FRENCH 224 Versailles and the Age of LouisXIV

This course will examine the art, culture, politics, and literature which defined the royal court of Louis XIV at Versailles. Focusing on the court as a social milieu defined by its rigorous order and as a place where careers were made and destroyed, we will consider Versailles as part of a monarchical strategy to establish and demonstrate the king’s power.  We will also view the court as a source of inspiration for many of the seventeenth century’s most influential authors.

Our analysis of royal paintings, architecture, ceremonies and official historiography which promoted the Sun King's glory, will be contrasted with novels, memoirs, letters and moral treatises which undermined the very notion of courtly magnificence. Readings will include authors such as Lafayette, La Bruyère, La Fontaine and Sévigné who were part of the court, yet condemned its dangerous intrigues, moral corruption and petty rivalries. An exploration of this discrepancy will enable us to understand the social, political, and artistic practices that defined Louis XIV's court. In addition, taking into account recent films and historical works on Versailles, we will consider its legacy for contemporary French culture.

The following questions will guide our focus:
--What political and cultural role did the court of Versailles play for the monarchy, for aristocrats, and for the other twenty million French royal subjects?
--In a period of very limited freedom of expression, how did different genres—memoirs, novels, comedies, letters, fables—influence writers' abilities to challenge the fictions of royal power which Versailles encapsulated? 
--How does an understanding of Versailles and its cultural dynamics affect the way we read literary works produced in its proximity?
--How have the French portrayed Versailles at different historical junctures (in particular at the Revolution, under Napoleon’s reign and in the twentieth century) and what might these representations reveal about Versailles’s mythical status?

Assignments include an oral presentation, two papers of three to four pages in length, and one final paper or project.

Readings:
La Bruyère, Les Caractères
Madame de Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves
La Fontaine, Fables Book I (excerpts)
La Rochefoucauld, Maximes (excerpts)
Molière, George Dandin
Racine, Iphigénie; Abrégé de l'histoire de Port Royal
Madame de Sévigné, Lettres (excerpts)
Saint-Simon, Mémoires (excerpts)
Critical Texts to be Consulted:
Jacques Revel, "La Cour" in Les Lieux de Mémoire
Elena Russo, La Cour et la Ville
Louis Marin, Le Portrait du Roi
Peter Burke, The Fabrication of Louis XIV
Films:
Saint-Cyr
Le Roi danse