Overview
Prominent components of Louis XIV's propaganda, the arts of spectacle also became sources of a potent resistance to the monarchy in late seventeenth-century France. With a particular focus on the court ballet, comedy-ballet, opera, and opera-ballet, Georgia J. Cowart tells the long-neglected story of how the festive arts deployed an intricate network of subversive satire to undermine the rhetoric of sovereign authority. With bold revisionist strokes, Cowart traces this strain of artistic dissent through the comedy-ballets of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Molière, the late operatic works of Lully and the operas of his sons, the opera-ballets of André Campra and his contemporaries, and the related imagery of Antoine Watteau's well-known painting The Pilgrimage to Cythera. She contends that through a variety of means, including the parody of old-fashioned court entertainments, these works reclaimed traditional allegories for new ideological aims, setting the tone for the Enlightenment. Exploring these arts from the perspective of spectacle as it emerged from the court into the Parisian public sphere, Cowart ultimately situates the ballet and related genres as the missing link between an imagery of propaganda and an imagery of political protest.
Full Product Details
Author: Georgia J. Cowart
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Dimensions:
Width: 1.60cm
, Height: 0.20cm
, Length: 2.40cm
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9780226211558
ISBN 10: 022621155
Pages: 324
Publication Date: 20 October 2014
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
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Reviews
"""One of the great strengths of Cowart's book is precisely its chronological scope.... Cowart's reach, combined with her considerable erudition and meticulous scholarship, allows her to make some very suggestive parallels between works that might otherwise have passed unnoticed."" (Times Literary Supplement)"""
Cowart details the ideological intricacies embedded within and across a wide range of performance modes. . . . [Her] elegant prose and nuanced observations will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in cultural history and the arts. --Anne Hogan Times Higher Education Supplement
One of the great strengths of Cowart's book is precisely its chronological scope.... Cowart's reach, combined with her considerable erudition and meticulous scholarship, allows her to make some very suggestive parallels between works that might otherwise have passed unnoticed. (Times Literary Supplement)
Author Information
Georgia J. Cowart is professor of music at Case Western Reserve University.
