Revolutionary Culture: Continuity and Change by Mark Darlow

Abstract

514 Reviews publication history of the text.A 2005 edition ofLa Paysanneparvenue exists also in theEditions Desjonqueres. WELLESLEY COLLEGE DENIs D. GRELE Revolutionary Culture: Continuity and Change. Ed. byMARK DARLOW. (Nottingham French Studies, 45/I) Nottingham: University ofNottingham. 2oo6. i i6 pp. ?20. ISBN 978-o-85358-224-3. This issue of Nottingham French Studies explores aspects of the transition from Enlightenment toRevolution indevelopments of cultural production inFrance. The authors,mostly from theUK and one each fromFrance, Italy,and theUnited States, cover the following topics: pastoral fictionand the art of persuasion 1790-92; a quan titativeanalysis of play titlesduring theOld Regime and theRevolution; aesthetics of Revolutionary attitudes todialects; theuse of thevolcano indiscourse fromEnlight enment toRevolution; reference to contemporary events inRevolutionary theatre; factual accounts of theRevolution in the theatre; emigres and theirpolitics in litera ture; utopian fictionof theRevolution. In his introduction the editor illustrates the premiss of the title, referring toHannah Arendt's claim that 'theRevolution was characterized by a double movement: a process of restoration, of continuity with the past [. . .]along with an illusion that theexperience isone of rupture' (p. i). The claim to originality is thatalthough therehas been extensive literature, especially since the bicentenary, both on cultural production of theRevolutionary period and on specific cultural forms,of the recentworks thathave referred to the coexistence of continuity and change with theOld Regime, no studies have centred on theway inwhich the Revolution treated thecultural forms and structures of preceding times. The picture thatemerges from the collection is one of intricacy of continuity and change, in both the long and the short term. The long view of history is vital to see this two-way process both in the assessment of the relationship between theEn lightenment and theRevolution and in the formulation of cultural historiography. The immediate impact of theRevolution on artistic and literaryproduction provides the shorter-term perspective. The Revolutionary events themselves are in the back ground: the earlymoderate phase, Robespierre's dream of theRepublic of Letters, the effectof theLe Chapelier law of 1792 on theatrical production, the identification of specific cultural policies as being integral to the construction of the nation, the mythologizing of thevolcano-like eruption of political change thatwas 1789. The editor's introduction and the literature review given by each author provide ample references for further investigation into theperspective of thehistorical over view for those unfamiliar with scholarly works on culture in the second half of the eighteenth century inFrance. Interdisciplinary and intertextual readings of cultural creation enable literaryscholars topursue a historical line of enquiry in theiranalysis. The historian reading this collection would be asking how much these cultural in vestigations enlighten us furtherabout one of themost scrutinized historical periods and what particular events are of note. The authors are claiming that the connection it is possible tomake between the history of the arts and politics is in itself a key development. Of particular interest tohistorians of theRevolution is theway culture produced a new relationship between the state and citizen, seen in the chapters on language policy and interventionist theatrical censorship. Others interested inother chronological intersections have examined the devising of republican cultural policy and thequestion of continuity (in particular, David Andress and David Wisner, both inThe French Experiencefrom Republic to Monarchy, I792-I824, ed. byMaire F Cross and David Williams (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000)). The novelty here is the actual MLR,I02.2, 2007 515 treatmentof the immediate past both from ideas and philosophers of theEnlighten ment into fiction and from the spillover of real-life drama of revolution into staged drama. The collection contains avariety of approaches: close textual readings of fiction and plays, a quantitative analysis of play titles,and exploration of concepts (patois) and paradigms (volcanoes and the sublime). The relatively limited range of genres under scrutiny provides coherence. Three chapters discuss very differentquestions in fiction; the threeon politics and theatre come to quite differentconclusions. NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY MAIRE F. CROSS Consumable Metaphors: Attitudes towardsAnimals and Vegetarianism inNineteenth Century France. By CERI CROSSLEY. (French Studies of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, I7) Bern: Peter Lang. 2005. 322 pp. ?37. ISBN 978 3-03-9IOI90-0. The last decade has seen the spectacular growth of awide range of publications often gathered under theumbrella termof 'Animal Studies...