Poetry and the Police (Ch. 11-15, pp. 79-145: skip Ch.10, skim Ch. 12-14)

written participation due (details under Assignments)

To guide your reading:

I know you are already having to write the written participation; these questions are really meant to reduce your work by giving you direction. In fact, some of these questions will help you as you write it. The other good thing about today’s reading is that lots of it is poetry (short lines) with French (which you can skip).

Our discussion today will deal with various aspects of how the poems and songs were used, circulated, recombined, perceived, etc.

How did music combine with text? (Ch. 11) (Note especially Darnton’s argumentation: this is one of his most ambitious and groundbreaking purposes/arguments; what is successful or unsuccessful about it?).

What were the different genres of songs (skim Ch. 12), and how did they send different messages or have different tones?

As you skim Ch. 13 and 14, just look for what sources or evidence Darnton is able to provide for how these messages were received.

What is the “overall picture” here of how these texts worked? What was the nature of the network? What kinds of messages were sent and how and to whom? What types of symbolic meaning or significance were included?

Darnton ends on the question of “public opinion.” How does he weigh in on the historical debate over this that he described earlier? What does he say is important about public opinion in the last half of the 1700s?

Poetry and the Police (Intro-Ch.9 skip Ch. 6-7; pp. 1-65 skip 37-44); do look at footnotes

To guide your reading:

Darnton begins with the “detective work” (both by the French police in 1749 and by modern historians) of the “Affair of the Fourteen” and then tries to “dig deeper” (or maybe “zoom bigger”?) by considering underlying issues. The point is that establishing the facts of what happened are only the very beginning of doing history. Layers to consider:

What does Darnton say is the “big question” or overall purpose of his book? (Intro, but especially Ch. 2 and 4).

What does Darnton argue about the social and intellectual networks revealed by the investigation of the poems? He begins with the bourgeois (Ch. 3 and 4).

He then explores the connection between the poems in the investigation and the nobility (Ch. 4 and 5).

Chapter 6 in one sentence: the Fourteen had their careers wrecked; some went into exile; one had trouble finding a wife later because of it, and “they probably never comprehended what ‘the affair’ was all about.

Chapter 7: if the poems are only a product of court politics, then they are not really a reflection of “public opinion”; but by 1749 Louis XV and his officials did care about what “people are saying” and carefully monitored it, even shaping their policies sometimes.

What were the “current events” affecting public opinion in 1749 (Ch. 8) and how were those expressed in poems (Ch. 9)? Consider the different variations, messages, or types of poems.

Throughout this book, try to notice Darnton’s decisions and paths as a fellow historian. This book is sort of a glorified primary source explanation like your research project! How does he move from a particular set of primary sources to other primary sources, secondary sources, asking new questions, larger questions, etc. You can also try to notice when he makes unconvincing arguments, asks a question and then fails to answer it, etc. (which he does do!).