1 Te tragedy of remarriage: letter to M. Cavell about cinema (a remake) Joshua Foa Dienstag Introduction In 1757, Jean d’Alembert wrote an entry on “Genève” (Geneva) in the seventh volume of the Encyclopédie, the great encapsulation of the Enlightenment, of which he was also one of the general editors. Among other things, the article proposed that Geneva should relax its sumptu- ary laws so as to permit the establishment of a theater. It was generally suspected that this part of the article was either written or suggested by Voltaire, who was living in exile there at the time and complaining bit- terly to his friends about the lack of a theater. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, born in Geneva, had contributed many entries to the Encyclopédie on music and political economy and was well known as a composer and patron of the theater. He had recently reconverted to Calvinism, however, and reclaimed his Genevan citi- zenship. Determined to oppose Voltaire’s suggestion that theater rep- resented cultural and political progress, he wrote a public letter to his editor and friend. It was published in 1758 as Lettre à M. d’Alembert sur les spectacles (Letter to M. d’Alembert on the Teatre). It provoked an extended public exchange and represented Rousseau’s permanent break from d’Alembert, Diderot and all his former Enlightenment allies. In our day, the optimistic view that a nation’s political culture may be improved by the exposure of its people to spectacles of a particular kind has again become popular. It has been endorsed by many but Joshua Foa Dienstag - 9781784997359 Downloaded from manchesteropenhive.com at 08/03/2019 07:08:56AM via free access