This is a brief overview of theater around the time of Corneille...
Overview of French Theater History
Baroque Theater
French theater from the seventeenth century is often reduced to three great names -- Pierre Corneille, Molière and Jean Racine -- and to the triumph of "classicism"; the truth is however far more complicated.
Theater at the beginning of the century was dominated by the genres and dramatists of the previous generation. Most influential in this respect was Robert Garnier. Although the royal court had grown tired of the tragedy (preferring the more escapist tragicomedy), the theater going public preferred the former. This would change in the 1630s and 1640s when, influenced by the long baroque novels of the period, the tragicomedy -- a heroic and magical adventure of knights and maidens -- became the dominant genre. The amazing success of Corneille's "Le Cid" in 1637 and "Horace" in 1640 would bring the tragedy back into fashion, where it would remain for the rest of the century.
The most important source for tragic theater was Seneca and the precepts of Horace and Aristotle (and modern commentaries by Julius Caesar Scaliger and Lodovico Castelvetro), although plots were taken from classical authors such as Plutarch, Suetonius, etc. and from short story collections (Italian, French and Spanish). The Greek tragic authors (Sophocles, Euripides) would become increasingly important by the middle of the century. Important models for both comedy, tragedy and tragicomedy of the century were also supplied by the Spanish playwrights Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina and Lope de Vega, many of whose works were translated and adapted for the French stage. Important theatrical models were also supplied by the Italian stage (including the pastoral), and Italy was also an important source for theoretical discussions on theater, especially with regards to decorum (see for example the debates on Sperone Speroni's play Canace and Giovanni Battista Giraldi's play Orbecche).
Corneille's tragedies were strangely un-tragic (his first version of "Le Cid" was even listed as a tragicomedy), for they had happy endings. In his theoretical works on theater, Corneille redefined both comedy and tragedy around the following suppositions:
The stage -- in both comedy and tragedy -- should feature noble characters (this would eliminate many low-characters, typical of the farce, from Corneille's comedies). Noble characters should not be depicted as vile (reprehensible actions are generally due to non-noble characters in Corneille's plays).
Tragedy deals with affairs of the state (wars, dynastic marriages); comedy deals with love. For a work to be tragic, it need not have a tragic ending.
Although Aristotle says that catharsis (purgation of emotion) should be the goal of tragedy, this is only an ideal. In conformity with the moral codes of the period, plays should not show evil being rewarded or nobility being degraded.
The history of the public and critical reaction to Corneille's "Le Cid" can be found in other articles (he was criticized for his use of sources, for his violation of good taste, and for other irregularities that did not conform to Aristotian or Horacian rules), but its impact was stunning. Cardinal Richelieu asked the newly formed Académie française to investigate and pronounce on the criticisms (it was the Academy's first official judgement), and the controversy reveals a growing attempt to control and regulate theater and theatrical forms. This would be the beginning of seventeenth century "classicism".
Corneille continued to write plays through 1674 (mainly tragedies, but also something he called "heroic comedies") and many continued to be successes, although the "irregularities" of his theatrical methods were increasingly criticized (notably by François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac) and the success of Jean Racine from the late 1660s signaled the end of his preeminence.
Select list of dramatists and plays, with indication of genre (dates are often approximate, as date of publication was usually long after the date of first performance):
Pierre Corneille (1606-1684)
Mélite (comedy) - 1629
Clitandre (tragicomedy, later changed to tragedy) - 1631
La Veuve (comedy) - 1631
La Place Royale (comedy) - 1633
Médée (tragedy) - 1635
L'Illusion comique (comedy) - 1636
Le Cid (tragicomedy, later changed to tragedy) - 1637
Horace (tragedy) - 1640
Cinna (tragedy) - 1640
Polyeucte ("Christian" tragedy) - c.1641
La Mort de Pompée (tragedy) - 1642
Le Menteur (comedy) - 1643
Rodogune, princesse des Parthes (tragedy) - 1644
Héraclius, empereur d'Orient (tragedy) - 1647
Don Sanche d'Aragon ("heroic" comedy) - 1649
Nicomède (tragedy) - 1650
Sertorius (tragedy) - 1662
Sophonisbe (tragedy) - 1663
Othon (tragedy) - 1664
Tite et Bérénice ("heroic" comedy) - 1670
Suréna, général des Parthes (tragedy) - 1674
17th Century Classicism
The expression classicism as it applies to literature implies notions of order, clarity, moral purpose and good taste. Many of these notions are directly inspired by the works of Aristotle and Horace and by classical Greek and Roman masterpieces.
In theater, a play should follow the Three Unities:
Unity of place : the setting should not change. In practice, this lead to the frequent "Castle, interior". Battles take place off stage.
Unity of time: ideally the entire play should take place in 24 hours.
Unity of action: there should be one central story and all secondary plots should be linked to it.
Although based on classical examples, the unities of place and time were seen as essential for the spectator's complete absorption into the dramatic action; wildly dispersed scenes in China or Africa, or over many years would -- critics maintained -- break the theatrical illusion. Sometimes grouped with the unity of action is the notion that no character should appear unexpectedly late in the drama.
Linked with the theatrical unities are the following concepts:
"Les bienséances" : literature should respect moral codes and good taste; nothing should be presented that flouts these codes, even if they are historical events.
"La vraisemblance" : actions should be believable. When historical events contradict believability, some critics counselled the latter. The criterion of believability was sometimes also used to criticize soliloquy, and in late classical plays characters are almost invariably supplied with confidents (valets, friends, nurses) to whom they reveal their emotions.
These rules precluded many elements common in the baroque "tragi-comedy": flying horses, chiralric battles, magical trips to foreign lands and the deus ex machina. The mauling of Hippolyte by a monster in Phèdre could only take place offstage.
Finally, literature and art should consciously follow Horace's precept "to please and educate" (aut delectare aut prodesse est).
These "rules" or "codes" were seldom completely followed, and many of the centuries masterpieces broke these rules intentionally to heighten emotional effect:
Corneille's "Le Cid" was criticised for having Rodrigue appear before Chimène after having killed her father, a violation of moral codes.
Theater under Louis XIV
By the 1660s, classicism had finally imposed itself on French theatre. The key theoretical work on theater from this period was François Hedelin, abbé d'Aubignac's "Pratique du théâtre" (1657), and the dictates of this work reveal to what degree "French classicism" was willing to modify the rules of classical tragedy to maintain the unities and decorum (d'Aubignac for example saw the tragedies of Oedipus and Antigone as unsuitable for the contemporary stage).
Although Pierre Corneille continued to produce tragedies to the end of his life, the works of Jean Racine from the late 1660s on totally eclipsed the late plays of the elder dramatist. Racine's tragedies -- inspired by Greek myths, Euripides, Sophocles and Seneca -- condensed their plot into a tight set of passionate and duty-bound conflicts between a small group of noble characters, and concentrated on these characters' double-binds and the geometry of their unfulfilled desires and hatreds. Racine's poetic skill was in the representation of pathos and amorous passion (like Phèdre's love for her stepson) and his impact was such that emotional crisis would be the dominant mode of tragedy to the end of the century. Racine's two late plays ("Esther" and "Athalie") opened new doors to biblical subject matter and to the use of theater in the education of young women.
Tragedy in the last two decades of the century and the first years of the eighteenth century was dominated by productions of classics from Pierre Corneille and Racine, but on the whole the public's enthusiasm for tragedy had greatly diminished: theatrical tragedy paled beside the dark economic and demographic problems at the end of the century and the "comedy of manners" (see below) had incorporated many of the moral goals of tragedy. Other later century tragedians include: Claude Boyer, Michel Le Clerc, Jacques Pradon, Jean Galbert de Campistron, Jean de la Chapelle, Antoine d'Aubigny de la Fosse, l'abbé Charles-Claude Geneste, Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. At the end of the century, in the plays of Crébillon in particular, there occasionally appeared a return to the theatricality of the beginning of the century: multiple episodes, extravagant fear and pity, and the representation of gruesome actions on the stage.
Early French opera was particularly popular with the royal court in this period, and the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully was extremely prolific (see the composer's article for more on court ballets and opera in this period). These musical works carried on in the tradition of tragicomedy (especially the "pièces à machines") and court ballet, and also occasionally presented tragic plots (or "tragédies en musique"). The dramatists that worked with Lully included Pierre Corneille and Molière, but the most important of these librettists was Philippe Quinault, a writer of comedies, tragedies, and tragicomedies.
Comedy in the second half of the century was dominated by Molière. A veteran actor, master of farce, slapstick, the Italian and Spanish theater (see above), and "regular" theater modeled on Plautus and Terence, Molière's output was large and varied. He is credited with giving the French "comedy of manners" ("comédie de mœurs") and the "comedy of character ("comédie de caractère") their modern form. His hilarious satires of avaricious fathers, "précieuses", social parvenues, doctors and pompous literary types were extremely successful, but his comedies on religious hypocrisy ("Tartuffe") and libertinage ("Don Juan") brought him much criticism from the church, and "Tartuffe" was only performed through the intervention of the king. Many of Molière's comedies, like "Tartuffe", "Don Juan" and the "Le Misanthrope" could veer between farce and the darkest of dramas, and the endings of "Don Juan" and the "Misanthrope" are far from being purely comic.
Comedy to the end of the century would continue on the paths traced by Molière: the satire of contemporary morals and manners and the "regular" comedy would dominate, and the last great "comedy" of Louis XIV's reign, Alain-René Lesage's "Turcaret", is an immensely dark play in which almost no character shows redeeming traits.
Select list of French theater after 1659:
Molière (pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) (1622-1673)
Les précieuses ridicules (comedy) - 1659
L'Ecole des femmes (comedy) - 1662
Tartuffe ou L'Imposteur (comedy) - 1664
Don Juan ou Le festin de pierre (comedy) - 1665
Le Misanthrope (comedy) - 1666
L'Avare (comedy) - 1668
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (comedy) - 1670
Les Fourberies de Scapin (comedy) - 1671
Les Femmes savantes (comedy) - 1672
Le Malade imaginaire (comedy) - 1673
Thomas Corneille (1625-1709) - brother of Pierre Corneille
Timocrate (tragedy) - 1659, the longest run (80 nights) recorded of any play in the century
Ariane (tragedy) - 1672
Circée (tragicomedy) - 1675 (cowritten with Donneau de Visé)
La Devineresse (comedy) - 1679 (cowritten with Donneau de Visé)
Bellérophon (opéra) - 1679
Jean Racine (1639-1699)
Andromaque (tragedy) - 1667
Les plaideurs (comedy) - 1668, Racine's only comedy
Bérénice (tragedy) - 1670
Bajazet (tragedy) - 1672
Iphigénie en Aulide (tragedy) - 1674
Phèdre (tragedy) - 1677
Britannicus (tragedy) - 1689
Esther (tragedy) - 1689
Athalie (tragedy) - 1691
19th century
In the early years of the 19th century, French theater took a strong neo-classical direction, but by 1830 the dominant group in theater was Romanticism -- associated with such authors as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, père, François-René de Chateaubriand, Alphonse de Lamartine, Gérard de Nerval, Charles Nodier, Alfred de Musset, Théophile Gautier and Alfred Vigny -- and their revolutionary work in all genres (theater, poetry, prose fiction). The effect of the romantic movement would continue to be felt in the latter half of the century in wildly diverse literary developments, such as "realism", "symbolism", and the so-called fin de siècle "decadent" movement.
The major battle of romanticism in France was fought in the theater. The early years of the century were marked by a revival of classicism and classical-inspired tragedies, often with themes of national sacrifice or patriotic heroism in keeping with the spirit of the Revolution, but the production of Victor Hugo's Hernani in 1830 marked the triumph of the romantic movement on the stage (a description of the turbulent opening night can be found in Théophile Gautier). The dramatic unities of time and place were abolished, tragic and comic elements appeared together and metrical freedom was won. Marked by the plays of Friedrich Schiller, the romantics often chose subjects from historic periods (the French Renaissance, the reign of Louis XIII of France) and doomed noble characters (rebel princes and outlaws) or misunderstood artists (Vigny's play based on the life of Thomas Chatterton).
By the middle of the century, theater began to reflect more and more a realistic tendency, associated with Naturalism. These tendencies can be seem in the theatrical melodramas of the period and, in an even more lurid and gruesome light, in the Grand Guignol at the end of the century. In addition to melodramas, popular and bourgeois theater in the mid-century turned to realism in the "well-made" bourgeois farces of Eugène Marin Labiche and the moral dramas of Émile Augier. Also popular were the operettas, farces and comedies of Ludovic Halévy, Henri Meilhac, and, at the turn of the century, Georges Feydeau. Before the war, the most successful play was Octave Mirbeau's great comedy Les affaires sont les affaires (Business is business) (1903).
The poetry of Baudelaire and much of the literature in the latter half of the century (or "fin de siècle") were often characterized as "decadent" for their lurid content or moral vision, but with the publication of Jean Moréas "Symbolist Manifesto" in 1886, it was the term symbolism which was most often applied to the new literary environment. Symbolism appeared in theater in the works of writers Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Maurice Maeterlinck among others.
20th century
Avant-garde theatre in France after World War I was profoundly marked by Dada and Surrealism. The surrealist movement would continue to be a major force in experimental writing and the international art world until the Second World War and the surrealists technique was particularly well suited for poetry and theater, most notably in the theatrical works of Antonin Artaud and Guillaume Apollinaire.
Theater in the 1920s and 1930s went through further changes in a loose association of theaters (called the "Cartel") around the directors and producers Louis Jouvet, Charles Dullin, Gaston Baty and Ludmila and Georges Pitoëff. They produced works by the French writers Jean Giraudoux, Jules Romains, Jean Anouilh and Jean-Paul Sartre, and also of Greek and Shakespearian theater, and works by Luigi Pirandello, Anton Chekov and George Bernard Shaw.
Inspired by the theatrical experiments in the early half of the century and by the horrors of the war, the so-called avant-garde Parisian theater, "New Theater" or "Theatre of the Absurd" around the writers Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Fernando Arrabal refused simple explanations and abandoned traditional characters, plots and staging. Other experiments in theatre involved decentralisation, regional theater, "popular theater" (designed to bring working classes to the theater), and theater heavily influenced by Bertold Brecht (largely unknown in France before 1954), and the productions of Arthur Adamov and Roger Planchon. The Avignon festival was started in 1947 by Jean Vilar who was also important in the creation of the T.N.P. or "Théâtre national populaire".
The events of May 1968 marked a watershed in the development of a radical ideology of revolutionary change in education, class, family and literature. In theater, the conception of "création collective" developed by Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil refused division into writers, actors and producers: the goal was for total collaboration, for multiple points of view, for an elimination of separation between actors and the public, and for the audience to seek out their own truth.
French theater from the seventeenth century is often reduced to three great names -- Pierre Corneille, Molière and Jean Racine -- and to the triumph of "classicism"; the truth is however far more complicated.
Theater at the beginning of the century was dominated by the genres and dramatists of the previous generation. Most influential in this respect was Robert Garnier. Although the royal court had grown tired of the tragedy (preferring the more escapist tragicomedy), the theater going public preferred the former. This would change in the 1630s and 1640s when, influenced by the long baroque novels of the period, the tragicomedy -- a heroic and magical adventure of knights and maidens -- became the dominant genre. The amazing success of Corneille's "Le Cid" in 1637 and "Horace" in 1640 would bring the tragedy back into fashion, where it would remain for the rest of the century.
The most important source for tragic theater was Seneca and the precepts of Horace and Aristotle (and modern commentaries by Julius Caesar Scaliger and Lodovico Castelvetro), although plots were taken from classical authors such as Plutarch, Suetonius, etc. and from short story collections (Italian, French and Spanish). The Greek tragic authors (Sophocles, Euripides) would become increasingly important by the middle of the century. Important models for both comedy, tragedy and tragicomedy of the century were also supplied by the Spanish playwrights Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Tirso de Molina and Lope de Vega, many of whose works were translated and adapted for the French stage. Important theatrical models were also supplied by the Italian stage (including the pastoral), and Italy was also an important source for theoretical discussions on theater, especially with regards to decorum (see for example the debates on Sperone Speroni's play Canace and Giovanni Battista Giraldi's play Orbecche).
Regular comedies (i.e. comedies in five acts modeled on Plautus or Terence and the precepts of Aelius Donatus) were less frequent on the stage than tragedies and tragicomedies at the turn of the century, as the comedic element of the early stage was dominated by the farce, the satirical monologue and by the Italian commedia dell'arte. Jean Rotrou and Pierre Corneille would return to the regular comedy shortly before 1630.
Corneille's tragedies were strangely un-tragic (his first version of "Le Cid" was even listed as a tragicomedy), for they had happy endings. In his theoretical works on theater, Corneille redefined both comedy and tragedy around the following suppositions:
The stage -- in both comedy and tragedy -- should feature noble characters (this would eliminate many low-characters, typical of the farce, from Corneille's comedies). Noble characters should not be depicted as vile (reprehensible actions are generally due to non-noble characters in Corneille's plays).
Tragedy deals with affairs of the state (wars, dynastic marriages); comedy deals with love. For a work to be tragic, it need not have a tragic ending.
Although Aristotle says that catharsis (purgation of emotion) should be the goal of tragedy, this is only an ideal. In conformity with the moral codes of the period, plays should not show evil being rewarded or nobility being degraded.
The history of the public and critical reaction to Corneille's "Le Cid" can be found in other articles (he was criticized for his use of sources, for his violation of good taste, and for other irregularities that did not conform to Aristotian or Horacian rules), but its impact was stunning. Cardinal Richelieu asked the newly formed Académie française to investigate and pronounce on the criticisms (it was the Academy's first official judgement), and the controversy reveals a growing attempt to control and regulate theater and theatrical forms. This would be the beginning of seventeenth century "classicism".
Corneille continued to write plays through 1674 (mainly tragedies, but also something he called "heroic comedies") and many continued to be successes, although the "irregularities" of his theatrical methods were increasingly criticized (notably by François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac) and the success of Jean Racine from the late 1660s signaled the end of his preeminence.
Select list of dramatists and plays, with indication of genre (dates are often approximate, as date of publication was usually long after the date of first performance):
Pierre Corneille (1606-1684)
Mélite (comedy) - 1629
Clitandre (tragicomedy, later changed to tragedy) - 1631
La Veuve (comedy) - 1631
La Place Royale (comedy) - 1633
Médée (tragedy) - 1635
L'Illusion comique (comedy) - 1636
Le Cid (tragicomedy, later changed to tragedy) - 1637
Horace (tragedy) - 1640
Cinna (tragedy) - 1640
Polyeucte ("Christian" tragedy) - c.1641
La Mort de Pompée (tragedy) - 1642
Le Menteur (comedy) - 1643
Rodogune, princesse des Parthes (tragedy) - 1644
Héraclius, empereur d'Orient (tragedy) - 1647
Don Sanche d'Aragon ("heroic" comedy) - 1649
Nicomède (tragedy) - 1650
Sertorius (tragedy) - 1662
Sophonisbe (tragedy) - 1663
Othon (tragedy) - 1664
Tite et Bérénice ("heroic" comedy) - 1670
Suréna, général des Parthes (tragedy) - 1674
17th Century Classicism
The expression classicism as it applies to literature implies notions of order, clarity, moral purpose and good taste. Many of these notions are directly inspired by the works of Aristotle and Horace and by classical Greek and Roman masterpieces.
In theater, a play should follow the Three Unities:
Unity of place : the setting should not change. In practice, this lead to the frequent "Castle, interior". Battles take place off stage.
Unity of time: ideally the entire play should take place in 24 hours.
Unity of action: there should be one central story and all secondary plots should be linked to it.
Although based on classical examples, the unities of place and time were seen as essential for the spectator's complete absorption into the dramatic action; wildly dispersed scenes in China or Africa, or over many years would -- critics maintained -- break the theatrical illusion. Sometimes grouped with the unity of action is the notion that no character should appear unexpectedly late in the drama.
Linked with the theatrical unities are the following concepts:
"Les bienséances" : literature should respect moral codes and good taste; nothing should be presented that flouts these codes, even if they are historical events.
"La vraisemblance" : actions should be believable. When historical events contradict believability, some critics counselled the latter. The criterion of believability was sometimes also used to criticize soliloquy, and in late classical plays characters are almost invariably supplied with confidents (valets, friends, nurses) to whom they reveal their emotions.
These rules precluded many elements common in the baroque "tragi-comedy": flying horses, chiralric battles, magical trips to foreign lands and the deus ex machina. The mauling of Hippolyte by a monster in Phèdre could only take place offstage.
Finally, literature and art should consciously follow Horace's precept "to please and educate" (aut delectare aut prodesse est).
These "rules" or "codes" were seldom completely followed, and many of the centuries masterpieces broke these rules intentionally to heighten emotional effect:
Corneille's "Le Cid" was criticised for having Rodrigue appear before Chimène after having killed her father, a violation of moral codes.
Theater under Louis XIV
By the 1660s, classicism had finally imposed itself on French theatre. The key theoretical work on theater from this period was François Hedelin, abbé d'Aubignac's "Pratique du théâtre" (1657), and the dictates of this work reveal to what degree "French classicism" was willing to modify the rules of classical tragedy to maintain the unities and decorum (d'Aubignac for example saw the tragedies of Oedipus and Antigone as unsuitable for the contemporary stage).
Although Pierre Corneille continued to produce tragedies to the end of his life, the works of Jean Racine from the late 1660s on totally eclipsed the late plays of the elder dramatist. Racine's tragedies -- inspired by Greek myths, Euripides, Sophocles and Seneca -- condensed their plot into a tight set of passionate and duty-bound conflicts between a small group of noble characters, and concentrated on these characters' double-binds and the geometry of their unfulfilled desires and hatreds. Racine's poetic skill was in the representation of pathos and amorous passion (like Phèdre's love for her stepson) and his impact was such that emotional crisis would be the dominant mode of tragedy to the end of the century. Racine's two late plays ("Esther" and "Athalie") opened new doors to biblical subject matter and to the use of theater in the education of young women.
Tragedy in the last two decades of the century and the first years of the eighteenth century was dominated by productions of classics from Pierre Corneille and Racine, but on the whole the public's enthusiasm for tragedy had greatly diminished: theatrical tragedy paled beside the dark economic and demographic problems at the end of the century and the "comedy of manners" (see below) had incorporated many of the moral goals of tragedy. Other later century tragedians include: Claude Boyer, Michel Le Clerc, Jacques Pradon, Jean Galbert de Campistron, Jean de la Chapelle, Antoine d'Aubigny de la Fosse, l'abbé Charles-Claude Geneste, Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. At the end of the century, in the plays of Crébillon in particular, there occasionally appeared a return to the theatricality of the beginning of the century: multiple episodes, extravagant fear and pity, and the representation of gruesome actions on the stage.
Early French opera was particularly popular with the royal court in this period, and the composer Jean-Baptiste Lully was extremely prolific (see the composer's article for more on court ballets and opera in this period). These musical works carried on in the tradition of tragicomedy (especially the "pièces à machines") and court ballet, and also occasionally presented tragic plots (or "tragédies en musique"). The dramatists that worked with Lully included Pierre Corneille and Molière, but the most important of these librettists was Philippe Quinault, a writer of comedies, tragedies, and tragicomedies.
Comedy in the second half of the century was dominated by Molière. A veteran actor, master of farce, slapstick, the Italian and Spanish theater (see above), and "regular" theater modeled on Plautus and Terence, Molière's output was large and varied. He is credited with giving the French "comedy of manners" ("comédie de mœurs") and the "comedy of character ("comédie de caractère") their modern form. His hilarious satires of avaricious fathers, "précieuses", social parvenues, doctors and pompous literary types were extremely successful, but his comedies on religious hypocrisy ("Tartuffe") and libertinage ("Don Juan") brought him much criticism from the church, and "Tartuffe" was only performed through the intervention of the king. Many of Molière's comedies, like "Tartuffe", "Don Juan" and the "Le Misanthrope" could veer between farce and the darkest of dramas, and the endings of "Don Juan" and the "Misanthrope" are far from being purely comic.
Comedy to the end of the century would continue on the paths traced by Molière: the satire of contemporary morals and manners and the "regular" comedy would dominate, and the last great "comedy" of Louis XIV's reign, Alain-René Lesage's "Turcaret", is an immensely dark play in which almost no character shows redeeming traits.
Select list of French theater after 1659:
Molière (pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) (1622-1673)
Les précieuses ridicules (comedy) - 1659
L'Ecole des femmes (comedy) - 1662
Tartuffe ou L'Imposteur (comedy) - 1664
Don Juan ou Le festin de pierre (comedy) - 1665
Le Misanthrope (comedy) - 1666
L'Avare (comedy) - 1668
Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (comedy) - 1670
Les Fourberies de Scapin (comedy) - 1671
Les Femmes savantes (comedy) - 1672
Le Malade imaginaire (comedy) - 1673
Thomas Corneille (1625-1709) - brother of Pierre Corneille
Timocrate (tragedy) - 1659, the longest run (80 nights) recorded of any play in the century
Ariane (tragedy) - 1672
Circée (tragicomedy) - 1675 (cowritten with Donneau de Visé)
La Devineresse (comedy) - 1679 (cowritten with Donneau de Visé)
Bellérophon (opéra) - 1679
Jean Racine (1639-1699)
Andromaque (tragedy) - 1667
Les plaideurs (comedy) - 1668, Racine's only comedy
Bérénice (tragedy) - 1670
Bajazet (tragedy) - 1672
Iphigénie en Aulide (tragedy) - 1674
Phèdre (tragedy) - 1677
Britannicus (tragedy) - 1689
Esther (tragedy) - 1689
Athalie (tragedy) - 1691
19th century
In the early years of the 19th century, French theater took a strong neo-classical direction, but by 1830 the dominant group in theater was Romanticism -- associated with such authors as Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, père, François-René de Chateaubriand, Alphonse de Lamartine, Gérard de Nerval, Charles Nodier, Alfred de Musset, Théophile Gautier and Alfred Vigny -- and their revolutionary work in all genres (theater, poetry, prose fiction). The effect of the romantic movement would continue to be felt in the latter half of the century in wildly diverse literary developments, such as "realism", "symbolism", and the so-called fin de siècle "decadent" movement.
The major battle of romanticism in France was fought in the theater. The early years of the century were marked by a revival of classicism and classical-inspired tragedies, often with themes of national sacrifice or patriotic heroism in keeping with the spirit of the Revolution, but the production of Victor Hugo's Hernani in 1830 marked the triumph of the romantic movement on the stage (a description of the turbulent opening night can be found in Théophile Gautier). The dramatic unities of time and place were abolished, tragic and comic elements appeared together and metrical freedom was won. Marked by the plays of Friedrich Schiller, the romantics often chose subjects from historic periods (the French Renaissance, the reign of Louis XIII of France) and doomed noble characters (rebel princes and outlaws) or misunderstood artists (Vigny's play based on the life of Thomas Chatterton).
By the middle of the century, theater began to reflect more and more a realistic tendency, associated with Naturalism. These tendencies can be seem in the theatrical melodramas of the period and, in an even more lurid and gruesome light, in the Grand Guignol at the end of the century. In addition to melodramas, popular and bourgeois theater in the mid-century turned to realism in the "well-made" bourgeois farces of Eugène Marin Labiche and the moral dramas of Émile Augier. Also popular were the operettas, farces and comedies of Ludovic Halévy, Henri Meilhac, and, at the turn of the century, Georges Feydeau. Before the war, the most successful play was Octave Mirbeau's great comedy Les affaires sont les affaires (Business is business) (1903).
The poetry of Baudelaire and much of the literature in the latter half of the century (or "fin de siècle") were often characterized as "decadent" for their lurid content or moral vision, but with the publication of Jean Moréas "Symbolist Manifesto" in 1886, it was the term symbolism which was most often applied to the new literary environment. Symbolism appeared in theater in the works of writers Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and Maurice Maeterlinck among others.
20th century
Avant-garde theatre in France after World War I was profoundly marked by Dada and Surrealism. The surrealist movement would continue to be a major force in experimental writing and the international art world until the Second World War and the surrealists technique was particularly well suited for poetry and theater, most notably in the theatrical works of Antonin Artaud and Guillaume Apollinaire.
Theater in the 1920s and 1930s went through further changes in a loose association of theaters (called the "Cartel") around the directors and producers Louis Jouvet, Charles Dullin, Gaston Baty and Ludmila and Georges Pitoëff. They produced works by the French writers Jean Giraudoux, Jules Romains, Jean Anouilh and Jean-Paul Sartre, and also of Greek and Shakespearian theater, and works by Luigi Pirandello, Anton Chekov and George Bernard Shaw.
Inspired by the theatrical experiments in the early half of the century and by the horrors of the war, the so-called avant-garde Parisian theater, "New Theater" or "Theatre of the Absurd" around the writers Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Fernando Arrabal refused simple explanations and abandoned traditional characters, plots and staging. Other experiments in theatre involved decentralisation, regional theater, "popular theater" (designed to bring working classes to the theater), and theater heavily influenced by Bertold Brecht (largely unknown in France before 1954), and the productions of Arthur Adamov and Roger Planchon. The Avignon festival was started in 1947 by Jean Vilar who was also important in the creation of the T.N.P. or "Théâtre national populaire".
The events of May 1968 marked a watershed in the development of a radical ideology of revolutionary change in education, class, family and literature. In theater, the conception of "création collective" developed by Ariane Mnouchkine's Théâtre du Soleil refused division into writers, actors and producers: the goal was for total collaboration, for multiple points of view, for an elimination of separation between actors and the public, and for the audience to seek out their own truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment