“Shagi / Steps” the Journal of the SASH

SHAGI/STEPS 8(2)

Keywords: French salons of the 17th — first third of the 19th centuries, salon culture, the art of conversation, salon games, salon as a topos of hospitality

Abstract: The paper examines various functions that the salon performed in France during the 17th and 18th centuries: the salon as a form of aristocratic and literary leisure, as a place of literary and linguistic innovations, cultivation of the art of conversation, theatrical play, etc. Various types of salons are considered: aristocratic, philosophical, literary, political, but it is shown that there was no clear boundary between these categories. Special attention is paid to the role that the encyclopedists played in the history of salons and how the functioning of salons changed after 1793 and again in the era of Empire and Restoration, when the salon turned from a social locus that was feeding literature into one of its nostalgic plots. The second part, Signs of salon life, analyzes the rules that allow us to operate with the concept of salon culture and to reconstruct its implicit and explicit etiquette (the role of a woman hostess and her status, conversation, hospitality, verbal and social games, theatrical performances arranged in salons). Such different authors as Stendhal, Balzac, Proust inscribe salons in the cultural memory of the nation, outgrowing the narrow limits of the world of aristocracy. In these new salons, the status of ladies who are no longer able to control public opinion is changing (Balzac). As a result, the art of conversation gradually loses its status as a practice of secular life, having also some literary ambitions.

To cite this article: Dmitrieva, E. E. (2022). French salons: From social ritual to literary practice. Shagi/Steps, 8(2), 102–123. (In Russian). https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2022-8-2-102-123.