Lamateur lpoque des Lumires

Obissant la logique dune spcialisation toujours plus grande, les socits contemporaines ne tiennent pas lamateur en grande estime. Or, sil est vrai que le 18e sicle consacre le triomphe de cette figure, cest aussi lpoque o samorce son irrversible dclin. Couvrant un large spectre de disciplines et daires culturelles au sein de lEurope, les contributions de spcialistes runies dans ce volume permettent de mieux cerner ce moment-pivot de lhistoire culturelle. Sans se limiter aux formes institutionnalises de lamateurship tudies par les historiens de lart ou des sciences, louvrage examine ainsi les relations que le non-professionnel entretient avec les gens de mtier (dans la presse, le milieu musical ou littraire) ; la spcificit des uvres quil produit et sa contribution au progrs des arts et des sciences ; lmergence, lge de lesthtique naissante, dun amateur compris comme instance de jugement ; la manire dont il est investi par les discours et annex leurs logiques propres (en tant que fiction littraire, idal ou ethos). Observer le phnomne dans ses manifestations plurielles, confronter lordre des ralits et celui des reprsentations, articuler les diverses approches sur la question: lenjeu, on laura compris, est moins de dfinir une quelconque identit de lamateur, que dinterroger sa raison dtre. --- Amateurs are not particularly appreciated in our ever specialising contemporary societies. Yet the figure of the amateur was highly celebrated in the eighteenth century, even though its irremediable decline began at the same time. The articles collected in this book allow a better understanding of this turning point in cultural history as they cover a wide spectrum of academic disciplines and European cultural areas. This book does not only deal with the institutionalised forms of amateurship that have been studied by art historians and historians of science. This work considers the relationships that non-professionals had with professionals (working in periodicals, in the musical world, or in the book trade) ; the specificity of the works that amateurs produced and their contribution to the progress of arts and sciences ; the rise of the amateur as a judging instance in a period that saw the development of aesthetics ; and the way this figure was handled in different discourses and subjected to their own logics (whether as a literary fiction, an ideal or an ethos). Since this collective work focuses on the phenomenon of amateurship in its diverse manifestations, confronts the real to its representations, and articulates different perspectives on the subject, it obviously does not aim at defining any identity for the amateur, but rather intends to question its raison d'tre.