FR3125 Villains and Villainy in Seventeenth-Century France

FR3125 Villains and Villainy in Early Modern French Theatre

THIS COURSE MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL STUDENTS. PLEASE SEE THE ‘OFFENCE WARNING’ BELOW. 

Convenor: Joe Harris

Terms 1 and 2

Assessment:

Essay of 2,000-2,500 words: 30%
Exam: 70%
Formative piece: 0%

Overview

In theory at least, early modern French theatre had little time for villains. Genuine wickedness, vice and evil were regarded as too serious a subject matter for comedy, while theorists of tragedy insisted that a wicked character – whether ultimately defeated or triumphant – could not produce pity, one of the key tragic emotions. And yet, as this course demonstrates, wicked and villainous characters recur throughout ‘classical’ French theatre. The villains on this course use a variety of methods to achieve their ends, ranging from deception and manipulation on an individual level to outright tyranny over households or whole nations. Indeed, villains can often prove to be some of the most dramatically compelling and even attractive figures in theatre, especially in contrast to their various victims, opponents, and dupes, whose innocence and virtue can seem insipid, passive, or uninteresting in comparison. The awe that villains produce and the strength of character they display often means that even their eventual defeat or downfall – if and when this arrives – cannot fully neutralise their compelling power. Yet villains are rarely ever one-dimensional pantomime figures; indeed, the playwrights on this course are able to give them great depth and intellectual sophistication, as well as showing their inner contradictions and passions. While villains often prove sharp-sighted, penetrating observers of their social environment, and show great intelligence in manipulating and dominating others, they can also be unwittingly, unwillingly dominated by their own desires and wishes. Indeed, by refusing to present villainous characters who are simply outright monsters – a straightforward ‘other’ to the social and moral norm – playwrights sometimes suggest that the most troubling characters are those in whom we might recognise elements of ourselves.

Key Bibliography for 2017-18:

• Pierre Corneille, Rodogune (English translation: Rodoguna (Hazelburr, 2010), trans. by John Edmunds, available http://www.lulu.com/shop/john-edmunds/rodoguna/paperback/product-11929915.html) AND Médée (English translation Medea trans. by Susan Kalter (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016) [available via https://www.amazon.co.uk/M%C3%A9d%C3%A9e-Pierre-Corneilles-English-translation/dp/1534605010/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487328189&sr=8-1&keywords=corneille+medea+english 
  
• Molière, Tartuffe AND Don Juan (English translations: Don Juan in Molière, The Miser and Other Plays (Penguin, 2000) and Tartuffe in The Misanthrope and Other Plays (Penguin, 2000)
• Jean Racine, Britannicus (available in English translation in Jean Racine, Britannicus, Phaedra, Athaliah (Oxford World's Classics)
• Voltaire, Mahomet le prophète, ou le Fanatisme (English translation: Mahomet , trans. by William F. Fleming (Wilder Publications, 2011) [available via https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mahomet-Voltaire/dp/1617202584/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=148758478 6&sr=8-1&keywords=voltaire+Mahomet]

OFFENSE WARNING. Originally intended as a criticism of all established religion, and Christianity in particular, Voltaire’s Mahomet presents a fictionalised version of a stage in the Prophet Mohammed’s life and the founding of Islam. It portrays both the Prophet and Islam in general in a very negative, critical, and cynical light.

Selected Further Reading:

• Aristotle, Poetics (any edition)
• Henry Phillips, Racine: Language and Theatre (Durham: University of Durham Press, 1994)
• Adrian Poole, Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction (ISBN-10: 0192802356; ISBN-13: 978-0192802354)
• Julia Prest, Controversy in French Drama: Molière's ‘Tartuffe’ and the Struggle for Influence (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

• H.T. Barnwell, The Tragic Drama of Corneille and Racine: an Old Parallel Revisited (Oxford, 1982) 845 COR/B
• Philip Butler, A Student’s Guide to Racine (London, 1974) 845 RAC/B  
• David Maskell, Racine: a Theatrical Reading (Oxford, 1991) 845 RAC/M
• Gordon Pocock, Corneille and Racine: Problems of Tragic Form (Cambridge, 1973) 845 COR/P
• David Bradby and Andrew Calder, The Cambridge Companion to Molière (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)
• Michael Hawcroft, Word as Action: Racine, Rhetoric, and Theatrical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992)
• David Maskell, Racine: A Theatrical Reading (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991)
• Richard Parish, Racine: The Limits of Tragedy (Paris-Seattle-Tübingen, 1993)

• Mary Reilly, Racine: Language, Violence and Power (Oxford, New York: Peter Lang, c2005)
• George Steiner, The Death of Tragedy (Yale University Press, 1996); ASIN: B009MLJSHY