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Truth, Lies and Time-Travel: Jean Cocteau in the 'Impromptu' Tradition

  • Jennifer Hatte

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterResearch

Abstract

Heavily influenced by the 'commedia dell'arte', and already in existence by the beginning ofthe seventeenth century, the shore theatrical form known as the 'impromptu', was at first and, as Lise Gauvin reminds us, often still is, no more than a 'divertissement', a curtain raiser with little or no serious content. Molière, with his 'Impromptu de Versailles', transformed the genre by making of his 'comédie des comédiens' a vehicle for both satire of his rivalsand rebuttal oftheir criticisms, while also providing a platform from which to broadcast his own poetics of theatre.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationFrench Seventeenth-Century Literature : Influences and Transformations : essays in honour of Christopher J. Gossip
EditorsJane Southwood, Bernard Bourque
Place of PublicationNew York, United States of America
PublisherPeter Lang
Pages117-138
Edition1
ISBN (Print)9783039115372
Publication statusPublished - 2009

Publication series

NameMedieval and early modern French studies
Number7
ISSN (Electronic)1661-8653

Keywords

  • Literature in French

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