![]() ![]() They bore such titles as “Friedrich Nietzsche and Women’s Fashions of 1870,” or “The Composer Rossini’s Favorite Dishes,” or “The Role of the Lapdog in the Lives of Great Courtesans,” and so on. Quite a few were celebrated university professors.Īmong the favorite subjects of such essays were anecdotes taken from the lives or correspondence of famous men and women. ![]() Frequently they enjoyed the high-sounding title of “writer,” but a great many of them seem to have belonged to the scholar class. The producers of these trivia were in some cases attached to the staffs of the newspapers in other cases they were free-lance scriveners. Quite possibly these manufactured articles do indeed contain a quantity of irony and self-mockery which cannot be understood until the key is found again. Ziegenhalss, at any rate, contends that many such pieces are so incomprehensible that they can only be viewed as self-persiflage on the part of the authors. It would seem, moreover, that the cleverer among the writers of them poked fun at their own work. They reported on, or rather “chatted” about, a thousand-and-one items of knowledge. ![]() They seem to have formed an uncommonly popular section of the daily newspapers, were produced by the millions, and were a major source of mental pabulum for the reader in want of culture. We must confess that we cannot provide an unequivocal definition of those products from which the age takes its name, the feuilletons. ![]()
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