized and informative.
--David Longfellow, Historian
About the Author
Steven Kale is a professor of history at Washington State University. He is the author of Legitimism and the Reconstruction of French Society, 1852-1883.
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