Public Acoustics: The Sound of Society in Ancien Régime Literature (Sound in History)

Explores how Ancien Régime writers theorized public communication through acoustic metaphorsThe salons, cafés, theaters, and print shops of Ancien Régime France have long occupied a key place in histories of the "public sphere"-that is, a cultural arena where private individuals could discuss topics of public interest.Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French writers certainly acknowledged the emerging importance of public discussion to their society and political culture.Yet when they wrote about contemporary public discourse, they typically used different words to describe it.Most often, they reached for a metaphor, referring to it as noise (bruit).What did it mean to characterize the public's discourse in this way?In this book, Ellen R.Welch investigates the figure of noise in Ancien Régime writing as a resource for thinking about public communication.Analyzing plays, novels, letters, essays, and chronicles, Public Acoustics explores how creative writers manipulated commonplace aco