| "Urban Itineraries" is an interdisciplinary study that examines representations of the peasant from a socio-cultural and historical perspective. Between the 17th and the 18th centuries, striking changes occurred in the way peasants were portrayed in French literature and painting. A far cry from Moliere's dim-witted villager or the Le Nains' tragic brute, the peasant in the 18th century is either dramatically depicted as a socially mobile, morally corrupt urban migrant or nostalgically portrayed as a virtuous member of a loving rural community. As these transformations suggest, the rapid urbanization taking place in 18th-century France created an opportune climate for authors and artists to cultivate and exploit public sentiment surrounding both the real and the imagined changes taking place in contemporary society. Tracing the development of the figure from the 1710s to the 1790s, this dissertation shows how the peasant serves as a realistic and a sensational symbol of the historical changes and shifts in mentality that occurred throughout the century. Chapter one examines Marivaux's and Watteau's portrayals of the masquerading of peasants and aristocrats, arguing that these works may have documented as well as influenced the more fluid social and sartorial hierarchy that developed in France over the course of the century. The second chapter discusses the sentimental images of the peasant family and egalitarian village community in the works of Rousseau, Graffigny, Favart, Sedaine, and Greuze, showing how these nostalgic country scenes may have both soothed and cultivated the public's desire for a united community blind to social distinctions. Chapter three studies the contrasts between secret urban chambers and panoptic rural spaces developed in Retif de la Bretonne's novels and Fragonard's paintings, demonstrating how these works may have played on growing concerns about the relationship between urban spaces and moral corruption. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of how the peasant emerged as the ultimate French citizen during the Revolution, an image which proves to be the enduring legacy of these 18th-century portrayals, ironically re-emerging when the issue of essential Frenchness comes to the forefront during the anti-semitic and anti-immigration campaigns of Petain and Le Pen. |
