کشتار بزرگ گربه‌ها: و دیگر وقایع در تاریخ فرهنگی فرانسه

The landmark history of France and French culture in the eighteenth-century, a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730s held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the eighteenth-century version of Little Red Riding Hood did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions the distinguished Harvard historian Robert Darnton answers The Great Cat Massacre , a kaleidoscopic view of European culture during in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment." A classic of European history, it is an essential starting point for understanding Enlightenment France. "The funniest thing that ever happened in the printing shop of Jacques Vincent, according to a worker who witnessed it, was a riotous massacre of cats." So begins Robert Darnton's exploration of the violent rituals practiced by artisans in mid-eighteenth century France. In a series of elegantly rendered essays, Professor Darnton exhumes the strange and wonderful world views of the ordinary and extraordinary people inhabiting the cities, towns and countryside of France in the Age of Enlightenment. Ranging from the grim folklore of the French peasantry to the romantic sensibilities binding Rousseau to his provincial bourgeois readers, Darnton conveys ways of thinking and feeling long misunderstood. In evoking the exotic and the commonplace in the culture of eighteenth century Frenchmen, Darnton invites the reader to ponder such questions as why a group of Parisian craftsmen found the massacre of cats so funny and how jokes worked among the workers of the old regime. The Great Cat Massacre is a kaleidoscopic view of a culture both familiar and strange. In this book Robert Darnton administers a necessary and unforgettable dose of culture shock When the apprentices of a Paris printing shop in the 1730's held a series of mock trials and then hanged all the cats they could lay their hands on, why did they find it so hilariously funny that they choked with laughter when they reenacted it in pantomime some twenty times? Why in the 18th century version of "Little Red Riding Hood" did the wolf eat the child at the end? What did the anonymous townsman of Montpelier have in mind when he kept an exhaustive dossier on all the activities of his native city? These are some of the provocative questions Robert Darnton attempts to answer in this dazzling series of essays that probe the ways of thought in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment." Frontmatter List of Illustrations (page ix) Acknowledgments (page xiii) Preface to the Revised Edition (page xv) Introduction (page 3) 1 Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning of Mother Goose (page 9) 2 Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of the Rue Saint-Séverin (page 75) 3 A Bourgeois Puts His World in Order: The City as a Text (page 107) 4 A Police Inspector Sorts His Files: The Anatomy of the Republic of Letters (page 145) 5 Philosophers Trim The Tree of Knowledge: The Epistemological Strategy of the Encyclopédie (page 191) 6 Readers Respond to Rousseau: The Fabrication of Romantic Sensitivity (page 215) Conclusion (page 257) Notes (page 265) Index (page 285) Peasants Tell Tales: The Meaning Of Mother Goose -- Workers Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre Of The Rue Saint-séverin -- A Bourgeois Puts His World In Order: The City As A Text -- A Police Inspector Sorts His Files: The Anatomy Of The Republic Of Letters -- Philosophers Trim The Tree Of Knowledge: The Epistemological Strategy Of The Encyclopédie -- Readers Respond To Rousseau: The Fabrication Of Romantic Sensitivity. Robert Darnton. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. In this dazzling series of essays, Robert Darnton exhumes the strange and wonderful world views of the ordinary and extraordinary people inhabiting the cities, towns, and countryside of France in what we like to call "The Age of Enlightenment."