Aspects of Seventeenth-Century French Drama and Thought

Seventeenth-Century French Drama and Thought literature may mislead us about the significance of its underlying content. Aesthetically the work of art transmutes the tensions and contrasts of its material into harmony and balance. In this sense it is true to say with Gide that 'a vrai dire, en art, il n' y a pas de problc~mes dont l'oeuvre d'art ne soit la suffisante solution'. 1 But it is also true to say that this aesthetic harmony is frequently achieved in spite of, and not because of, the underlying vision and content. This paradox of artistic creation is not, of course, confined to seventeenth-century classical literature and is universal in its scope. But it is all the deeper and more surprising on account of the sustained aesthetic perfection of that literature. H. Lefebvre has neatly crystallized this paradox in a sentence which discerns manifold tensions and conflicting forces under apparently static perfection: 'Les apologistes du classicisme n'ont vu qu'ordre, clarte, perfection, la ou il n'y eut en fait que malaise, paradoxe, confusion, Crise larvee ... OU par consequent la perfection de la forme fut, par rapport au contenu, confus et fuyant, a la fois une conquete durement gagnee et en echappatoire.' 2 If this is at all true, the implicit tension between form and content reflects a dynamic and complex vision rather than a static formal one. Drama implies conflict and it is here that the tensions in situation and in character are most evidently and paradoxically transmuted into aesthetic balance by the dramatist's sense of unity between word, gesture and rhythm. The fierce clash of the intransigent wills of Don Diegue and Le Comte in Le Cid (Act I, Sc. 3) or of Polyeucte and Pauline (Polyeucte, Act IV, Sc. 3) are expressed in a series of structured and balanced stichomythias conveying an overall sense of poetic and dramatic symmetry which serve both to mitigate and heighten the underlying discordances. Racine's tragedies involving characters who lose their reason are written from the standpoint of reason and make of such disintegration a rational poetic structure. It is in Phedre's last words that we witness the final restoration of the order of things which her life has disrupted: 'Et la mort, ames yeux derobant la clarte,/ Rend au jour, qu'ils souillaient, toute sa purete' (Act V, Sc. 7.lines 1643-4). The mutual acceptance by Berenice and Titus of definitive separation and destruction of present and future happiness is expressed in a line which achieves double poetic balance in its twofold antithesis as the former declares 'Je l'aime, je le fuis; Titus m'aime, il me quitte' (Act V, Sc. 7. line 1500). Moliere's comedies are rationally structured to point up the absurdity of a particular monomania. He uses his unerring sense of comic form to show irrationality lurking at each moment under the guise of studied calm and reason. In the famous scene of the sonnet in Le Misanthrope (Act I, Sc. 2) Alceste and Oronte are progressively divested of rational appearances in a symmetrical ballet-like sequence of retorts to reveal their naked combative egos jostling for social supremacy. M. Jourdain's various 'ma1tres' likewise forfeit their self-importance of surprise, shock and suspense in plot than Corneille, or of the importance of maintaining what he termed 'une agreable suspension' in the mind of the spectator. 5 In the cases in which reason and will do triumph, their triumph is more often belated than spontaneous, strenuous than effortless, more the reaction to exceptional dramatic circumstances than a calculated attitude. More often than not the theatrically effective manifestations of mastery and self-mastery contain unresolved tensions pointed up in the course of the multifaceted vision of the play. The famous verses of Pauline to Severe provide perhaps a case in point: outwardly Pauline does not give way to her feelings for him, but undergoes a severe inner conflict in which reason and passion stand in precarious co-existence: Ma raison, il est vrai, dompte mes sentiments; Mais, quelque autorite que sur eux elle ait prise, Elle n'y regne pas, elle les tyrannise; Et quoique le dehors soit sans emotion, Le dedans n'est que trouble et que sedition. (Act II, Sc. 2, lines 500-4) Where apparent order and reason reign, the dramatic vision points to instability and antimonies barely held in check. In spite of the different dramatic expressions and reactions of characters in the theatres of Corneille and Racine, they are all a prey to unforeseen forces, continually aware ofthe need to affirm their identity in the face of events and other characters. If Corneille's characters react differently to their past and heredity, their reactions are no less ambiguous and complex than those of Racine's. Behind the acceptance of Cornelian devoir, that decision is shown to be no more simple in nature or in consequence than Pyrrhus' decision to marry Andromaque, Neron's to murder Britannicus, or Titus' to separate from Berenice. The complexity of decision and of dramatic reaction to it in Corneille's plays has perhaps been diminished by viewing them too closely within the historical and social framework of the time. In this framework Corneille's characters exemplify the self-confidence of the aristocratic ethic, and Racine's the sense of inner disarray of the dispossessed Frondeurs. 6 A maxime of La Rochefoucauld seems to me to express the complex motivation of characters at the point of decision which both dramatists illuminate in their characteristic ways: 'L'homme croit souvent se conduire lorsqu'il est conduit; et pendant que par son esprit il tend a un but, son coeur l'entraine insensiblement a un autre'J The Cornelian character's response to his devoir may be shaped by forces over which he has no direct control, imposing on him attitudes opposed to his actual desires. The Racinian character's lucidity may, in fact, be a form of tragic blindness, his wish to escape the bondage of the past and of others merely the acceptance of a more Seventeenth-Century French Drama and Thought cannot be conceived of without a degree of self-doubt, which is the necessary stimulus to sustain it. Having killed Dom Gomez in the duel, Rodrigue must attempt to give his explanation of his deed to Chimene (Act III, Sc. 4). It is true that several of the lines which he speaks in this scene could easily be used as evidence to support the Lansonian idea of the lucid and unflinching hero, but they would first have to be divorced from their dramatic context in order to acquire the full effect of heroic maxims. His lines 'Je le ferais encor, sij'avais ale faire' (line 878) and 'J'ai fait ce que j'ai dft, je fais ce que je dois' (line 900) reflect a mind impervious to the inner conflict which has not however been resolved by the death of his father's enemy but rather exacerbated for Rodrigue beyond measure. His wish to maintain the coherence between his past action and his present attitude in front of Chimene, that is, to remain true to his sense of gloire, stems directly from the belief in himself which he rediscovered in the Stances and which succeeded his doubts. He must endeavour at all costs to maintain here this coherence, otherwise he will inevitably lapse again into that fatal state of doubt formerly stigmatised as 'ce penser suborneur' (line 337) which is so destructive of the elan necessary for the achievement of gloire. Hence the fresh dilemma for Rodrigue in this scene, which is a direct result of the maintenance of his gloire and indicates the manner in which self-doubt and faith in himself alternately seek to possess the hero's will. The gloire which his action in killing Chimene's father has acquired for him does not allow him to disavow his action in public. But his love for Chimene seeks now to compensate itself for its suppression by pretexting that it provided the real motivation for his deed: ' ... un homme sans honneur ne te meritait pas' (line 888). The sharp conflict focused here between gloire which must maintain itself in front of others and love which threatens to undermine it by stealth forces Rodrigue to rationalise his act. By so doing, he is able to enjoy the reputation which gloire brings and at the same time to idealise the origin of it by making Chimene the ultimate inspiration for it. The same conflict between the abstract demand of ideal appearances (gloire) and love can also be discerned in the role which Chimene opposes to Rodrigue. Her argument proceeds in an inverse direction to his. He has claimed that it was she who inspired him to maintain his g/oire and asks her to pronounce sentence upon his action: in other words, his gloire is the ground which unites him to her in marriage, or in death, as he willingly offers himself to her vengeance (lines 901-4). Chimene, on the other hand, pretexts that her gloire is the definitive obstacle to their union, and refuses Rodrigue's implication that she participates in his gloire: Ta funeste valeur m'instruit par ta victoire; Elle a venge ton pere et soutenu ta gloire: ## Doubt and the Carnelian Hero Meme soin me regarde, et j'ai, pour m'affliger, Ma gloire a soutenir, et mon pere avenger. ## Seventeenth-Century French Drama and Thought Felix, but in vain, as he described the God whom he worshipped as Un Dieu qui, nous aimant d'une amour infinie, Voulut mourir pour nous avec ignominie, Et qui, par un effort de cet exces d'amour, Veut pour nous en victime etre offert chaque jour. (lines 1659-62) In its supreme manifestation in the death of Christ on the cross Christian love is self-emptying ('kenosis') and self-sacrificial, not selfpreserving.36 In Pauline's wish to follow Polyeucte's example after her conversion in Act V, as he has in turn followed that of the God-mademan, we find human love sanctified by grace attaining to its highest possible expression. Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction....Pages 1-6 Doubt and the Cornelian Hero....Pages 7-36 Absence and Presence in Andromaque Britannicus, and Bérénice....Pages 37-73 Person and Persona in the raisonneurs of Molière’s Ecoles....Pages 74-89 The Triumph of Art over Nature in the Maximes....Pages 90-111 The Paradox of Pascal’s Pensées....Pages 112-146 Doubt and Certainty in Cartesianism....Pages 147-164 The Paradoxes of Orasius Tubero....Pages 165-176 Back Matter....Pages 177-190