Le projet esthétique de Beaumarchais

Abstract

Pierre Hartmann : Beaumarchais's aesthetic project. The novelty and originality of Beaumarchais's dramatic language have long been recognised, but the importance of his poetic writings has often been underestimated. This article undertakes a new reading not only of his Essai sur le genre dramatique sérieux but also of the different prefaces he wrote for his theatrical works. This new perspective shows the existence of a coherent aesthetic project which reveals both a playwright convinced of Enlightenment philosophy and a writer involved in the political struggles of his time. At the centre of his aesthetic project is a democratic redefinition of the notion of the public which is the incarnation of "general opinion". Thus Figaro is the perfect representative of the nation and of that "frank and true gaiety" which aristocratic taste had expelled from the theatre ; Beaumarchais proposed to reinstate it, thus creating a sort of alliance between the "assembled public" and the innovating artist, a genius in Diderot's and perhaps already Hugo's sense.