Women on the Stage in Early Modern France 1540}}}1750 [Hardcover]

Scott presents an engaging history of the actress in early modern France, examining their invaluable contributions to French theatre.How did women become stars of the French stage in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Scott reveals the reality of women's lives in the theatre, examines the ways in which the stereotype of the actress developed, and uncovers the invaluable contributions made by actresses to the development of French theatre.How did women become stars of the French stage in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Scott reveals the reality of women's lives in the theatre, examines the ways in which the stereotype of the actress developed, and uncovers the invaluable contributions made by actresses to the development of French theatre.Focusing on actresses in France during the early modern period, Virginia Scott examines how the stereotype of the actress has been constructed. The study then moves beyond that stereotype to detail the reality of the personal and artistic lives of women on the French stage, from the almost unknown Marie Ferr?  who signed a contract for 12 livres a year in 1545 to perform the antiquailles de Rome or other histories, moralities, farces, and acrobatics' in the provinces  to the queens of the eighteenth-century Paris stage, whose adventures' have overshadowed their artistic triumphs. The book also investigates the ways in which actresses made invaluable contributions to the development of the French theatre in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and looks at the afterlives' of such women as Armande B?jart, Marquise Du Parc, Charlotte Desmares, Adrienne Lecouvreur, and Hippolyte Clairon in biographies, plays, and films.Preface; 1. The actress and the anecdote; 2. 'So perverse was her wantonness': antitheatricalism and the actress; 3. In the beginning: 'Twelve Livres per year'; 4. 'Those diverting little ways': 163040; 5. 'Mademoiselle L'?toile': 16401700; 6. 'Embellished by art': 16801720; 7. Lives and aftel3>