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The Origin of the Lyric Monologue in French Classical Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

H. Carrington Lancaster
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Extract

I use the term lyric in the sense of form rather than of inspiration and should say stances except that the word was not applied to the lyric monologues until 1630. My subject is the origin of the monologues, written in other meters than the alexandrine couplet, that are found in the plays of Corneille and his contemporaries. The most familiar examples are those of the Cid and Polyeucte. They are usually of a contemplative nature, but do not necessarily contain a soul struggle.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , September 1927 , pp. 782 - 787
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 In Mareschal's Généreuse Allemande, seconde journée, IV, 8.

2 La Poétique, Paris, 1640, p. 398.

3 Pratique du théâtre, edition of Amsterdam, 1715, II, 242, 243.

4 Moland edition, XXXI, 199. He also declares that Rotrou made them fashionable, a statement that is far from being true.

5 IV, 223, 224.

6 First acted about 1628. The privilège was obtained in 1629 as the first edition records, but a subsequent edition gives an extrait of this privilège in which, by a misprint, the date is given as 1625. This error, repeated by Beauchamps, Recherches, II, 65, and several modern writers, has led to the belief that the first example in France of the lyric monologue appeared in that year.

7 Frankfurt, 1854, p. 104 of this appendix.

8 La comedia espagnole en France, Paris, Hachette, 1900, p. 174.

9 P. P. Rogers, “Spanish Influence on the Literature of France,” Hispania, IX (1926), 220.

10 Cf. La Barrera, Catálogo, Madrid, 1860, pp. 404, 405.

11 Op. cit., p. 276.

12 I do not count the anonymous translation of the Celestina that appeared at Rouen in 1634, as it runs to 581 pp. and, like the original, is obviously too long to be considered a play. On the other hand El sagaz stacio, though written as a dialogued novel, might lend itself to performance as a play.

13 La Bague de l'Oublie and la Diane.

14 Les Occasions perdues and l'Heureuse Constance.

15 Le matois mary, Paris, Billaine, 1634.

16 I have shown that l'Inconstance punie is connected with the Don Juan legend, but it is by no means certain that its author knew the Burlador. Cf. PMLA, XXXVIII (1923), 471-478. Beys's Hôpital des fous probably owes its title and its use of an insane asylum in Valencia to Lope, but the plot of the play is quite different from that of Los locos de Valencia. M. Martinenche (op. cit., p. 170) believes that the intrigue of Rotrou's Innocente Infidélité “est faite d'éléments qui semblent empruntés à la Sortija del Olvido et à la Laura Perseguida.”

17 La Princesse ou l'heureuse Bergère, Rouen, Claude le Villain, III, 3.