In the Public Eye : : A History of Reading in Modern France, 1800-1940 / / James Smith Allen.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton Legacy Lib. eBook Package 1980-1999
• VerfasserIn: Allen, James Smith,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2014]; ©1991
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Series: Princeton Legacy Library ; 1218
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (374 p.)

Robert Darnton, Roger Chartier, and others have written much on the history of reading in the Old Regime, but this is the first broad study of reading to focus on the period after 1800. How and why did people understand texts as they did in modern France? In answering this question, James Allen moves easily from one interpretive framework to another and draws on a wide range of sources--novels, diaries, censor reports, critical reviews, artistic images, accounts of public and private readings, and the letters that readers sent to authors about their books. As he analyzes reading "in the public eye," the author explores the formation of "interpretive communities" during the years when reading silently and alone gradually became more common than reading aloud in a group. In the Public Eye discusses printing, publishing, literacy, schooling, criticism, and censorship, to study the social, cultural, economic, and political forces that shaped French interpretive practice. Examining the art and act of reading by different audiences, it discloses the mentalities of literate people for whom few other historical records exist. The book will be essential reading for those interested in modern French history, post-structuralist literary theory and criticism, reader-response theory and criticism, and social and intellectual history in general.Originally published in 1991.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS -- LIST OF TABLES -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- INTRODUCTION -- PART I: The Historical Context -- Chapter 1. THE PRINTED WORD -- Chapter 2. A LITERATE SOCIETY -- Chapter 3. THE POLITICS OF RECEPTION -- Chapter 4. CULTURAL MENTALITIES -- PART II: Historical Interpretive Practices: The Art of Reading -- Chapter 5. ARTISTIC IMAGES -- Chapter 6. IN THE NOVEL -- Chapter 7. JOURNALS AND MEMOIRS -- PART III: Historical Interpretive Practices: The Act of Reading -- Chapter 8. FROM NOBLE SENTIMENT TO PERSONAL SENSIBILITY -- Chapter 9. RESPONSES TO GENRE -- Chapter 10. READING THE NOVEL -- CONCLUSION -- APPENDIX TABLES -- SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ARCHIVAL SOURCES -- INDEX