Chamfort and the Revolution: A Study in Form and Ideology, Issue 11S bastien-Roch Nicolas Chamfort remains one of the most enigmatic 'prompters' of the French Revolution. This study analyses his rhetorical and political programmes in tandem to reveal how Chamfort's discourse and politics inform and elucidate one another in both pre-revolutionary and revolutionary periods. It considers his key political texts - his 'Discours l'Acad mie fran aise', Des acad mies, the Tableaux historiques de la R volution fran aise and his posthumous Maximes et pens es, caract res et anecdotes - and exposes how, in each instance, Chamfort's conception of politics hinges on the adoption and subversion of prescribed discursive forms (reception speech, historical tableau, maxim). In the 'Discours' and Des acad mies, Chamfort opposes the implicit discursive norm of le bon usage sanctioned by the Acad mie fran aise, because it represses free expression and at the same time constitutes the Acad mie itself into an oppressive corporation imbued with neo-feudal values. Chamfort's subsequent interpretations of revolutionary events in his Tableaux historiques, while making explicit this same radical libertarianism, frame some reservations about the insurgent peuple as a political force. In the end, many of the tensions troubling Chamfort's politics are resolved by his posthumous Maximes et pens es, whose prevailing principle of honn tet gives them a rhetorical and political independence from both the ancien r gime, centred on notions of honneur, and the revolutionary Republic, founded on a principle of vertu. Previous studies have tended either to interpret Chamfort's works from their historical or biographical context, or - by considering exclusively the Maximes et pens es - to subordinate them to an established literary tradition. This innovative reading posits Chamfort's texts as an exemplary meeting-place of literary practice and political praxis at the time of the Revolution, shedding new light on both the function of literary forms in Chamfort's politics and the role of Chamfort the writer, as an ideological subject caught up in revolutionary events. |
From inside the book
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Page 108
... people ' : Chamfort's Tableaux historiques If the violence of the people's politics is often aestheticised in Chamfort's Tableaux by the figure of demolition , it is also justified morally by reference to the people's passions . The people ...
... people ' : Chamfort's Tableaux historiques If the violence of the people's politics is often aestheticised in Chamfort's Tableaux by the figure of demolition , it is also justified morally by reference to the people's passions . The people ...
Page 109
... people had been only expendable pawns in an unjust war arising from Court cabals . He suggests that the people's indifference , even disdain , for these earlier celebrations arose from an instinctive feeling for what con- stituted their ...
... people had been only expendable pawns in an unjust war arising from Court cabals . He suggests that the people's indifference , even disdain , for these earlier celebrations arose from an instinctive feeling for what con- stituted their ...
Page 110
... people's often excessive violence as the necessary expression of a politics driven by passion not reason . It also allows him to suggest once more the historical ' objectivity ' of his narrative , insofar as it does not shrink from ...
... people's often excessive violence as the necessary expression of a politics driven by passion not reason . It also allows him to suggest once more the historical ' objectivity ' of his narrative , insofar as it does not shrink from ...
Other editions - View all
Chamfort and the Revolution: A Study in Form and Ideology, Volume 2002 David McCallam No preview available - 2002 |
Common terms and phrases
Académie française Académie's ancien régime anecdotes aphorism aphorisme Assemblée nationale authority autre bien bon usage brevitas c'est carac caractère Cham Chamfort's maxims Chamfort's political Chamfort's Tableaux historiques Chamfort's texts citoyens constitution corporations corporatism Court D'Alembert d'une dialogue dictionary Dictionnaire Discours de réception eighteenth Encyclopédie être events of 1789 fait faut feudalism figure forms of language fort's French French Revolution Garde-Meuble générale Ginguené grand historical honnête homme honnêtes gens honnêteté honneur ideal ideology John Renwick l'Académie l'esprit des lois lettres libertarian liberté literary Louis maxim form Maximes et pensées Mercier monarchy Montesquieu moralist Morellet Nicolas Chamfort nonetheless Nouveau Paris Palais-Royal people's peuple peut Pierre-Louis Ginguené popular spectacles Préfaces Prieur principle of honour qu'elle qu'il qu'on Quintilian reader reception speech Révolution française revolutionary rhetorical Rochefoucauld sentence sententiae sententious forms seul siècle social société society specifically tableau form tion tout truth truth function vertu virtue Voltaire
References to this book
From Royal to National: The Louvre Museum and the Bibliothèque Nationale Bette Wyn Oliver Limited preview - 2007 |