The Emergence of a theatrical science of man in France, 1660–1740: (2020:01 Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment)

The emergence of a theatrical science of man in France, 1660-1740 highlights a radical departure from discussions of dramatic literature and its undergirding rules to a new, relational discourse on the emotional power of theater. Through a diverse cast of religious theaterphobes, government officials, playwrights, art theorists and proto-philosophes, Connors shows the concerted effort in early Enlightenment France to use texts about theater to establish broader theories on emotion, on the enduring psychological and social ramifications of affective moments, and more generally, on human interaction, motivation, and social behavior. This fundamentally anthropological assessment of theater emerged in the works of anti-theatrical religious writers, who argued that emotional response was theater’s raison d’être and that it was an efficient venue to learn more about the depravity of human nature. A new generation of pro-theatrical writers shared the anti-theatricalists’ intense focus on the emotions of theater, but unlike religious theaterphobes, they did not view emotion as a conduit of sin or as a dangerous, uncontrollable process; but rather, as cognitive-affective moments of feeling and learning. Connors’ study explores this reassessment of the theatrical experience which empowered writers to use plays, critiques, and other cultural materials about the stage to establish a theatrical science of man—an early Enlightenment project with aims to study and ‘improve’ the emotional, social, and political ‘health’ of eighteenth-century France.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction: theater, emotions, science of man Diderot’s relational drama From religious theaterphobia to theatrical innovation Affect, intentionality, and the history of emotions Chapter 1: Theaterphobia and the transformational power of performance Anti-theatrical  criticism: goals and strategies Corneille, Nicole, and the reality of emotions Learning dangerously from the passions: Pierre Nicole’s Traité de la comédie Debating theatrical emotions in the wake of Nicole’s Traité Chapter 2: “Que sur la superficie de notre cœur”: Jean-Baptiste Dubos’s theatrical emotions Emotional debates: past and present A different path to aesthetic appreciation The political case for pleasure Dubos’s cognitive-affective  sequences Chapter 3: Beyond affect: from Dubos’s “passions superficielles” to Houdar de La Motte’s “sentiments raisonnables” La Motte, the Querelle, and the Regency La Motte’s “sentiments raisonnables” The dramaturgical  power of intérêt Chapter 4: From the page to the stage: La Motte’s theatrical inquiry into the emotions Context and emotion in Les Macchabées (1721) Intentionality and suspense in Romulus (1722) Inès de Castro  (1723) and the emotional politics of intérêt Chapter 5: Strategic passions: Marivaux’s Moderne subjectivities Marivaux’s trajectory from Moderne to bel esprit to scientist of man Learning from the “organs”: Marivaux’s intuitive ethics Sentimental strategies: Marivaux’s theories of emotion in Le Triomphe de l’amour (1732) Chapter 6: Learning through multiplicité: emotion and distance in the comédie larmoyante The decline and rebirth of Nivelle de La Chaussée’s emotional poetics Meaning-making  through the romanesque The pièce-cadre: emotion, multiplicité, and spectatorship in La  Fausse Antipathie (1733) Conclusion: avant-gardes,  emotion, and Enlightenment  Works cited Index    

About the Author :
Logan J. Connors is Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami. His next research project investigates connections between theater and the military in France and its colonies from 1680 to 1815.

Review :
‘Informed by recent work in emotions history and affect theory, the book’s six engaging and original chapters show how this theatrical science repositioned early eighteenth-century spectators, not as hapless victims, but as active learners for whom the theatrical experience was a source of knowledge about the emotions… The Emergence of a Theatrical Science of Man in France makes a strong case for why cultural understandings of theatre as a social practice must also consider intellectual history as well as the dramatic texts that were performed. There are many fine-grained analyses of plays that convincingly illustrate the emotional dynamics described in the book… this book makes for fascinating, provocative reading.’ Annelle Curulla, Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theatre Research