Abstract
“I hold Robert-Houdin personally responsible for all the crap that passes for magic today!” Raphael proclaimed, looking me straight in the eye as he unleashed ultimate blasphemy. Imagine a jazz soloist blaming Louis Armstrong for the decline of improvised music or an anthropologist laying responsibility for decadence in ethnographic methods at Malinowski’s tent-flaps. I had before me what appeared to be just such an apostasy. Magicians around the world have long revered Robert-Houdin as the “Father of Modern Magic,” a spiritual paternity reaffirmed twenty years after his death by the adoring young American magician Eric Weiss’s choice of the Italianized stage-name “Houdini.” Among magicians in his native France, Robert-Houdin generally still inspires something verging on religious awe.
Graham M. Jones is a Haarlow-Cotsen postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, where he is also a lecturer in the Council of the Humanities. Trained as an anthropologist, between 2003 and 2006, Jones conducted research on the culture of the magic world in contemporary France. In this chapter, Jones investigates the legacy of the great French magician and putative “father of modern magic,”Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin. Jones blends ethnography and literary analysis to account for the lasting influence of Robert-Houdins memoir, A Conjuror’s Confessions. Robert-Houdin continues to appeal, Jones demonstrates, because of his success in articulating persistent anxieties about the aesthetic status of magic and the social status of magicians. Why does this text continue to shape the world of entertainment magic in France and beyond?
Better that you honor your profession than your profession honor you.
—Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Works Cited
Alafrez, Abdul. “Éloge des chapeaux pointus.” Interview with Yves Hersant. Critique 673–674 (2003): 538–548.
Andezian, Sossie. Expériences du divin dans l’Algérie contemporaine: Adeptes des saints dans la région de Tlemcen. Paris: CNRS, 2001.
Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.
Bilis, Bernard. “Il restera dans l’histoire de notre art, le maître incontesté.” Revue de la Prestidigitation September–October 2004: 4.
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. New York: Oxford UP, 1973.
Born, Georgina. Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984.
Brooks, Daphne A. Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850–1910. Durham: Duke UP, 2006.
Chavigny, Jean. Le roman d’un artiste: Robert-Houdin, rénovateur de la magie blanche. Blois: Published by the author, 1943.
Christopher, Milbourne. The Illustrated History of Magic. New York: Caroll & Graf, 2006.
Cook, James W. The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2001.
Coulangeon, Philippe. “French Jazz Musicians: From Subculture to Subsidy and Social Insurance.” In Karlijn Ernst, Marlite Halbertsma, Susanne Janssen, and Teunis Ijdens, eds. Taking Stock: Trends and Strategies in the Arts and Cultural Industries. Rotterdam: Barjesteh & Co, 1999. 173–181.
During, Simon. Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2002.
Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994.
Fechner, Christian. Robert-Houdin: An Artist’s Life. Paris: ECF, 2002.
—. “La pensée magique de Robert-Houdin.” Revue de la prestidigitation September–October 2005a: 14–16.
—. “Les armes secrètes des soirees fantastiques.” Revue de la prestidigitation September–October 2005b: 17–22.
Freud, Sigmund. “Family Romances.” The Standard Edition ofthe Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume IX. Ed. James Strachey. London: Hogarth, 1959. 237–241.
Gerson, Stephane. “In Praise of Modest Men: Self-Display and Self-Effacement in Nineteenth-Century France.” French History 20.2 (2006): 182–203.
Guilleman, Fanch. “L’inconturnable Robert-Houdin.” Revue de la prestidigitation 528, 2002: 22–23.
Harrison, Carol E. The Bourgeois Citizen in Nineteenth-Century France: Gender, Sociability, and the Uses of Emulation: New York: Oxford UP, 1999.
Houdini, Harry. The Unmasking of Robert-Houdin. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1908.
Jones, Graham M. Trades of the Trick: Conjuring Culture in Modern France. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, New York University, 2007.
Keane, Webb. “Sincerity, ‘Modernity,’ and the Protestants:’ Cultural Anthropology 17.1 (2002): 65–92.
Kris, Ernst and Otto Kurz. Legend, Myth, and Magic in the Image of the Artist: A Historical Experiment. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979.
Looseley, David. The Politics of Fun: Cultural Policy and Debate in Contemporary France. Washington, DC: Berg, 1995.
Menger, Pierre-Michel. “Artistic Labor Markets.” Annual Review of Sociology 25 (1999): 541–574.
Metzner, Paul. Crescendo of the Virtuoso: Spectacle, Skill, and Self-Promotion in Paris during the Age of Revolution. Berkeley: U of California P, 1998.
Perrot, Philippe. Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1994.
Portertield, Todd. The Allure of Empire: Art in the Service of French Imperialism. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998.
Robert-Houdin, Jean-Eugène. Confidences d’un prestidigitateur [1858]. Paris: Stock, 1995.
—. Memoirs of Robert-Houdin, Ambassador, Author, and Conjurer. Philadelphia: G. G. Evan, 1859a.
—. Life of Robert-Houdin: The King of the Conjurers. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 18596.
—. Les tricheries des Grecs dévoilees; L’art des gagner a tous les jeux. Paris: Librairie nouvelle, 1861.
—. Les secrets de la prestidigitation et de la magie: comment on deviant sorcier. Paris: Michel Levy frerès, 1868.
Rogers, Susan Carol. “Anthropology in France:’ Annual Review of Anthropology 30 (2001): 481–504.
Saler, Michael. “Modernity and Enchantment: A Historiographic Review.” The American Historical Review 111.3 (2006): 692–716.
Schmidt, Leigh Eric. “From Demon Possession to Magic Show: Ventriloquism, Religion, and the Enlightenment.” Church History67.2 (1998): 274–304.
Shapin, Steven. A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth Century England. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1994.
Silverman, Kenneth. HOUDINI!!! The Career of Erich Weiss. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Stafford, Barbara Maria. Artful Science: Enlightenment, Entertainment, and the Eclipse of Visual Education. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1994.
Stallybrass, Peter and Allon White. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression. London: Methuen, 1986.
Steinmeyer, Jim. Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2002.
Swiss, Jamy Ian. Shattering Illusions. Seattle: Hermetic Press, 2002.
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2008 Francesca Coppa, Lawrence Hass, and James Peck
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jones, G.M. (2008). The Family Romance of Modern Magic: Contesting Robert-Houdin’s Cultural Legacy in Contemporary France. In: Coppa, F., Hass, L., Peck, J. (eds) Performing Magic on the Western Stage. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230617124_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230617124_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37464-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61712-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
