The specific availability for this course is not currently known. If you would like to know if this course will be offered during your session, please contact us.
Did pamphlets and plays cause the French Revolution? Were newspapers responsible for the revolutions of 1830 and 1848? Could novels have set Paris up as a stage for revolutions throughout the nineteenth century? This course will look at interactions between literature, media, and revolution in the nineteenth century, focusing particularly on the popular impact of theater and of the press. We will start with Sara Maza and Robert Darnton's analyses of the "Cultural Origins of the French Revolution", then move on to consider why melodrama may matter to politics as well as to theater, and read the events of 1830 through Stendhal's Le Rouge et le noir. After covering debates over censorship and the commercialization of literature in the July Monarchy, we will consider whether Eugène Sue's Mystères de Paris and its stage adaptation might really have helped bring about the Revolution of 1848, and evaluate Flaubert's claim that a better understanding of his novel l'Éducation sentimentale might have prevented the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. The class will use Paris as a Stage for learning, including visits to sites such as the Archives nationales, where we will read censors' reports on selected popular plays.
