Changing the Conversation: Re-positioning the French Seventeenth-Century Salon

Since the 1970S, scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have devoted considerable critical ink to illuminating the role of women writers in early modern France, and to examining the cultural institution they inhabited, the ruelle or salon. According to this perspective, salon sociability consisted o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Esprit Créateur 2020-03, Vol.60 (1), p.34-46
Main Author:	Beasley, Faith E
Format:	Article
Language:	eng ; fre
Subjects:	1620-1688 1640?-1693 17th century 18th century Allusion Authorship Bernier, François Biographies Book clubs Collaboration Conversation Core curriculum Cultural differences Cultural heritage Culture Early modern period Folklore France French literature Genre Historians History History of ideas Intellectual life Knowledge La Sablière, Marguerite de Literary canon Literary criticism Literary history Literary influences Publishing Publishing industry Salons Scholars Teaching Trends Women Writers
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Summary:	Since the 1970S, scholars on both sides of the Atlantic have devoted considerable critical ink to illuminating the role of women writers in early modern France, and to examining the cultural institution they inhabited, the ruelle or salon. According to this perspective, salon sociability consisted of discussions around minor literary genres, parlor games, food, and were feminocentric. According to this assessment, the women who inhabit these social spaces are passive consumers, often in need of guidance from a male luminary, in the case of the ruelles, or study questions such as those found in many books catering to audiences of book clubs. According to critical coinage, salon culture is monolithic; there is little difference between its incarnation in the seventeenth century and its eighteenth-century avatar.
ISSN:	0014-0767 1931-0234 1931-0234