Mélodramatiques by Jean-Marie Thomasseau (review)

of Nantes. This chapter also outlines Nerval’s ideas on the role of literature in preserving history and the use of similar documentation in Angélique. Literary sources combine with folklore to fill out the picture of the past. From the eighteenth century, Nerval chronicles Restif de la Bretonne whose novel, Monsieur Nicolas, describes a life similar to Nerval’s own. A close comparison of texts shows that Nerval has reused much material from the novel. Once more the story departs from the biographical to consider the effects of the revolutionary period on religion, when ideals broke down in the face of political reality and the people increasingly played the role of spectators at larger events. Another eighteenth-century figure, Jacques Cazotte, embodies the causes of the French Revolution. Cazotte frequently had visions that enabled him to foresee the violence about to be unleashed while many of his contemporaries remained naively complacent. Cazotte’s view of the future was apparently incomplete in that he did not avail himself of the possibility of escape to his wife’s native Martinique and instead died on the guillotine. The two final portraits serve largely to introduce more general topics. With Cagliostro we return to the theme of secret societies, for example, the appropriation of Masonic ceremonies by revolutionaries. Then, with Quintus Aucler we look at Orientalism and nineteenth-century attempts to return to the pagan gods as ways to fill the religious void left by the Revolution. Amid these multiple ideologies , Nerval remains unsure which ideas will prevail. Georgetown University (DC) Dorothy M. Betz THOMASSEAU, JEAN-MARIE. Mélodramatiques. Paris: PU de Vincennes, 2009. ISBN 9782 -84292-227-6. Pp. 289. 21 a. Jean-Marie Thomasseau’s succinctly titled Mélodramatiques is a collection of sixteen papers treating various aspects of the French melodrama. Although with the exception of the introduction none of the work is new—some of the essays were previously published and others read at conferences—the volume as a whole demonstrates the originality that has made Thomasseau, now an emeritus professor of Paris VIII, an important figure in nineteenth-century French theater studies. Mélodramatiques holds together well as a coherent work of scholarship transcending its piecemeal origins, thanks largely to Thomasseau’s excellent introduction . In it, he gives a brief history of the genre, noting the traditional (and still pertinent) hierarchy that places the supposedly pure art of tragedy above the popular and beloved “bastard” genre of the melodrama. Thomasseau denounces the absurdity of this hierarchy, highlighting on the one hand the cultural relevance of the melodrama in the nineteenth century and on the other the aesthetic contributions of the supposedly lesser genre to the evolution of the French theater. Thomasseau wisely chose to arrange his collection thematically rather than chronologically. Although the latter choice might have showcased the scope and duration of Thomasseau’s career (the earliest essay was published in 1976), the thematic arrangement makes for a much more useful and usable book. Essays in the first part of the volume focus on the historical and aesthetic development of the melodrama. A second section includes essays dealing with specific plays or Reviews 387 episodes that highlight the relationship between the melodrama and the drame romantique. The five essays that make up the third part deal in various ways with the question of popular theater and popular literature in the nineteenth century and point the way toward a conclusion (that Thomasseau labels his ‘Epilogue’) in which he traces the descendants of the melodrama to André Antoine’s art theater movement and beyond. Elegantly and often wittily written, the individual essays would have benefited from some revision, as background details are repeated from one chapter to another and some arguments, due to the constraints of the twenty-minute conference paper, are more provocative than fully convincing. Still, the author’s erudition is obvious; the information he shares is useful, and the depth of understanding and appreciation for this “bastard” genre that he imparts is priceless . Thomasseau certainly makes the case for the importance of the melodrama as cultural phenomenon and aesthetic artifact, and his Mélodramatiques is essential reading for anyone interested in nineteenth-century French culture. University...