Aristocratie

Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), is unarguably among those authors who contributed most fundamentally to defining the concept of ‘sociability’ for thinkers in both Great Britain and the Continent.

As a bluestocking hostess, Frances Boscawen (1719-1805) is often mentioned in connection with Elizabeth Montagu or Elizabeth Vesey, but so far, little scholarly attention has been paid to Boscawen’s sociable activities.

Georgiana Cavendish, fifth Duchess of Devonshire captivated late eighteenth-century society with her youth, charm and high rank. Her epistolary novel The Sylph explores the relationship between high society, sociability and suicide.

À son arrivée à Londres, en juin 1813, Germaine de Staël reçoit un accueil triomphal, étant célébrée comme l’opposante la plus tenace à l’Empire napoléonien et la première femme de lettres de son temps.

This entry explains how the stay of James, Duke of York and Albany, and his court in Edinburgh (1679-1682) changed some of the forms of sociability. Indeed, it refashioned a royal court in the Scottish capital at a time when the merchant class had come to be the elite.

Dès les années 1780, l’œuvre pédagogique de Stéphanie-Félicité de Genlis (1746-1830) connaît outre-Manche un succès considérable qui se poursuit à la période romantique. Favorable aux premières mesures révolutionnaires, l’écrivaine, très liée aux Orléans, prend néanmoins ses distances avec le nouveau régime.