La Querelle des Bouffons: Musical Life and the Formation of Music Criticism in Mid-Eighteenth-Century France

• Main Authors: Jo-Yao Huang, 黃若瑤
• Other Authors: 秦曼儀
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/nhdm5k

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 歷史學研究所 === 104 === Between 1752 and 1754, a fierce debate on French music history called Querelle des Bouffons was going on, where participants tried to compare the relative merits of French opera and Italian opera and finally split up into two groups. During the debate, the encyclopedists promoted philosophes to the role of musical critics through pamphlets, and intended to instruct the taste of music to the public. Eventually, musical criticism became a genre with professional skill and attracted authors from various social classes, forming a musical readership which was different from the past. This thesis will analyze the writing tactics of the pamphlets during the first phase of Querelle des Bouffons (January, 1752 – October, 1753), and show some of these texts changed the discourse of taste and the power relationship of musical production in Ancien Régime. Also, the paratext of these pamphlets and the social class of the authors will help us to clarify the circulation of printing works in the age of Enlightenment (in this case, critical and satirical pamphlets). Eventually, this thesis attempts to outline and supplement the existing research, which neglects the possible spread of Querelle des Bouffons in the public sphere, as well as re-examine the meaning of this debate under the Ancien Régime society.