Samuel Pepys and his Books

Loveman, Kate

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198732686.001.0001

Cited by 35 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Loveman has shown how Elizabeth displayed her superior knowledge of fashionable French romances in other social settings. 77 These sociable gatherings formed an integral part of the couple's strategy for their mutual advancement. Here, Elizabeth assumed the role of 'cultural mediator': converting her facility in the French language and awareness of French literature into cultural capital.…”

Section: Francophile Habitus: Prestige Taste and Cosmopolitanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘We do naturally … hate the French’

Magliocco¹

2022

Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Early Modern England

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Thence to my Lord Bellasyse by invitation, and there dined with him and his lady and daughter; and at dinner there played to us a young boy, lately come from France, where he had been learning a year or two on the viallin, and plays finely. But impartially, I do not find any goodness in their ayres (though very good) beyond ours. 1 Like so many entries, this brief passage prompts various lines of inquiry. This chapter pursues just one of these: Pepys's engagement with 'Frenchness'. It argues that this engagement was structured by two powerful but contradictory stereotypes. On one hand, French things, people and France itself were identified with excess, or the absence of moderation. 2 In such cases, a national identity was constructed, if often only implicitly, in relation to a stereotyped French 'other'. At the same time, France, French things and, more equivocally, the French themselves were habitually identified with contemporary notions of distinction. 3 Here, the same constellation of places, things and people was used to construct and differentiate a cosmopolitan social identity. In other words, Pepys embraced a series of contradictory stereotypes, invoking different aspects of them depending on contexts. These conflicting stereotypes were bolstered by, and in turn buttressed, other social representations -relating to gender, class, religion and age -that were central to contemporary constructions of both 'self' and 'other'. This chapter is primarily expository in ambition. It uses a single source, Pepys's diary, to examine the production and reproduction of specific stereotypes within a circumscribed milieu and at a particular conjuncture, deploying theoretical insights from social psychology. At the same time, it is also intended as a historiographical intervention, challenging the accepted representation of English attitudes towards the French in the opening decades of the Restoration.

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Section: Francophile Habitus: Prestige Taste and Cosmopolitanismmentioning

confidence: 99%