Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris by Darnton, Robert

Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780674066045)

Vendor: Robert Darnton
Product type: Books
Format: Paperback
$32.00
$32.00
$32.00
Subtotal: $32.00
Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris by Darnton, Robert

Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris

$32.00
Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris by Darnton, Robert

Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris

$32.00
Format: Paperback
Description
Description
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In spring 1749, Fran輟is Bonis, a medical student in Paris, found himself unexpectedly hauled off to the Bastille for distributing an "abominable poem about the king." So began the Affair of the Fourteen, a police crackdown on ordinary citizens for unauthorized poetry recitals. Why was the official response to these poems so intense?

In this captivating book, Robert Darnton follows the poems as they passed through several media: copied on scraps of paper, dictated from one person to another, memorized and declaimed to an audience. But the most effective dispersal occurred through music, when poems were sung to familiar tunes. Lyrics often referred to current events or revealed popular attitudes toward the royal court. The songs provided a running commentary on public affairs, and Darnton brilliantly traces how the lyrics fit into song cycles that carried messages through the streets of Paris during a period of rising discontent. He uncovers a complex communication network, illuminating the way information circulated in a semi-literate society.

This lucid and entertaining book reminds us of both the importance of oral exchanges in the history of communication and the power of "viral" networks long before our internet age.

Author: Robert Darnton
ISBN-10: 0674066049
ISBN-13: 9780674066045
Publisher: Belknap Press
Language: English
Published: 09/03/2012
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.60w x 0.70d
By Robert Darnton
By Robert Darnton
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Robert Darnton is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard University, and Director of the University Library, Harvard University.

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