Arising from the activities of the Centre for Seventeenth-Century French Theatre, this volume proposes a selection of eighteen essays by internationally renowned scholars aimed at all those who value and work with the theatre of seventeenth-century France, whether in teaching, research or performance. Frequently seeking out the interfaces of these areas, the essays cover historiography (including that of opera), the theory and practice of textual editing, visualizing – in terms of both theatre architecture and the significance of playtext illustration - , approaches to study and research (including the most recent applications of computer technology), and performance studies which relate the classical canon to contemporary French and other cultures. Always suggesting new directions, challenging the epistemological bases of the very concept of French classical theatre, the essays provide a snapshot of scholarship in the field at the dawn of a new millennium, and offer an ideal opportunity to reassess its past whilst looking to its future.

The term "French theater" evokes most immediately the glories of the classical period and the peculiarities of the Theater of the Absurd. It has given us the works of Corneille, Racine, and Moliere. In the Romantic era there was Alexander Dumas and surrealist works of Alfred Jarry, and then the Theater of the Absurd erupted in rationalistic France with Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The Historical Dictionary of French Theater relates the history of the French theater through a chronology, introduction, bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, trends, genres, concepts, and literary and historical developments that played a central role in the evolution of French theater.

Michèle Longino examines the ways in which Mediterranean exoticism inflects the themes represented in French classical drama. Longino explores plays by Corneille, Molière and Racine; Le Cid, Médée, and Le bourgeois gentilhomme among others. She offers a consideration of the role the staging of the near Orient played in shaping a sense of French colonial identity. Drawing on histories, travel journals, memoirs and correspondence, and bringing together literary and historical concerns, Longino considers these dramatisations in the context of French-Ottoman relations at the time of their production.

Staging Francebetween the World Wars aims to establish the nature and significance of the modernist transformation of French theater between the world wars, and to elucidate the relationship between aesthetics and the cultural, economic, and political context of the period. Over the course of the 1920s and 30s, as the modernist directors elaborated a theatrical tradition redefined along new lines: more abstract, more fluid, and more open to interpretation, their work was often contested, especially when they addressed the classics of the French theatrical repertory. This study consists largely of the analysis of productions of classic plays staged during the interwar years, and focuses on the contributions of Jacques Copeau and the Cartel because of their prominence in the modernist movement and their outspoken promotion of the role of the theatrical director in general. Copeau and the Cartel began on the margins of theatrical activity, but over the course of the interwar period, their movement gained mainstream acceptance and official status within the theater world. Tracing their trajectory from fringe to center, from underdogs to elder statesmen, this study illuminates both the evolution of the modernist aesthetic and the rise of the metteur-en-scène, whose influence would reshape the French theatrical canon.

From the contents: R. Howard BLOCH: Eneas before the walls of Carthage: the beginnings of the city and romance in the suburbs. - Richard l. REGOSIN: Language and nation in 16th-Century France: the Arts poetiques. - Zahi ZALLOUA: Reading the Essais: Where does the critic begin? - Louise K. HOROWITZ: Honore d'Urfe: Bellwether beginnings. - Leonard HINDS: Paratext and framing narrative: techniques of skepticism in Le parasite mormon."

What is the nature of power in Racinian tragedy? This study looks beyond the conventional pageant of political power in the plays by exploring tensions inherent in the very concept of power, with each chapter elucidating how Racine's power relationships are concentrated in the question of language.

Descartes's notion of subjectivity changed the way characters would be written, performed by actors, and received by audiences. His coordinate system reshaped how theatrical space would be conceived and built. His theory of the passions revolutionized our understanding of the emotional exchange between spectacle and spectators. Yet theater scholars have not seen Descartes's transformational impact on theater history. Nor have philosophers looked to this history to understand his reception and impact. After Descartes, playwrights put Cartesian characters on the stage and thematized their rational workings. Actors adapted their performances to account for new models of subjectivity and physiology. Critics theorized the theater's emotional and ethical benefits in Cartesian terms. Architects fostered these benefits by altering their designs. The Mind-Body Stage provides a dazzlingly original picture of one of the most consequential and confusing periods in the histories of modern theater and philosophy. Interdisciplinary and comparatist in scope, it uses methodological techniques from literary study, philosophy, theater history, and performance studies and draws on scores of documents (including letters, libretti, religious jeremiads, aesthetic treatises, and architectural plans) from several countries.