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The Age of Conversation
Paperback

The Age of Conversation

$55.99
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Now in paperback, an award-winning look at French salons and the women who presided over them
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between the reign of Louis XIII and the Revolution, French aristocratic society developed an art of living based on a refined code of good manners.
Conversation, which began as a way of passing time, eventually became the central ritual of social life. In the salons, freed from the rigidity of court life, it was women who dictated the rules and presided over exchanges among socialites, writers, theologians, and statesmen. They contributed decisively to the development of the modern French language, new literary forms, and debates over philosophical and scientific ideas.
With a cast of characters both famous and unknown, ranging from the Marquise de Rambouillet to Madame de Sta'l, and including figures like Ninon de Lenclos, the Marquise de Sevigne, and Madame de Lafayette, as well as Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Diderot, and Voltaire, Benedetta Craveri traces the history of this worldly society that carried the art of sociability to its supreme perfection-and ultimately helped bring on the Revolution that swept it all away.

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MORE INFO
Format
Paperback
Publisher
The New York Review of Books, Inc
Country
United States
Date
15 August 2006
Pages
504
ISBN
9781590172148

Now in paperback, an award-winning look at French salons and the women who presided over them
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between the reign of Louis XIII and the Revolution, French aristocratic society developed an art of living based on a refined code of good manners.
Conversation, which began as a way of passing time, eventually became the central ritual of social life. In the salons, freed from the rigidity of court life, it was women who dictated the rules and presided over exchanges among socialites, writers, theologians, and statesmen. They contributed decisively to the development of the modern French language, new literary forms, and debates over philosophical and scientific ideas.
With a cast of characters both famous and unknown, ranging from the Marquise de Rambouillet to Madame de Sta'l, and including figures like Ninon de Lenclos, the Marquise de Sevigne, and Madame de Lafayette, as well as Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Diderot, and Voltaire, Benedetta Craveri traces the history of this worldly society that carried the art of sociability to its supreme perfection-and ultimately helped bring on the Revolution that swept it all away.

Read More
Format
Paperback
Publisher
The New York Review of Books, Inc
Country
United States
Date
15 August 2006
Pages
504
ISBN
9781590172148