The Family Romance of the French Revolution

This latest work from an author known for her contributions to the new cultural history is a multidisciplinary investigation of the foundations of modern politics. "Family Romance" was coined by Freud to describe the fantasy of being freed from one's family and joining one of higher social standing. Lynn Hunt uses the term broadly to describe the images of the familial order un...

This latest work from an author known for her contributions to the new cultural history is a multidisciplinary investigation of the foundations of modern politics. "Family Romance" was coined by Freud to describe the fantasy of being freed from one's family and joining one of higher social standing. Lynn Hunt uses the term broadly to describe the images of the familial order underlying revolutionary politics. In a wide-ranging account using novels, engravings, paintings, speeches, newspaper editorials, pornographic writing, and revolutionary legislation about the family, Hunt shows that politics were experienced through the grid of the family romance.

林·亨特是繼娜塔莉·澤蒙·戴維斯後，新文化史的掌旗者。亨特在本書中，以「家庭羅曼史」指稱集體且無意識的家庭秩序圖像，這種家庭秩序的圖像構成了法國大革命政治理念的基調。亨特藉著討論家庭成員間的關係，闡述這種政治理念；並以家國互喻的方式，陳述十八世紀的法國人視其統治者為父，視其國為家的想法。因此，家庭成員的論述便構成了本書的敘事結構。