Cultural Exchange in Seventeenth-Century France and England

Gesa Stedman's ambitious new study is a comprehensive account of cross-channel cultural exchanges between seventeenth-century France and England, and includes discussion of sources including literary texts, poems, historical figures, garden design, fashion, music, dance, food, the book market, and the theater. Importantly, Stedman concentrates on the connection between actual, material transfer and its symbolic representation in both visual and textual sources, investigating actual, material exchange processes in order to shed light on the connection between actual and symbolic exchange. Individual chapters focus on exchanges under important figures and key mediators in cultural transfer such as Henrietta Maria and Charles II, and on textual and visual representations of cultural exchange with France as reflected in poetry, restoration comedies, fashion, and in literary devices and characters. This book concludes with an outlook at developments in the eighteenth-century and the implications of cultural conflict on material and symbolic exchange. Well-written and accessible, Cultural Exchange in Seventeenth-Century France and England provides needed insight into the field of cultural exchange, and will be of interest to both literary scholars and cultural historians.