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JulesJanin: Romantic Critic - J O H N V . C H A P M A N I N T R O D U C T I O N Jules Janin (1804-1874) was a well-known literary figure during the July Monarchy and Second Empire, writing spirited, amusing, and sometimes perceptive literary and theatrical reviews for Le Journal des De'bats. Known as the prince of critics, he was influential enough to merit a place in Danish ballet master August Bournonville's autobiography, My Theatre Life. "His original style of writing has secured him a position as aesthetic writer for the Journal des De'bats, where each Monday he turns out a feuilleton which boils over with witty thoughts in a language so packed full of intensive adjectives and piquant syntax that his style is exclusively his own and would hardly dare to be used by anyone other than-Jules Janin!"' Janin began writing dance reviews in 1832, shortly after the premiere of La Sylphide. This was a crucial moment in the history of ballet and the development of dance criticism. It was the beginning of the Romantic period, an era in which the neoclassical aesthetic that had dominated ballet since the publication in 1760 of Jean-Georges Noverre's Letters on Dancing was successfully challenged. In Letters Noverre described an approach to ballet that subordinated all its resources to the presentation of a dramatic action or story. Unlike the court dance prevalent at the time, the ballet d'action did not depend for significance on the symbolic, abstract nature of dance, but, rather, on the didactic, literal character of pantomime. Ballet, Noverre argued, should be a silent drama in which mute acting, or pantomime, conveyed a story that would teach the audience to admire the heroic and despise the ignoble. Only then, he believed, would ballet "finally receive the praise and applause that all Europe grants to Poetry and Painting, and the glorious recognition with which they are h ~ n o r e d . " ~ In the interests of dramatic coherence, everything-scenery, costumes, music, dancing-had to contribute to the telling of a story. Their value as simple entertainment was not enough to justify their presence in a ballet. Ironically, the defining element of ballet-dancing-proved to be the most difficult component to bend to Noverre's approach. Dance is inherently nonliteral: pirouettes, entrechats, diveloppis, and pas de bourries possess no literal meaning. So how could they contribute to a dramatic action? It was a problem that ballet masters struggled with for more than 198 / J O H N C H A P M A N half a century. Salvatore Vigano solved it by eliminating dancing almost entirely from his works and using a form of rhythmic pantomime to convey the narrative. Other ballet masters, such as Pierre Gardel, ignored Noverre's demand for absolute dramatic coherence and introduced dances as well as scenic spectacle into their ballets, regardless of whether these elements furthered the dramatic action. Noverre's ideas were at the heart of ballet criticism in the early nineteenth century when Julien-Louis Geoffroy began taking a more analytical approach in his reviews for Le Journal des DPbats. His application of serious aesthetic criteria to the appreciation of ballet was a milestone. In keeping with the aesthetics of the ballet d'action and the prevailing neoclassicism of the period, Geoffroy viewed ballet as a valid form of expression to the extent that it depicted significant human experience. "It is an art," he wrote in 1804, "only when it imitates the thoughts, characteristics , and feelings of men; this is how it becomes part of dramatic poetry. Jumps and pirouettes are not the d a n ~ e . " ~ Echoing Noverre, he claimed that "genius consists in the expression of the soul's sentiments through the silent eloquence of pantomime: here is what elevates dance to the dignity of an art."' Thus, Geoffroy found his greatest pleasure in watching expressive dancers such as Mme Gardel or Emilie Bigottini in action. "One proceeds continually from terror to hope, from despair to joy," he wrote of the former in La Fgte de Mars.5 At the other extreme, Geoffroy was an outspoken opponent of technical display for it3 own sake, especially the tours de force that were becoming increasingly important at the end of the eighteenth century. "Dance is surely dishonored and lost," he wrote in 1804, "when it comes to consist of the merits of tours de f ~ r c e . " ~ The...

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