Eighteenth-Century French Theatre as Medium for the Enlightenment
Identifieur interne : 001996 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 001995; suivant : 001997Eighteenth-Century French Theatre as Medium for the Enlightenment
Auteurs : Hans Ulrich GumbrechtSource :
- Diogenes [ 0392-1921 ] ; 1986-12.
English descriptors
- Teeft :
- Absolutist france, Absolutist state, Ancient tragedy, Basic elements, Beaumarchais, Bourgeois, Bourgeois drama, Bourgeois dramas, Chronological sense, Class consciousness, Classic theatre, Communication context, Communication contexts, Communications contexts, Count almaviva, Depraved holders, Diderot, Dramatic production, Early years, Enlightened knowledge, Enlightenment, Everyday experience, Figaro, Figaro trilogy, First time, Formula nature, French dramas, French theatre, Functional history, Genre, Great deal, Hans ulrich gumbrecht, Important role, Italian actors, Italian comedy, Jacques proust, Jacques truchet, Large part, Literary genres, Literary historians, Long time, Major theatres, Marivaux, Mercier, Other hand, Other words, Political opinions, Popular entertainment, Popular theatre, Pragmatic point, Pragmatic view, Primae noctis, Protagonist, Right bank, Royal privilege, Same time, Serious dramas, Social history, Social institutions, Social knowledge, Social position, Social status, Social structures, Special significance, Subjective innocence, Textual structures, Theatre, Theatre directors, Theatre history, Theatrical practice, Theoretical treatises, Treatise, Viewers, Virtuous adversaries, Virtuous struggle.
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DOI: 10.1177/039219218603413606
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ISTEX:47236B25B5969DBA569F86F2550305044187962DLe document en format XML
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<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Gumbrecht</surname><given-names>Hans Ulrich</given-names></name><aff>University of Siegen, Germany</aff></contrib></contrib-group>
<pub-date pub-type="ppub"><month>12</month><year>1986</year></pub-date><volume>34</volume><issue>136</issue><fpage>98</fpage><lpage>127</lpage><custom-meta-wrap><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>sagemeta-type</meta-name><meta-value>Journal Article</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>search-text</meta-name><meta-value>98 Eighteenth-Century French Theatre as Medium for the Enlightenment SAGE Publications, Inc.1986DOI: 10.1177/039219218603413606 Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht University of Siegen, Germany Despite the great dramatists of the preceding century-Corneille, Racine and h4oli£re-the 18th century is often considered the great age of French theatre.' Obviously "the great age'5 should not be understood in the usual literary history sense as the "classical age", for the structures and the content of French dramas originating in the 18th century did not have normative effects on the dramatic production of the centuries that followed. Nevertheless, we are doubly right in using the term "the great age" for French theatre of this period. On the one hand, from the viewpoint of the history of theatre, because certain dramatic techniques originating toward the middle of the 18th century have, down to our own times, influenced theatre so decisively and have become so natural that they form true hermeneutical barriers to the interpretation of Translated by R. Scott Walker. 1 See for example Maurice Descotes, Le public de théâtre et son histoire, P.U.F., 1964, p. 173. 10599 plays from earlier epochs. And secondly from the viewpoint of social history, for theatre attendance at that time was indissolubly linked to the everyday life-or at least to holidays and festive occasions-of various social levels in France. As a. result we can no doubt consider the theatre as thc decisive center of critical knowledge, the gradual transmission of which is at the very heart of the process of the Enlightenment. Considering French theatre of the 18the century as a medium for the Enlightenment requires concentrating on three problems that will give this survey its scholarly identity. A) We will only consider the dramatic genres of the 18th century that helped spread "enlightened knowledge". B) We will analyze these genres by asking ourselves what were the conditions that enabled them to transmit such "enlightened knowledge" to spectators; in other words, we must determine in what specific manner did the structure of these plays modify this knowledge and how various theatre communication contexts disposed the reception readiness of viewers. C) If we accept the basic hermeneutical presupposition that we cannot think "Enlightenment" without "Revolution", then this implies-contrary to preceding literary histories-that we must also take into consideration the theatre of the revolutionary years; given that change in conditions of communication also led to a change in the function of the theatre between 1789 and 1799, the nature of the French theatre in the Enlightenment should clearly stand apart from the background of the theatre of the revolutionary years. 1. TOWARD A PRAGMATIC VIEW OF A "PLAY" AS MEDIUM OF COMMUNICATION Analyzing texts from a pragmatic point of view means (re)placing them in their communications contexts in order to understand the functions (the effects on the pre-existing knowledge of the receivers) that the authors hoped to achieve by their production and which are realized at the moment of reception. In other words, from a pragmatic point of view we always consider texts as a medium, as instruments for the circulation of knowledge. The texts as instruments for the communication of knowledge are, of course, 106100 on the one hand, obviously objectivizations of this knowledge and thereby sources that make it possible for social historians to reconstruct past knowledge. On the other, from a pragmatic point of view we cannot remain at a simple reconstitution of knowledge transmitted and presupposed by these texts. If we consider the genres of texts as a. medium, we must first separate the knowledge they articulate from their institutionalized structural models in order (as indicated earlier) to be able to ask ourselves whether and how its objectivization into spoken or written language marks the knowledge meant to be articulated. Textual structures, as constitutive element of a genre, must then be distinguished from their "Sitz im Leben", which represents a second constitutive element of the genre. We must then distinguish these textual structures from the communications contexts in which they reach their receivers and which are essential for the specific dispositions of the public when acquiring knowledge. To characterize the theatre as medium, we refer to three pragmatic facts which, in all periods and in all societies (although with variable intensity and effects), together (and not taken alone) constitute its specificity. A) Plays are received collectively; experiencing the reaction of other viewers is a factor conditioning each viewer's own reception. (This is why "theatre scandals'', for example, have a different structure as events than scandals caused by books). 9) Even if normally the setting is determined in dramas, the simultaneity experience of the actors and the receivers implies a specific margin of "freedom in their interactions"; this margin; for example, can be filled by the reactions of spectators as well as by the diverse responses of the actors, and in any case the conditions of attention it requires of the receivers are different from those of a book. (The tradition of the commedia ~ell'c~~°~~ as art of improvisation, still alive in France at the beginning of the 18th century, used this specific means of communication.) C) The knowledge destined to be articulated during the performance is certainly contained conceptually in the text of the drama (as in a book), but the work of transpositon performed by the actor presents this knowledge to the receiver in a manner more approximate to the experience of every-day interaction than the experience of reading a book. 107101 This fact seems to have two consequences for a pragmatic view of reception. First it can be admitted, for several reasons but especially because the receiver, thanks to the actor, is no longer required to appeal to his "imagination" from a concept of reality, that the theatre especially stimulates the viewer's (emotional) ~e~har~isr~s.2 Secondly, the intermediate situation represented by the dramatic performance effectively distances the receiver from the playwright and the effects he intended to achieve, given that the (greater or lesser) conciseness ~,ith which such intentions are objectified in the conceptual structure of the text can be attenuated by the interpretation of the actor and by the a-conceptual nature of the performance, proper to theatre. (It is possible that theoretical treatises on the theatre and prologues to plays, quite frequent in 18th-century French literature, function, among other things, as a means of bringing the receiver into contact with the author's intentions. )3 In order to make a valid contribution to social history conceived on new bases, our presentation of 18th-century French theatre should be oriented toward such pragmatic premises. Taking them into account is the necessary condition for integrating the conclusions from research into the history of literature and theatre into social history in a theoretically intelligent manner. This program-despite or precisely because of the dimensions of works relating to the history of literature and theatre-naturally cannot be completely fulfilled in an initial approach. An outline, a first evaluation must be developed in order to respond to two complex questions: in which of the many communications contexts of 18th- century French theatre was knowledge transmitted whose circulation can be seen as part of the Enlightenment process? What genre structures were formed during this process to allow the articulation of enlightened knowledge, and to what extent were the conditions of their formation and their effective potential comprehended by contemporaries? 2 See Wolfgang Iser, "Akte des Fingierens", Funktionen des Fiktiven, edited by W. Iser and Dieter Heinrich, Munich, Fink, 1981 (=Poetik und Hermeneutik 10). 3 This survey, which seeks to determine pragmatically the identity of the theatre as means of communication, is based on results of a seminar on "dramatic texts and the staging of plays", held in Bochum during the winter semester 1979-80. 108102 H. THE CONTEXTS OF COMMUNICATION IN 18TH-CENTURY FRENCH THEATRE We can define as "context of communication" the relationship between those elements of knowledge brought into play by the partners in communication in order to coanrnunic~tc.4 There is, with regard to the levels of abstraction, a great distance certainly between this definition and the conclusions from studies of 18th- century French theatre. But this can be surmounted by considering the two following observations, and their consequences. First, the specific knowledge proposed by theatre directors and playwrights in 18th-century France-and which was presupposed in receivers-can be evaluated through the reconstruction of given types of repertories. And second, the location of individual theatres-at least within the topography of Paris-and information about the entrance fees they charged make it possible to draw conclusions with regard to the social status and thereby-directly-the educational level of their audiences. We would first of all like to make three rather general observations about this brief description of the various communications contexts in 1 ~th-centa~ry French theatre. In order to measure the potential effect of the theatre as medium for the Enlightenment, it is important first of all to note that the two largest Paris theatres-the Comédie-Française and the Théâtre des Italiens-could together count on around 350,000 spectators per year. (This figure is roughly the population of Paris at that time, but naturally we should realize that regular attendance at the theatre was a "habit" for most spectators.5) Secondly, the cost of admission to almost all non-musical theatres in Paris was the approximate equivalent of the daily wage for a laborer. The price of admission to the opera was double that, meaning that, over-all, they greatly exceeded the level of prices current in the 20th 4 For this definition of the expression "communication context", see H.U. Gumbrecht, Funktionen parlamentarischer Rhetorik in der Französischen Revolution. Vorstudien zur Entwicklung einer historischen Textpragmatik, Munich, Fink, 1978, p. 10-13. 5 From Henri Lagrave, Le théâtre et le public à Paris de 1715 à 1750, Klincksieck, 1972, p. 193 ff. 109103 century.6 Third, it may appear surprising that in the 1 ~th century, given the centralism (which was also cultural) of absolutist France, several types of repertory and thus various contexts for communications in the theatre were created. This is true for Paris as well as for the large cities of the provinces.' Consequently our hypotheses, although primarily referring to theatres in the capital, can be considered, up to a certain point, as representative of the provinces as well. Moreover, the boundaries between the types of repertory are no doubt less clear-cut than what appears from the panorama we are about to present. As we know, it was the royal privilege accorded to Moli~re's troupe of actors that led to the creation of the ~~~e~ie-~'r~~c~~i.s~.$ Its status as representative of the French theatre during the Enlightenment derives above all from one fact that histories of literature-too interested in innovative elements-tend to neglect. Although the Comédie-Française re-performed the dramatic repertory of the 17th century, which was canonized only within the framework of this continuous renewal of the "classical repertory", at the same time it was presenting contemporary plays of serious or comic content, among the most important authors of which in the 18th century were Voltaire and Beaumarchais. With the exception of the period 1770-1782, performances by the Comédie- Française took place in various theatres located on the Left Bank of the Seine, in other words in a milieu whose culture and fashions were impregnated with aristocratic tastes. This is why it is symptomatic that those members of the Comédie-Française who tended to be politically conservative, after the violent conflicts during the early years of the Revolution (and we will be coming back to this), remained at the Od80n (inaugurated in 1782), on the Left Bank, whereas actors inspired by the climate of political and cultural upheaval created the 2'h~at~°e de la République at the Palais Royal on the Right Bank of the Seine (where the Comédie- 6 Ibid, p. 235. 7 Jean Quéniart, Culture et société urbaines dans la France de l'Ouest au XVIIIe siècle, Klincksieck, 1979, p. 504. 8 A large part of the historical data presented in the following pages is taken from the Introduction to the "Pléiade" edition, for which Jacques Truchet was responsible, of Théâtre du XVIIIe siècle, vol. I, Gallimard, 1972, p. XV-LIX. 110104 FmM~M~ is still located today), in order to try to bring a new style to the stage. Schematically speaking and still looking at socio-historical topography, the Right Bank can be considered the milieu of the well-off bourgeoisie of Paris, and it was there that already in the i 7th century performances by troupes of Italian actors had been presented. The fact that plays were performed in Italian for French audiences allows us to draw an important conclusion for the pragmatics of reception. The interest of the viewers seems to have been concentrated on the actors' art of dramatic improvisation, for which the tradition of the Commedia ~/~r~ provided sufficient freedom by offering a limited selection of comic roles (for which the possibilities of variation with regard to contents were . incidental). Exiled from Paris in 1697 at the instigation ofMadame de the Italians returned to the French capital in 1716. The granting of the royal privilege in 1723 bears witness, along with other reasons, to the influence of their style on Regency culture. Although in the following decades the 77!~~? des T~~~M produced an ever-increasing number of plays in French, the Commedia tradition still continued to play an important . role. Many literary historians have rightly emphasized its infuence on the comedies of Marivaux, which were in fact performed at the T~~n? des italiens. Likewise, the of that theatre in 1762 with the 6~~-Cb~~M~ run by the Favarts, earlier theatre directors during the annual fairs in Paris, would have been unthinkable without the affinity between the tradition of the Commedia and popular theatre. Popular forms theatre had existed since the Middle Ages as entertainments provided to the public at markets a~~~. Among these in Paris should be noted above all the Foire </meta-value> </custom-meta></custom-meta-wrap></article-meta></front><back><notes>
<p>1 See for example Maurice Descotes, <italic>Le public de théâtre et son histoire,</italic> P.U.F., 1964, p. 173.</p>
<p>2 See Wolfgang Iser, "Akte des Fingierens", <italic>Funktionen des Fiktiven,</italic> edited by W. Iser and Dieter Heinrich, Munich, Fink, 1981 (=Poetik und Hermeneutik 10).</p>
<p>3 This survey, which seeks to determine pragmatically the identity of the theatre as means of communication, is based on results of a seminar on "dramatic texts and the staging of plays", held in Bochum during the winter semester 1979-80.</p>
<p>4 For this definition of the expression "communication context", see H.U. Gumbrecht, <italic> Funktionen parlamentarischer Rhetorik in der Französischen Revolution. Vorstudien zur Entwicklung einer historischen Textpragmatik,</italic> Munich, Fink, 1978, p. 10-13.</p>
<p>5 From Henri Lagrave, <italic>Le théâtre et le public à Paris de 1715 à 1750,</italic> Klincksieck, 1972, p. 193 ff.</p>
<p>6 <italic>Ibid,</italic> p. 235.</p>
<p>7 Jean Quéniart, <italic> Culture et société urbaines dans la France de l'Ouest au XVIIIe siècle,</italic> Klincksieck, 1979, p. 504.</p>
<p>8 A large part of the historical data presented in the following pages is taken from the <italic> Introduction</italic> to the "Pléiade" edition, for which Jacques Truchet was responsible, of <italic>Théâtre du XVIIIe siècle,</italic> vol. I, Gallimard, 1972, p. XV-LIX.</p>
<p>9 See for example Lagrave, <italic>op. cit.,</italic> (note 5), p. 68.</p>
<p>10 See the especially convincing functional historical interpretation of classical French tragedy proposed by Manfred Fuhrmann: <italic>Einführung in die antike Dichtungstheorie,</italic> Darmstadt, Wiss. Buchges., 1973, p. 236-250.</p>
<p>11 W. Iser, <italic> Die Appellstruktur der Texte. Unbestimmtheit als Wirkungsbedingung literarischer Prosa,</italic> Constance, Universitätsverl., 1970, 3rd ed., 1972.</p>
<p>12 "Theaterdebatten in der französischen Aufklärung", <italic>Theater und Aufklärung. Dokumentation zur Aesthetik des französischen Theaters im 18. Jahrhundert,</italic> ed. by Renate Petermann and Peter-Volker Springborn, DDR-Berlin/Munich, Hanser, 1979, p. 15.</p>
<p>13 Reinhart Koselleck, <italic>Kritik und Krise. Ein Beitrag zur Pathogenese der bürgerlichen Welt,</italic> Freiburg/ Munich, Alber, 1959, reprinted Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 1973. Jürgen Habermas, <italic>Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft,</italic> Darmstadt/ Neuwied, Luchterhand, 1962, 9th edition, 1978.</p>
<p>14 Here I am drawing widely from the book by Roland Galle, <italic>Tragödie und Aufklärung. Zum Funktionswandel des Tragischen zwischen Racine und Büchner,</italic> Stuttgart, Klett, 1976.</p>
<p>15 See H.U. Gumbrecht, "Die dramenschliessende Sprachhandlung im aristotelischen Theater und ihre Problematisierung bei Marivaux", <italic>Poetica 8,</italic> 1976, p. 376-379.</p>
<p>16 On the comic manipulation of language in Marivaux, see Rainer Warning, "Komik und Komödie als Positivierung von Negativität (am Beispiel Molière und Marivaux)", <italic> Positionen der Negativität,</italic> ed. Harald Weinrich, Fink, 1975 (=Poetik und Hermeneutik 6), p. 341-366.</p>
<p>17 For example, as they are presented in the wen-commented anthology <italic>Theater und Aufklärung,</italic> see note 12.</p>
<p>18 For the following remarks see Peter Szondi, <italic>Die Theorie des bürgerlichen Trauerspiels im 18. Jh. Der Kaufmann, der Hausvater und der Hofmeister,</italic> Frankfurt, 1973; with regard especially to Mercier and the theatre of the early years of the Revolution see H.U. Gumbrecht, "Über das Versiegen 'süsser Tränen' in der Französischen Revolution. Ein Aspekt aus der Funktionsgeschichte des 'genre sérieux'", <italic>Lendemains</italic> 4, 1978, p. 67-86.</p>
<p>19 For a nuanced literary-historical revision of this cliché, see Dietmar Rieger, "Figaros Wandlungen. Versuch einer ideologiekritischen Analyse von Beaumarchais' <italic> Figaro-Almaviva-Trilogie", Romanistische Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte,</italic> 1977, p. 77-105.</p>
<p>20 "Theaterdebatten...", see note 12, p. 21.</p>
<p>21 Jacques Proust, Introduction, <italic>Romanistische Zeitschrift für Literaturegeschichte</italic> 3, 1979, p. 248.</p>
<p>22 The expression "sens vécu/sens voulu" is taken from Mona Ozouf, "La fête sous la Révolution française", <italic>Faire de l'histoire,</italic> under the direction of Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, vol. 3, Gallimard, 1974, p. 266.</p>
<p>23 Quoted from the <italic>Journal des Spectacles,</italic> 11 September 1793.</p>
<p>24 Neufchâtel, "Aux femmes", <italic>dedicatory poem for Paméla</italic> (newly performed, for the first time after Thermidor, on 24 July 1795).</p>
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