Connors, Logan J. (Author)
Voltaire Foundation
Physical Details: 273
Language: English
The emergence of a theatrical science of man in France, 1660-1740 highlights a radical departure from discussions of dramatic literature and its undergirding rules to a new, relational discourse on the emotional power of theater. Through a diverse cast of religious theaterphobes, government officials, playwrights, art theorists and proto-philosophes, Connors shows the concerted effort in early Enlightenment France to use texts about theater to establish broader theories on emotion, on the enduring psychological and social ramifications of affective moments, and more generally, on human interaction, motivation, and social behavior.This fundamentally anthropological assessment of theater emerged in the works of anti-theatrical religious writers, who argued that emotional response was theater's raison d'�tre and that it was an efficient venue to learn more about the depravity of human nature. A new generation of pro-theatrical writers shared the anti-theatricalists' intense focus on the emotions of theater, but unlike religious theaterphobes, they did not view emotion as a conduit of sin or as a dangerous, uncontrollable process; but rather, as cognitive-affective moments of feeling and learning.Connors' study explores this reassessment of the theatrical experience which empowered writers to use plays, critiques, and other cultural materials about the stage to establish a theatrical science of man-an early Enlightenment project with aims to study and 'improve' the emotional, social, and political 'health' of eighteenth-century France.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Thesis
Katherine Walker;
(2018)
Reading the Natural and Preternatural Worlds in Early Modern Drama
Thesis
Sarah Grandin;
(2021)
To Scale: Manufacturing Grandeur in the Age of Louis XIV
Essay Review
Coppola, Al;
(2011)
Science/Spectacle
Thesis
Katherine Janice Swimm;
(2018)
'An Obvious Caricature': The Consequences of Scientific Discourse on Theatrical Madness, 1807-1895
Thesis
Sanam Nader-Esfahani;
(2016)
Knowledge and Representation through Baroque Eyes: Literature and Optics in France and Italy ca. 1600-1640
Article
Frank, Adam;
(2012)
Loose Coordinations: Theater and Thinking in Gertrude Stein
Chapter
Adam Zucker;
(2020)
Vexed and Insatiable: Unfeelable Feelings and the Marketplace of Early Modern Drama
Chapter
Darryl Chalk;
(2021)
Like Furnace: Sighing on the Shakespearean Stage
Chapter
Mcclary, Susan;
(2012)
Temporality and Ideology: Qualities of Motion in Seventeenth-Century French Music
Book
Dori Coblentz;
(2022)
Fencing, form and cognition on the early modern stage: artful devices
Book
Courtney Weiss Smith;
(2016)
Empiricist Devotions: Science, Religion, and Poetry in Early Eighteenth-Century England
Article
Paola Giacomoni;
(2018)
The Light of the Emotions: Passions and Emotions in Seventeenth-Century French Culture
Chapter
Clarke, Desmond;
(2007)
La théorie des passions selon Louis de la Forge
Thesis
Singer, Julie;
(2006)
Lines of Sight: Love Lyric, Science, and Authority in Late Medieval and EarlyModern French and Italian Culture
Article
Menin, Marco;
(2014)
“Who Will Write the History of Tears?” History of Ideas and History of Emotions from Eighteenth-Century France to the Present
Article
Samuel Dodson;
(2023)
Courage, Honour, and Phlegm: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Military Writers' Descriptions of Soldiers' Combat Emotions and Motivation
Article
Huneman, Philippe;
(2008)
Montpellier Vitalism and the Emergence of Alienism in France (1750--1800): The Case of the Passions
Article
Martín Moruno, Dolores;
(2015)
Quand la médecine nous prend par les sentiments: Le magnétiseur amoureux de Charles de Villers
Book
Fulgence Delleaux;
(2022)
Inquiétude dans les champs: Essai sur la gestion des exploitations agricoles dans l'espace francophone
Book
Selfridge-Field, Eleanor;
(2007)
Song and Season: Science, Culture, and Theatrical Time in Early Modern Venice
Be the first to comment!