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Originally published in 1973, the history of French tragedy and tragicomedy from their origins in the sixteenth century to the last years of Louis XIV’s reign is here surveyed in a single volume. Beginning with a brief account of the development of drama from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, Dr Brereton examines the plays as types of drama, the circumstances in which they were produced and their reception by contemporaries. The traditionally great figures of Corneille and Racine are treated at some length, but their work is seen in perspective against the plays of their predecessors and of their own time. Garnier and Montchrestien are discussed, among others, as notable writers of Renaissance humanist tragedy. Sections are devoted to secondary but still important dramatists such as Mairet, Rotrou, Du Ryer, Tristan L’Hermite, Thomas Corneille and Quinault. A long chapter on Alexandre Hardy reviews the work of this neglected author and stresses his interest as a transitional link between the two centuries and as a vigorous pioneer of a type of drama which flourished for several decades after him concurrently with French ‘classical’ tragedy. The main currents of critical theory, social attitudes and stage history are described in their relation to the development of the drama. Well over a hundred plays are discussed or summarized; and the author has constantly referred back to the original material and has avoided an over-simplification of a vast subject which contains more exceptions and anomalies than has generally been recognized in the past. Chronological tables of the works of major dramatists, summaries of numerous plays and a bibliography containing modern editions of plays are included.
The principle aim of this 1990 book is to encourage readers to find pleasure in sixteenth-century tragedies.
Examines the impact of the royal politics of amnesia on tragedy and national historiography in France, 1560-1630This study argues that the political and legislative process of forgetting internal differences, undertaken in France after the civil wars of the sixteenth century, leads to subtle yet fundamental shifts in the broader conception of the relationship between readers or spectators on the one hand, and the matter of history, on the other. These shifts, occasioned by the desire for communal reconciliation and generally associated with an increasingly modern sensibility, will nonetheless prove useful to the ideologies of cultural and political absolutism. By juxtaposing representations of the French civil war past as they appear (and frequently overlap) in historiography and tragedy from 1550-1630, Andrea Frisch tracks changes in the ways in which history and tragedy sought to 'move' readers throughout the period of the wars and in their wake. The book shows that a shift from a politically (and martially) active reading of the past to a primarily affective one follows the imperative, so clear and urgent at the turn of the seventeenth century, to put an end to violent conflict. The emotions that neoclassical tragedy and absolutist historiography sought to elicit were intended above all to be shared, and thus a medium via which political and religious differences could be downplayed or forgotten. The book aims to illuminate some of the ways in which the experience of the wars of religion, as registered in tragedy and historiography, contributed to a restructuring of the ever-vital relationship between emotion and politics, and thereby to historicize the very concept of 'esmouvoir'.Key FeaturesConfronts historiography and tragedy in the era of the French Wars of ReligionAddresses the themes of amnesty, pardon, memory, and forgetting in the context of civil warProvides both close readings and a broad argument about the impact of the monarchical politics of reconciliation on conceptions of how history and tragedy should 'move' their audiencesTreats multiple French authors including AndrcY e Nesmond; Henri-Lancelot Voisin de la Popelinic ; Pierre Matthieu; Jean de la Taille; Robert GarnierAndrea Frisch is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland. KeywordsFrench Wars of Religion; Saint Bartholomew's Day massacres; Edict of Nantes; tragedy; historiography; emotion; reconciliation; Henri IV (Henri de Navarre); Robert Garnier; Pierre MatthieuSubject: Literature
In this 1969 text Mrs Jondorf studies Robert Garnier as a sixteenth-century writer, attuned to the thought and art of his own time.
In tracing the course of French comedy from the Renaissance, through the age of Louis XIV and the eighteenth century, to the eve of the Revolution, originally published in 1977, Geoffrey Brereton shows how it evolved from the crude farces and experimental plays of the sixteenth century to become a rich and highly sophisticated dramatic genre. The main emphasis is on the work of the principal dramatists, notably Molière (whose plays and career are given a detailed and enlightening treatment), Corneille, Scarron, Marivaux and Beaumarchais, with some space devoted to the more neglected writers, such as the ‘cynical generation’ of Dancourt, Regnard, Lesage and others; and all the plays are seen in the context of the theatrical conventions that helped to shape them. Different types of comedy are analysed, including comedy of character and of manners, as well as the romantic, burlesque and bourgeois forms and the development of the opéra-comique. At the same time Dr Brereton examines the influences on French comedy – influences as varied as those of the farce, the Italian commedia dell’arte, the Spanish comedia and the eighteenth century drame – and the way in which these were absorbed and exploited by French comic dramatists. Since comedy, more than any other kind of drama, reflects the contemporary social scene, attention is drawn to social conditions and attitudes, and some of the more striking parallels with modern social preoccupations are pointed out. Written in a very lively and readable style, and containing much stimulating and original comment, as well as providing the basic facts, it gives a considerable insight into the nature of French comedy during its most formative and fruitful period. A substantial bibliography and other reference material increase the usefulness of this book to the student of French drama.
The performance of violence on the stage has played an integral role in French tragedy since its inception. Onstage Violence in Sixteenth-Century French Tragedy is the first book to tell this story. It traces and examines the ethical and poetic stakes of violence, as playwrights were experimenting with the newly discovered genre during decades of religious and civil war (c. 1550-1598). The study begins with an overview of the origins of French vernacular tragedy and the complex relationships between violence, performance, ethics, and poetics. The volume focuses on specific plays and analyzes biblical, mythological, historical, and politically topical tragedies—including the stories of Cain and Abel, David and Goliath, Medea, the Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, the Roman general Regulus, and the assassination of the Duke of Guise in 1588—to show how the multifarious uses of violence on stage shed light on a range of pressing issues during that turbulent time, such as religion, gender, politics, and militantism.
The fifteen articles in this volume highlight the richness, diversity, and experimental nature of French and Francophone drama before the advent of what would become known as neoclassical French theater of the seventeenth century. In essays ranging from conventional stage plays (tragedies, comedies, pastoral, and mystery plays) to court ballets, royal entrances, and meta- and para-theatrical writings of the period from 1485 to 1640, French Renaissance and Baroque Drama: Text, Performance, Theory seeks to deepen and problematize our knowledge of texts, co-texts, and performances of drama from literary-historical, artistic, political, social, and religious perspectives. Moreover, many of the articles engage with contemporary theory and other disciplines to study this drama, including but not limited to psychoanalysis, gender studies, anthropology, and performance theory. The diversity of the essays in their methodologies and objects of study, none of which is privileged over any other, bespeaks the various types of drama and the numerous ways we can study them.