Overview

Collecting diverse critical perspectives on the topic of play—from dolls, bilboquets, and lotteries, to writing itself—this volume offers new insights into how play was used to represent and reimagine the world in eighteenth-century France. In documenting various modes of play, contributors theorize its relation to law, religion, politics, and economics. Equally important was the role of ""play"" in plays, and the function of theatrical performance in mirroring, and often contesting, our place in the universe. These essays remind us that the spirit of play was very much alive during the ""Age of Reason,"" providing ways for its practitioners to consider more ""serious"" themes such as free will and determinism, illusions and equivocations, or chance and inequality. Standing at the intersection of multiple intellectual avenues, this is the first comprehensive study in English devoted to the different guises of play in Enlightenment France, certain to interest curious readers across disciplinary backgrounds.

Full Product Details

Author:   Fayçal Falaky ,  Reginald McGinnis ,  Rori Bloom ,  Jean-Alexandre Perras
Publisher:   Rutgers University Press
Imprint:   Rutgers University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.004kg
ISBN:  

9781684483419

ISBN 10:   1684483417
Pages:   216
Publication Date:   12 November 2021
Recommended Age:   From 18 to 99 years
Audience:   College/higher education ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction Fayçal Falaky and Reginald McGinnis 1 Playing with Dolls in Old Regime Fairy Tales Rori Bloom 2 The Morality of Bilboquet, or the Equivocations of Language Jean-Alexandre Perras 3 Fiction as Play: Rhetorical Subversion in Alain-René Lesage’s Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane Zeina Hakim 4 Playthings of Fortune: Lots, Games of Chance, and Inequality in l’Abbé Prévost Masano Yamashita 5 Boundless Play and Infinite Pleasure in the Chevalier de Béthune’s Relation du monde de Mercure Erika Mandarino 6 The Politics of Orientalist Fantasy in French Opera Katharine Hargrave 7 Playing at Theater: Modes of Play in Théâtre de Société Maria Teodora Comsa 8 Between Play and Ritual: Profane Masquerade in the French Revolution Annelle Curulla 9 The Return of Play, or the End of Revolutionary Theater Yann Robert 10 Video Games as Cultural History: Procedural Narrative and the Eighteenth-Century Fair Theater Jeffrey M. Leichman Acknowledgments Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index

Reviews

Bringing together game studies and 18th-century French studies, Modes of Play in Eighteenth-Century France is a most welcome contribution to the study of French literature, history, and culture. The collection introduces us to understudied works and provides fresh approaches to canonical texts, broadening our understanding of the interaction between play, culture, and politics. --Tracy Rutler co-creator of Legacies of the Enlightenment

Author Information

FAYÇAL FALAKY is an associate professor of French at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he specializes in eighteenth-century French literature, culture, and politics. He is the author of Social Contract, Masochist Contract: Aesthetics of Freedom and Submission in Rousseau. REGINALD MCGINNIS is a professor of French at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is the author of Essai sur l'origine de la mystification and a book, co-authored with John Vignaux Smyth, titled Mock Ritual in the Modern Era. Current projects include a book on the abbé Edme Mallet.

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