The 'charm of the voice': Topics of enchanting sound and musical reflections in the 18th century
The formula of the "Charm of the voice", which is the title of a play by Thomas Corneille from 1657, constitutes the topical matrix of a vast corpus of works which, throughout the classical age, have questioned the powers of the voice. The article identifies two sets of topoi: in the tale of "Beauty and the Beast" and its rewrites between the 1740s and the 1770s, the "charm of the voice" is essentially considered from the point of view of gentleness and civilizational process, while in Cazotte's short story, Le Diable amoureux (1772-1776), it appears as a destabilizing power in relation to the witch's imaginary.