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  • Fins tragiques: poétique et éthique de dénouement dans la tragédie de la première modernité (Italie, France, Espagne, Allemagne) by Enrica Zanin
  • Wilton-Godberfforde Emilia
Fins tragiques: poétique et éthique de dénouement dans la tragédie de la première modernité (Italie, France, Espagne, Allemagne). Par Enrica Zanin. (Travaux du Grand Siècle, 41.) Genève: Droz, 2014. 472 pp.

In this dense and weighty monograph, Enrica Zanin sets herself the ambitious task of examining early modern tragedy in order to elucidate the importance of the denouement within tragedy, and traces this across different European traditions. The study includes an investigation into definitions of the tragic genre itself; the structural pattern of the denouement; audience response; and the perspective of dramatic theorists alongside practitioners’ own strategies for endings. It also explores poetic and ethical dimensions along with the tension generated by the denouement between exemplarity and pathos and between the accidental and the universal. Zanin seeks to explain the reasons why, despite its challenges in terms of design and its potential shakiness in ethical terms, ‘le dénouement malheureux’ stands out as one of the characteristic traits of tragedy. Furthermore, the author shows that the tragic endings are more than just finales of catastrophe: she offers a nuanced reading through an exploration of ‘le héros mauvais et fin heureuse’ and ‘la tragédie à lieto fine’ and studies this in relation to Corneille’s plays. Her discussion of martyr plays also provides a thought-provoking examination of the significance of endings. Throughout, Zanin handles the material adeptly, although the choice to examine the genre across Italy, France, Spain, and Germany seems rather too far-reaching. The author’s justification for casting her net so widely is that the corpus selected is ‘idéologiquement homogène’ (p. 15) since the surveyed works are, with the exception of Germany, all products of countries of the Catholic Reformation (Italy, the country of the first theorizing [End Page 101] and tragic works; France, the country that launched ‘classical tragedy’; and Spain, where controversy resulted in the banning of the genre). On the other hand, Germany, a Protestant country, is included as a counterpoint to the others (from both a religious and ideological standpoint) and also because Aristotelian theory had not been incorporated into its dramatic tradition. Nonetheless, the investigation may well have benefited from a less comprehensive approach since the analysis does, at times, feel too scattered. Additionally, although attempts to link early modern with modern tragedy have the potential to yield some fascinating insights, the discussion feels somewhat disjointed and is not integrated well into the overall argument. More convincing, however, is the focus on tragedy ‘de la première modernité’ and the way Zanin explores how the endings of plays are complex strategies for teasing out notions of causality, blame, and justice. Chapter 8 provides an engaging evaluation of ‘invraisemblance’ in relation to endings and furnishes this with the example of Iphigénie. It also highlights how oracles can be used in the narrative as a means to pre-empt the fated ending but also to draw attention to the crucial place of interpretation and perspective of events for characters in the play, and spectators of the drama, in relation to the process that unfolds before them. This book is by no means an easy read, but it does offer a thorough exploration of the early modern tragedic tradition.

Wilton-Godberfforde Emilia
Open University
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