Voltaire Comic Dramatist (review)

In the conclusion to his admirable study, Goulbourne recalls a little-known, but telling, detail: in March 1778, Irène and Nanine were performed on the stage of the Comédie-Française, adorned with Voltaire's bust, as the philosophe looked on. This is a sharp reminder to us that Voltaire's comedies were celebrated as a central facet of his literary persona. Goulbourne's highly readable book is undoubtedly a major landmark in Voltaire studies, as were Raymond Naves's Le Goût de Voltaire and David Williams's Voltaire: Literary Critic (see FS, XXII (1968), 163-64), and it constitutes a substantial contribution to the study of eighteenth-century aesthetics. Rigorously researched, elegantly presented and well supported by an excellent literature review and copious notes, Goulbourne's study provides a comprehensive analysis of Voltaire's eighteen comedies within their intellectual, literary and historical contexts. Voltaire's paradoxical responses to trends in the French theatre, notably to La Chaussée's comédies larmoyantes, Diderot's drames bourgeois, and Marivaux's and Destouches's serious moral comedies, were as subversive as his debt to Molière was 'far-reaching and wide-ranging'. Voltaire's originality lay as much in his experiments with tone, dramatic forms, comic structures and prosody, as in his 'hands on' approach to stagecraft and performance. Above all, Goulbourne justifiably presents his work as the first detailed analysis of the dramatist's experimentation with audience response (p. 13). By adopting a chronological approach to Voltaire's career as a comic dramatist from 1725 to 1772, Goulbourne explores his ever-changing creative responses to the evolution of the French theatre, since his plays were 'a series of theatrical interventions in contemporary debate about the genre' (p. 11). Throughout, Voltaire remained faithful to his axiom: 'Sans gaieté, point de salut!' (D8946). Comedy, in his view, had to imitate 'la bigarrure de la vie des hommes' (p. 64). To this end, he struck out in new directions by merging sentimentality and morality with laughter. Inevitably, in a book based on a doctoral thesis, there are some regrettable repetitions, but Goulbourne adds variety to his chapters by focusing on different facets of the cultural and historical background to Voltaire's comedies. Chapter 4, on La Princesse de Navarre, is particularly impressive, not least because it provides much-needed information, sparse elsewhere, about the staging of Voltaire's comedies. As is often the case with Voltaire scholars, Goulbourne has fallen under the spell of the great man, for he energetically defends him against charges brought by contemporaries, except when he deals with Le Droit du seigneur (p. 217). Yet contemporary critics witnessed performances of some comedies; should these be analysed chiefly as published texts, or as 'potential performance' (p. 5)? The influence of English comedy, notably of Congreve's comedies of manners, could have been explored further, in view of Voltaire's first-hand experience in the 1720s. For all these minor reservations, Goulbourne's stimulating study will re-kindle interest in Voltaire's theatre, by showing 'how [he] writes comedy, what sort of effect he produces, how he uses the resources of the theatre for comic effect' (p. 5).