CARTESIAN SUBJECTIVITY ON THE NEOCLASSICAL STAGE; OR, MOLIÈRE ACTS CORNEILLE FOR LOUIS XIV
Abstract
<jats:p>In 1658, having been invited to perform at court for the first time in his
career, Molière paired his farce<jats:italic>Le Docteur amoureux</jats:italic>with<jats:italic>Nicomède</jats:italic>,
a 1651 play by France's reigning dramatist, Pierre Corneille. The choice of<jats:italic>Nicomède</jats:italic>is
surprising for political reasons, since the play is shot through with suspicion of
royal authority: Corneille's hero is a great military leader unjustly imprisoned by
the weak king he selflessly serves. The choice becomes less surprising when one considers
a different set of reasons. Corneille's play is a generic oddity that marries its
tragic tropes to elements of historical drama and a surprisingly comic ending. Molière's
provincial troupe may have felt more at ease in such a play than in a proper neoclassical
tragedy, since they lacked training in rhetorically complex stage declamation and
in the codified gestures and postures preferred to convey tragic stage emotion at
the time. In particular, they lacked the facility of the king's (and Corneille's)
favorites, the esteemed Hôtel de Bourgogne actors, who were in the audience as guests
of the monarch. No doubt anxious in their presence and in the presence of the king,
Molière might have sought to mitigate the unfavorable comparison he anticipated between
the talents of his troupe and those of the reigning Paris tragedians.</jats:p>
Type
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18094Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1017/s0040557408000045Publication Info
Gobert, R Darren (2008). CARTESIAN SUBJECTIVITY ON THE NEOCLASSICAL STAGE; OR, MOLIÈRE ACTS CORNEILLE FOR LOUIS
XIV. Theatre Survey, 49(01). pp. 65-89. 10.1017/s0040557408000045. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18094.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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R. Darren Gobert
William and Sue Gross Professor of Theater Studies
R. Darren Gobert specializes in comparative modern and contemporary Western drama,
dramatic and performance theory, and the philosophy of theatre. His publications include
The Theatre of Caryl Churchill (Bloomsbury) and The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction
in the Cartesian Theater (Stanford UP), which won both the Ann Saddlemyer Prize from
the Canadian Association for Theatre Research and the Barnard Hewitt Award from the
American Society for Theatre Resea

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