Théâtres à leur miroir (XVII et XX siècles)facettes françaises et francophiles d'un procédé à l'espagnole

Zusammenfassung

Our study aims to reveal the life and dynamism of the genuinely French meta-theatrical devices that may have seemed dormant for more than two centuries. It is based on plays which are founded on mirror dynamics, chosen within the drama of the Spanish Siglo de oro and the French seventeenth century theatre. It first compares the modalities of the specular mechanisms and the French borrowings and adjustments in both these corpuses in order to try and understand their causes and to bring out the formal, semantic and stage archetypes that are specifically French. Then it sets out the factors that enabled these devices to undergo a revival in the French theatre of the twentieth century, while studying the changes that appeared in the specular structures and identifying the dominant modern tendencies that characterize these structures. Although it is true that the mirror dynamics are also brought to life on the twentieth century Spanish stage, this study finally reveals that it is the French specular plays – though the language would indicate otherwise – that inspire many countries in South America including Cuba where the dramatic creativity finds its originality in its surprising dynamism and its powerful dramatic arts. This study also brings out the reasons that explain such a distinct interest of Latin American playwrights for the device and for its practice in the French theatre. This thesis produces a new concept covering seven major specular theatrical forms, which enables the establishment of a typology to study the French modalities of creation and operation. Its purpose is to retrace and reveal what transfers and metaphors « the theatre at its French mirror », as we chose to call it, has undergone, from its origins to the twentieth century, in order to bring out the universality not only of these forms but, most of all, of some of their meanings and stage achievements.