Exclusive Conversations

Goldsmith, Elizabeth C.

doi:10.9783/9781512807158

Cited by 64 publications

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“…Both conversations mark a new turn in her thinking: unlike many of her other conversations, 'De la magnificence' and 'De l'ennui' are not recycled from her earlier novels but appear for the first time in print in Conversations nouvelles sur divers sujets. 15 Both conversations describe a new kind of royal entertainment, built around games and gambling, which contrasts with the spectacle fêtes of earlier years. And both conversations highlight the newness of these royal gaming entertainments through the lexical uncertainty that surrounds them.…”

Section: Royal Trinketsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The King in Trinkets: Madeleine de Scudéry's Conversations and the Downsizing of Absolutism

Hogg¹

2018

J Eighteenth Century Stud

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This article studies the discourse and material culture of absolutism in two conversations from Madeleine de Scudéry's Conversations nouvelles sur divers sujets (1684). Read together and against each other, ‘De la magnificence et de la magnanimité’ and ‘De l'ennui sans sujet’ present the transition from an economy of representation and display that elicits awe and admiration to an exchange of goods that promises personal satisfactions and pleasures. I argue that Scudéry effects a literary and material ‘downsizing’ of absolutism in her description of a court entertainment at Marly that combined gambling with the pleasures of consumption.

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Section: Royal Trinketsmentioning

confidence: 99%