沙龍(salon)一詞最早出現於1664年的法國(來自意大利語salone,這個意大利詞則來自sala,即意大利豪宅中的待客廳)。在這之前的文藝聚會通常也是以所用的房間來命名,例如內閣(cabinet)、陋室(réduit)和小巷(ruelle)等。[1] 在十七世紀末,這些聚會一般會在臥室中舉行(被看做是一種私人會客廳),[2]通常情況是一位女士斜倚在床上,她的女友人們圍坐在四周的椅子上。不過像法王路易十四的petit lever中,客人全部都站着。小巷(ruelle)指床和墻之間的空間,這個詞一般來形容「矯揉造作的女子(法語:précieuses)」的集會,這種集會出現在十七世紀上半葉受過教育的女子中。法國第一個著名沙龍是羅浮宮近處的朗布依埃府(英語:Hôtel de Rambouillet),其女主人朗布依埃侯爵夫人(英語:Catherine de Vivonne, marquise de Rambouillet)(1588-1665)從1607年開始一直舉辦沙龍直到去世。[3][4]沙龍的很多規則也是由她一手製定的。
當時的文獻指出沙龍的主導理念是理想主義式的禮貌、優雅和誠實,但很可能實際情況並非如此。[7][8]德娜·古德曼宣稱相對作為一個「禮儀學校」(schools of civilité)來說,沙龍更是一個哲學團體,因此才推動了啓蒙運動的發展。[9]禮儀的重要性只是被放在第二位。[10]
沙龍的鼎盛年代被稱作「談話時代」(age of conversation)。[11]沙龍中談論的主題分為談起來「禮貌」或「不禮貌」兩種,沙龍的主人也被認為需要擁有緩和氣氛的能力,不過所謂「禮貌」卻沒什麼正式定義。馬塞爾·普魯斯特認為政治是一定要避開的話題。[12]但也有小部份人認為除了政府別的什麽都不應該談及。[13]
在德娜·古德曼的《文學界》(The Republic of Letters)中,作者宣稱「公共領域就是由沙龍、新聞界和其他社交組織構成的」。[17]該著作也進一步強調了沙龍在法國歷史和啓蒙運動中的重要性,這個觀點自從1994年《文學界》出版以來就一直佔據主流地位。[18]不過也有人認為古德曼的著作「很顯然只是爲了支持(哈貝馬斯的)論文」,而不是去驗證它。[19]
相應的反對觀點來自諾博特·伊里亞思,他在《風俗史》(The History of Manners)一書中認為沙龍的重要元素——禮貌、優雅和誠實,「都是些同義詞,不論廣義狹義,不過是一些人為自己的行為選定的標準」。[20]瓊·蘭德斯(Joan Landes)也說「在某種程度上,沙龍只是制度化的宮廷的衍生物」,而不是公共領域的一部份。[21][22]其他人,例如史蒂文·凱爾宣稱私人或公共領域的概念都與沙龍有重疊。[23][24]
一些歷史學家試圖把目光放在單個的女性身上,不過直到1970年,這些歷史學家的著作大多都是關於這些沙龍主人的個人故事。[29]在二十世紀末,隨着女權主義研究的進步,關於沙龍主人們的社會重要性的研究才逐漸多起來。[30]關於啓蒙運動的一般性著作例如,《啓蒙運動在法國》(France in the Enlightenment)傾向於認為女性的統治地位只局限於沙龍內部。[31]不過古德曼卻不這麼認為。[32] 她也曾說:「沙龍主人不是想擠到上流社會里,這些聰明的、受過教育的女子是通過吸收接納文學界的價值觀,並按自己的社會知識和教育需要將其用於塑造沙龍」。[33][34]
在十八世紀的英格蘭,最著名沙龍主人是伊利沙伯·蒙塔古,「藍襪子」(Bluestocking)一詞就誕生自她的沙龍中,也是她本人成立了藍襪社。十九世紀為避1848年革命而躲到倫敦的俄羅斯梅里男爵夫人(Baroness Méry von Bruiningk)的沙龍也很有名。1860年代,女權主義者克萊門蒂亞·泰勒在倫敦也舉辦過激進的沙龍,參加她沙龍的人有[39]露意莎·奧爾柯特、[40]芭芭拉·博迪肯、莉蒂亞·貝克爾和伊利沙伯·布萊克威爾[41]。
Kale,Steven.French Salons : High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the revolution of 1848. Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. p.2
Lenotre, G. Le Château de Rambouillet, six siècles d'Histoire, Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1930. New publication, Denoël, Paris, 1984, chapter: Les précieuses, pp. 20-21
Steven Kale, French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the Revolution of 1848 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) p. 9
Dena Goodman, 'Enlightenment Salons: The Convergence of Female and Philosophic Ambitions' Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, Special Issue: The French Revolution in Culture (Spring, 1989), pp. 330
Jürgen Habermas (trans. Thomas Burger), The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Camb., Mass.: MIT Press, 1989).
Joan B. Landes, Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); Goodman, The Republic of Letters; Erica Harth, Cartesian Women: Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the Old Regime (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).
Antoine Lilti, 『Sociabilité et mondanité: Les hommes de lettres dans les salons parisiens au XVIIIe siècle’ French Historical Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Summer 2005), p. 417.
S. G. Tallentyre, Women of the Salons (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926) and Julia Kavanagh, Women in France during the Enlightenment Century, 2 Vols (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1893).
Edmond et Jules Goncourt, La femme au dix-huitème siècle (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1862) and Paul Deschanel, Figures des femmes (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1900).
Goodman,Dena.Enlightenment salons: The Convergence of Female and Philosophic Ambitions. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 22. 3, Special issue : The French Revolution in Culture. ( Spring, 1989),p 338
Kale,Steven.French Salons : High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the revolution of 1848. Baltimore : The Johns Hopkins University Press,2004. p.2
Goodman,Dena.Enlightenment salons: The Convergence of Female and Philosophic Ambitions. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 22. 3, Special issue : The French Revolution in Culture. ( Spring, 1989),p.331
Galasso, Norberto. Seamos libres y lo demás no importa nada [Let us be free and nothing else matters]. Buenos Aires: Colihue. 2000: 102. ISBN 978-950-581-779-5(西班牙語).
參考書目
Craveri, Benedetta, The Age of Conversation (New York: New York Review Books, 2005)
Davetian, Benet, Civility: A Cultural History (University of Toronto Press, 2009)
Elias, Norbert, (Trans. Edmund Jephcott), The Civilising Process: The History of Manners, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978)
Goodman, Dena, The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994)
Goodman,Dena, Enlightenment Salons: The Convergence of Female and Philosophic Ambitions, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 22, No. 3, Special Issue: The French Revolution in Culture (Spring, 1989), pp. 329–350
Kale, Steven, French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the Revolution of 1848 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006)
Habermas, Jürgen, (trans. Thomas Burger), The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Camb., Mass.: MIT Press, 1989)
Harth, Erica, Cartesian Women: Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the Old Regime (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).
Huddleston, Sisley, Bohemian, Literary and Social Life in Paris: Salons, Cafes, Studios (London: George G. Harrap, 1928)
Kavanagh, Julia, Women in France during the Enlightenment Century, 2 Vols (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1893)
Landes, Joan B., Women and the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988);
Latour, Anny (Trans. A. A. Dent), Uncrowned Queens: Reines Sans Couronne (London: J. M. Dent, 1970)
Lougee, Carolyn C., Le Paradis des Femmes: Women, Salons and Social Stratification in Seventeenth Century France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976)
Lilti, Antoine, Sociabilité et mondanité: Les hommes de lettres dans les salons parisiens au XVIIIe siècle, French Historical Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Summer 2005), p. 415-445
Pekacz, Jolanta T., Conservative Tradition In Pre-Revolutionary France: Parisian Salon Women (New York: Peter Lang, 1999)
Roche, Daniel, (Trans Arthur Goldhammr), France in the Enlightenment, (Cambridge, Mass.: HUP, 1998)
Tallentyre, S. G., Women of the Salons (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1926)
Von der Heyden-Rynsch, Verena, Europaeische Salons. Hoehepunkte einer versunken weiblichen Kultur (Düsseldorf: Artemis & Winkler, 1997)
擴展閱讀
Beasley, Faith E. Salons, History, and the Creation of Seventeenth-Century France. Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Company,2006.
Bilski, Emily et al. Jewish Women and Their Salons: The Power of Conversation, Jewish Museum New York, 2005.
Craveri, Benedetta. The Age of Conversation. Trans.Teresa Waugh. New York: New York Review Books,2005.
James Ross, 『Music in the French Salon』; in Caroline Potter and Richard Langham Smith (eds.), French Music Since Berlioz (Ashgate Press, 2006), pp. 91–115. ISBN 0-7546-0282-6.
Mainardi, Patricia. The End of the Salon: Art and the State of the Early Republic. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Hertz, Deborah. "Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin." New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988.