Noise and Sound Reconciled: How London Clubs Shaped Conversation into a Social Art
This essay aims to show how London clubs played a decisive role in the shaping of conversation into a social art. It first examines the evolution of conversation in England both as a cultural concept and as a social practice in the context of the emergence and success of club sociability over the co...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Institut du Monde Anglophone
2016-06-01
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| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/1208 |
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| author | Valérie Capdeville |
| author_facet | Valérie Capdeville |
| author_sort | Valérie Capdeville |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This essay aims to show how London clubs played a decisive role in the shaping of conversation into a social art. It first examines the evolution of conversation in England both as a cultural concept and as a social practice in the context of the emergence and success of club sociability over the course of the eighteenth century. Conversation was at the heart of urban sociability practices and especially flourished in the London coffee-houses of the end of the seventeenth century. At the same time, conversation was theorized, conceptualized, modeled and discussed in a prolific and varied normative literature. Was the conversation that animated the first coffee-houses of the same nature as the conversation which prevailed in the exclusive circles of the second half of the eighteenth century? This study then points at obvious dissonances between the theory and the practice of conversation within the world of London clubs. While club conversation was a rite of worldly sociability, whose refined principles clubmen were supposed to master, it often sounded far from the smooth and polite prescriptive model it was expected to conform to. To what extent was Samuel Johnson, the founder of The Club and one of the greatest conversationalists of his time, a significant agent in the transformation of conversation into a social art in itself? Finally, this analysis claims that gentlemen’s clubs contributed to shape a new model of conversation in England, in which noise and sound could co-exist and the paradoxes inherent in club conversation could be reconciled. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ef9c904122cc4a6892fe6b84fd901b84 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1634-0450 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2016-06-01 |
| publisher | Institut du Monde Anglophone |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Etudes Epistémè |
| spelling | doaj-art-ef9c904122cc4a6892fe6b84fd901b842025-08-20T03:47:25ZengInstitut du Monde AnglophoneEtudes Epistémè1634-04502016-06-012910.4000/episteme.1208Noise and Sound Reconciled: How London Clubs Shaped Conversation into a Social ArtValérie CapdevilleThis essay aims to show how London clubs played a decisive role in the shaping of conversation into a social art. It first examines the evolution of conversation in England both as a cultural concept and as a social practice in the context of the emergence and success of club sociability over the course of the eighteenth century. Conversation was at the heart of urban sociability practices and especially flourished in the London coffee-houses of the end of the seventeenth century. At the same time, conversation was theorized, conceptualized, modeled and discussed in a prolific and varied normative literature. Was the conversation that animated the first coffee-houses of the same nature as the conversation which prevailed in the exclusive circles of the second half of the eighteenth century? This study then points at obvious dissonances between the theory and the practice of conversation within the world of London clubs. While club conversation was a rite of worldly sociability, whose refined principles clubmen were supposed to master, it often sounded far from the smooth and polite prescriptive model it was expected to conform to. To what extent was Samuel Johnson, the founder of The Club and one of the greatest conversationalists of his time, a significant agent in the transformation of conversation into a social art in itself? Finally, this analysis claims that gentlemen’s clubs contributed to shape a new model of conversation in England, in which noise and sound could co-exist and the paradoxes inherent in club conversation could be reconciled.https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/1208eighteenth centuryart of conversationLondon clubsSamuel Johnsonurban sociability |
| spellingShingle | Valérie Capdeville Noise and Sound Reconciled: How London Clubs Shaped Conversation into a Social Art Etudes Epistémè eighteenth century art of conversation London clubs Samuel Johnson urban sociability |
| title | Noise and Sound Reconciled: How London Clubs Shaped Conversation into a Social Art |
| title_full | Noise and Sound Reconciled: How London Clubs Shaped Conversation into a Social Art |
| title_fullStr | Noise and Sound Reconciled: How London Clubs Shaped Conversation into a Social Art |
| title_full_unstemmed | Noise and Sound Reconciled: How London Clubs Shaped Conversation into a Social Art |
| title_short | Noise and Sound Reconciled: How London Clubs Shaped Conversation into a Social Art |
| title_sort | noise and sound reconciled how london clubs shaped conversation into a social art |
| topic | eighteenth century art of conversation London clubs Samuel Johnson urban sociability |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/1208 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT valeriecapdeville noiseandsoundreconciledhowlondonclubsshapedconversationintoasocialart |