La Princesse de Clèves / The Princess of Clèves by Madame de Lafayette: A New Translation and Bilingual Pedagogical Edition for the Digital Age. Eds. Bilis, Blanchard, Harrison, and Visentin. ( Lever Press/University of Michigan Publishing, 2022)
La Princesse de Clèves, written in 1678 by Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, comtesse de Lafayette, is frequently considered the first modern French novel and a key text in the history of European literature. The artistic complexity of La Princesse de Clèves calls for making the work available to English-speakers and undergraduates in a new edition: one that immerses readers in the cultural and intellectual worlds of Lafayette, with direct access to period documents, portraits, maps, dictionary definitions, and journalistic debates; one that outlines contemporary polemics and scholarship with video interviews of Lafayette scholars; one that invites new readers and fresh discoveries by using the analytical tools of the Digital Humanities.
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
The royal judge was an archetypal character in French tragedy during the 17th century. This figure impersonated the king by asserting his judicial authority and bringing order to an otherwise chaotic world.
In Passing Judgement, Hélène Bilis examines how an overlooked character-type—the royal judge—remained a constant of the tragic genre throughout the 17th century, although the specifics of his role and position fluctuated as playwrights experimented with changing models of sovereignty onstage. Her readings analyze how this royal decision-maker stood at the intersection of political and theatrical debates, and evolved through a process of trial and error in which certain portrayals of kingship were deemed obsolete and were discarded, while others were promoted as culturally allowable and resonant. In tracing the royal judge’s persistent presence and transformation, Bilis argues that we can better grasp the weighty political stakes of theatrical representations under the ancien régime.
“In Passing Judgment, Hélène Bilis proposes a new study on the evolution of French tragedy. She eloquently shows how the tragic genre is permeable to various aesthetics and does not necessarily bind to a set of rigid rules.”
Hélène Visentin, Department of French, Smith College
“Bilis writes with admirable clarity as she traces a fine line of research and thinking about dramatic history and court culture during this period. She makes a valuable contribution to seventeenth-century French studies and to theatre history.”
Harriet Stone, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Washington University in St Louis.
"This book is an excellent addition to scholarship on both humanist and classical French theater."
Brian Moots, Pittsburgh State University, Renaissance Quarterly
L’Eloquence du Silence: Dramaturgie du non-dit sur la scène théâtrale des 17e et 18e siècles, ed. Hélène Bilis and Jennifer Tamas. Paris: EDPS Classiques Garnier.
Remerciements Avant-propos de Gilles Declercq Introduction d’Hélène Bilis et Jennifer Tamas
APPROCHE RHÉTORICO-STYLISTIQUE
Juliette Cherbuliez, "Silence of the Flames: The Slow Burn of Hercule Mourant"
Jennifer Tamas, "Racine : un théâtre de l’indicible"
Frédéric Calas, "Jeux du silence et de l’amour dans le théâtre de Marivaux"
JOUER ET PRATIQUER LE SILENCE: APPROCHE SCÉNIQUE
Guillaume Peureux, "Le silence des solitudes. Interrogations sur la théâtralité de Pyrame et Thisbé"
Alison Calhoun, "Tongue-Tied Fairground Theater and the Essence of Comedy"
Sabine Chaouche, "« Quoi de plus complet que le silence ? » Interruption du discours et interprétation de l’acteur au XVIIIe siècle"
LA POLITIQUE DU SILENCE: APPROCHE THÉMATIQUE
Stella Spriet, "La scène du secret dans les tragédies politiques de Corneille Cinna (1641), Rodogune (1645) et Héraclius (1647)"
Hélène Bilis, "The Silence of Subjects: Tragedy and the Refusal to Speak in Tristan’s La Mort de Sénèque"
John D. Lyons, "Racine’s Silent Places"
Sylvaine Guyot, "« Un silence d’étonnement et d’admiration » : Racine, ou la discrète réticence du théâtre encomiastique"
DRAMATISER LE SILENCE: APPROCHE THÉORIQUE
Stephen Bold, "Moliéresque Silences"
Lorraine Piroux, "The Silent Playwright Originality and Impersonation in Est-il bon? Est-il méchant?"
Masano Yamashita, "Mute Performances in the Age of Enlightenment. Silence and Deafness in Diderot’s Theater Criticism"
Bibliographie Index des noms Index des œuvres