L'emploi de la prose chez d'Aubignac

One of the most striking aspects of abbé d'Aubignac's dramatic works is the use of prose. The majority of tragedies and tragicomedies of seventeenth-century France were written in verse. The article demonstrates that d'Aubignac was uncomfortable with the convention of versification. However, despite his mission as a dramatic theorist to impose the rule of verisimilitude on the stage and despite the absence of verse in his own plays, d'Aubignac did not take up the challenge of defending the use of prose in theatre. The established form of dramatic expression in seventeenth-century tragedy and tragicomedy was therefore a source of compromise in d'Aubignac's own dramatic system.