Ecrivains de théâtre 1600–1649: documents du Minutier central des Notaires de Paris (review)

Alan Howe has already earned the gratitude of dix-septiémiste theatre specialists for Le Théâtre professionnel à Paris: 1600-1649 (see FS, LIX (2005), 240-41), which brought together several hundred documents from the Minutier central to build up a detailed picture of the Paris theatre in the crucial years of its development. This complementary volume compounds the debt owed to his scholarship. Like its predecessor, it provides summaries of a range of documents, in this case 173 relating to twenty-five individual playwrights, together with commentaries revealing their significance for the current state of knowledge about these authors and transcriptions of twenty-four key items. The date-limits are applied strictly: thus, both Bèze, who wrote his one play in 1550, and Montchrétien, commonly classified as a sixteenth-century tragedian, are included because in each case one document relating to them is dated post-1600. The qualification for admission as an 'écrivain de théâtre' is to have written at least one play, justifying the inclusion of d'Urfé for his Silvanire and Vauselle, brother of Tristan l'Hermite, for La Chutede Phaéton. Howe's interpretative commentaries on each author are exemplary. His careful analysis of the detail contained in the documents enables him to fill many gaps in the biographical record and to correct sometimes long-established errors. We now have confirmation that the actor and the playwright known as Desfontaines were the same person and that he returned to act in Paris after the débâcle of the Illustre théâtre; proof that Hardy was in Paris between 1612 and 1620 (pace Deierkauf-Holsboer) and that his association with Valleran Le Conte dated back at least to 1611; evidence concerning the family tensions that feature so largely in Scarron's verses. About a quarter of the documents are agreements involving publishers. They throw light inter alia on the sizeable variations in rates of remuneration offered to authors, the constant need to seize pirated editions and the causes of friction between publishers, as well as revealing some curious practices such as the contract entered into in 1637 by Courbé and Targa whereby they agreed to publish Le Cid and three comedies by Corneille jointly in the sense that each was responsible for printing half of each play. In the cases of Rotrou, La Calprenède and some plays by Corneille, these agreements are essential for the establishment of a secure chronology of performances and editions. Moreover, some of the information gleaned is of considerable value to those whose interest extends beyond the theatre. Baro's role in the manoeuvrings to retain the rights to the final part of L'Astrée following the death of d'Urfé is illuminated, as is the 'guerre civile', alluded to by Scarron, between three publishers keen to be associated with La Calprenède's Cassandre. Howe's meticulous treatment of the immense amount of factual detail contained in this work has confirmed his position as one of the leading authorities on seventeenth-century theatre.