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Publication Date

2021

Description

Collecting diverse critical perspectives on the topic of play—from dolls, bilboquets, and lotteries, to writing itself—this volume offers new insights into how play was used to represent and reimagine the world in eighteenth-century France. In documenting various modes of play, contributors theorize its relation to law, religion, politics, and economics. Equally important was the role of “play” in plays, and the function of theatrical performance in mirroring, and often contesting, our place in the universe. These essays remind us that the spirit of play was very much alive during the “Age of Reason,” providing ways for its practitioners to consider more “serious” themes such as free will and determinism, illusions and equivocations, or chance and inequality. Standing at the intersection of multiple intellectual avenues, this is the first comprehensive study in English devoted to the different guises of play in Enlightenment France, certain to interest curious readers across disciplinary backgrounds.

Keywords

eighteenth-century France, play, games, ludic, playfulness, theater, cultural studies, french, francophone, law, religion, politics, economics, Age of Reason, free will, determinism, Enlightenment France, dolls, bilboquets, lotteries, French Revolution, orientalism

Rights

This collection copyright © 2022 by Bucknell University Press Individual chapters copyright © 2022 in the names of their authors All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Bucknell University Press, Hildreth-Mirza Hall, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837-2005. The only

Type

text and images, 216 pages

Language

eng

ISBN

9781684483440

Modes of Play in Eighteenth-Century France

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