Les canards

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Silvia Liebel (Université Paris XIII)

Ed. by Kathrina LaPorta, New York University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.03: French Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century: Classical and Baroque, 1600-1700.
Vol. editors: Heather Kirk (University of Western Ontario), Kathrina LaPorta (New York University), Polly Mangerson (DePaul University), Julia Prest (University of St Andrews), Allison Stedman (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

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Literature Topic

Dates

Date of occurrence c.1600-01-01- c.1699-12-31

Places

France (Location)

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The printed

canards

were brochures sold to the general public in the large cities of France from the early sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. Serving as a valuable tool for the dissemination of news before and alongside the creation of the periodical press with Renaudot’s

Gazette

in 1631, the canards are considered “the first works of ‘popular’ printed literature” in France (Chartier, 1989, p. 60). Indeed, their commercial success is likely one of the major inspirations for the creation of the

bibliothèque bleue

(

blue library

), traditional French chapbooks with a blue cover printed in the city of Troyes, initially by the brothers Oudot, in the beginning of the seventeenth century.

These pieces cover a variety of topics, ranging from natural disasters to bloody crimes,

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2366 words

Citation: Liebel, Silvia. "Les canards". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 August 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19449, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Les canards

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