“Marc Antoine, ou la Cleopatre” (1635) by J. Mairet: a classic tragedy in search of new principles of dramatization of the historical plot

The tragedy “Marc Antoine, ou la Cleopatre” by J. Mairet is considered as a transitional phenomenon, which serves as a characteristic feature of the French theater of the 30s of the XVII century – the period of the return of the tragic genre to the stage and the efforts of its poetical renewal undertaken by playwrights (J. Mairet, J. de Rotrou, P. Corneille, J. de Scudery). The emphasis is placed both on the connection of the Mere text with the humanistic tragedy of the XVI century (in particular, with the texts of E. Jodel “The Captive Cleopatre” and R. Garnier “Marc Antoine”), which can be traced in the clearly expressed rhetoric nature of dramatic discourse – most of the statements of the main characters are based on the principle of official, public speech, built in strict accordance with the political role (the idea of history as a theater), and on the author’s attitude to the originality of the development of a well-known plot, which is seen in the breadth coverage and semantic complexity of historical events, achieved, among other things, due to the displacement of the love line of intrigue. The story brought to the fore turns out to be devoid of drama – there is no conflict, no tragic tension, so Mairet is forced to return to the love conflict as the engine of the stage action, which is activated by the introduction of the figure of Octavia – Antony’s first wife and Cleopatra’s rival. With Mairet’s noticeable attempts to reorganize the structural foundations of the tragedy and test new principles for dramatizing history, a significant divergence of personal and official-role plans, observed in the discursive behavior of the characters, leads to uncertainty, failures of significant meanings in events and details, as well as in the characters themselves and their relationships. A decisive restructuring of the traditional plot and compositional links of the tragedy, along with the discovery of productive mechanisms of ideological and semantic conflict tension, will be carried out only by Corneille, who will be able to find qualitatively new ways of dramatizing historical material, a direct preview of which are the experiments of Mairet.

tragedy, humanistic drama, historical plot, love intrigue, rhetoric, public role