Gloria, canon, quand est-ce and poteau télégraphique: Alcoholic Beverages and the Action of Drinking in the Language of the Sublimes

Abstract

At first glance, it may seem surprising that Denis Poulot’s book, titled Question sociale. Le Sublime ou le travailleur tel qu’il est en 1870, et ce qu’il peut être (1870), can be taken into consideration for an argot analysis. However, social historians perceive this author’s work as a valuable testimony to the literature on the French working-class life in the 19th century. Against this background, the academic interest in Poulot’s work has so far focused only on the life and working conditions of workers and not on the language of the so-called sublimes. A linguistic study of the sublimes (Hardy 2015) has already shown that it is worth investigating certain concepts, their meanings, and etymologies. First, this article introduces Denis Poulot and his work. Subsequently, the language of the sublimes is examined from a linguistic point of view. Here, the focus is on semantic fields, in particular the field of alcoholic beverages, wine merchants, and the action of drinking.