Classical literature

The monarchical centralization initiated by Louis XIII asserted itself in 1630 in the political domain under the authority of Richelieu first, then Mazarin and Louis XIV. It has consequences in the cultural field with the creation of the French Academy in 1635 then other Academies which aim to codify the language and to regulate the composition of the works. However, political authority and cultural authority should not be too quickly assimilated.

Classicist writers returned to the idea that art must be based on reason, which controls the expression of emotions. For this reason, they sought a balance between feelings and reason, thus seeking to achieve a universal representation of reality, disregarding what was purely occasional or private.

The founder of the poetics of classicism is the Frenchman Francois Mahlerb (1555-1628), who carried out the reform of the French language and verse and developed poetic canons. The leading representatives of classicism in drama were the tragedians Cornel and Racine (1639–1699), whose main subject of creativity was the conflict between public duty and personal passions. The “low” genres also achieved high development – a fable ( J. Lafontaine ), satire ( Boileau ), and comedy ( Moliere 1622–1673).

Boileau became famous throughout Europe as the “legislator of Parnassus,” the greatest theoretician of classicism, who expressed his views in the poetic treatise “ Poetic Art ”. Under his influence in the UK were the poets John Dryden and Alexander Pope, who made the main form of English poetry Alexandrina . For English prose of the era of classicism ( Addison, Swift ), Latinized syntax is also characteristic .

From an ideological point of view, the big question of the xvii th century the religious question. Classical writers are therefore necessarily steeped in religious culture. Certain works, such as Les Provinciales by Pascal or the work by Bossuet, even come entirely under religion. Many will be influenced by Jansenism.

18th century classicism develops under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment . Voltaire’s work ( 1694 – 1778 ) is directed against religious fanaticism, absolutist oppression, filled with the pathos of freedom. The goal of creativity is changing the world for the better, building in accordance with the laws of classicism of society itself. From the standpoint of classicism, the Englishman Samuel Johnson surveyed contemporary literature with a brilliant circle of like-minded people, including essayist Boswell, historian Gibbon, and actor Garrick . Three unity is characteristic of dramatic works: the unity of time (the action takes place one day), the unity of the place (in one place) and the unity of the action (one storyline).

It is the works of the learned that define the theories of classical taste, through letters, treatises, poetic arts. Vaugelas, Guez de Balzac and Dominique Bouhours thus legislate on the proper use of the language. Jean Chapelain and the Abbé d’Aubignac define the rules of classical theater. They spread this taste to the mundane audience of the salons they attend. Literary canons are also defined in non-theoretical works, literary works, or prefaces justifying them. This is the case with the greatest playwrights: Molière, Racine and especially Corneillewho was involved in numerous quarrels and summed up his opinions on theatrical writing in The Three Speeches on Dramatic Art. It should be noted, however, that dramatists most often argue for an adaptation of the rules that they rarely apply to the letter.

The teaching of the learned is indeed based on rules drawn from the Greek and Latin models. We read and re-read at that time La Poétique d ‘ Aristote, the interpretation of which is the source of most of the rules of classical theater. In poetry, Horace’s poetic art serves as a reference. Finally, classical authors draw on ancient models to create their own works. However, they are not pure imitation. The great authors only reuse these models to make modern works of them. Thus, if La Fontaine takes up the fables of Aesop and PhèdreIs to give a modern version of which social and political morality can only be understood in the context of the xvii th century.

Overview
Classicism is a specific genre of philosophy, expressing itself in literature, architecture, art, and music, which has Ancient Greek and Roman sources and an emphasis on society. It was particularly expressed in the Neoclassicism of the Age of Enlightenment.

Classicism is a recurrent tendency in the Late Antique period, and had a major revival in Carolingian and Ottonian art. There was another, more durable revival in the Italian renaissance when the fall of Byzantium and rising trade with the Islamic cultures brought a flood of knowledge about, and from, the antiquity of Europe. Until that time, the identification with antiquity had been seen as a continuous history of Christendom from the conversion of Roman Emperor Constantine I. Renaissance classicism introduced a host of elements into European culture, including the application of mathematics and empiricism into art, humanism, literary and depictive realism, and formalism. Importantly it also introduced Polytheism, or “paganism”, and the juxtaposition of ancient and modern.

The classicism of the Renaissance led to, and gave way to, a different sense of what was “classical” in the 16th and 17th centuries. In this period, classicism took on more overtly structural overtones of orderliness, predictability, the use of geometry and grids, the importance of rigorous discipline and pedagogy, as well as the formation of schools of art and music. The court of Louis XIV was seen as the center of this form of classicism, with its references to the gods of Olympus as a symbolic prop for absolutism, its adherence to axiomatic and deductive reasoning, and its love of order and predictability.

This period sought the revival of classical art forms, including Greek drama and music. Opera, in its modern European form, had its roots in attempts to recreate the combination of singing and dancing with theatre thought to be the Greek norm. Examples of this appeal to classicism included Dante, Petrarch, and Shakespeare in poetry and theatre. Tudor drama, in particular, modeled itself after classical ideals and divided works into Tragedy and Comedy. Studying Ancient Greek became regarded as essential for a well-rounded education in the liberal arts.

The Renaissance also explicitly returned to architectural models and techniques associated with Greek and Roman antiquity, including the golden rectangle as a key proportion for buildings, the classical orders of columns, as well as a host of ornament and detail associated with Greek and Roman architecture. They also began reviving plastic arts such as bronze casting for sculpture, and used the classical naturalism as the foundation of drawing, painting and sculpture.

The Age of Enlightenment identified itself with a vision of antiquity which, while continuous with the classicism of the previous century, was shaken by the physics of Sir Isaac Newton, the improvements in machinery and measurement, and a sense of liberation which they saw as being present in the Greek civilization, particularly in its struggles against the Persian Empire. The ornate, organic, and complexly integrated forms of the baroque were to give way to a series of movements that regarded themselves expressly as “classical” or “neo-classical”, or would rapidly be labelled as such. For example, the painting of Jacques-Louis David was seen as an attempt to return to formal balance, clarity, manliness, and vigor in art.

The 19th century saw the classical age as being the precursor of academicism, including such movements as uniformitarianism in the sciences, and the creation of rigorous categories in artistic fields. Various movements of the Romantic period saw themselves as classical revolts against a prevailing trend of emotionalism and irregularity, for example the Pre-Raphaelites. By this point, classicism was old enough that previous classical movements received revivals; for example, the Renaissance was seen as a means to combine the organic medieval with the orderly classical. The 19th century continued or extended many classical programs in the sciences, most notably the Newtonian program to account for the movement of energy between bodies by means of exchange of mechanical and thermal energy.

The 20th century saw a number of changes in the arts and sciences. Classicism was used both by those who rejected, or saw as temporary, transfigurations in the political, scientific, and social world and by those who embraced the changes as a means to overthrow the perceived weight of the 19th century. Thus, both pre-20th century disciplines were labelled “classical” and modern movements in art which saw themselves as aligned with light, space, sparseness of texture, and formal coherence.

In the present day philosophy classicism is used as a term particularly in relation to Apollonian over Dionysian impulses in society and art; that is a preference for rationality, or at least rationally guided catharsis, over emotionalism.

Characteristics of classicism
The classicism of the xvii th century is far from being limited to an imitation of the Ancients. Doctors and literaries in fact invent an aesthetic based on fairly restrictive principles of order which will lead modern criticism to assimilate classicism and respect for the rules.

Classical writing claims to be based on reason. We have sometimes seen the influence of Descartes’ rationalism there, but it is rather an interest in lucidity and analysis. Classical heroes and heroines are generally not rational, but their passions, often violent, are analyzed by writing which makes them intelligible. Classicism is therefore more influenced by a desire to subject the unreasonable to the order of reason than by a real rationalism which would later inspire the philosophers of the Enlightenment.

By creating a form of order, classical writers are looking for the natural. Giving the impression of a perfect match between form and content thanks to a flowing writing is indeed the ideal of the classic style. In this respect, classicism effectively comes into tension with what was the Baroque style. Charles Sorel writes thus: “Their natural language which seems simple to the common minds is more difficult to observe than these swollen languages which most of the world makes so much of esteem”. This search for a form of simplicity in writing will make the admiration of many authors of the xx th century such as Valery, Gide, Camus, or Ponge.

To give the impression of naturalness, it is above all important not to shock the reader. Therefore the likelihood of rules and decorum play a major role in the xvii th century.

Likelihood is what may seem true. The goal is not to represent the truth, but to respect the frameworks of what the public of the time considered possible. Boileau was able to say in his Poetic Art that “the true may sometimes not be probable”. What is likely to correspond to the opinions of the public in terms of ethics, social relations, level of language used, etc. The biggest criticism that has been made of the Cid is to propose an unlikely end, because morality cannot accept that a girl marries the murderer of her father even if the fact is historical.

The importance of plausibility is linked to the importance of morality in classical literature. Classical works indeed set themselves the goal of “reforming” the public by causing them to reflect on their own passions. According to Chapelain, the public can only be touched by what they can believe and literature can only help men to improve if it touches them. For the artistic ideal of classicism is accompanied by a moral ideal embodied in the theoretical figure of the honest man. This expression sums up all the qualities that one can expect from a courtier: politeness, culture, humility, reason, temperance, respect for the rules, ability to adapt to those around him.

Theater
During the first half of the xvii th century, we appreciate the tragi-comedies to romantic plot and complex decorations 7. Over the course of the century, notably under the influence of theoreticians, the intrigues were simplified and the sets were stripped down to lead to what is today called classical theater. The Abbé d’Aubignac plays an important role, because in La Pratique du théâtre 8 in 1657 he analyzes the ancient theater and the contemporary theater and draws principles which constitute the bases of the classical theater. This reflection on the theater was fed throughout the century by scholars and playwrights. Boileau in his Poetic Art in 1674 will only resume and summarize in effective verses rules already applied.

The rules of classical theater
It is the likelihood rule, explained above, which is at the origin of all the rules of classical theater.
“That in one day, that in one place, only one accomplished fact / Hold until the end the theater filled. ”

These two lines by Boileau summarize the famous rule of three units: the action must take place in twenty-four hours (unit of time), in a single place (unit of place) and must only consist of a single plot (action unit). These rules have two main purposes. On the one hand, it is a question of making the theatrical action plausible, because the sets do not need to change and the action takes place in a time which could be the time of the representation. On the other hand the action is easier to follow, because the complicated plots mixing many characters are proscribed in favor of linear plots centered on few characters. These rules have led to a form of internalization of actions. Indeed, speech has developed at the expense of the spectacular and the classical pieces give a lot of room for the expression of feelings and psychological analysis.

The rule of decency obliges to represent on scene only what will not shock the public. We exclude physical violence, but also physical intimacy. The violent scenes must therefore be told by a character. Some exceptions have remained famous such as the deaths of Phèdre and Dom Juan in the eponymous plays of Racine and Molière as well as the madness of the character of Oreste in Andromaque.

Examples of classicist playwrights are Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine and Molière. In the period of Romanticism, Shakespeare, who conformed to none of the classical rules, became the focus of French argument over them, in which the Romantics eventually triumphed; Victor Hugo was among the first French playwrights to break these conventions.

The influence of these French rules on playwrights in other nations is debatable. In the English theatre, Restoration playwrights such as William Wycherly and William Congreve would have been familiar with them. William Shakespeare and his contemporaries did not follow this Classicist philosophy, in particular since they were not French and also because they wrote several decades prior to their establishment. Those of Shakespeare’s plays that seem to display the unities, such as The Tempest, probably indicate a familiarity with actual models from classical antiquity.

Tragedy
The tragedy did not exist during the French Middle Ages. It was reborn in the xvi th century after rereading the old tragic. It transforms everything in the xvi th and xvii th century. It first evolves towards what has been called tragicomedy by feeding on increasingly romantic intrigue. But learned and playwrights defend a return to a model more in keeping with ancient canons and it ultimately becomes the grand genre of the classical era. This is why the rules set out above apply primarily to tragedy.

Tragedy is therefore first defined by its subject and its characters. A tragic play must have a mythical or historical subject. His characters are heroes, kings or at least characters of very high nobility. The style adopted must be in accordance with the height of those who utter the text. Most of the tragedies are written in Alexandrian and they always respect a high style. We have often assimilated tragedy and an unhappy end. While it is true that the majority of tragedies end badly, this is not a defining criterion, as some tragedies end well.

As in the ancient theater, the tragedy has a moral end. It must allow spectators to improve on a moral level by fighting some of their passions. Following Aristotle, we consider that the tragedy must inspire “terror and pity” in the face of the fate of heroes crushed by the consequences of their mistakes. These two feelings must allow the spectators to dissociate themselves from the passions which pushed the heroes to act and therefore not to reproduce them themselves. Furthermore, classical theorists took up from Aristotle the notion of catharsis which roughly means purging of passions. The idea is that by seeing characters animated by violent passions, the spectators will somehow fulfill their own passions and free themselves from them.

The great classic tragedian is Racine. He writes tragedies where the heroes are condemned by fatality, locked in a destiny which reveals the absurdity of their existence and can only lead them to death.
Corneille evolves during his career from baroque to classical. His tragedies give much more value to the hero who, although often condemned to a fatal outcome, actually becomes a hero in his plays. Corneille was able to propose identification with the hero as a possible way of building up the spectator.
In addition, lyrical tragedies developed in the classical era. This genre is notably represented by Philippe Quinault who works in collaboration withJean-Baptiste Lully. It will lead to the creation of French opera.

Comedy
The comedy of the classical era is very strongly dominated by the figure of Molière even if the comic authors were very numerous. Comedy is much less framed by explicit rules than tragedy because, considered as a minor genre, it hardly interests theorists. We do not have the part of Poetics that Aristotle would have devoted to comic works.

However, an author like Molière tries to give a form of nobility to comedy and is inspired by the rules of classical theater. If the unity of action is rarely respected, the unity of place and time is quite often respected. Above all, following Corneille, he works the intrigue comedy inspired by the Latin comedies of Térence and Plaute. It is therefore inspired by the Ancients. But it also moves away from the farce to contribute to the development of new comedies. They are based on complex plots and can be played in three or five acts. Their characters certainly cannot belong to the great nobility, but they often belong to the bourgeoisie or the lower nobility. Therefore, if the language is of common register and sometimes even familiar, the style is not necessarily very low. Some comedies are even written in Alexandrine. Molière uses the rather coarse comic effects inherited from farce and commedia dell’arte (caning, misunderstanding, etc.), but his comedies are in search of a balance which is not unrelated to good taste. classic.

The moral dimension present in the tragedy is also found in the comedy. Comedies make fun of men’s faults. The spectators should thus be able to move away from the defects represented by laughing at the ridiculousness of the characters. When Molière ridiculed the hypocrisy of false devotees in Tartuffe, he hoped to fight against this hypocrisy. The famous formula “ castigat ridendo mores ” is of uncertain origin, but it was taken up by Molière. It expresses an idea developed by Horace in his poetic art and summarizes this desire to use laughter as a vector of instruction. Molière’s theater is both classical and baroque.

Roman
The novel is considered a very minor genre at this time. Most of them are published anonymously, because a somewhat considered personality could hardly admit to being the author of novels. The first part of the century was characterized by very long and very complex novels. In the classical age, these novels are transformed into short stories. The intrigue is simplified considerably. They draw on a fairly recent historical background while the Baroque novels preferred Antiquity.

Saint-Réal wrote in 1672 Don Carlos, the first “short story” which tells the story of Don Carlos of Spain, son of Philip II of Spain. Madame de La Fayette will situate the action of The Princess of Cleves, a masterpiece of the genre, at the Court of Henry II of France, approximately at the same time. This novel moreover represents well the ambiguities of classicism, because it departs from sentimental novels by its modest volume and the sobriety of its writing, but it takes again certain features of the preciousnessin the painting of feelings. Madame de La Fayette was indeed very precious and her concern was not to oppose in all to a period that would have preceded her.

Poetry in general
The xvii th is a century of literary ferment, and it shows relive all ancient genres. In fact, in the 16th century (the so-called Baroque period), a certain “cultural chauvinism” had led poets to use medieval forms (rondeaux, triplets, madrigals, songs, sonnets), in reaction against the systematic recourse to ancient genres. The xvii th century, him, will see appearing odes (kind already used by Ronsard ), like that on the catch of Namur de Boileau, or those, less known, on Port Royal des Champs by Racine. We see reborn epigrams, like those of Martialor of Ovid, the epistles or the satires of the style of Horace (in particular by Boileau). We are also witnessing the revival of the Homeric or Virgilian type epic. But this genre has had no success. You have to see in particular the Maid of Chapelain, decried by Racine and Boileau. Only the Lutin de Boileau, a satirical epic, remains familiar to us. Jean Pierre Collinet, when he established editions of the works of Boileau and Perrault, pointed out that the xvii th century is, despite appearances, a century without poetry and that only La Fontaine or Racine would escape this rule.