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 Repubblica. Her books include Madame du Deffand and Her World and La Vie privee du Marechal de Richelieu, and Amanti e regine: Il potere delle donne. She is married to a French diplomat.
"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
Ask a Question About this Product More... |