Les Cérémonies de la parole. L'éloquence d'apparat en France dans le dernier quart du XVIIe siècle (review)

Book Reviews Sanda Golopentia, ed. Les Propos spectacle: Etudes de pragmatique théâtrale. New York: Peter Lang, 19%. Pp. viii + 255. This collection brings together nine articles by six authors—Eric Angles, Michelle E. Bloom, Laura D'Angelo, Laurent Ditmann, Nathalie Rogers, and Anna Walecka—on topics ranging from eleventh-century farce to Sarraute and Duras. The volume begins with a long introductory essay in which the editor, Sanda Golopentia, gives detailed summaries of the articles to follow and weaves them into her own argument. The collection is the product of a tightly-knit group: Golopentia refers to "notre réflexion commune" that gave rise to the project, the authors refer to each other's work fairly often, and Golopentia herself is footnoted in almost every article. The group's nominal common agenda is stated ringingly in the first words of Golopentia's introduction: "Une théorie globale du théâtre ne saurait être développée aussi longtemps qu'on continue à penser—implicitement ou explicitement—le texte théâtrale par le biais de la narrativit é et des structures narratives (...). Premièrement, l'interprétation narrative isole le texte dramatique de sa représentation scénique" (1). And, a few pages later: "Car la pièce de théâtre n'est pas un livre (...)" (4). This is a promising beginning, but in fact there is almost no discussion in any of the articles of a play being performed by actors on a stage. The reason for this omission is not hard to find: to return to Golopentia's manifesto, "[N]ous proposons de centrer la théorie théâtrale sur l'ensemble du spectacle (que, dès sa parution, le texte dramatique annonce, prédit et organise)" (6). The main clause is admirable, but the parenthesis nullifies it by dismissing the work of all the artists— directors, designers, actors—who, in addition to the playwright, create "l'ensemble du spectacle." Furthermore, the idea that all aspects of production exist in embryo in the printed text runs afoul of the fact that plays throughout theatrical history appear in print after appearing on the stage (and going through whatever battles and compromises attend the rehearsal-and-production process); the published text is therefore more often a record of a past performance than a recipe for a future one. "Les didascalies," stage directions, to which Golopentia devotes several pages, are an especial quagmire, since it is not always clear whose ideas they represent, or whether they address the theatrical practitioner or the consumer of the printed book. Scenic indications likewise cannot always be trusted: Hugo's description of the environment for Act IV of Hernani, which both Rogers and Golopentia discuss, is vivid and evocative, but what the audience actually saw at the famous première in 1830 was the setting designed by Cicéri, which was quite different. Perhaps Hugo preferred his vision of the tomb scene to Cicéri's (so do I, in fact) and understandably wanted to control the way the reader—the reader—imagined the scene. Within that bookish context, Rogers' analysis of the metaphorical and psychological implications of "space" in Hernani (building on the work of Anne Ubersfeld) is perceptive and stimulating, as are several other articles in this volume. But it is misleading to claim that these articles elucidate "la représentation scénique" or "l'ensemble du spectacle"; what they study, quite ably in many cases, is the reader in the armchair with the book. Roger W. Herzel Indiana University Pierre Zoberman. Les Cérémonies de ¡aparóle. L'éloquence d'apparat en France dans le dernier quart du XVIIe siècle. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1998. Pp. 713. 600ff. Adapté de sa thèse d'Etat, l'ouvrage de Pierre Zoberman nous présente un panorama d'une Vol. XXXIX, No. 3 89 L'Esprit Créateur minutie impressionnante de l'éloquence d'apparat profane à la fin du XVII«= siècle. Cet ouvrage propose deux directions d'analyse majeures: il s'agit d'une part d'étudier l'éloquence dans diff érents contextes institutionnels et Zoberman va ainsi s'intéresser, en trois grandes parties, aux académies, aux parlements et institutions judiciaires et...