Like most other tragedies of the Renaissance, Haman takes as its source material the old testament, in this case the Book of Esther. It, like its contemporaries, is simultaneously religious and political. Esther is called upon to defend the Jewish nation from the evil Haman, the king’s counselor who has sworn to massacre the Jews. In the context of the French religious wars of the period, one must wonder who the Jews are meant to represent : the Huguenots or the Catholics. The author Montchrestien married a Catholic but died fighting for the protestant cause. Furthermore, his L'Ècossaise deifies Mary, Queen of Scots, a catholic, while demonizing Queen Elizabeth, a protestant. In this case it may be impossible to know the authorial intent, but I would argue that Montchrestien intended neither. Perhaps he was simply illustrating that the genocide of an entire people is always wrong. In this case, the Jewish nation is punished for the perceived sins of Mordecai, stipulating that many innocent will be killed without cause. The melodramatic fashion in which Montchrestien writes stipulates that innocence will always triumph over evil. Even if that innocence is killed, as was the case in L'Ècossaise, the spiritual victory remains.
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L'Ècossaise was one of many religious/political tragedies of the Renaissance period; a time quite familiar with religious and political strife. It tells the story of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, by her cousin Elizabeth, the Queen of England. Mary takes the role of the unjustly persecuted martyr of the Catholic cause, or is it simply the cause of liberty? For Mary is not truly oppressed by the protestant religion, but by an authoritarian ruler who fears the loss of her power. Notably, the play is not unique in its choice of a female heroine and villain. Like several other plays from this period, in particular Haman and Les Juifves, women are given a prominent place on the stage and in the plot. Their strengths and weaknesses are not the result of their gender, while at the same time they do not forget it. When debating with her counselor, Elizabeth reminds him that gentleness is a woman’s virtue. Furthermore, while not unique at the time, it is refreshing to a modern reader to see women in roles that are not exclusively romantic. Hamital is the female leader of her nation in her son’s absence. Esther likewise, is a queen and leader of the Jewish people. One must ask why, during a time of intense oppression of the female sex, were playwrights compelled to tell the stories of powerful women? Even more so when taking into account the fact that in France, women legally could not rule.
Les Juifves takes the story of the Jews subjugated by King Nebuchadnezzar and raises it to the level of intense tragedy which foreshadows those of Corneille and Racine in all but location. Whereas the writers of the 17th century drew most of their material from Greek and Roman antiquity, their Renaissance predecessors favored biblical adaptations for the stage as a part of a campaign to make a distinctly French theatrical tradition. Clearly, a part of the identity of “the most Christian nation” was its religious fervor. To return to the connections between Corneille and Racine, the clearest examples here its thematic ties to Cinna and Andromaque. Hamital, the mother of the enslaved Jewish king, is a mirror of Andromaque: the queen of a vanquished nation, a widow, begging for the life of her son, and slightly suicidal. Some of Andromaque’s scenes are played out in reverse in Les Juifves, such as when Hamital finds pity from the Queen whereas Andromaque finds nothing but rebuke from Hermione. To a lesser extent, Cinna’s preoccupation with clemency and the qualities befitting a ruler can be seen in the back and forth between Nebuchadnezzar and several foils. As in Andromaque, Cinna’s plot follows the alternate route presented to King Nebuchadnezzar who in Les Juifves murders the Jews and blinds their king. All this is to say, that thematically, 16th and 17th century writers would appear to be interested in similar topics, with similar opinions on those topics, but taking opposite approaches towards those ideals.
Abraham Sacrifiant, a dramatization of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, previews the great psychological tragedies to come in the 17th century. The greatest difference, clearly due to the religious differences, is the presence in Abraham Sacrifiant of an external motivator, God, who instructs Abraham on his actions. A comparable psychologically intense tragedy of the 17th century, Phaedra, subjects the title character to a purely internal struggle between rationality and passion. Contrarily, Abraham's decision is whether or not to obey the external force which has commanded him to kill his son. Abraham’s struggle of faith is demonstrated in his conversations with his wife, which Phaedra mirrors in her discussions with Oenone. The essential difference between the two is that Abraham’s plight is essentially reactionary whereas Phaedra’s is actionary. Certainly, her decisions are a reaction to the news that her husband is dead, but nothing other than her internal actions forces her hand. Because Abraham is merely reacting emotionally to his situation, there is no real build to the plot. From the moment the angel arrives to the replacement of the lamb, the state of the play is static in Abraham’s sorrow. External motivators leave the protagonist with no true choices, eliminating any sort of rising action, which renders much renaissance French drama a purely poetic exercise.
This play was an absolute delight after the monotony of spousal abuse. Here, a lady with three suitors tells each of them to dress up in a different costume, a priest, a dead man, and a devil, and to meet her in the graveyard that night. The three show up, unaware of the other's intention, and hilarity ensues as they each mistake each other for the real thing. I enjoyed this play because the fun was essentially harmless, and the woman finally got a happy ending. It also underscores the care put into all aspects of the medieval performance that their masks and costumes would be believable enough to trick people into believing they were truly dead or a devil. It makes me wonder about the sophistication of other aspects of the production, and who took control of designing and creating these intricate costumes.
This farce is almost identical in premise to the Farce du Chaudronnier, in which a couple competes in a game of silence to be broken by a lecherous kettle-maker. The difference being that in La Farce des drois de la porte bodès, it is the woman who loses the bet, protesting that her husband did not speak up to save her from the advances of a judge. This farce takes it a step farther however, when the wife refuses to accept the conditions of the bet and the couple goes to court, only to be seen over by the same judge. The judge rules in the woman's favor with a wink and a nod to the husband, establishing the wife's dominion over the house. Like most farces of the period though, the humor comes from the fact that it would be laughable to give women so much power and free will.
While its subject matter is rather crude, La Farce nouvelle et fort joyeuse du Pect is actually rather sophisticated in terms of its litigation argument. After his wife breaks wind in his house, the indignant husband drags her to court, accusing her of upsetting the tranquility of his home. The judge rules that as man and wife are of the same flesh, therefore, all belonging to the wife's body is the responsibility of the husband. No doubt this was a comment on the unnecessary litigations common of the period, but it also reflects some interesting thoughts about men, women, and marriage.
This charming play is hilarious because unlike previous farces that were based on scatalogical jokes or sexual innuendos, this play is based on the naiveté and stupidity of its two male protagonists. The two men are extolling the sweetness of their wives when they begin to worry that they may be too sweet and unable to ward off untoward advances. They take the women to a professor to have them "salted" to cure them of their sweetness. The doctor uses this as a chance to seduce the two women, who rebuff him and resolve to be "saltier" to their husbands, leaving the doctor's office to beat them senseless. This play combines the premise of not knowing how good one has it and the gullible nature of people to believe outlandish cures. The women prove the men wrong by rebuffing the doctor despite their sweetness, and showing that the true folly was the men's inability to communicate with their wives.
Like Le Trocheur de maris, Les femmes qui font refondre leurs maris takes a dip into the surrealist genre. Two women, sick of their old and impotent husbands, take them to a bellmaker to be melted down and recast as younger men. While this works, the kind old men come out as young brutes on the other end who beat their wives into submission. To a modern audience, this play comes off as a tragedy, as do so many of the farces built on the backs of women's suffering. But the interest here in the manipulation of the body and the possibility of interfering with the natural process is a fascinating question that brings to mind stories such as Frankenstein or the Fly. While it is often thought that those stories were inspired by leaps in the scientific world, it is interesting to remember that medieval persons were also interested in the ability to alter the body by human means and the power humans used (or misused) a propos to their own mortality.
One of the few plays that offers female protagonists, Le Trocheur de maris is a delightful play about three women who decide to trade in their old husbands for new at the shop of the Husband Trader. Unfortunately, none are to their liking and they decide to remain instead with the men they started with. Rather than simply the typical sexual and scatalogical innuendo that I have come to expect from farces, Le Trocheur de maris adds a flair for the surrealist that we will find in several other farces from this period. The idea that there is such a man as a Husband Trader opens the genre up to more absurdist kinds of comedy that poke fun at the fabric of society instead of the bodily functions of its inhabitants. This sort of absurdism in French theatre persists to this day, and the theme of the impossible as commonplace only becomes funnier with time.
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Jennifer KellettM.A. French Literature Florida State University Archives
June 2021
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