Philippe Quinault, Dramatist
Philippe Quinault, Dramatist

Author: William Brooks

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 518

ISBN-13: 9783039115334

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Much work has been done in recent years on Quinault's librettos, but no major study of his spoken plays has appeared since the monumental thesis by Etienne Gros, published in 1926. Moreover, he has never been the subject of a monograph in English. There is a need to re-assess the influence of his life on his plays, and to re-evaluate Gros's findings in the light of eighty years' research into seventeenth-century French theatre in general. This book rejects the deterministic approach that sees his plays as apprentice pieces for the greater achievement that is his corpus of librettos, as well as the implicit comparative approach that pigeon-holes his work, in passing, by borrowing from the pithy judgements of Boileau. To what extent does Quinault's steady move away from comedy and light tragi-comedy to tragedies that combine love and menace go hand in hand with his search for greater integrity, better characterisation, and ever more credible plotting? How did he come to create and retain a tremendously faithful audience that even the withering mockery of Boileau failed to discourage? And is there any purpose in retaining the time-worn comparison between the author of Andromaque and the author of Astrate?

French Seventeenth-century Literature
French Seventeenth-century Literature

Author: Bernard Bourque

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9783039115372

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume of essays explores influences from Antiquity onwards that shaped the literary and cultural output of the French seventeenth century and the developments to which this period - the so-called 'classical' period - gave rise in later centuries. The thirteen essays in English and French cover three major areas: the continuation in French seventeenth-century literature and cultural events of themes found in previous centuries; internal changes within the body of writings by French seventeenth-century playwrights; the influence of seventeenth-century French writers on later centuries. The collection celebrates the life and scholarly achievements of the eminent dix-septiémiste Christopher J. Gossip, Emeritus Professor of French, University of New England, Australia.

More Plays by Rivals of Corneille and Racine
More Plays by Rivals of Corneille and Racine

Author: Lacy Lockert

Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press

Published: 1968

Total Pages: 716

ISBN-13: 9780826511102

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The book contains, then, eleven plays from the great age of French drama in the seventeenth century, one play from the prolific pen of Alexandra Hardy, who proceeded the great age, and on from the eighteenth century, the aftermath of that age.

Teaching French Neoclassical Tragedy
Teaching French Neoclassical Tragedy

Author: Hélène E. Bilis

Publisher: Modern Language Association

Published: 2021-06-19

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 1603295321

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Tragedy has been reborn many times since antiquity. Seventeenth-century French playwrights composed tragedies marked by neoclassical aesthetics and the divine-right absolutism of the Grand Siècle. But their works also speak to the modern imagination, inspiring reactions from Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault; adaptations and reworkings by Césaire and Kushner; and new productions by francophone and anglophone directors. This volume addresses both the history of French neoclassical tragedy--its audiences, performance practice, and development as a genre--and the ideas these works raise, such as necessity, free will, desire, power, and moral behavior in the face of limited choices. Essays demonstrate ways to teach the plays through a variety of lenses, such as performance, spectatorship, aesthetics, rhetoric, and affect. The book also explores postcolonial engagement, by writers and directors both in and outside France, with these works.