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Subjectivity and Subjugation in Seventeenth-Century Drama and Prose: The Family Romance of French Classicism

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Subjectivity and Subjugation in Seventeenth-Century Drama and Prose: The Family Romance of French Classicism
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Mitchell Greenberg
SeriesCambridge Studies in French
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:256
Dimensions(mm): Height 215,Width 139
Category/GenreLiterary studies - c 1500 to c 1800
Literary studies - plays and playwrights
Literary studies - fiction, novelists and prose writers
ISBN/Barcode 9780521032308
ClassificationsDewey:842.409
Audience
Professional & Vocational
Illustrations Worked examples or Exercises

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 14 December 2006
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

This 1992 book analyses the relation between an emergent modern subjectivity in seventeenth-century French literature, particularly in dramatic works, and the contemporaneous evolution of the absolutist state. It shows how major writers of the Classical period (Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Lafayette) elaborate a new subject in and through their representations of the family, and argues that the family serves as the mediating locus of a patriarchal ideology of sexual and political containment. Most importantly, it asks why the theatre became the privileged form of representation in this state, and why this theatre concentrates almost exclusively on family conflict. Professor Greenberg argues that the narrative of oedipal sexuality and subjugation central to this new literary canon reflected the conflicting social, political and economic forces that were shifting European society away from the universe of the Renaissance and guiding it towards the 'transparency' of Classical representation.

Author Biography

Mitchell Greenberg is Goldwin Smith Professor of Romance Studies at Cornell University. He is the author of several books on seventeenth-century French literature and culture. Greenberg uses contemporary critical theories, particularly Freudian and post-Freudian approaches, in the interpretation of early modern texts.

Reviews

"...both by the depth and brilliance of his perceptions and the clarity and elegance of his formulations, Mitchell Greenberg has made, with this work, a major contribution to seventeenth-century French studies." Ralph Albanese, Jr., L'Esprit Createur