This model of examining text as a social object, using computer methods, premised on an examination of patterns of meaning shared by many authors over long periods of time is only one, albeit a very important, aspect of the social elements of textuality. Text is a compound object: it is BOTH expression of thought, as a linguistic creation, and a commodity subject to a variety of forces, including economic, political, technical, and cultural pressures. If the computer can be used to trace "signs symbols, and discourses" through very large textual databases, I would like to suggest that text leaves traces of its social life as a commodity in a wide variety of sources, often extra-textual, which are best examined using computer technology and that can new dimensions to our views of textuality.
Following a very brief recapitulation of the arguments I presented back in 1991, simply to sketch out one side of modeling text as a social object, I would like to present an outline of three of my ongoing research projects which examine textuality as a commodity in 3 periods of cultural and political conflict: the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and Montreal in the second half of the 19th century. Tracing patterns of text production, diffusion and consumption provides an important complement to the social construction of textuality. Proper understanding of any particular text, in this model, requires a constant balance of between an intensive reading of a text and consideration of that text as a broadly defined social object.
there is no substantial body of achievement in the field of computer-based literary criticism in English studies. [Thomas Corns, "Computers in the Humanities: Methods and Applications in the Study of English Literature" in Literary and Linguistic Computing 6 (1991): 128]Corns argues that a scan of the most prestigious journals of criticism or history reveals that few scholars use electronic text at any level in their work and that no work using computers in literary analysis appeared in two important mainstream periodicals, Yearbook of English Studies and Review of English Studies in the 1980s. While we have seen the rise of specialized journals -- including Computers and the Humanities and Literary and Linguistic Computing -- where the results of such work appears, there is little cross-over from these journals to mainstream publications. Indeed, the degree to which computer-assisted textual analysis has not had a significant impact was underlined in a recent number of New Literary History devoted to "Technology, Models, and Literary Study" which does not contain a single citation to works published in journals like CHum or L&LC or other studies using computers to perform significant text processing.
I trace this failure to a concentration on how a text achieves its literary effect by the examination of subtle semantic or grammatical structures in single texts or the works of individual authors. Computer systems have proven to be very poorly suited to such refined analysis of complex language. Willie Van Peer correctly suggests that
the illocutionary force and meaning aspects of a text are much harder to quantify than issues of sound and grammar [but it is] exactly these more abstract aspects of linguistic organization, such as meaning or force which are at the core of textuality and indeed of literature. ["Quantitative Studies of Literature: A Critique and an Outlook" in Computers and the Humanities 23 (August-October, 1989): 306]In other words, while we can write computer programs to process very simple textual features -- word frequencies and fairly simple distribution patterns -- attempts to move beyond such simple applications have met very limited success, because the complexity of text and language eludes our capacity to develop software to identify and intelligently process such features. Thus, adopting such objects of study has tended to discourage researchers from using the tool to ask questions to which it is better adapted, the examination of large amounts of simple linguistic features.
It is interesting to note that users of large textual databases seem to arrive independently to similar kinds of conclusions. Joan DeJean, for example, argues in her study of the quarrel of the ancients and moderns that large text bases can be used to trace the development of key words and concepts:
The second linguistic tool on which I rely throughout the following pages is a kind of research aid only possible because of recent technological advances. Nearly three centuries later, we can finally supplement the intuitions of those who were arguably the most perspicacious French lexicographers of all time, thanks to the database originally assembled to prepare a new French historical dictionary. With the vastly expanded resources put at our disposal by the ARTFL database, it is finally possible to outstrip the limits to our knowledge fixed by both the seventeenth-century dictionaries and the late-nineteenth-century historical dictionaries on which the currently influential German scholars relied. It is now possible, for example, to prove that the key words on which the presently fashionable vision of the Enlightenment is premised--from public to culture--far from being eighteenth-century creations, came into existence some fifty years before it is generally thought and were thus the product of the needs and the desires of a very different period and of very different individuals. [Ancients against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siecle (Chicago, 1997).]
Statistical methods can be readily employed to examine long-term changes in the meaning of words. Collocation can be used to measure patterns of association that modify the meaning of words. Several years aoo I examined term clusters for femme (and homme) in French, arguing that they have changed significantly in the past several centuries. (see my "Gender representation and histoire des mentalités: Language and Power in the Trésor de la langue française" in Histoire et mesure (VI) 1991: 349-73.). Categorization of women by age, to take a single example from this study, increased dramatically from the 17th century to the middle of the twentieth.
Ranking of jeune and vieille as left collocates of
femme by standard deviation in the ARTFL database. The
smaller the rank, the more significant the collocate.
jeune vieille
Period Rank (std. dev.) Rank (std. dev.)
1600-49 107 (7.8) 141 (6.5)
1650-99 64 (8.9) 20 (15.6)
1700-49 53 (12.1) 21 (17.0)
1750-99 48 (17.2) 16 (25.1)
1800-49 6 (49.6) 8 (46.7)
1850-99 1 (133.5) 4 (59.0)
1900-49 2 (110.1) 4 (72.3)
By the mid-ninteenth century, age distinctions had become more
frequent than any other categorization, including moral (such as
honnête, méchante),
physical (jolie), or other attributes (charmante). Youth, in
particular, seems to be a category of judgement "discovered" in
the nineteenth century, as indicated by the jump in rank from
48th to 6th between 1750 and 1850. The development of age
attributes as the most frequent means of characterizing women,
and the relative decline of mari, suggests that as (sa) femme
became more of an object outside of the confines of marriage, but that this
shift encodes the opposition of young/desireable against
old/undesireable, an important distinction made from the male
perspective.
It is my contention, then, the computers are best used to perform relatively simple operations on large bodies of textual data and that the technology is best employed in examining the social elements of textuality, characterized as "signs, symbols, and discourses" or, put another way, the computer is a powerful tool for the examination of inter-textuality.
Darnton examines the history of the book with a general model of the Communications Circuit, tracing the flow of the book, as a feedback loop, from author, to publisher, to printer, distributor, reader and indrectly back to the author. The circuit is influenced at every step by an array of external pressures he describes as the center of the loop.
Darnton's model of the Communications Circuit can be fruitfully
extended to theatre, which like the book
is both an expression of idea (ideology) and an
economic commodity. It stands at the intersection
of
Reception theory examines the reader's role in literature, and as such is a fairly novel development. Indeed one might very roughly periodize the history of modern literary theory in three stages: a preoccupation with the author (Romanictism and the nineteenth century); an exclusive concern with the text (New Criticism); and a marked shift of attention to the reader over recent years. The reader has always been the most underprivileged of this trio -- strangely, since without him or her there would be no literary texts at all. Literary texts do not exist on bookshelves: they are processes of signification materialized only in the practice of reading. For literature to happen, the reader is quite as vital as the author. [Literary Theory, p.74]There are, of course, many views concerning the proper object and methods of reception or reader response theory, but all of them stress the more or less dynamic and creative role of the text consumer in producing the literary effect.
Stanley Fish argues that while there is no authoritative reading for a text, since readers bring their unique perspectives to the text, readers can be grouped by their conscious or unconscious acceptance of "interpretive strategies" conditioned and enforced by institutions such as college courses and professors, as well as publishers and reviewers. These are, of course, historically conditioned communities and institutions, but surprisingly, there is little discussion of the changing historical context of text consumption. Darnton states, for example, "we know very little about the ways readers responded to books under the Old Regime" and goes on to argue:
We have learned only enough to distrust our own intuition, for whatever the responses might have been, they took place in a mental world so different from our own that we cannot project our experience onto that of French readers confronted with texts two hundred years ago. [Forbidden Best-Sellers, p. 217]It would seem that a vital corrective to reader response theory -- recalling that the broader notion of text consumer is my prefered way of phrasing this -- is to historicize the consumer, removing him or her from Professor Fish's seminar and attempt to examine the varying contexts in which texts were received.
There are a number of ways one might consider historicizing reader [text consumer] response, ranging from the examination of other writings about a text in reviews, diaries, and so on to the attempt to establish the mentalité of past text consumers (see my "Motives, Memory and Mind: Interpretations of Actions and histoire des mentalités, in Historical Reflections 19 (1993): 35-62, for a discussion of "implicit models of mind" which I argue are central to the understanding of past actions and texts). In addition to such proceedures, it would seem that one can develop large databases to track the consumption of text by many people over long periods of time, linking these to cultural, political, and other contexts which have very significant roles in the selection of texts and the contexts in which they are consumed.
If text consumption is always an interpretive act, it is clear that a significant element of the interpretive apparatus brought by the reader/viewer/listener to the text is conditioned by the political, cultural, economic, and regulatory contexts in which texts are consumed. The individual selection of a text to read (Satanic Verses), a play [or movie] (Hair or Amastad) to view is a political act, which carries with it both an indication of attitudes and in many circumstances possible repercussions. The activity of the reader/consumer in creating the literary text is a response to his or her cultural, political, and economic evironment which can be systematically analyzed using quantitative methods.
Traditional methods attempting to examine these contexts have been subject to MANY failures because of an over-reliance on contemporary and subsequent ways of assigning significance of certain texts and the use of these texts. In the following section, I would like to give rapid overviews of three of my studies which attempt to situate text consumption by examining non-textual records of text consumption -- library charge lists and theatre playbills -- and correlate these with contemporary cultural, political, and economic circumstances.
Some years ago, Louis-Georges Harvey and I began a systematic study of the library's charge records, developing a database of some 45,000 borrowings over a 30 year period. Data includes date of borrowing, borrower, author, title (and a linked database of bibliographic information culled from the inventories), occupation, address, and other information.
The I-C managers made a concerted effort, in the midst of it's battles with the Cathlolic hierarchy to expand the reach of it's library, resulting in increasing Circulation (1852-1880) and expanding circulation down the socio-occupational scale, Occupation of Borrowers, 1865-1880. From the mid 1850s, the Church intensified it's efforts against the I-C and used the new, general prohibition of romantic novels established by Rome (opera fabulae amatore) to widen the scope of prohibition. This resulted in a decided expansion in the borrowing rates of prohibited books from 40% of all borrowings, Circulation by Genre, 1852-1855 to nearly 80% Circulation by Genre, 1865-1880. Demand for explicitly prohibited books remained very string through the entire period -- at 40% or more of all borrowings, tailing off somewhat in the years immediately following the Guibord Affair, law suits, and appeals to Rome, Circulation of works on the Index, 1865-1880. As the church attempted to crack down, the I-C became the nearly sole source for books on the Index in Montreal, books which reflectd the avant-garde of French literary culture.
While we have reported a much fuller set of conclusions in different articles, for my purposes here I would like to stress:
The Harvard College Library was rebuilt following a disastrous fire which destroyed old Harvard Hall on January 26, 1764. Nearly 5,000 volumes were consumed in the blaze, as were scientific equipment and the personal belongings of the students. Only about 400 volumes, on loan at the time, escaped the destruction. Rebuilding the library was remarkably rapid. Two years later, the library held some 4,350 volumes and estimates place this number at 6,600 volumes in 1773. The vast majority of these books were donated by friends of Harvard in the colonies as well as in Great Britain. By 1790, Harvard College owned some 12,000 volumes, reclaiming its place as the largest college library in the United States. Harvard held some 9,300 (1790) titles while Yale and Brown published catalogues of 1500 (1791) and 1200 (1793) titles respectively.
The eighteenth-century registers list the names of borrowers on separate pages, and occasionally two to a page. Below the name of the borrower is a list of the books borrowed for the given academic year covered by the register. The records also list the date the book was taken out and the date it was returned, as well as the author and the title of the work in question. The charge records are organized by academic standing, with students appearing in volumes by year. Faculty, tutors and overseers were listed in separate volumes which included other borrowers, usually local clergy or government officials. Borrowers in the "faculty" charge records are organized within each volume of the registers according to their academic rank, with external borrowers appearing last. The occupation and address of external borrowers is also frequently indicated. The charge records for the eighteenth century are found in the University Archives. In addition to them, we are using the library catalogue published in 1790, Catalogus Bibliothecae Harvardianae Cantbrigiae Nov-Anglorum, as a control for bibliographic entries.
The use of the Harvard College library fell during the Revolution. The hundred borrowers included in the records of non-students from 1773 to 1782 reduced their use of the library from a high of 328 loans in 1774 to a low of 115 in 1779, totalling 1770 loans for the period. This seems to come from a reduction of the number of borrowers, which fell from a high of 38 in 1774 to 19 in 1778 and 1779. That the library was used at all seems remarkable, since the collection was moved when the College was used to house troops in 1775 to Andover by order of the Provincial Congress. During the next three years, the collection was scattered to other towns, including Concord, for safe keeping. In May 1778, the library was finally returned to Cambridge.
The library served its clientele, as well as the local authorities, in both practical and educational matters. In this vein it may actually have been a resource for rebellious colonists. The last page of the register includes the following entry for February 3, 1775: "Received of the Librarian by order of the Provincial Congress, Muller's Treatise on Gunnery." The same volume was borrowed again in April by one Abraham Watson, by order of the Congress, who returned it four years later, after the fighting had died down in the northeast. Other volumes borrowed offered practical advice on more mundane matters.
Faculty, administrators and tutors were the most frequent patrons of the library, within the group examined. Indeed, the librarian, James Winthrop borrowed 66 titles from his library, and Samuel Langdon, the President, borrowed 37. The heaviest user during the period was Professor Edward Wigglesworth, who borrowed 120 titles in our ten year period. Tutors and professors made up some 39 percent of the loans. It would seem that outside borrowers made up about half of the library's clientele based on the number of titles borrowed. Although the profession of many of these borrowers is not indicated in the registers, they were probably not employed by the College. Subject to further research to identify these individuals, they were, in all likelihood, local notables who are referred to as "Sir" in the circulation registers.
Some of the external borrowers were referred to as "Mr." rather than "Sir." Of those external borrowers who were identified, the clergy made the most frequent use of the library, with judges and doctors ranking a distant second and third. Both the clergy and professionals, it should be noted, held close ties to the college. Dr. Warner, for example, borrowed several volumes on surgery in 1782 "on behalf of the Massachusetts Medical Society", which was affiliated with the university. Thus, the college library was an important resource to the local community as well as to the students and faculty of Harvard.
The circulation of books from the Harvard library within this elite group provides some clues to its place in the information networks of late eighteenth-century New England.
The circulation of volumes from the library shows interesting divergences from its holdings. As shown in Table Four, tracts or pamphlets did not circulate nearly as frequently as volumes. This might be due to restrictions of policy, though this is unlikely as some tracts were borrowed during our period, or might simply indicate that readers did not borrow ephemeral material. Certain categories were not borrowed at all during the period, including architecture, botany, heraldry, mythology, and numerous kinds of tracts including commercial and biographical pamphlets. The most significant differences between the holdings and circulation occur in theological works, which account for 14.1 percent of holdings and 22.1 percent of circulation. Similar increases are seen in civil history (2.8 and 10.5 percent) and periodical literature (.2 and 6.4 percent). Political tracts do not show any significant circulation, with only three pamphlets being borrowed during the years of the Revolution, these being The art of governing (London, 1722), Liberty and necessity (London, 1747), and The present state of Liberty in Great Britain and her colonies (London, 1769).
Interest in the history and institutions of England was an important element of the borrowing from the library during the Revolution. The most frequently borrowed volume, as shown in Table Five, was David Hume's History of England, followed by histories of England by Oliver Goldsmith (5th most frequently borrowed volume), Catherine Macaulay (11th), and William Blackstone's Commentary on the laws of England (21st). Other volumes dealing with Great Britain among the 50 most borrowed titles include William Robertson's histories of Scotland and Charles V, Littleton's life of Henry II, and Martin's Philosophia Britannica. It is important to note that English political culture is represented in the most frequently borrowed authors by Bolingbroke, the Jacobite politician, philosopher and writer who "decried the corruption" and "incipient autocracy" of Walpole's administration. Equally well represented were English literary figures, such as Pope and Shakespeare.
The cultural connections to England were not, and probably could not be, significantly impaired by the Revolutionary War. Although British books became more difficult to obtain through purchase, they remained a valued cultural source for the borrowers of Harvard even through the most difficult of political upheavals. Thirty-nine of the fifty most borrowed titles were published in London. Of the remaining eleven, six do not have publication location indicated, two were published in Edinburgh, one each at Oxford and Cambridge, and one in Paris. The vast majority of all the titles borrowed during the Revolution (510 of 719) were published in London, followed by 93 publication locations which were unidentified, Paris (17 titles) and Edinburgh (15). Very few of the volumes borrowed during the Revolution were published in the colonies, with Boston leading with 5 titles, including Thomas Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts-Bay and Jonathan Mayhew's Christian sobriety, in eight sermons to young men ... and perfections of the divine goodness.
The borrowing patterns of the patrons of the Harvard College Library also seem to indicate that the European Enlightenment had a limited impact on its users in our period. This is particularly true of the French Enlightenment, whose greatest authors and works were all but unread. Far more important are the works of the Scottish Enlightenment. As shown in Table Six, David Hume was the most popular author among borrowers from Harvard. In addition to his History of England, his Essays and Treatise on Human Nature were consulted by Harvard readers. We have seen that Thomas Reid's Enquiry into the Human Mind was borrowed for class reading by Harvard tutors. It was also borrowed ten times by faculty and tutors. The historian, William Robertson was also one of the most important authors in the Harvard collection, ranking as the fourth most borrowed individual author during our period, while Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments was borrowed eight times.
Harvard's readers showed considerable familiarity with English philosophical and scientific work. Several of the works of Joseph Priestly were borrowed including his History and Present State of Electricity (five times) and History and Vision, Light and Colours (five loans) leaving him in the top fifteen authors borrowed from the library (see Table Six). The popularizer of Newtonian physics, Benjamin Martin was one of the most frequently borrowed authors (12th, Table Six) whose most popular work, Philosophia Britannica is a two volume discussion of Newtonian philosophy, geography and astronomy which appeared in 1747. Indeed, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society was one of the top ten titles to be circulated from the library.
While there was considerable borrowing of Scottish and English enlightened philosophy, history, and science, the readers also showed a strong taste for more traditional religious fare. The second most frequently borrowed title was Philip Doddridge's Family Expositor, a didactic commentary on the New Testament by the indefatigable English nonconformist minister. The nonconforming theological tastes of the Puritan tradition are clearly indicated by the orientation of many of the most popular authors. Arthur Sykes (Table Six, 13th most borrowed author), Samuel Bourne (15), Edward Harwood (16), George Benson (20), Richard Price (23), Thomas Scott (24), John Taylor (26), and John Leland (35) were all nonconformist ministers or Presbyterians.
The circulation registers of Harvard College Library are a particularly rich source, providing data on the impact of books and ideas on elite New Englanders during the Revolutionary era. Our preliminary results indicate that the actual events of the Revolutionary War had, in spite of the clear disruption of the daily routine of the College and its library, a remarkably limited impact on the reading of its patrons. Indeed, the borrowing patterns of the Harvard readers indicate a strong continuity in the importance of British works. Given the make-up of the library, and the difficulty and expense of aquiring foreign books, this finding is hardly surprising. Still, the limited circulation of works associated with the European enlightenment suggests that their influence was very limited in this period. Works dealing directly or indirectly with British history and politics were far more popular. Within this group one should also note the importance of British works which spoke directly to American political culture. These preliminary results certainly reinforce the notion, advanced by Bernard Bailyn and others, that authors such as Bolingbroke were fundamental in shaping the ideological landscape of Revolutionary America, and suggest that these authors continued to be read through the Revolution.
The borrowing patterns suggest two strains in the reading of Harvard patrons. The library continued to supply a large number of theological tracts, sermons and exegetical works that were dominated by English and Scottish nonconformists, falling well within the traditional mandate of the Puritan foundation of Harvard College. The library held large numbers of theological works which were consulted regularly by professors, tutors and other borrowers, including members of the clergy. The library was also a source for works of the Scottish Enlightenment and English scientific information. The importance of the Scottish Enlightenment is interesting on two grounds: it suggests that the influence of French ideas into the colonies may have been overestimated by some scholars and it shows that Harvard Library's readers were aware of advanced, even radical, thought concerning ethics, psychology, and metaphysics. The tension between the two poles of reading is clear, but it does not seem that religious considerations restricted the reading of the College library's patrons. Although the results of this preliminary study cannot be conclusive, they may indicate the beginning of a shift in the nature of reading away from the traditional devotional model toward one more modern. They may also reflect shifts in the curriculum of Harvard College toward a more modern model.
Emmet Kennedy, Marie-Laurence Netter, James McGregor, and Mark Olsen, Theatre, Opera, and Audience in Revolutionary Paris. Analysis and Repertory, (Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn., 1996)with access to the database on World Wide Web:
http://tuna.uchicago.edu/homes/mark/theatre/
The database contains 90,744 performances of 3,700 different
plays at some 50 theatres for period Jan. 1, 1789 - Dec. 31, 1799
showing the:
A typical record looks like (under my WWW interface):
1791-11-01: ROUSSEAU, JEAN-JACQUES, PYGMALION, at VARIETES AMUSANTES, COMIQUES ET LYRIQUES [Opera, Acts:1, Pub:1775, Perf: 0-0-1770].
Sources: Daily play lists in Journal de Paris (1789-93) and Affiches, Annonces et Avis Divers (Petites Affiches) (1794-99), with bibliographic data from standard secondary sources.
Traditional historiography, following contemporaries, stresses the revolutionary content of the Parisian stage during this period, largely because of politically important plays such as Chenier's Charles IX.Le Chapellier (with Mirabeau), in 1791, declared that the stage must be: "une école de vertu et de patriotisme", a notion repeated by Robespierre and other radicals in 1793-4. Specialist and more popular historians of the Parisian stage during this period adopt this political interpretation of the Revolutionary theatre. Schama, for example, notes that
The popular theatre of the vaudeville [...] was turned into yet another arm of patriotic propaganda (524).Our analysis indicates that, inspite of the efforts of some revolutionaries to use the Parisian stage as an arm of propaganda, the central trend of the Revolutionary theatre was continuity with the Old Regime and resistance to Revolutionary politicalization.
Before 1789, there were only three privileged theatres which owned the majority of the traditional repertory. The deregulation of the Parisian stage began before the Revolution with the appear of several theatres in the Temple district from the 1770s. It accelerated in 1789, with the development of more theatres and was made fully legal in 1791 with the abolition of corporations.
Deregulation had a more profound impact on the Parisian
stage than Revolutionary ideology.
Scale of operation
In a largely free market, number of theatres and number of attendees explodes.
Table 1. Number of Performances and Number of Different Theaters by Year, 1789-1799
Year No. of Performances No. of Theaters
1789 6043 9
1790 7171 11
1791 8682 27
1792 7602 17
1793 9359 20
1794 7506 21
1795 7653 23
1796 10427 29
1797 8907 32
1798 8816 31
1799 8559 33
Theatres seat from 700 to over 3,000 spectators, with the most popular seating between 1,800 and 2,200. And they are filling the seats. The Theatre Italiens (1789-1793) averaged 213,000 ticket sales per year. In 1791-1793, 78,000 tickets were sold for 68 performances of Paul et Virginie. This is a population of 600,000 in Paris and when few press runs of books exceeded 5,000 copies. Revolutionary deregulation created a large market for the Parisian theatres which might be better thought of as modern television than either a form of book production of the modern stage.
Persistence of Old Regime Repertory
Performances of Plays Premiered or Published Before and After 1789, with Percentages (excluding undated plays) and with Number of Performances of Undated Plays
Year(s) Ancien Regime Revolution Undated1789: 4392 (74.4%) 1510 (25.6%) 141 1790: 4084 (59.1%) 2830 (40.9%) 257 1791: 4987 (60.0%) 3316 (40.0%) 379 1792: 4120 (56.5%) 3165 (43.5%) 317 1793: 3932 (45.7%) 4678 (54.3%) 749 1794: 2169 (30.9%) 4846 (69.1%) 491 1795: 3054 (45.8%) 3613 (54.2%) 986 1796: 4435 (50.8%) 4291 (49.2%) 1701 1797: 2868 (39.1%) 4470 (60.9%) 1569 1798: 2106 (28.2%) 5359 (71.8%) 1351 1799: 2057 (28.1%) 5254 (71.9%) 1248 1789-99: 38204 (46.8%) 43332 (53.2%) 9199
33 of 50 most performed plays are from the Old Regime. Our content analysis of the top 50 indicate that traditional themes of love, intrigue, and the exotic. In short, it seems that Revolutionary audiences were seeking entertainement rather than edification. Even those plays with some political content stress nostalgia for an old order and social harmony.
Theatre of diversion/conservative
Top 15 Genres by Number of Performances with Number
and Percentage of Genre in the Repertory
Genre Performances (%) Repertory (%)1. Comedie 44630 (49.2) 1383 (36.9) 2. Unknown 7941 (8.7) 866 (23.1) 3. Pantomime 6428 (7.1) 210 (5.6) 4. Opera 5008 (5.5) 227 (6.1) 5. Opera-Comique 3405 (3.7) 149 (4.0) 6. Tragedie 3226 (3.5) 135 (3.6) 7. Vaudeville 3167 (3.5) 154 (4.1) 8. Drame 2851 (3.1) 112 (3.0) 9. Fait Historique 1944 (2.1) 86 (2.3) 10. Ballet 1778 (2.0) 57 (1.5) 11. Tableau-Patriotique 1239 (1.4) 71 (1.9) 12. Opera-Bouffe 1194 (1.3) 30 (0.8) 13. Piece 1069 (1.2) 36 (1.0) 14. Divertissemt/parade 923 (1.0) 31 (0.8) 15. Comedie - d'ariettes 889 (1.0) 10 (0.3)
Urban cultural space
My current work in this research is to examine the relationship of the size, location, and ticket prices to the performance of plays. Theatres of Paris went through extraordinary upheaval during this period with many bankruptcies, name changes, management changes, during the various political upheavals. For example, the Théatre de l'Odéon went through the following changes of name/location:
Theatres are concentrated in two districts (see maps small or large):
Palais-Royale is the center of revolutionary popular culture, with more established theatres. Temple district is newer on the boulevard, before the Revolution were unprivileged and more popular.
Year Zone1 (%) Zone2 (%) Zone3 (%) Zone0 (%) TOTAL 1789 2826 46.8 2628 43.5 588 9.7 0 (0) 6043 1790 3295 45.9 3200 44.6 675 9.4 0 0 7171 1791 3131 36.1 3908 45.0 1211 13.9 423 4.9 8682 1792 3605 47.4 2383 31.3 1611 21.2 0 0 7602 1793 4466 47.7 2833 30.3 1662 17.8 392 4.2 9359 1794 3776 50.3 2361 31.5 834 11.1 523 6.9 7506 1795 2763 36.1 3253 42.5 519 6.9 1092 14.3 7653 1796 3672 35.2 4357 41.8 936 9.0 1326 12.7 10427 1797 3271 36.7 3911 43.9 1257 14.1 397 4.4 8907 1798 4257 48.3 2738 31.5 1431 16.2 364 4.1 8816 1799 3877 45.3 2210 25.8 1507 17.6 947 11.1 8559Performances in Zone 1 peak during the most radical phases of the Revolution.
1789-99 38943 (42.9) 33784 (37.2) 12233 (13.5) 5464 (6.0) 90744
Year ZONE1 ZONE2 ZONE3AR (%) FR AR (%) FR AR (%) FR 1789 1994 (70.6) 832 1887 (75.8) 601 511 (87.0) 77 1790 1774 (54.4) 1484 1777 (59.6) 1204 533 (79.0) 142 1791 1676 (46.0) 1424 2334 (64.6) 1277 818 (67.8) 388 1792 1649 (47.0) 1855 1443 (65.7) 753 1028 (67.8) 489 1793 1505 (35.2) 2764 1597 (68.0) 754 665 (43.6) 861 1794 860 (24.6) 2635 1033 (48.9) 1080 134 (17.0) 655 1795 843 (33.3) 1685 1600 (59.0) 1108 213 (44.7) 263 1796 1462 (42.4) 1983 1956 (62.6) 1167 427 (50.3) 422 1797 1111 (37.2) 1878 1063 (36.0) 1888 592 (49.6) 601 1798 875 (23.0) 2929 595 (27.5) 1572 567 (42.4) 771 1799 727 (22.1) 2565 683 (38.1) 1110 465 (32.7) 957 tot: 14476 (39.6) 22034 15968 (56.1) 12514 5953 (51.4) 5626
The Temple or Boulevard district retained a much
higher performance rate of Old Regime plays than the Palais-Royale
district, particularly during the most radical phases of the Revolution.
The Palais-Royale district played a much more established
repertory, judging by the proportion of anonymous plays:
Palais-Royale (Zone 1): 9.7% anonymous
Rest of Paris (Zone 3): 10.1% anonymous
Temple District (Zone 2) 27.8% anonymous
Undetermined (Zone 0) 34.5% anonymous
Genre Zone 1 (%) Zone 2 (%) Zone 3 (%) Comedy 22,573 (58.0) 12,501 (37.0) 7,193 (58,8) Unknown 1,694 (4,4) 4,522 (13.4) 361 (2.9) Pantomime 292 (0.7) 4,946 (14,6) 741 (6.0) Tregedie 1,219 (3.1) 804 (2.4) 1,080 (8.8) Tableau- patriotique 455 (1.2) 665 (2.0) 61 (0.5) Opera (all forms) 6,523 (16.8) 2,025 (6.0) 671 (5.5)
The Temple district has a large proportion of unclassified genres, indicating very obscure plays, and pantomimes, a genre linked to the older fair theatres. It is also very significant that the two major theatre districts in Paris had surprisingly different repertories. Comparison of top 20 plays performed in the two main districts (1789-99) shows no overlap at all and only three of each districts top 20 authors are common. By contrast, 10 of the top 20 authors in Zone 3 are found in the top 20 of Zones 1 and/or 2.
Zone 1
361 DESFORGES,PIERRE-J.-B. CHOUDARD
DE SOURD,LE OU L'AUBERGE PLEINE
232 PICARD,LOUIS-B. VISITANDINES,LES
208 MARSOLLIER DES VIVETIERES,BENOIT-J.
DEUX PETITS SAVOYARDS,LES
193 BOUTET DE MONVEL,JACQUES-M. PHILIPPE
ET GEORGETTE
177 DESCHAMPS,JACQUES-M. PIRON AVEC
SES AMIS OU LES MOEURS DU TEMPS P...
177 BARRE,PIERRE-Y. ARLEQUIN AFFICHEUR
175 BOUTET DE MONVEL,JACQUES-M. BLAISE
ET BABET OU LA SUITE DES TROIS...
170 BEAUMARCHAIS,PIERRE-A.C. DE BARBIER
DE SEVILLE,LE OU LA PRECAUTION..
167 GRENIER MELOMANIE,LA
151 DESCHAMPS,JACQUES-M. REVANCHE
FORCEE,LA
148 SEGUR,ALEXANDER-J.-P.,VTE. DE ROMEO
ET JULIETTE
147 FAVIERES,EDMOND-G.-F. DE PAUL
ET VIRGINIE
145 BARRE,PIERRE-Y. COLOMBINE MANNEQUIN
144 LACHABEAUSSIERE,AUGUSTE-E.-X. P.
DE AZEMIA OU LES SAUVAGES
144 DEMOUSTIER,CHARLES-A. AMOUR
FILIAL,L' OU LES DEUX SUISSE
143 DORVIGNY,LOUIS-A. DESESPOIR
DE JOCRISSE,LE
135 LEGER,FRANCOIS-P.-A. GAGEURE
INUTILE,LA OU PLUS DE PEUR QUE DE MAL
133 RADET,JEAN-B. SOIREE ORAGEUSE,LA
131 MARSOLLIER DES VIVETIERES,BENOIT-J.
CAMILLE OU LE SOUTERRAIN
131 DESFORGES,PIERRE-J.-B. CHOUDARD
DE EPREUVE VILLAGEOISE,L'
Zone 2
295 ARNOULD,JEAN-F. MUSSOT,DIT FORET
NOIRE,LA OU LE FILS NATUREL
246 BEFFROY DE REIGNY,LOUIS-A. NICODEME
DANS LA LUNE OU LA REVOLUTION...
240 GARDEL,PIERRE-G. PSYCHE
222 ANSEAUME,LOUIS DEUX CHASSEURS
ET LA LAITIERE,LES
200 GARDEL,PIERRE-G. TELEMAQUE DANS
L'ILE DE CALYPSO
195 POMPIGNY,MAURIN DE HERITAGE,L'
OU L'EPREUVE RAISONNABLE
194 GUILLARD,NICOLAS-F. OEDIPE A
COLONE
192 BAURANS,PIERRE SERVANTE MAITRESSE,LA
172 BOUSSERNARD DE SOUBREVILLE REVEIL
DU CHARBONNIER,LE
161 ARNOULD,JEAN-F. MUSSOT,DIT MARECHAL
DES LOGIS,LE
160 POMPIGNY,MAURIN DE ARTISAN PHILOSOPHE,L'
OU L'ECOLE DES PERES
154 GARDEL,MAXIMILIEN DESERTEUR,LE
152 LAZZARI ARISTON OU LE POUVOIR
DE LA MAGIE
150 LEGROS FAUSSE CORRESPONDANCE,LA
150 GOSSEC OFFRANDE A LA LIBERTE,L'
145 HOFFMAN,FRANCOIS-B. FOLLE EPREUVE,LA
145 ARNOULD,JEAN-F. MUSSOT,DIT HOMME
AU MASQUE DE FER,L' OU LE SOUT...
144 LAZZARI BALEINE AVALEE PAR ARLEQUIN,LA
144 BEAUPRE SABOTIERS,LES
144 BEAUNOIR,ALEXANDRE-L.-B. ROBINEAU,DIT
VENUS PELERINE
Contrasts between Palais-Royale and Temple or Boulevard
districts suggest that they appealed to different audiences --
the Boulevard remaining closer to its origins in fair or popular
theatres -- and that the more popular stages proved to be
considerably less accomodating of Revolutionary ideologies.
This suggestion could be argued more convincingly
when we integrate ticket pricing and theatre sizes into the database.
There are problems in
Integration of new objects of study, however, requires a shift in what scholars in "computer-assisted textual studies" consider as the proper problematics and objects of research. Concentration on traditional literary (or textual) concerns has not produced a body of achievements well regarded in our disciplines. The computer -- or more precisely our ability to write computer programs -- is not well suited to assisting our understanding of a particular text, or how a modern reader might respond to that text. The ability to accumulate very large databases of texts and extra-textual data allows us to pose new questions, and maybe even provide important insights, regarding the nature of textuality.
