Poetics of Theater

(1 Credit Hour) · Undergraduate

Translation of Syllabus course description: For the philosopher Henri Gouhier, the categories of tragedy and comedy that structure theatre into two large genres act as "ways of thinking historically" in integrating the spectator. With this end, tragedy and comedy were codified by Antiquity and then by the Classics and were written into a "poetique" (way of making/writing) and a relation to its specific world with its forms and ideas. However, a comparative study of three pieces of comedy will allow us to observe the complexity of the genre, including its modernization over the centuries, from the manner in which a single dramaturge exploits the genre to new ends, or to the strengthening of the relationship to the world he is leading to. As such, we will undertake a comparative study of three pieces related to comedy, that question by their creativity and their modernity in their time, the rigor of the bounds of theatrical genres beyond certain appearances. The three pieces we will study belong to the classic repertoire of French theater: "l'Ecole des Femmes" by Moliere, considered his first "serious comedy," "On ne badine pas avec l'amour" by Alfred de Musset, a minor genre of romantic proverb related to light comedy, and finally, in the 20th century, "Les Bonnes" by Jean Genet, inspired by a minor news item. These three works related to comedy pose the nagging question of violence, a form of fact belonging to comedy that engages it in an increasingly tragic manner over the centuries and so refines the freedom of the dramaturge in relation to the question of genre.