Illusion, violence, and certainty in Jean Rotrou's "Le Veritable Saint Genest" and Cyrano de Bergerac's "La Mort d'Agrippine"
by Putman, Emily Miller, M.A., THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL, 2010, 47 pages; 1478172

Abstract:

Historically, studies on French 17th century theater have predominantly focused on the works of so-called Classical authors, to the exclusion of the “récits sanglantes” and “histoires tragiques.” This thesis looks at two violent plays written the 1640s, Le Véritable Saint Genest by Jean Rotrou and La Mort d’Agrippine by Cyrano de Bergerac. These two dissimilar texts will be used to show that the threat of violence gives an impression of truth and validity to the declarations of the martyrs and the executed, and thus acts as a means of providing a feeling of certainty to the audience and to the other characters in the plays. The insights of this thesis into the function of violence in Rotrou and Cyrano’s plays may be extrapolated to other works of this time period and provide a useful starting point for considering the large body of “récits sanglantes” and “histoires tragiques.”

 
AdviserEllen R. Welch
SchoolTHE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL
SourceMAI/ 48-06, p. , Aug 2010
Source TypeThesis
SubjectsRomance literature
Publication Number1478172
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