as he had done for Protestants and Catholics, putting religious authority in the hands of the State, and relegating religion to the private sphere. In the mid-nineteenth century however, Jews became a more visible minority in France, especially in the theater. Jewish actress Rachel, for instance, became one of the brightest stars of the Comédie-Française. Her performances of Racine and Corneille’s heroines raised the question as to the compatibility of French culture and Jewishness. While some critics viewed Rachel’s success as a corruption of Frenchness, many more saw her success as proof of universalism’s success, but a universalism that allowed (once again) for particularisms.Yet, in his chapter on Algeria, Samuels notes that despite the pluralistic model of universalism that permitted Rachel’s rise to fame, erasure of difference would become the condition for the naturalization of Algerian Jews and the reason for denying Muslims citizenship (it was believed that Muslims would never assimilate into French culture). This differential treatment of Jews and Muslims reinforced the idea that Frenchness was a (universal) choice. Samuels also reveals that Zola’s apparent philosemitism hid strong assimilationist views, while the supposed stereotyping of Jews in Renoir’s La grande illusion served on the contrary to undermine the differences that did not, in the end, divide the group of French officers. In his final chapter, Samuels shows how laïcité has taken center stage in the debate over French universalism , suggesting a return to the Napoleonic effacement of the particular in order to attain the universal. This book’s most valuable contribution is its inclusion of moments of both failure and success in France’s universalist history and its focus on both“high” and “popular” culture, reminding the reader that ideologies permeate every aspect of society. Georgia Southern University Virginie Ems-Bléneau Scott, Hannah. Broken Glass, Broken World: Glass in French Culture in the Aftermath of 1870. Cambridge: Legenda, 2016. ISBN 978-1-909662-87-2. Pp. 151. Although at one time only available to the very wealthy, by the nineteenth century glass had become affordable and commonplace throughout France, and particularly Paris. The late nineteenth-century French glass industry mass-produced large-scale windows and mirrors for public buildings, and smaller glass objects for private homes. These objects included glass used for the Haussmannization of Paris and the World Fairs of 1867, 1878, and 1889, glass components for scientific and technological innovations, such as the photographic lens and the microscopic lens, and small, private glass objects, including inexpensive mirrors that made it possible for working-class men to take on the clean-shaven look of the bourgeoisie (24). Scott traces the development of the French glass industry, describing glass in nineteenth-century France as“ubiquitous,”and as crucial to the architectural and scientific innovations of the period. She then examines the increasing material presence of glass alongside its 196 FRENCH REVIEW 91.4 Reviews 197 new symbolic and metaphorical associations for the Année terrible generation. Given the fragile nature of glass, it was of course particularly vulnerable to the fighting and destruction of 1870–71. During the Prussian bombardments, the siege of Paris, and the Paris Commune, Parisians experienced for the first time the widespread shattering of glass. Scott notes that the breakage of glass had a visual, aural, and tactile effect with deep psychological impact, especially to those who experienced the fighting firsthand: “Broken glass became an inevitable symbol for a broken world” (4). Focusing on the intersection between the material and literary worlds, Scott looks at newspaper and diary accounts from this period and undertakes close readings of texts by Zola, Maupassant, and Huysmans to examine the“fundamental and deliberate”role of glass in their writing in the years after 1870. According to Scott, each writer recognized the symbolism of broken glass from 1870 through the 1880s to elicit images of the destruction of society and of personal identity. After two introductory chapters that examine the glass industry and the context and results of the Année terrible (“Why Glass?” and “Glass and Culture in the Aftermath of the Année Terrible”), Scott dedicates one chapter to each writer: “Shopping for Harmony...
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Feb 24, 2021
Karen E Stevens + 2
Open Access
