The formation of the literary canon of the French drama of the XVI century

Abstract

This article examines the gradual formation of the literary canon of the French Renaissance theater, which subsequently largely predetermined the emergence and further evolution of classical drama. The subject of the study is the principles of dramatic art, which are formulated by poets and theorists of the XVI century in the framework of poetic texts and treatises. The purpose of the work is to identify possible stages of the formation of the theatrical canon in Renaissance France, to compare its principles with medieval theater, to determine to which stage the emergence of ideas about classical theater based on ancient models belongs, to identify the factors that influenced its development. В В The novelty of the research lies in an attempt to comprehensively analyze poetic texts and treatises, which make it possible to recreate the processes that took place in the XVI century in the field of French theater, as well as to compare them both with the medieval tradition and with gradually emerging classicism. The relevance of the work lies in the fact that in literary studies there is a need to understand how the classical principles of French drama are formed on the material of poetical works of the Renaissance. As a result, it is obvious that in the process of forming the canon of the French Renaissance theater, three stages can be distinguished. The first of them is connected with the publication of the manifesto of Joachin Du Bellay, which fixes a "gap" in the field of drama in French literature and calls for filling it. For the implementation of the second stage, the figure of Etienne Jodel, the author of the tragedy "Captive Cleopatra", who embodied an attempt to revive the ancient tragedy, and the comedy "Eugene", becomes decisive. So in France of the XVI century. there was a national theatrical tradition, which can be considered a literary canon. The third stage of its formation was the recognition of Jodel's achievements at the level of poetry theory. In 1555 Jacques Peletier in "Poetic Art" cited both works as examples of tragedy and comedy, which contributed to the consolidation of the canon.