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« Parler librement »  La liberté de parole au tournant du XVIe et du XVIIe siècle

« Parler librement » La liberté de parole au tournant du XVIe et du XVIIe siècle


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"Parler librement". La liberté de parole au tournant du XVIe et XVIIe siècle

From the Wars of Religion to the Fronde, France experienced a period of political and religious instability conducive to all manner of impropriety. It was against this evolving backdrop, which was constantly redefining itself, that a number of printed texts noted for their virulence or their transgressive impact appeared.
Freedom of speech stems from a liberating act, as the reactions of institutions and associations concerned attest. This excess, as ideological as it is verbal, should be measured against the progressive control of knowledge, moral standards and the censorial practices which defend them. From editorials to the concrete world of institutions, we also see the assertion of the authorial persona, depicted and challenged in subversive texts - be they fables, philosophical dialogues or provocative invective.
So what is freedom of speech? The articles included in this volume all link the ideological challenges of freedom to a pragmatic approach to speech acts. At the end of such a journey, we are in a position to say what it is that defines the limits of the speakable and the publishable at any given time: how and why certain authors, rather than others, were condemned for their desire to "speak freely".