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Benedetta Craveri
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The Age of Conversation Paperback – August 1, 2006

by Benedetta Craveri (Author)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 19 ratings
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Now in paperback, an award-winning look at French salons and the women who presided over them

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between the reign of Louis XIII and the Revolution, French aristocratic society developed an art of living based on a refined code of good manners.

Conversation, which began as a way of passing time, eventually became the central ritual of social life. In the salons, freed from the rigidity of court life, it was women who dictated the rules and presided over exchanges among socialites, writers, theologians, and statesmen. They contributed decisively to the development of the modern French language, new literary forms, and debates over philosophical and scientific ideas.

With a cast of characters both famous and unknown, ranging from the Marquise de Rambouillet to Madame de Sta‘l, and including figures like Ninon de Lenclos, the Marquise de Sevigne, and Madame de Lafayette, as well as Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Diderot, and Voltaire, Benedetta Craveri traces the history of this worldly society that carried the art of sociability to its supreme perfection–and ultimately helped bring on the Revolution that swept it all away.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    508 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    New York Review Books
  4. Publication date
    August 1, 2006
  5. Dimensions
    6.08 x 1.06 x 9.02 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1590172140
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1590172148
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Craveri, an Italian professor of French literature, argues that the Marquise de Rambouillet fomented a revolution when she offered her famed salon as a place for the French nobility to gather in the early 17th century. This entertaining book explores a golden age of conversation in France (from 1610 to 1789), in which the aristocracy established a new order, away from the strictures of the royal court." --The New York Times Book Review

“Craveri argues that when, in the sixteen-twenties, the Marquise de Rambouillet offered her home as a place for the French nobility to gather she was unwittingly fermenting a revolution. The next century and a half constituted the golden age of conversation, which allowed the aristocracy to establish a new order, based not on the strictures of church or crown but on manners. Craveri’s narrative paints a series of brilliant portraits of those (mostly women) who presided over the new sphere.”–The New Yorker

“Benedetta Craveri's The Age of Conversation is a well-researched study of the French salon…the book offers shrewd portraits of intellectual society's leading ladies, or salonnières, and of the world they created…[Craveri's] book is essential for understanding the world of the salon and the reasons for its appeal to so many writers and statesmen.”–The Wall Street Journal

“In her thoughtful book, Craveri...draws effectively on the vast range of recent scholarship in this field, which is listed and discussed in a substantial and extremely useful bibliographical essay. But the main part of the book is not so much a study as an attractive story, written in a style ‘unburdened by academic language.’”–The New York Review of Books

“Craveri has resurrected in tantalizing, inviting detail the supreme age of talk embodied in the great salons of Paris…and the fascinating women at the center of those salons…With an effortless grasp of the complex period that starts with the reign of Louis XIV and ends with the murder of Louis XVI in the Revolution, Craveri easily insinuates us into this world and its compelling figures.”–The Los Angeles Times

"Entertaining…Craveri, an Italian professor of French literature, helpfully highlights the most influential, literate and scandalous of these irrepressible women.”–The New York Times

“Craveri’s summary essay on the seduction, deception, and power of the spoken word shows how this movement among France’s noble classes laid groundwork for the coming revolution.”–Booklist

About the Author

BENEDETTA CRAVERI is a professor of French literature at the University of Tuscia, Viterbo, and the Istituto Universitario Suor Orsola Benincasa, Naples. She regularly contributes to The New York Review of Books and to the cultural pages of the Italian newspaper La Republica. Her books include Madame du Deffand and Her World, La Vie privee du Marechal de Richelieu, and Amanti e regine: Il potere delle donne.

Teresa Waugh is the author of eight novels including The House. She has translated numerous books from both French and Italian, including Benedetta Craveri’s Madame du Duffand and Her World and Anka Muhlstein’s A Taste for Freedom: The Life of Astolphe Custine. She is the widow of Auberon Waugh, son of Evelyn Waugh, and lives in Somerset, England.


Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ New York Review Books; Illustrated edition (August 1, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 508 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1590172140
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1590172148
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.08 x 1.06 x 9.02 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 19 ratings

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Benedetta Craveri

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
19 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

A. Smick
5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding the Salon movement
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2009
Verified Purchase
This is an excellent study of the salon movement in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. It is both scholarly and readable. After many years of reading about this phenomenon during the Enlightenment, I feel that I have begun to understand how it came to be and why it was so important. Ms Craveri has put the intellectual contributions of women in the 17th and 18th centuries into a comprehensible context. I especially enjoyed the citations from primary sources which give texture to her work.
14 people found this helpful
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Peggy Halsegan
5.0 out of 5 stars Ancien Regime - up to date in this book
Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2020
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I learned a lot about the Ancien Regime and how it set the stage for the Enlightenment. Very informative book
One person found this helpful
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César González Rouco
4.0 out of 5 stars Noble talking
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2006
The description on the synopsis of the book provided by the "Book reviews" is fairly accurate. Therefore, I will only point out that the book is no very engaging, but it is not dry either. It can be savoured by the professional historian, and by the educated layperson too. Therefore, my rating is 5 (content) and 3/4 (pleasure). In addition to this work, other books that I would recommend reading would be 1) "Nobilities in Transition 1550-1700 : Courtiers and Rebels in Britain and Europe" by Ronald G. Asch; 2 and 3)"Myths of Power. Norbert Elias and the Early Modern European Court " and "Vienna and Versailles : The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780 (New Studies in European History)" by Jeroen Duindam (whose books present a more accurate view of monarchy, nobility, the court and the state contrary to that provided by Elias's "The Court Society"); and 4) "The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century" by John Brewer.
27 people found this helpful
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M. Garchet
3.0 out of 5 stars french women of old
Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2009
Verified Purchase
A very detailed study about how some women in the XVIII century France became leading "locomotives" in society, dictating the ways people shoud behave, talk and even think. It's interesting but a little too long and too detailed.
2 people found this helpful
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