Enchanted islands: picturing the allure of conquest in eighteenth-century France

Abstract

In 'Enchanted Islands', art historian Mary D. Sheriff explores the legendary, fictional, and real islands that filled the French imagination during the ancien regime as they appeared in royal ballets and festivals, epic literature, paintings, engravings, book illustrations, and other objects. Some of the islands were mythical and found in the most popular literary texts of the day. Islands featured prominently, for instance, in Ariosto's Orlando furioso,Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata, and Fénelon's, Telemachus. Other islands --real ones, such as Tahiti and St. Domingue-- the French learned about from the writings of travelers and colonists. All of them were imagined to be the home of enchantresses who used magic to conquer heroes by promising sensual and sexual pleasure.

Contents

Introduction: Called to islands -- Thinking with islands -- Domains of enchantment -- Royal power, national sentiment and the sorceress undone -- Calypso in the regency -- The transformations of Armida -- On the persistence and limits of the enchanted island.