Storytelling in sixteenth-century France: negotiating shifting forms

Abstract

"Storytelling in Sixteenth-Century France: The Negotiation of Shifting Forms is an innovative, interdisciplinary examination of parallels between the early modern era and the world in which we live today. Readers are invited to look to the past to see how, then as now, people turn to storytelling to integrate and adapt to rapid social change, to reinforce or restructure community, to sell new ideas, and to refashion the past. Like the change that it reflects, the telling of stories is itself a dynamic process, in which narratives are constantly renewed, revised and reformed. The stories of an era not only assume multiple, changing forms, but also surface in unexpected domains that seem, at first, incompatible with the storytelling enterprise: domains like medicine and diplomacy. Identifying the commonalities between the storytelling approach in diverse domains helps us better understand the conventions of a specific time and place (in this case, different decades in sixteenth-century France) while simultaneously revealing sites of resistance where these conventions were tested. This understanding heightens, in turn, our awareness of the stories shaping our own era"--Provided by publisher.