Forgetting Differences

Forgetting Differences is Volume 1 of the Edinburgh Critical Studies In Renaissance Culture series. This academic work of literature and history criticism examines the royal politics of amnesia in France between 1560 and 1630. Andrea Frisch analyzes how the legislative process of forgetting internal differences after the sixteenth century civil wars altered the relationship between audiences and historical narratives. The study focuses on the transition from active political readings of the past to an affective approach designed to support cultural and political absolutism.

By comparing historiography and tragedy, this volume explores how the desire for communal reconciliation shaped the emotional responses of readers and spectators. The text treats authors such as Robert Garnier and Pierre Matthieu to demonstrate how neoclassical tragedy downplayed religious differences. This detailed analysis of regional and cultural movements reveals how the experience of the French Wars of Religion restructured the connection between emotion and politics.