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Figaro's Games

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

Walter E. Rex
Walter E. Rex*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

Whereas literary sources and theatrical conventions such as the unities are quite important for the appreciation of Beaumarchais's Barbier de Séville and La Mère coupable, they prove curiously unhelpful when trying to approach the unique qualities of Le Manage de Figaro. The special ambience of this play is related not to ordinary literary traditions, but to the separate category of children's games. From Cherubin's hide-and-seek in Act I to the grand game of blindman's buff in Act v, these are what give the action of the play its unity and also create the special quality of the fun in the play. Because of the time of life these games imply (i.e., childhood), there is also a special quality to the play's revolutionary overtones. Thus, in many senses, the end of the play represents the ushering in of a new age.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 89 , Issue 3 , May 1974 , pp. 524 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1974

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Footnotes

*

This paper was delivered in a slightly different form at the French 5 meeting of the 1972 MLA Annual Convention, in New York, 27 Dec. I wish to thank Georges May of Yale and Jean Le Corbeiller of New York City for their useful suggestions.

References

Note 1 in page 528 See Introd. to Le Mariage de Figaro, ed. Annie Ubers-feld (Paris: Editions Sociales, 1957).

Note 2 in page 528 Jean Fabre, “Beaumarchais,” in Histoire des littératures, ed. Raymond Queneau, m (Paris: Encyclopédie de la Pléiade, 1958), 784.

Note 3 in page 528 See T. E. Lawrenson's ed. of Lesage, Crispin rival de son maître (London: Univ. of London Press, 1961), pp. 26–33, and E. J. Arnould's ed. of Le Mariage de Figaro (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1952), pp. xxxvi-xxxvii.

Note 4 in page 528 La Dramaturgie de Beaumarchais (Paris: Nizet, 1954).

Note 5 in page 528 These and other sources are reviewed in René Pomeau, Beaumarchais (Paris: Hatier, 1967), pp. 168–77. A useful bibliography of this question and other problems connected with Figaro will be found in John Hampton, “Research on Le Mariage de Figaro,” French Studies, 16 (1962), 24–31.

Note 6 in page 528 “The Theme of the ‘Droit du seigneur’ in Eighteenth-Century Theatre,” French Studies, 15 (1961), 228–39.

Note 7 in page 528 1 intend no disagreement here with the informed and subtle discussion in Robert Niklaus' Beaumarchais: Le Barbier de Seville (London: Edward Arnold, 1968), pp. 21–24; it is rather that I am approaching the question from a different direction.

Note 8 in page 528 Most critics, from Sainte-Beuve and Francisque Sarcey to Arnould (p. xxxiii) have found the structure defective from the standpoint of unity.

Note 9 in page 528 I am not aware of any other commentator who has used the present approach in analyzing the play. However, Philippe Van Tieghem has made some pertinent remarks about the game spirit in Beaumarchais (especially jeux d'escrime and jeux d'esprit) in Beaumarchais par lui-même (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1960), pp. 32–37, and presumably the forthcoming Actes of the colloquium on 18th-century games held recently in Aix-en-Provence will contain material relevant to the present topic.

Note 10 in page 529 Marivaux is to some degree an exception; however, games in Marivaux's plays almost never exist in the pure state they do in Figaro.

Note 11 in page 529 Tartuffe i.iv. Cf. Gaston Hall, Molière: Tartuffe (London: Edward Arnold, 1960), p. 20.

Note 12 in page 529 For such observations I am indebted to Iona and Peter Opie, Children's Games in Street and Playground (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1969).

Note 13 in page 529 See his words at the conclusion of the scene of Chéru-bin's brevet (ii.xxi): “(À part) C'est ce Figaro qui les mène, et je ne m'en vengerais pas ? (Il veut sortir de dépit.)”

Note 14 in page 529 Homo Ludens: A Study of Play-Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), Ch. iv, “Play and Law,” pp. 76–88. Cf. Arnould, p. xxxiv.

Note 15 in page 529 I. and P. Opie, pp. 18–25. Children instinctively shun the role.

Note 16 in page 529 Cf. Scherer, pp. 161–63.

Note 17 in page 529 See the concluding remarks of the chapter on Beaumarchais by Robert Niklaus, The Eighteenth Century (1715–1789), in Vol. m of A Literary History of France, gen. ed. P. E. Chavet (London: Benn, and New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967).