Abstract
This article aspires to survey the way in which Louis
Sebastien Mercier used description in Tableau de Paris to make commentary on
social theatre. A close reading of visuality, the gaze, and the representation
of spectacle, warrants a renewed understanding in the ways in which Mercier’s
rhetoric uses visuality as a tool of pedagogy, a method of constructing
personhood and citizenship. This tool helped Mercier bring to bear the issues
of social inequality, class division, economic hardship, and class conflict
that underpinned pre-revolutionary tensions. Examining the work through this
unique lens helps us contextualize his philosophy with that of his
contemporaries and understand the emerging public sphere where individuals
interacted with all forms of spectacle, from theatre to public appearance.
