A Savage Mirror: Power, Identity, and Knowledge in Early Modern FranceA Savage Mirror is about the New World, royal ritual, and the sensibilities that defined a new class of elites. It takes as its starting point the royal entry of Henri II into Rouen in 1550. By all accounts, this ritual was among the most spectacular ever staged. It included an “exact” replica of a Brazilian village, with fifty “savages” kidnapped from the New World. The book aims to understand what the French made of these Brazilian cannibals, and the significance of putting them in a festival honoring the king. The resulting analysis provides an investigation of France’s changing social structure, its religious beliefs, its humanist culture, and its complicated commercial and symbolic relations with the New World. The book will appeal not only to scholars of early modern history, but to those interested in cross-cultural contact, cultural studies, civic ritual, museography, and history of literature, science, religion, art, and anthropology. |
Contents
The Kings Entry | 15 |
Civilizing the Savage and Making a King | 39 |
The Social Poetics of the Triumph | 64 |
Copyright | |
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A Savage Mirror: Power, Identity, and Knowledge in Early Modern France Michael Wintroub Limited preview - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
ancient Ango associated astrolabe barbarian barbarism Bibliothèque Brazil Brazilians brazilwood ceremonial Cest la deduction chant royal Chappuys Chapter chariot Charles chevauchée city's civic civic-cultural elite Collège de France Conards cultural early modern early modern France eloquence emperor entrée entry festival entry into Rouen entry's Essays example française France France's François French Gaillon Geneva Golden Age Guillaume Guillaume Budé Hellequin Henri II Henri II's entry Henri's entry Hercules History humanist Ibid ideals Jacques Jean Jean Ango Jean Bouchet Jean de Léry João king king's kingship L'Entrée language Louis Marot Medieval merchants Michel mirror Mollat narrative nobility Norman Normandy Normandy's Palinod paradise Paris Parmentier Pierre poetry poets Portuguese Puy de Palinod relics Renaissance rhetoric rites ritual role Roman Rouennais royal entry Sagon Saint savage ship sixteenth century social spiritual symbolic Tabellionage tableau vivant tradition trans triumph triumphal entry verse victory Virgin World XVIe siècle