The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis XIV and the Politics of SpectacleProminent 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. |
Contents
Louis XIVs Early Court Ballet 16511660 | 1 |
Louis XIVs Late Court Ballet 16611669 | 41 |
Le bourgeois gentilhomme the Utopia of Spectacle | 84 |
Reversals at the Paris Opéra 16711697 | 120 |
The Ballet at the Paris Opéra 17001713 | 161 |
Other editions - View all
The Triumph of Pleasure: Louis XIV and the Politics of Spectacle Georgia J. Cowart No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
absolutist Académie amours appear artists associated audience Ballet des Muses Benserade bourgeois gentilhomme burlesque Campra carnaval celebration century chapter characters comédie-ballet comic composed connections contained continued court ballet critical Culture Cupid Cythera dance dancers death depicted discussed earlier early entry Example fêtes figure final Flore France French galant galanterie genre glory grand ideal Italian Italy Jean-Baptiste king king’s known late later libertine livret Louis XIV Louis’s lovers Lully Lully’s Molière nobility noble novel opera opéra-ballet original painting Paris parody pastoral performed period Pilgrimage play pleasure political praise presented produced prologue propaganda reference reflect reign represents reversal role royal satire scene seen served seventeenth Seventeenth-Century social society spectacle stage statue style symbol theater théâtre tion triomphe des arts turn University Press utopia Venise vénitiennes Venus Watteau XIV’s