Musical tableaux in French eighteenth-century literature: Textual sites of ideological struggle

Widespread suspicion of the tableau\u27s visual hold over the spectator prevented it from coming into common usage in the theater until the end of the eighteenth century. Diderot, who first theorized the tableau\u27s effect over the beholder, also rendered it a powerful narrative device. Aesthetic treatises from the same period reveal that philosophers were beginning to suspect music of being more apt to arouse the emotions of the listener than were the other arts. Musical tableaux, which combined the visual effect of the tableau with the aural effect of music, thus became a powerful means of conveying ideological convictions. It provided French authors with a textual space in which they could explore and contest the musical issues being debated at the time. Rousseau had helped exacerbate the contemporary musical debates with his claims that the French language was fundamentally unmusical and that women were incapable of artistic genius. His claims had implications for French authors, who used the French language as their primary means of expression, and for French women authors in particular, who sought to exercise their artistic genius. Those authors who were attuned to the musical debates, who were well-versed in aesthetic theories, or who had had some musical training, designed musical tableaux in which they staged their resistance to Rousseau\u27s claims. Diderot, Cazotte, and Beaumarchais resisted the notion that the French language was incapable of musical expression, and designed tableaux that helped compensate for their nation\u27s apparent linguistic limitations. Charrière, Cottin, Krüdener, and Staël resisted the association between music and immorality that rendered it impossible for women to cultivate their talent with impunity. They de-emphasized the aesthetic aspect of the tableau to confront its inherent moral quandary. These authors thus created two versions of the musical tableau, one predominantly aesthetic and the other primarily strategic. They thus rendered the more conventional musical seduction scenes virtually obsolete, and vastly enriched the possibilities available to nineteenth-century authors for portraying music textually