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Project Outline for HI4516 Dissertation Title: A Revolution in Song: Political Dissent and Popular Music of the French Revolution, 1789-1800

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Project Outline for HI4516 Dissertation

Title: A Revolution in Song: Political Dissent and Popular Music of the French Revolution, 1789-1800.

During the French Revolution, notions of nationalism, egality, and social progress and harmony prevailed. Cultural emblems such as festivals, visual arts, literature, clothing and music, became increasingly attached to political expression especially during the active years of the Revolution, between 1789-1800. These open displays of patriotism, either to the Ancien Régime or the Revolution became increasingly significant as the revolution became more extreme, to the point of saving lives. The French Revolutionary culture included its own soundtrack; through the opening of new cultural venues and the destruction of Old Regime aesthetic hierarchies, revolutionaries made it possible for a larger and increasingly diverse population to participate in cultural production and exchange.  When revolutionaries faced counterrevolutionaries and appropriation went in both directions between the government and the public, revolutionary song culture evolved as a result of the dynamic conflicts between several individuals and organisations. Negotiations and tensions among an involved and activist people gave rise to shared composing and singing techniques. French citizens came to understand the significance of singing for promoting their interpretations of revolutionary events and for promoting their ambitions for the Revolution.

In France, the Revolution began without a distinct sense of identity, ambitions, or what it meant to be a revolutionary. As a result, revolutionary political culture required time to develop. Singing made a significant contribution to the revolutionary process because it provided a means for ordinary people to express their political hopes and expectations, which carried the revolution into their daily lives and interactions. Additionally, because singing was widely accessible and pervasive, it became closely associated with politics due to its accessibility and scope.  Throughout the decade of the Revolution's active phase, politics and culture underwent numerous changes and as song analysis suggests, this was because of struggles for socio-political and cultural dominance as much as it was because of the politics of the Old Regime or the results of revolutionary legislation. 

By looking at the context surrounding how, where and why songs were performed, we learn that music relating to the prevailing mood, symbolic events, festivals and revolutionary image, or appearing to reflect a deeply felt political goal became the most popular and general form of political engagement. Song lyrics and the different ways in which song was performed reveal such associations in using specific performance styles and locations to clearly express their meanings. When revolutionaries sang ‘Ça Ira’ while helping with Festival of Federation preparations, they demonstrated both their loyalty to the cause of the revolution and their expectations for the future. The meaning of song can change through performance location, such as citizens of Paris advising royalists to avoid what was now considered their territory when they sang ‘Ça Ira’ in a café.  After Thermidor, vigilantes sang ‘The Alarm of the People’ in opposition to army choruses of the Marseillaise, and observers could tell that the singers were defending opposing perspectives on the past and future of the Republic and the Revolution.  Song lyrics can provide crucial hints about what individuals thought and felt, their everyday challenges, and their ambitions for the future, especially when examining those who left little written accounts of their lives.

In the past two decades, Maurice Agulhon, Mona Ozouf, Fancois Furet, Lynn Hunt, and others have diverted attention from social interpretations of the French Revolution by arguing that the Revolution was remarkable not because it brought a loosely defined bourgeoisie to power but rather because it created new political linguistic forms and symbolism. However, within these studies there is little importance placed upon song as a significant cultural means of expression. Song culture cannot be isolated from other cultural means of expression such as art, or clothing, however, songs were the most accessible means of expression. The diversity characterising song culture and revolutionary society, suggests the limits of genres such as newspapers, art, literature, plays, pamphlets and so on, were further restricted in consumption and production, less accessible and thus tell us less about the political dissent of the Revolution than songs do, as they represent sentiments of smaller portions of the population.  Laura Mason’s ‘Singing the French Revolution’ appears to be the most recent study on French Revolutionary song culture, and the only one with a clear focus on song and singing practices. Mason demonstrated through song lyrics song performances in streets, theatres, and clubs of Paris showed how popular culture was invested with new political meanings after 1789, becoming one of the most important means for engaging in revolutionary debate. Mason argued that popular singing gained new acceptability as a result of the Revolution, changing it from an essentially conservative mode of expression to a tool of social and political opposition.

Scholars have overstated the uniformity of revolutionary political culture; however, the Revolution was a chaotic and fluid process. The Revolution lacked much uniformity; perspectives, allegiances, and aspirations frequently changed, attracting new supporters and inspiring fresh behaviours as the years went by. Increasing importance is placed upon Paris as the political and cultural centre of France, especially during the Revolution – I aim to take the study further by using song and a lens to understand the chaotic relationship between the urban and countryside, and how this became exacerbated through song and singing practices. I intend to draw upon Mason’s study of song and singing practices in relation to political expression in French society between 1789-1800 by continuing this research through looking beyond Paris, to focus on a broader picture of French revolutionary culture and the accompanying political dissent. I also aim to focus more on a socio-political element of analysis, with particular focus on the changing concept of citizenship highlighted through song, for instance, because singing could be done in a communal setting, it affirmed the participants' sense of belonging, however this sense of belonging becomes altered through events such as ‘the Terror’.

I intend to complete a textual analysis of song lyrics using digital primary sources (acquired from revolution.chnm.org, a government site containing more than six-hundred primary documents for the French Revolution) of revolutionary song lyrics translated from French into English. I intend to complete a textual analysis of song lyrics to interpret the feelings, values and symbolism of civic culture in the active years of the French Revolution, 1789-1800. I intend to understand how people communicate their thoughts and experiences of the Revolution through cultural means, emphasising the role of song, how its lyrics fit with its context, and the dialectical nature of how song comes to influence the course of the Revolution whilst also being influenced by the same course of events. I intend to carry this out using an interdisciplinary approach combining the discipline of history and sociology to reveal the chaotic and changing nature of French cultural and political society using song and singing practices as a lens to do so.  My intention is to look at song culture to view the Revolution's creative output and as a part of popular culture that was both influenced by and influenced the Revolution.

Each chapter will focus on a different feature of the revolutionary song culture as it developed at a particular point in the Revolution, highlighting the interactions between songs and other expressive forms and highlighting instances where the culture coalesced around particular political ideologies.

-              Chapter one - differences between the urban and rural life, the difference between Paris and the French countryside

cultural/political differences between urban and rural life – Paris (where a lot of cultural activity takes place – ‘cultural exchange’ - Look at Hammond 2019 – Powers of Sound & Song in Paris) & the French Countryside – HOW SONG INFLUENCES THIS – HOW WE CAN INTERPRET THIS RELATIONSHIP THROUGH SONG

 

 

-              Chapter two - socio-political backgrounds of those writing and performing songs, with focus on significant groups such as the Sans-Culottes

MUSICAL EXPRESSION AND WOMEN, JACOBIN, SAN-CULOTTE IDEOLOGY ETC

Linking song to cultural/social background of groups within Paris – why certain songs were made (surrounding events etc) and how certain songs influenced the course of people’s participation in the revolution

the narrowing of the gap between presentation and practice of song at the height of the revolutionary period, and the subsequent widening of that gap when the Directory assumed power

 

-              Chapter three - concept of citizenship emphasised through song and how the concept changes between 1789-1800

Sociology of French Revolutionary political culture

Few ideas:

Songs silenced and changed – concept of citizen becomes more ‘relaxed’ - HYMN FOR THE FESTIVAL OF MARRIAGE – 1798 - https://revolution.chnm.org/d/618

-              Although festivals drew much smaller audiences during the final years of the Revolution, the government continued to celebrate them. Now, however, they tended to commemorate apolitical events: thus, a festival, and hymn, devoted to the subject of marriage.

SONG FOR THE FESTIVAL OF OLD AGE - https://revolution.chnm.org/d/619

-              This song was composed for one of the many Directorial festivals that were not overtly political. Several, like the festival for which this song was composed, celebrated important moments in the life cycle.

 

-              Chapter four – particular focus on Political events and relationship with song/poltical culture – e.g. the Vendeé uprising.

MUSICAL EXPERIENCE OF THE TERROR – VENDEE

 

 

I propose what gave rise to song culture was a broken society where individuals were pursuing multiple, often opposing social and political aims. The words resonated differently with people of diverse socioeconomic groups, revolutionaries, and counterrevolutionaries, as well as everyone else in French society who joined in the singing.

 

 

Bibliography

 

Primary sources:

“It’ll Be Okay”, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, [Accessed February 06, 2023]. Available at: https://revolution.chnm.org/d/623.

Lebrun, “Republican Ode to the French People on the Supreme Being,” in the French Revolution; a Document Collection, ed. Laura Mason and Tracey Rizzo (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), 248-252.

“Oh Richard, Oh, My King!”, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, [Accessed February 06, 2023]. Available at: https://revolution.chnm.org/d/622.

“Patriotic Song on the Unveiling of the Busts of Marat and Le Pelletier (1793)”, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, [Accessed February 06, 2023]. Available at: https://revolution.chnm.org/d/621

“The Alarm of the People”, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, [Accessed February 07, 2023]. Available at: https://revolution.chnm.org/d/626

“The Carmagnole”, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, [Accessed February 06, 2023]. Available at: https://revolution.chnm.org/d/624

“The Marseillaise (War Song for the Army of the Rhine)”, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, [Accessed February 07, 2023]. Available at: https://revolution.chnm.org/d/625. 

(Need to add more primary sources)

 

Secondary sources:

Boyd, M. (2008) Music and the French Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brown, G. (2003) Cultures in Conflict: The French Revolution. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

Darlow, M. (2012) Staging the French Revolution: Cultural Politics and the Paris Opéra, 1789-1794. New York: Oxford University Press.

Darnton, R. (2000) ‘An Early Information Society: News and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris’, The American Historical Review, 105(1), pp. 1-35.

Dudley, R. (2016) ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?: Populist Discourse in the French Revolution’, Sigma: Journal of Political and International Studies, 33(6): 61-79.

Feilla, C. (2016) The Sentimental Theatre of the French Revolution. United Kingdom: Taylor and Francis.

Goldstein, J. (2005) The Post-Revolutionary Self: Politics and Psyche in France, 1750-1850. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hunt, L. (1989) ‘Introduction: The French Revolution in Culture: New Approaches and Perspectives’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 22(3), pp. 293-301.

Isherwood, R, M. (1978) ‘Popular Musical Entertainment in Eighteenth-Century Paris’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 9(2), pp. 295-310.

Johnson, J, H. (1995) Listening in Paris: A Cultural History. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Leith, J. (1966) ‘Music as an Ideological Weapon in the French Revolution’, Historical Papers / Communications historiques, 1(1), pp. 126-140. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/030657 [Accessed: February 07, 2023].

Lescart, A. (2005) Splendeur et Misére de la Grisette: L’evolution d’une Figure Emblematique. PhD Thesis. Connecticut: University of Connecticut. [Accessed: February 14, 2023]. Available at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/AAI3193728/

Mason, L. (1989) ‘Ça ira and the Birth of the Revolutionary Song’, History Workshop Journal, 28(1), pp. 22-38.

Mason, L. (1996) Singing the French Revolution: Popular Culture and Politics, 1787-1799. New York: Cornell University Press.

Mason, L. (2016) ‘The Culture of Reaction: Demobilizing the People after Thermidor’, French Historical Studies, 39(3), pp. 445-470.

McClellan, M, E. (1996) ‘Counterrevolution in Concert: Music and Political Dissent in Revolutionary France’, The Musical Quarterly, 80(1), pp. 31-57.

McKinley, C, A. (2008) ‘Anarchists and the Music of the French Revolution’, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 1(2), pp. 1-33.

McKinley, C, A. (2007) Illegitimate Children of the Enlightenment: Anarchists and the French Revolution, 1880-1914. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc.

Mondelli, P. (2016) ‘The Phonocentric Politics of the French Revolution’, Acta Musicologica, 88(2), pp. 143-164.

Mongrandeacute Dien, J., Pauly, R. G., Mongrédien, J. (1996) French Music from the Enlightenment to Romanticism: 1789-1830. Translated by Frémaux, S. United States: Amadeus Press.

Ozouf, M. (1988) Festivals and the French Revolution. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Pesic, A. (2015) The Enlightenment in Concert: The Concert Spirituel and Religious Music in Secular Spaces, 1725-1790. PhD Thesis. Princeton: Princeton University. [Accessed February 04, 2023]. Available at: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01v692t862q

Popkin, J, D. (1990) Revolutionary News: The Press in France, 1789-1799. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Rogers, B, C. (1947) ‘Songs-Colorful Propaganda of the French Revolution’, The Public Opinion Quarterly, 11(3), pp. 436-444.

Rosenfeld, S, A. (2001) A Revolution in Language: The Problem of Signs in Late Eighteenth-Century France. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Rosenfeld, S. (2018) ‘The French Revolution in Cultural History’, Journal of Social History, 52(3), pp. 555-565.

Rudé, G. (2005) The Crowd in History: A Study of Popular Disturbances in France and England, 1730-1848. London: Serif.

Singer, B. (1986) Society, Theory and the French Revolution: Studies in the Revolution Imaginary. New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc.

Thomas, D, A. (1995) Music and the Origins of Language: Theories from the French Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Velasco, M, J. (2017) Popular Song, Revolution, and Devotional Culture in the French Pyrénées, 1780-1850. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago. [Accessed February 08, 2023]. Available at: https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/1558

Von Arx, V. (1992) ‘A Musical ‘Concert’ and Its Symbols in Revolutionary Paris’, RIdIM/RCMI Newsletter, 17(1), pp. 25-34.

Woloch, I. (1994) The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789–1820s. New York: W. W. Norton & Company Inc.

 

 

Looking for only a section of my dissertation to be written - the cultural and socio-political differences between urban and rural life during French Revolution, 1789-1800. Focus on how Popular song impacts or even leads to these disputes between urban and rural France - textual analysis of song lyrics around particular events which relate to rural/urban socio-political struggles as expressed through revolutionary culture. Again, I have attached my dissertation proposal which generally outlines the topic and structure of the dissertation for reference. Also the required referencing style is Harvard and I am required to footnote only academic/professional sources.