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  3. Un mariage magnétique : Beaumarchais, Mesmer et un nouveau mode de discours dans le Paris prérévolutionnaire
Title

Un mariage magnétique : Beaumarchais, Mesmer et un nouveau mode de discours dans le Paris prérévolutionnaire

    Item Description
    Limited Access
    The author(s) chose to restrict access to this thesis to current Whitman students, faculty, and staff. Please log in to view it.
    Alternative Title
    A magnetic marriage : Beaumarchais, Mesmer and a new mode of discourse in the pre-revolutionary Paris
    Linked Agent
    Creator (cre): Lowry, Cara Lynne
    Advisor (adv): Iverson, Jack
    Department (dpt): Whitman College. French Department
    Date
    May 9, 2012
    Graduation Year
    2012
    Abstract

    On April 27, 1784 Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais’ anticipated la Folle Journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro made its theatrical debut. By the end of the year, it would enjoy an historic run of 63 performances and inspire a flood of responding pamphlets and plays, the majority of which offer some combination of parody, continuation or critique of the original. Three of them bring Figaro into direct contact with another of the decade’s major fads, Franz Anton Mesmer’s animal magnetism. An examination of the literary juxtaposition of these two seemingly disparate sensations and the texts in which it occurs reveals an undeniable link between this ephemeral literature and the sociohistorical circumstances of 1780s Paris: each text exists as a concrete example of a revolutionary mode of public discourse. In indicating that the Figaro and Mesmer phenomena belonged to a larger trend of literary and cultural exchange, the texts signal that these crazes were intrinsically linked to significant transformations taking place at the heart of French literary society on the eve of the Revolution.

    Language
    French
    Subject
    Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de, 1732-1799
    Mesmer, Franz Anton, 1734-1815
    Paris (France) -- Intellectual life -- 18th century
    Literature -- Societies -- France
    Animal magnetism
    Socio-histories
    Literary movements -- France
    Cultural relations -- Cultural exchange
    Language and culture
    Academic theses
    Whitman College 2012 -- Dissertation collection -- French Department
    Geographic Subject
    Europe
    France
    Paris (France)
    Genre
    Theses
    Extent
    62 pages
    Permanent URL
    http://works.whitman.edu/1135
    Rights
    http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
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