{{Short description|Newspaper section}} {{distinguish|text=feuilletine, a crispy confection made from crêpes}} {{use dmy dates |date=February 2022}} A '''''feuilleton''''' ({{IPA|fr|fœjtɔ̃}}; a diminutive of {{langx|fr|feuillet}}, the leaf of a book) was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the latest fashions, and epigrams, charades, and other literary trifles.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|inline=y|wstitle=Feuilleton|volume=10|page=305}}</ref>

The term ''feuilleton'' was invented in 1800 for the publishing format by the editors of the French ''Journal des débats'', Julien Louis Geoffroy and Bertin the Elder. Early on, the ''feuilleton'' was described as a "talk of the town".<ref> {{cite book |title=Søren Kierkegaard |first1=Daniel W. |last1=Conway |first2=K. E. |last2=Gover |year=2002 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=6f3gwMbvz-sC&pg=PA248 248] |isbn=9780415235907 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6f3gwMbvz-sC }}</ref> A contemporary English-language example of the format is the section of ''The New Yorker'' that is entitled, "Talk of the Town".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/mar/08/featuresreviews.guardianreview5 |access-date=17 February 2022 |title=Walter Benjamin meets Monsieur Hulot |first=James |last=Buchan |newspaper=The Guardian |date=8 March 2003 }}</ref> However, in English newspapers, the term instead came to refer to an installment of a serial story that is printed in one part of a newspaper.<ref name=EB1911/>

== History == thumb|right|A page from the Finnish newspaper ''Helsingfors Dagblad'' (1889), showing a "ground floor" ''feuilleton'' The ''feuilleton'' was the literary consequence of the Coup of 18 Brumaire (Dix-huit-Brumaire). A consular edict of January 17, 1800, made a clean sweep of the revolutionary press, and cut down the number of Paris newspapers to 13. Under the Consulate, and later on, the Empire, ''Le Moniteur Universel'', which served as a propaganda mouthpiece for Napoleon Bonaparte, basically controlled what the other twelve Parisian publications could run. Julien Louis Geoffroy found that what might not be written in an editorial column could appear with perfect impunity on a lower level on the ''rez-de-chaussée'', the "ground floor" of a journal.<ref name="Feuilleton" /> Geoffroy started the first ''feuilleton'' in the ''Journal des Débats''. The idea caught on at once. The ''feuilleton'', which dealt ostensibly with literature, the drama, and other harmless topics, but which, nevertheless, could make political capital out of the failure of a book or a play, became quite powerful under the Napoleonic nose.<ref name="Feuilleton">{{Cite news |date=November 3, 1900 |title=The Feuilleton: Its Effect Upon Journalism in France |pages=7 |work=The Buffalo Commercial |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/82910143/the-feuilleton-its-effect-upon/ |access-date=2021-08-06}}</ref> The original ''feuilletons'' were not usually printed on a separate sheet, but merely separated from the political part of the newspaper by a line and printed in smaller type on the bottom of same sheet of the newspaper where the political story appeared.<ref name=EB1911/>

Geoffroy's own ''feuilleton'' dealt with the theatre as he was a trenchant drama critic. By the time of his death in 1814, several other feuilletonists had made their mark, with Janin taking over from him. ''Feuilletonists'' featured in other papers included Théophile Gautier, Paul de St. Victor, Edmond de Biéville, Louis Ulbach, and Francisque Sarcey, who occupied the "ground floor" of the ''Temps''. Adolphe Adam, Hector Berlioz, and Coutil-Blaze wrote music-laden ''feuilletons''. Babinet, Louis Figuier, and Meunier focused on science. Bibliographical ''feuilletons'' were authored by Armand de Pontmartin, Gustave Planche, and Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve.<ref name="Feuilleton" />

However, the ''feuilleton'' would become a phenomenon only with the appearance of serialised novels. For instance, those of Alexandre Dumas, ''The Count of Monte Cristo'', ''The Three Musketeers'', and ''Vingt ans après'', all filled the "ground floors" of the ''Siècle''. Eugène Sue's ''Mystères de Paris'' ran in the ''Débate'', and his ''Juif Errant'' (''The Wandering Jew'') appeared in the ''Constitutionnel''.<ref name="Feuilleton" /> In ''The World of Yesterday'', Stefan Zweig wrote of how the ''feuilleton'' by ''Neue Freie Presse'', "in the lower half of the front page, separated sharply from the ephemera of politics and the day by an unbroken line that extended from margin to margin", had become the leading arbiter of literary culture in ''fin de siècle'' Vienna, such that a ''feuilleton'' writer's "yes or no... decided the success of a work, a play, or a book, and with it that of the author".<ref name=Zweig>[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.176552/page/n86/mode/1up?view=theater Zweig, Stefan, ''The World of Yesterday'', p.85 (1953)].</ref>

The ''feuilleton'' was a common genre in Russia, especially during the government reforms of Alexander II (1855–1881).<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3219943|jstor=3219943|title=The Feuilleton: An Everyday Guide to Public Culture in the Age of the Great Reforms|last1=Dianina|first1=Katia|journal=The Slavic and East European Journal|year=2003|volume=47|issue=2|pages=187–210|doi=10.2307/3219943|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote ''feuilletons''.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2492493|jstor=2492493|last1=Fanger|first1=Donald|title=Dostoevsky's Early Feuilletons: Approaches to a Myth of the City|journal=Slavic Review|year=1963|volume=22|issue=3|pages=469–482|doi=10.2307/2492493|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139236867.033|doi = 10.1017/CBO9781139236867.033|chapter = Dostoevsky's journalism and fiction|title = Dostoevsky in Context|year = 2015|last1 = Chances|first1 = Ellen|pages = 272–279|isbn = 9781139236867|editor1-first = Deborah A|editor1-last = Martinsen|editor2-first = Olga|editor2-last = Maiorova}}</ref> The ''feuilletonistic'' tendency of his work has been explored by Zhernokleyev.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.99.1.0071|jstor=10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.99.1.0071|doi=10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.99.1.0071|title=Dostoevskii, the Feuilleton and the Confession|year=2021|last1=Zhernokleyev|journal=The Slavonic and East European Review|volume=99|issue=1|pages=71–97|s2cid=234128315|url-access=subscription}}</ref> By 1870, Dostoevsky parodied the feuilleton for its celebration of ephemeral culture.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3185576|jstor=3185576|last1=Dianina|first1=Katia|title=Passage to Europe: Dostoevskii in the St. Petersburg Arcade|journal=Slavic Review|year=2003|volume=62|issue=2|pages=237–257|doi=10.2307/3185576|s2cid=163868977|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

=== Evolving etymology === In the United States during the twentieth century, S. J. Perelman described his comic works, usually reports of his own misadventures, as ''feuilletons'' and he defined himself as a ''feuilletoniste''.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_3GuCwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Perelman%22%20%22feuilletoniste%22&pg=PA451 |title= Twentieth Century American Literature |first=David Graham |last=Phillips |publisher=Macmillan Publishers |isbn=9781349164165 |page=451 |date= 1980-11-01 |access-date=2021-10-02 |via=Google Books}}</ref> In 2000, Marcy Wheeler used the term to identify a literary-journalistic essay form that often is self-published and that is published to express opinions that might ordinarily be censored due to government displeasure — a definition that might become another evolution in the use of the term.<ref>{{cite thesis |first=Margaret |last=Wheeler |title=Street Level: Intersections of Modernity in the Czech, Argentine, and French Feuilleton; Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Comparative Literature |hdl=2027.42/132917 |publisher=University of Michigan, Ann Arbor |year=2000 |type=Thesis }}</ref><ref name="WheelerPrologue">{{cite web |first=Marcy |last=Wheeler |url=http://www.anatomyofdeceit.com/prologue |work=Anatomy of Deceit |title=The Prologue |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070503121010/http://www.anatomyofdeceit.com/prologue |archivedate=2007-05-03 |accessdate=April 28, 2007}}</ref>

== See also == {{Portal|Journalism}} * Causerie * Op-ed * Column * Serial novel * Sunday Supplement * ''The Third Culture'' (1995), book that inspired several German newspapers to integrate scientific reports into their ''feuilleton'' sections * Xiaopin

== References == {{reflist}}

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Category:Newspapers