Culture wars and literature in the French Third Republic / edited by Gilbert D. Chaitin.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Chaitin, Gilbert D.

Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

French literature--19th century--History and criticism.

French literature.

French literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Literature and society--France--History--19th century.

Literature and society.

Culture conflict.

History.

France.

Literature and society--France--History--20th century.

Culture conflict--France--History--19th century.

Culture conflict--France--History--20th century.

France--Social conditions--19th century.

Social conditions.

France--Social conditions--20th century.

Physical Description:

vi, 224 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Pub., 2008.

Summary:

The articles assembled in Culture Wars and Literature in the French Third Republic describe and analyze the ever-widening attempts in the early years of the Third Republic (1870-1914) to mobilize literary phenomena for the purposes of political and social warfare. Literature became the preferred site in which the human implications of the fiercest and most widespread of these culture wars, the battles over national identity waged between proponents of secular and religious education, were articulated, dramatized and appraised.

In studies of Erckmann-Chatrian and Valls̈, Rachilde and Colette, the Goncourt brothers and Marcelle Tinayre, La Fontaine and Corneille, the song-writer Jules Jouy and the theater critic Francisque Sarcey among others, some of these essays open up new perspectives on well-known issues such as education, the definition of national classics, Boulangism and women's liberation, while others bring to light hitherto unsuspected connections between apparently disparate problems like decadence, anarchism and feminism, the mystery of literariness and the ban on Muslim headscarves, or the posthumous publication of private letters and the State's interest in cultural and literary heroes. The final piece crystallizes the fundamental conflict of democratization: the tension between the republican desire for popular participation and the fear of the consequences of that participation by an uncultured public.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The Thesis Novel as Weapon in the Education Wars of the Third Republic / Gilbert D. Chaitin 20

Chapter 2 Literary Pedagogy and the Limits of Assimilation in France since the Third Republic / M. Martin Guiney 44

Chapter 3 Republican School Discourse and the Construction of French Cultural Identity: La Fontaine and Corneille as Case Studies / Ralph Albanese 64

Chapter 4 Battles over the Living Dead: Epistolomania, Posthumous Defamation, and Modern French Identity / Anne E. McCall 83

Chapter 5 Education, Literature and the Battle over Female Identity in Third Republic France / Beth W. Gale 103

Chapter 6 La Grv̈e des Ventres: Anarchist "Anti-matriotism" and Rachilde's / La Marquise de Sade, Erin Williams Hyman 128

Chapter 7 The Satirical Song Collections of Anti-Boulangist Verse: Jules Jouy, Maurice Millot and Louis Marsolleau / Jay Lutz 147

Chapter 8 Francisque Sarcey and French Political Culture in the Early Third Republic / James R. Lehning 169.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [188]-207) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Anne and Joseph Trachtman Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

1847188087

9781847188083

OCLC:

239844260