The figure of King Saul in French theatre since the Middle Ages to Voltaire

The article analyses the figure of the Biblical King Saul in early French theatre. First, it considers various theatrical forms reworking the Biblical story in the dramatic mode, from the medieval mystery play to the dramas written in accordance with the classical rules, which show the protagonist on the verge of death. The playwrights discussed in the article particularly emphasize two aspects of the character: that of a father and of a king. In all the plays considered, the central focus is the spiritual drama of the cursed king, who questions divine justice, as it was often the case in ancient tragedy. Despite numerous versions, additions and sometimes significant changes to the original story, King Saul in early French theatre turns out to be quite a faithful rendering of the Biblical Saul from the Books of Samuel.

Georg Kaiser and Jean-Victor Pellerin in the face of the human alienation, or two concepts of expressionist drama

It is commonly said that expressionism was a purely German movement, however, it is difficult not to notice similar tendencies, albeit with a lesser intensity, also in France. Expressionism was not only an artistic movement. It could be seen above all as a certain spiritual attitude towards the dehumanized industrialization. Expressionism was born of existential anxiety of many German writers leading to a rebellion against the bourgeois society. This rebellion was also expressed by some French writers. In this article, the author compares the theaters of Jean-Victor Pellerin and Georg Kaiser from the perspective of expressionistic aesthetics. Both writers describe the alienation of a modern man in the mechanized civilization. They both put attention on the internal crisis of the main character who in the end decides to fight against the hostile reality. Hence, in their works typically for the expressionist drama, the protagonist embarks on a journey during which his internal change takes place. While Georg Kaiser expresses his pessimism by describing apocalyptic scenes, Jean-Victor Pellerin still believes in the power of love which alone can change the fate of mankind.

Between evolution and involution: François Habert and the literary tradition of allegorical temples

The poetic temples of François Habert (1508?–1561?) are one of the last vestiges of the tradition of allegorical temples, very popular in the time of the Rhétoriqueurs. But there remains very little in his poetry of this type-cadre and its characteristics. The comparison of his temples with the temples of Jean Lemaire de Belges and Clément Marot shows the poetic debt of this author towards his great predecessors and at the same time his way of appropriating tradition. As an évangélique he restores the metaphor in its original meaning: the pagan temple of courtly literature becomes church again.

Perception and reading in Peintures by Victor Segalen

Focusing on the search for a new form of artistic creation, French doctor, archaeologist and poet, Victor Segalen (1878–1919) created a collection of poems titled Peintures in which the literary and artistic space coexist and influence each other. In his poetic work, Segalen, considered above all to be the founder of an intercultural poetics between East and West attempted to recreate Chinese paintings through words. The aim of this paper will attempt to show that the “spoken paintings,” as he called them, were inspired by real Chinese paintings and the creative process of Chinese painting itself. The poet succeeds in producing within the reader’s consciousness a painting by enabling him to visualize images suggested by words and to create a “magic space.” Segalen moves away from linearity principle of a text and gives it the third dimension creating a total work of art. 

Intertextuality, intermediality and the (doubly) dialogic novel. The case of Echenoz and Laurrent

Characteristic of broadly understood culture, dialogism often takes critical forms: the function of references to earlier literary practice is to highlight the originality of works created on its basis and to emphasise the distance separating them from the tradition. In the case of Minuit literature we can observe an opposite situation, which involves valorisation of cultural heritage and its creative employment to construct untypical, intertextual fiction. Relying on key theories of intertextuality and intermediality, this paper analyses the major forms of literary dialogue with the past in Le Méridien de Greenwich by Jean Echenoz and Les Atomiques by Éric Laurrent and its impact on the form of the novel and the reading process.

«Mais qu’est-ce, au fond, qu’une pièce historique ? »: from metadrama to metahistory in Antoine Pickels’ Clinique d’un roi

In this paper, I analyse the play Clinique d’un roi by the Belgian author Antoine Pickels as a metadrama, i.e., drama about drama. I concentrate on the most important textual manifestations of its metadramatic dimension. I also read it as a form of metahistorical reflection. Clinique d’un roi can be regarded as a “negative historical drama”that questions its own claims to historicity.

* L’auteur de cette étude bénéficie d’un financement octroyé par le Centre national de la recherche scientifique polonais (National Science Centre, Poland, research project 2018/30/M/HS3/00153).

Against the Bible, against his father: On discovering the world of extrabiblical intertextual references in François Weyergans’ Franz et François

The aim of the analysis is to present selected non-biblical intertextual references appearing in the novel Franz et François by the Belgian writer François Weyergans. They create a polylogue of voices coming from various areas of culture, e.g. literature (Gide), philosophy (Sartre, Camus) or psychoanalysis (Freud, Karl Abraham), and often taking issue with the world of traditional biblical values. As such these references illustrate well the process of individuation of the hero of the novel who, full of guilt, moves away from the Bible and from his father.