Alain Cabantous's Books

Blasphemy

Impious Speech in the West from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century

By: Alain Cabantous

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Blasphemy

Impious Speech in the West from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century

By: Alain Cabantous

Our world is steeped in attitudes and concepts derived from a sacred worldview, and this book helps us understand why. Alain Cabantous shows that blasphemy is a battlefield where religious dogma and secular rule clash, with their respective agents (the priest and the judge) competing for the proper reaction to a variety of curses. The book takes us on a journey through the Christian West with braggarts, craftsmen, soldiers, sailors, and their coarse, forbidden exchanges. More than simply an exhaustive inventory of the uses of and bans on blasphemy, the book is a lively analysis of the relationship between the blasphemer, the machinery of language, and that of repression. Beginning with a review of acts and crimes of blasphemy in biblical times, including the second commandment's injunction against taking God's name in vain, Cabantous reviews the close relationship between religious authority and royal authority in the sixteenth century, when the king ruled by divine right and attacks against God were implicit attacks on the nature of kingship. Punishing blasphemy was a way for the king to rule as God's representative and an occasion for the church to take control of language. The narrative continues with an exploration of acts of blasphemy, as well as related acts of desecration and profanation, which were regarded as civil and religious offenses up to the French Revolution of 1789 and afterward. The book then explores blasphemy through the mid-nineteenth century, when Catholic opponents of the French Revolution claimed that revolution itself was a blasphemy and a profanation.

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Page Count

316

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231118767

ISBN 13

9780231118767

Blasphemy

Impious Speech in the West from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century

By: Alain Cabantous

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Blasphemy

Impious Speech in the West from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century

By: Alain Cabantous

Average ratings

N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

316

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231118767

ISBN 13

9780231118767

The Lure of the Sea

The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World, 1750-1840

By: Alain Corbin

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The Lure of the Sea

The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World, 1750-1840

By: Alain Corbin

Corbin argues that with few exceptions people living before the eighteenth century knew nothing of the attractions of the coast, the visual delight of the sea, the desire to brave the force of the waves or to feel the coolness of sand against the skin. The image of the ocean in the popular consciousness was coloured by Biblical and mythical recollections of sea monsters, voracious whales, and catastrophic floods. It was perceived as sinister and unchanging, a dark, unfathomable force inspiring horror rather than attraction. These associations of catastrophe and fear in the minds of Europeans intensified the repulsion they felt towards deserted and dismal shores.

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Age

Page Count

424

Publisher

Univ of California Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0520066383

ISBN 13

9780520066380

Book's by Alain Cabantous

Blasphemy

Blasphemy

Blasphemy

Blasphemy

The Lure of the Sea

The Lure of the Sea

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