Academic literature on the topic 'Paris (France) – Intellectual life – 19th century'

In no country has the duel prevailed to such a great extent as in France where the matter of dueling and affairs of honor were of frequent occurrence until the 20th century. The term duel has since been established for any contest between 2 persons or parties, be they sporting, intellectual, political, or in other matters. Despite their worldwide recognition and great scientific production, Pierre Marie and Jules Dejerine became rivals at the end of the 19th century. While Marie defended Charcot’s neurological school at Salpêtrière Hospital, Dejerine had his own neurology school to contend. The fierce antagonism between them materialized to the verge of a real death duel in 1892 and later to an intellectual duel in the famous debate about aphasias, held in Paris in 1908.

The 18th-century Parisian tavern was public space that lay beyond the private spheres of home, family, or corporate identity. Taverns, like markets or roads, were without inherent order, so they required the ordering of public authority. For much of the old regime, taverns illustrate the public sphere in its subjection to public control. A second public sphere, found in the coffeehouses of Britain and the cafés of France, was a place of intellectual and social exchange that gradually challenged the royal monopoly on public issues. Yet taverns demonstrated the evolution of a third public sphere from a space monopolized by royal control to one in which the populace constituted a public with its own discursive practices and norms. In their increasingly autonomous use of taverns, the people of Paris were developing a model of behavior that extended to the political life of the city during the French Revolution.

In German speaking countries Haydn’s oratorios, and particularly TheCreation , have played an important role in the repertoire of choral societies and music festivals since the 1810s. However, in France, and also in Paris — “the capital of the 19th century” —, Haydn’s oratorios were performed only on rare occasions, and then they were given mostly in parts. The reasons for these circumstances can be seen in the institutional and esthetical context of the Parisian concert life. With respect to professional concert societies, like the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire , rigid obstacles were on the one hand the enormous financial risk of a complete oratorio performance. On the other hand the established type of concert programmes with its varied mixture of vocal and instrumental pieces functioned as a barrier. Most important was a lack of mixed amateur choral societies, which developed in Paris quite late, primary in the 1840s, and then only little by little. Since oratorio performances lasted to be mostly a private affaire in the first half of the 19th century, it is not surprising, that Haydn’s oratorios were studied in aristocratic salons of Princesse de Belgiojoso and Baron Delmar with the intention of both education and entertainment.

Cities have always been sources of inspiration for poetry. However, the modern western cities, which are the origins of secularity, have inspired poets in different ways. Charles Baudelaire captured the poetic dimensions of modernity in Paris in the 19th century. He wrote about the night life of Paris which became possible after street lighting. He wrote about corruption. Baudelaire also wrote about the changing character of commercial places in cities and tried to grasp the feelings of people as a ‘flaneur': an individual stroller at city streets. The philosopher Walter Benjamin got inspired by Baudelaire's poems and formed his philosophy, which relates poetics to modernity during the 20th century. Modern cities take an important role in his philosophy too, because Benjamin was making a collection of political event news in the cities of Germany. Then he had to leave Germany because of the growth of fascism. He left his collection behind. When he went to Paris he wrote about the passages and the poetic dimensions of modern city life. When Nazi army came to France, he had to leave Paris too. The poetry of Baudelaire and the philosophy of Benjamin are evidences for the poetic nature of modern city life. The relationship between the modern city and the free individual can easily be felt in their works. However, when you read heir work, you can easily understand that today's Paris is not the same Paris any more. It is still poetic, but in another way.

Abstract In writing about the police force in late 19th-century France, the anarchist Jean Grave decried that it was in fact necessary, if only to uphold the decisions of the unjust magistracy and to protect the interests of the bourgeoisie. This essay explores his claim through the graphic work of the Franco-Swiss artist Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, a member of Grave's intellectual circle. Steinlen collaborated with radical leftist performers, authors, and publishers, including Grave, to produce a wealth of images that reveal his keen sensitivity to the social and political inequities of his time. Notably, Steinlen's emigration to Paris in 1881 coincided with a period of marked class antagonism in the capital, largely exacerbated by the policies of the state and their most visible enforcers: the police. Steinlen's incisive illustrations combat the uneven treatment of the lower classes by French police officers and the justice system at large, highlighting the oppressive and relentless nature of the judicial machine infernale while offering possibilities for its disruption or subversion.

Prosper Mérimée and Poland Prosper Mérimée (1803‐1870), writer and scholar, member of the French Academy, has often evoked in his correspondence, his fictional accounts and his historical studies, the political and cultural past of Poland as well as its conflicting relations with Russia during the 19th century. Unlike many of his romantic contemporaries, he was rather insensitive to the plight of the Poles and made no effort to understand them better. His fear of revolutionary convulsions, his anti‐Catholic prejudices, his too superficial knowledge of local realities and his growing love for Russia throughout his life, probably explain his views. However, we should not forget his friendship with some Poles in exile in France and his support for the Historical and literary library of Paris.

Prosper Mérimée and Poland Prosper Mérimée (1803‐1870), writer and scholar, member of the French Academy, has often evoked in his correspondence, his fictional accounts and his historical studies, the political and cultural past of Poland as well as its conflicting relations with Russia during the 19th century. Unlike many of his romantic contemporaries, he was rather insensitive to the plight of the Poles and made no effort to understand them better. His fear of revolutionary convulsions, his anti‐Catholic prejudices, his too superficial knowledge of local realities and his growing love for Russia throughout his life, probably explain his views. However, we should not forget his friendship with some Poles in exile in France and his support for the Historical and literary library of Paris.

The late 19th struggle for artistic freedom in the capitalist world-system put the artist in a contradictory position. This contradiction is particularly relevant for writers of the periphery. Freedom or autonomy to pursue purely intellectual projects required a certain aristocratic defense of the value of art. At the same time, however, artists and intellectuals did confront structural subordination: they belonged, as Pierre Bourdieu explained, to the dominated fractions of the dominant class, subordinated both to the state and the bourgeoisie. The life of Nicaraguan Ruben Darío (1867–1916), probably the most well-known poet in Latin American history, provides a paradigmatic instance of this dilemma. Moreover, it sheds light into a dilemma particular to the peripheral intellectual. Peripheral writers, in the 19th century and still today, are subject to world-systemic hierarchies, even cultural ones. This double subordination is clear in the case of Ruben Darío. He was in a subordinated position not only vis-à-vis the national state and the bourgeoisie. Darío was also in a subordinated position, even if symbolic, in relation to those same intellectuals that Bourdieu celebrated as creators of the autonomy of culture in France. One can account for this complex of hierarchies only through a 'world-systems biography' approach. World-systems biographies clearly examine the dialectic of personal, national and global levels of social life. Moreover, it can uncover the core-periphery dialectic in the realm of artistic production. Thus, this world-systems biography approach is shown to be a useful framework through a brief analysis of Darío's life and work.

This paper discusses Adam Smith’s intellectual relationship with the French Enlightenment, with a particular focus on his view of French culture as conveyed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Compared to England at that time, eighteenth-century Scotland is considered as having a closer affiliation with France in terms of their intellectual and cultural life during what has been dubbed the Enlightenment. While David Hume was representative of the affinity between the French and Scottish literati, Smith also held an enduring interest in the French philosophy, literature, and other aspects of its civilisation, long before the historic visit to Toulouse and Paris (1764–1766) that would shape his political economy greatly. While this paper shall examine Smith’s Francophile and Europeanist tendency within his moral argument, it also emphasises that he was abundantly aware of the moral cultural tensions between these two branches of the European Enlightenment.

On the basis of the comparative and contextual analysis of publications in the Russian periodicals of the first quarter of the 19th century the article reconstructs the methods of argumentation used in the course of public discussion of ideals and practice of republicanism. Theoretical approaches of the modern history of concepts are used as methodological tools to reveal the ideas of contemporaries about the essence of the republic, the reasons for its emergence and decline, the nature of the relationship between citizens and the state. The intellectual context of Russia’s republican discourse was built on the basis of combination of two space-time prospects — historical experience of the republics of the ancient world and the description of options of the embodiment of the republican idea in France, the modern small states, and “the Republic of the Connected American Areas”. In public space of Russia of the first quarter of the 19th century the republicanism remained an important element of a discourse “about the best form of communal life” which starting point was a statement about the paramount importance of moral qualities of subjects/citizens and the monarch for steady functioning of power institutes. Such interpretation of the republican idea in Russia caused a shift from a question of the institutional embodiment of the republic to reflections about a possibility of combination of republicanism as the ideas of joint action of patriotic citizens, their partnership in “common cause” with historically developed monarchic form of government.

Defence date: 24 October 2007
Examining Board: Prof. John Brewer, (California Institute of Technology) ; Prof. Laurence Fontaine, (EHESS-CNRS) ; Prof. Mark Hallett, (University of York) ; Prof. Eckhart Hellmuth, (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
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no abstract available

This thesis examines the countercultural community in the Parisian neighbourhood of Montmartre during the 1880s and 1890s. This period stands out for its unique cultural atmosphere, heavily influenced by the turbulent advent of modernity. Traditionally accepted norms that dictated individuals' sense of identity were being questioned as new understandings of class, gender, sexuality and nationality gained acceptance. Aspiring artists and writers who sought to express these new identities were excluded from the world of official culture. Many congregated in the traditionally bohemian Montmartre where a sense of belonging to a youthful and energetic community afforded the opportunity to struggle and come to terms with their opposition to dominant ideals. Montmartre became, and continues to be, heavily commercialised but its enduring legacy testifies to its significance as herald of numerous social and cultural changes that would mark the twentieth century.

The theme of the parisian Carnival masked balls at the Opéra became synonymous with the nineteenth-century French graphic artist Guillaume Sulpice Chevalier, known as Gavarni (1804-1866). Between 1830 and 1853, he produced more than two hundred lithographs of the subject, which usually appeared in the contemporary popular press. These depictions and their telling captions--snippets of actual conversations--evoke the essential esprit of the occasion. A compelling visual chronicle emerges from Gavarni's imagery of the Opéra masked halls, which uniquely captures the contemporary manners and mores of Parisian society. This dissertation is a close visual analysis of Gavarni's treatment of the phenomenon, which draws upon contemporary literary accounts to substantiate and elucidate the meanings of his prints.
Le thème des bals masqués de l'Opéra est intimement lié au peintre et graveur français du XIXe siècle Guillaume Sulpice Chevalier, dit Gavarni (1804-1866). Entre 1830 et 1853, celui-ci a produit plus de deux cents lithographies sur ce sujet, dont la majorité ont été publiées dans la presse populaire de l'époque. Ces scènes et les légendes qui les accompagnent--bribes de conversations réelles-évoquent l'esprit des bals. Chronique visuelle irrésistible, ces gravures dépeignent les moeurs et les manières de la société parisienne de l'époque. La présente thèse propose une analyse visuelle rigoureux du traitement de ce phénomène par Gavarni qui s'appuyer sur des témoignages littéraires contemporains pour élucider le sens de ses gravures. fr

Faisant leur apparition au cours du XVIIIème siècle dans les provinces françaises, les sociétés savantes se sont développées et multipliées tout au long du XIXème siècle.Cette thèse a pour but d’identifier quelles sociétés savantes ont été créées en Normandie, dans le département de la Manche, entre 1755 et la Première Guerre Mondiale. Ce travail a consisté dans un premier point à déterminer comment elles ont été fondées, organisées, dirigées et financées. Dans un deuxième point, nous avons cherché à identifier quels types de personnes ont été impliquées, où elles vivaient et quelles étaient leurs activités professionnelles. Dans un troisième et dernier point, nous avons voulu comprendre quelles activités menaient les sociétés savantes de la Manche, notamment le fonctionnement de leurs réunions privées et publiques, et comment elles parvenaient à diffuser des connaissances auprès d’un plus large public grâce, par exemple, à leurs publications ou à leur participation à la vie culturelle locale
Appearing during the 18th century in French provinces, knowledge societies have developped and multiplied throughout the 19th century.This thesis aimes to identify which knowledge societies have been created in Normandy, in the department of Manche, from 1755 to the First World War. This work consisted, in a first point, of determining how they were established, organized, ruled and financed. In our second point, we tried to identify what kind of people were involved, where they lived and what their professional activities were. In our last point, we wanted to understand what kind of activities were practised by Manche knowledge societies, especially how their private and public sessions worked, and how they managed to spread knowledge to a larger audience thanks to, for example, their publications or their involvment in local cultural life

Cette étude porte sur le fait littéraire afro-antillais de l’ère coloniale (1920-1960). Il s’agit d’examiner les stratégies des agents à partir des cas de René Maran, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire, Édouard Glissant et Mongo Beti et de percevoir comment ils se définissent leur identité littéraire et sociale.

Pour ce faire, notre démarche s’articule en deux temps :(1) examiner les conditions de possibilité d’un champ littéraire afro-antillais à Paris (colonisation française et ses effets, configuration d’un champ littéraire pré-institutionnalisé, etc.) ;(2) analyser les processus de consolidation du champ, ainsi que les luttes internes qui opposent deux tendances émergentes représentées d’abord par Senghor et Césaire, ensuite par Beti et Glissant, dont les prises de position littéraires mettent en œuvre des « modèles empiriques » ;ceux-ci régulent et unifient leurs rapports au monde et à l’Afrique.

This study relates to afro-carribean literature in colonial period (1920-1960). We want to examine the strategies of agents like René Maran, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Aimé Césaire, Édouard Glissant and Mongo Beti ;and we want to understand how they invente literary and social identity.

Our approach is structured in two steps: we shall analyse (1) the conditions for an afro-carribean literary field to appear in Paris (french colonialism and its consequences, configuration of literay field.) ;(2) the consolidation of this field and the internal struggles between two tendances represented by Senghor and Césaire, by Glissant and Beti whose literary practice shows the “empirical model” that regularizes and consolidates their relation with the world and Africa.
Doctorat en philosophie et lettres, Orientation langue et littérature
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Defence date: 5 June 2013
Examining Board: Professor Antonella Romano, EUI (Directeur de thèse) Professor Esteban Buch, EHESS Professor Danièle Pistone, Université Paris Sorbonne-Paris IV Professor Lucy Riall, EUI Professor Sophie-Anne Leterrier, Université d'Artois
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
This thesis investigates the changing conditions in the European art market after the Congress of Vienna (1815). It focuses mainly on the socio-professional development of the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini and analyses his first visit to Paris in 1823 from a social, cultural and political point of view. It redefines the issue of grandeur in the context of urban renewal (Paris as a capital city) and a political regime in search of legitimacy (the Restoration period). Rossini's first visit to Paris is examined in reference to his life experiences as well as the changing geopolitical face of Europe at the time. First, a micro-analysis of his stay in Paris explores the construction of this symbolic event and makes a prosopography of the various institutional, political and artistic actors involved. Second, this thesis examines the reasons for Rossini's occupation of the French cultural arena. France's cultural policies are highlighted by concentrating on the French Restoration government's strategies in bringing Rossini to Paris. This thesis also examines the other side of the coin, namely how market logic was established in theatrical productions and amongst authors and institutions, and how this marked the progressive dismantling of the privilege system in Parisian theatres. To do so, the thesis analyses the play: Rossini à Paris ou le grand dîner, the Scribe's libretto of which describes a banquet given in Rossini's honor during his stay in Paris. Third, the debates connected to Rossini's visit reveals how musical "traditions" are radicalized around a national paradigm. Crossing varied and original sources (correspondences, scores, play librettos, newspapers, institutional sources), this thesis contributes significantly to the study of the relationship between the artist, the power and their representations.

Defence Date: 24/04/2009
Examining Board: Professor Heinz-Gerhard Haupt, European University Institute (Supervisor); Professor Enrique Ucelay-Da Cal, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Second Supervisor); Professor Michael Keating, European University Institute; Professor Anne-Marie Thiesse, EHESS
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
Dans le premier chapitre je définirai mon approche de la question nationale en m’appuyant sur certaines théories classiques du nationalisme. Je m’attacherai longuement sur le lien entre langue et nation, que je mettrai en perspective historique. En particulier, j’examinerai le cadre conceptuel et philosophique dans lequel l’idée politique de nation a vu le jour, à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Et je le ferai en ayant toujours présent à l’esprit l’évolution des études linguistiques, notamment à partir du début du XIXe siècle. Dans le deuxième chapitre, après avoir traité des idées linguistique en France depuis le XVIIIe siècle, je considérerai le contexte français dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle. Je porterai une attention particulière à la politique culturelle française depuis la Révolution de 1789, et notamment aux politiques linguistiques des différents gouvernements. Je parlerai donc des enquêtes linguistiques et ethnologiques qui accompagnent l’intérêt nouveau pour les traditions populaires, mais aussi de leur dimension politique. J’expliquerai comment elles emboîtent le pas à la quête des origines nationales. Finalement, j’aborderai le renouveau qui caractérise l’historiographie française depuis les années 1820 pour montrer comment l’histoire du Midi de la France s’insère dans le grand tableau de l’histoire nationale. Après ces chapitres de préliminaires historiques et théoriques, avec le troisième chapitre, on abordera l’émergence de la question de la langue d’oc à travers les travaux d’une lignée d’historiens, antiquaires, lexicographes, etc. qui depuis le XVIIIe siècle relancent l’intérêt pour les 'langues du Midi' en France. Je parlerai de Raynouard, le fondateur des études de langue romane, et de ses successeurs qui ont dessiné le cadre théorique dans lequel s’inscrira le débat pendant presque tout le siècle. Débat qui mettra en jeu de nom de la langue : langue romane, langue d’oc, provençal, et dans lequel la renaissance provençale promue par le groupe des félibres joue un rôle capital. Je parlerai longuement de son principal protagoniste, Frédéric Mistral, dont la personnalité, le génie poétique et le talent d’organisateur poussent le provençal sur le premier plan de la scène littéraire française. Dans le quatrième chapitre, je franchirai la frontière pyrénéenne pour découvrir comment la question linguistique et nationale a été abordée en Catalogne. Le choix de m’occuper de la question linguistique catalane est dû à plusieurs raisons : tout d’abord à la proximité linguistique et culturelle que ce pays voisin a avec les pays de langue d’oc. En deuxième lieu, au fait que, quelques années durant, les Provençaux et les Catalans ont partagé intérêts, revendications et rêves d’une confédération de peuples latins. Enfin, à la curiosité de voir comment le débat sur la langue catalane a été résolu en faveur d’une vision résolument nationale de la langue, de sorte qu’elle devient à la fois fondement et instrument de revendications politiques. Dans le cinquième chapitre je ferai retour en France et je m’arrêterai surtout dans le Languedoc, où la création de la Société des Langues Romanes à Montpellier donne une tournure différent au débat sur la langue d’oc. Créée presque trente ans après le Félibrige, la SLR fait sortir la discussion sur la langue du domaine poétique : ses intérêts linguistiques et philologiques la prédisposent en fait à des conceptions de la langue et à des projets de normalisation, surtout orthographique, antagonistes à ceux du Félibrige. Toujours en Languedoc, mais cette fois-ci à Toulouse, une autre initiative voit le jour visant à mettre en question la prééminence des Provençaux au sein du Félibrige : la Lauseto, organe des félibres rouges et apôtre de la 'Cause languedocienne', engage une véritable opposition idéologique au félibrige catholique et légitimiste de matrice provençale. Je terminerai le chapitre par une petite 'promenade' en Italie, où la questione della lingua est au centre d’un débat animé qui nous servira de point de comparaison. Dans le sixième chapitre je resituerai le débat dans le cadre étatique français. Je passerai d’abord rapidement en revue la longue question de la décentralisation culturelle. J’analyserai l’état de l’enseignement supérieur en France, je traiterai du débat sur la réforme universitaire, pour passer ensuite à l’institution académique des études philologiques et à leur importance pour le processus de construction d’un imaginaire national français. Dans ce contexte, je m’arrêterai longuement sur les querelles linguistiques qui divisent les linguistes de la SLR et les philologues de la Romania, sur leur opposition idéologique et sociologique. J’achèverai le chapitre sur la constitution des études de dialectologie en France. L’épilogue, finalement, où je traiterai de l’échec du mouvement renaissentiste de langue d’oc et de son 'repli' sur une idée latine utopique.

This dissertation explores the numerous literary representations of the femme de lettres during the first half of the nineteenth century in order to illustrate the complexities of women’s entrance into the male-dominated domain of literature and also to suggest the impact these fictional characters might have had on the reception of actual women writers as well as their omission from the century’s literary canon. The works that will be included in this analysis include: Mme de Staël’s Corinne, ou l’Italie, Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le noir, Honoré de Balzac’s Béatrix, La Muse du département and Illusions perdues, Delphine de Girardin’s La Canne de M. de Balzac, Napoline and La joie fait peur and George Sand’s Histoire de ma vie, Lettres d’un voyageur and Un Hiver à Majorque. In compiling such diverse works of literature, it becomes clear that both male and female authors from the early nineteenth century were unable to envision a publicly embraced female genius. Although almost all of the fictional femmes de lettres in this study faced a destiny of professional silence, the reasons given for their failures are split between the male and female authors. For the male authors, the woman as a successful intellectual, artist or author was ultimately impossible because of her inability to combine her female body and psyche with the “masculine” pursuit of knowledge. Conversely, the female authors wrote characters whose inability to fully embrace a public literary or artistic career stemmed from society’s unwillingness to tolerate her exceptionality rather than from an inherent disconnect between genius and the female sex.
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