‘I have become all things to all men [and women] that I might by all means save some’ (I Corinthians 9:22, KJV). Theatricality and conversion in the poetry of Pierre Le Moyne

Abstract

The exceptionally diverse and extensive literary output of the Jesuit poet Pierre Le Moyne is full of apparent paradoxes and ambiguities which have always proved a challenge to commentators, from his own contemporaries to the present day. This article takes as its starting point the recent recovery of a detailed account of Le Moyne’s first known creation, a spectacular dramatic production put on by the Jesuit college in Reims, to consider a pervasive, but relatively unstudied, feature of his works: the poet’s frequent allusions to the theatre, and, beyond this, the relationship between his strikingly original imagination and the creative techniques of dramatists and actors. It is argued that these are crucial to the ways in which he sets out to engage his worldly readers, and to encourage a receptive response to the moral and spiritual ideals which he seeks to transmit.