Lumières coloniales. Les Antilles françaises dans la république des lettres

Abstract

The fashion for theatre in 18th-century Paris was unprecedented, to the extent that one can say that theatricality was interiorised by high society. Crébillon's novel provides a significant example of this process. On the one hand, the author plays on dramatic or dramatised space, uses theatres as a background, as a trigger of speech (theatre) or as the scene of erotic contemplation (opera). On the other hand, he presents his characters as 'actors in society : accomplished, good or bad actors, but also apprentice actors learning about social interaction. Thus one can draw a parallel between this novel and Diderot's Paradoxe.