The History of Laughter in 18th-Century France
Publisher
:
Calmann-Lévy
Parution date
:
2000
EAN
:
9782702131589
Description
People probably didn’t laugh any more during the 18th century than they did during other periods of French history. Yet, they surely laughed differently. The Enlightenment was a society of laughter with its own rules and representations. Les éclats du rire explores the many ways, subjects, values, debates and polemics of laughter, which comprised and gave rise to the century’s outbursts of humor. Written by one of the most innovative historians of our time, Antoine de Baecque’s essay sheds light on a society where mastering the language was a source of power.
Author
Antoine Baecque : A history professor at the University of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelynes and a director of the Musée du cinéma, Antoine de Baecque is the author of The Body Politic (Stanford University Press, 1997) and a biography of François Truffaut (Gallimard, 1996), for which he won the Prix France-Télévision and Prix des lectrices de Elle.
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