Who came before us
A
brief history of literary and music salons
The
pot boils . . . Salons facilitate the 'Age
of Enlightenment,' women's emancipation,
revolution and democracy
If you were a member of the Blue Stockings
Society in mid-18th century England you
were considered an educated, intellectual
woman. You were becoming bored with your
embroidery. You were seeking to supersede
'the wolfish passion' of card playing with
conversation. You not only gathered together
with other female members of the Society
(and educated men, by invitation) for discussion
and debate about literature, philosophy
and the arts but also to support one another's
intellectual and artistic endeavors. You
would have been among one of the earliest
'feminists' challenging traditional, non-intellectual,
women's activities. And you would have been
in the company of linguist Elizabeth Carter,
novelist Fanny Burney, philosopher Edmund
Burke, and author Dr. Samuel Johnson.
Elizabeth
Montagu, 'The Queen of the Blues', who founded
the Bluestockings Society (along with Elizabeth
Vesey), reigned over this most premier of
London salons for nearly 50 years. She wrote
this in 1743:
In
a woman's education little but outward accomplishments
is regarded . . . sure the men are very
imprudent to endeavor to make fools of those
to whom they so much trust their honour
and fortune, but it is in the nature of
mankind to hazard their peace to secure
power, and they know fools make the best
slaves
Fanny
Burney described, with some precision, the
configuration of Mrs. Montagu's salon in
her Diary:
the
semi-circle that faced the fire retained
during the whole evening its unbroken form
The lady of the castle commonly placed
herself at the upper end of the room, near
the commencement of the curve, so as to
be courteously visible to all her guests;
having the person of highest rank or consequence
properly on one side, and the person the
most eminent for talents, sagaciously on
the other... No one ventured to break the
ring.
Mrs.
Montagu's salon, along with the salons of
Europe, became a social institution of the
Enlightenment, egalitarian to a degree,
and serving as a major channel of communication
among intellectuals.
Now,
under the leadership of Mrs Montagu, these
defiant bluestockings managed to acquire
distinction and draw round them many eminent
men of the day. They were a mixed group,
some of them great ladies like the Duchess
of Portland, others hard-working middle-class
women who lived virtually in Grub Street;
but all were "modern" and all
had pronounced ideas. They abused the butterfly
existence of society women, distrusted romance,
denounced marrying for money, and excoriated
the double standard. Some of them wrote,
others became pioneer reformers and philanthropists.
Each had a slightly different idea of the
drawing-room....
Louis
Kronenberger author of Kings and Desperate
Men: Life in 18th Century England
Yes,
the 'Enlightenment' was more a set of values
than it was a single set of ideas. The values
of liberty, equality, fraternity, and secularity
were all associated with the 'Enlightenment.'
And, yes, salons of 18th century Europe
and England became cauldrons for progressive
intellectual, cultural, and even political,
thought. It was during the 'Age of Enlightenment,'
after all, that the American and French
Revolutions were born.
The
experience of the salon, with its complex,
fluid, and to some, 'wasteful' conversations
subverted Victorian bourgeois norms . .
. and laid the groundwork for the literary
experimentation of Proust, Wilde, and Stein.
Lucia Re, Author
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