S’amuser en Europe au siecle des Lumieres (Enjoying Oneself in Europe during the Enlightenment) ed. by Elisabeth Detis and Françoise Knopper (review)

221 The work of these Restoration scholars should be better known by English and American scholars. This is the second Restoration play in this series from Barcelona, the other being an equally interesting edition of Joseph Arrowsmith ’s The Reformation (2003). Mary Ann O’Donnell Manhattan College S’amuser en Europe au siècle des Lumie ̀res (Enjoying Oneself in Europe during the Enlightenment), ed. Élisabeth Détis and Françoise Knopper. Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Mirail, 2007. Pp. 245. ⫽ C 22. This entertaining and informative little book examines leisure activities in the eighteenth century in five European areas. For each, ten prints and ten extracts from novels or essays given in French and in the original language are preceded by an analysis by a leading scholar. The volume ends with a useful Bibliography and Index. In ‘‘L’Angleterre, un jardin de plaisance ?’’ (‘‘England, a Pleasure Garden ?’’), Ms. Détis stresses the quantity of English prints and the prevalence of satire in contrast with the idealized view of amusements often presented by political and philosophical tracts or travel narratives. She focuses on Vauxhall, Masquerade, theaters, card and chance games, lottery, boxing, animal fights, spring and winter public city celebrations , and country pleasures. The main characteristics of leisure in England are competition, a strong sense of freedom, and the importance of communities. Philip Stewart’s ‘‘S’amuser en France au XVIIIe siècle’’ (‘‘Enjoying Oneself in France in the Eighteenth Century’’) examines the not always positive term loisirs. In paintings and prints this ambivalence represents idle and working people in complementary activities (selling and buying, showing and watching ), their social positions always clear. The display of people ostensibly doing nothing shows their social status. In one print, common people enjoy raucous company at Rapeneau’s famous tavern; in others, higher-class gatherings play music or watch scientific experiments. The contrast establishes the greater social fluidity of England. Lucie Comparini discusses the common association of the eighteenth century , entertainment, Venice, and Goldoni ’s plays in ‘‘Les divertissements de la Venise goldonienne entre théâtre et gravure’’ (‘‘Entertainment in Goldoni’s Venice: between drama and print’’). She uses the plays to present the ways Venetians amused themselves and focuses on inside and outside activities linked to the Carnival, on gambling both public in the Ridotto and private in houses, on rural escapes to magnificent country seats, and on the ambiguous role of sigisbei. In ‘‘Leisure in Iberia’’ (‘‘Les loisirs dans la péninsule ibérique’’), Claude Maffre shows how the Spanish and the Portuguese took advantage of what ‘‘monolithic Catholicism’’ tolerated: private conversations at mass, public rejoicing at processions and fireworks, and above all a great love of dancing, with foreigners shocked by the lewdness of fandango dancers, as well as by the frequency of public delousing and the ferocity of bullfighting. Françoise Knopper’s title, ‘‘Reason and recreation in the Holy Empire during the Aufklärung’’ (‘‘Raison et loisirs dans le Saint Empire à l’époque de l’Aufklärung’’), announces how seriously amusements were taken in Germanspeaking areas. Noting the long tradi- 222 tion of woodcuts, she emphasizes regional diversity and didactic priorities rather than the many prints influenced by fashionable English and French ones. Among the general trends noted in the Introduction is that leisure activities mostly take place within cultural communities although this lessens with time as interest in new technologies spread across boundaries. As reflections of cultural attitudes, prints tend to vary more from country to country than the activities they represent. Oblique satire in prints and texts voices sociological, moral, and anthropological preoccupations . Anne Bandry Université de HauteAlsace British Literature, 1640–1789: An Anthology , ed. Robert Demaria, Jr. 3rd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008. Pp. liv ⫹ 1,135. $49.95. Mr. Demaria makes as good a case as he can for a third edition seven years after the second, but everyone knows that this rapid turnover of textbook editions is a commercial rather than scholarly decision. Still, that Blackwell can provide 1,135 pages of useful headnotes and footnotes, and good texts, on paper considerably better than the Norton anthologies (to take a notorious example), for only $50, is a tribute to them...