The Dramaturgy Of Beaumarchais's Figaro Trilogy

In the history of French drama and literature,Pierre-Auguste Caron de Beaumarchais is a dramatist that cannot be ignored.His masterpiece "The Figaro Trilogy" holds an important position in the field of international literary research.His conceptions on the "serious genre" and the traditional comedy,as well as his theatre practice in the "Trilogy" not only contributed to deconstruct the classical drama,but also exerted a considerable influence over modern and contemporary drama writing in the western world.Today,beyond the political,the historic and the social areas,western research on Beaumarchais is focusing on the dramaturgy of his works.On the other hand,Chinese research on that topic lacks depth and systematic approach.That is why it is both necessary and urgent to get back to this brilliant trilogy and rediscover the aesthetic value of Beaumarchais theory and practice.Based on the text of "The Figaro Trilogy" composed of "The Barber of Seville","The Marriage of Figaro" and "The Guilty Mother",our dissertation aims to address the aesthetic value of Beaumarchais's dramatic art and set him as a playwright in the theoretical history of drama.The body of our study falls into five chapters.The first chapter deals with the "theoretical and dramatic context".The research describes the French drama environment in the ??th when Beaumarchais started his drama career.At that time,neo-tragedy and neo-comedy were developing respectively and eventually merged:this led to the birth of the "serious genre"(le genre serieux),a literary genre halfway between tragedy and comedy.The theory of the serious genre by Diderot and its implementation was a considerable event in the history of drama and marked an attitude of rupture with classicism.In spite of very positive suggestions,that theory could not avoid some contradictions and thus failed to last.As the worthy successor of the serious genre theorist,Beaumarchais managed to get out of this difficult situation and opened a new perspective in the theory of drama.He objected to the strict separation of tragedy and comedy and argued in favour of the merging of dramatic genres.He also recommended mixing drama with the novel,giving importance to the latter,changed the actor-audience relationship and advocated the coexistence of Diderot's "drama painting" and the coup de theatre with the metadramatic discourse.That is the theoretical basis of Beaumarchais's dramaturgy.The first chapter lays the foundations for the analysis and interpretation of the text in the lines to come.From the second chapter to the fifth,we present a further analysis of the three characteristics of Beaumarchais's dramaturgy:the mixed genre(tragedy and comedy),the merging of literary genres(the drama and the novel)and the metadramatic discourseThe second chapter is called the mixed genre.It implies going beyond the sheer separation between tragedy and comedy established by classicism and thus creating the new mixed genre.Beaumarchais thought it was unnecessary to respect the rules that were already outmoded.Subjects would deal with events from everyday life in order to move the public.He strongly recommended the blurring of dramatic genres First,he completed his drama experience through the practice of the "parades"(amusing and scabrous popular playlets),then tackled drama,and later concluded with the elaboration of an efficient principle meeting the expectations of his audience:the mixture of comic and "dramic" genres.In Beaumarchais's serious genre conception,the comic mode did no longer reproduced Moliere's satirical trend and boisterous laughter,but belonged more to silent compassion and smiling.Not only did he restore the straightforward gaiety of the French nation,but he also included the characteristics of the "parade";the new genre did not exclude moral happiness,on the contrary,it exercised a morally improving effect on the audience.What does"dramic"mean?This chapter will analyze its definition and its demonstrations.After having examined the definitions of "comic" and "dramic",we shall analyze the principle of merging "comic" and "dramic" elements in the "Trilogy".The mixed genre was a remarkable novelty in the drama movement.It discarded all obstacles within the drama tradition and succeeded to extricate itself out of classicism.Thus,it allowed going deeper into the renewal of drama.Chapters ? and ? develop the progressive weaving of intimate links between"The Figaro Trilogy" and the novel.The rise of the novel in the ??th century brought new elements to French drama.Beaumarchais noted the advantages of the novel at the level of the narrative,the time and space,the characters and recommended the mixture of literary genres.This mixture showed itself on two levels:1.The narrative intrusion in the dramatic text through stage-directions.2.The coexistence of the "drama painting" and the coup de theatre.This is the content of the third chapter.The aim of describing the stage-directions within the framework of the drama text served to transform the textuality into theatrality.The numerous and detailed stage-directions formed static "drama paintings" and brought a textual tension.Beaumarchais recommended the construction of "drama painting" within the plot in order to go far beyond the dull "drama painting" advocated by Diderot,allowing thus drama to gain new vitality.On the basis of this novelized drama,the mixture of genres by Beaumarchais kept moving forward.In order to enrich his plays with more plots,Beaumarchais used the ancient form of the trilogy.That dramatic form helped solve the problem of the rupture between form and content and at the same time changed time and space and the characters of the play.This is the content of the fourth chapter.The playwright used two different means of dedramatization to change the linear process of traditional drama:retrospection and anticipation.The action could be set into the past and future as well.Thus,the standard of dramatic time was radically modified.The novelized drama would appear from the time unity.On the other hand,the form of the trilogy also changed the traditional caricatured characters.Time passing indefinitely,the character became one who owned a past,a present and a future.The character seemed real and was no longer an abstract entity as it used to be in the classical drama.The reappearance and development of each character linked all three elements of the trilogy as an organic body.Beaumarchais succeeded in staging the novel of Almaviva.The drama was no longer considered drama within someone's life,but rather,drama of someone's life.After the mixture of literary genres,the basic elements of drama:action,figures,time and space tended to become outmoded and the form of the drama became somewhat looser.Chapter ? shows how the metadramatic discourse divides the dramatic story.Transforming himself into the narrator of a novelized text,the playwright talked about his own experience and the change of time.Exposing a theatrical form machine,he knocked over Diderot's "fourth wall's",tore the time and space elements of a theatre closed in upon itself.The illusory time of the text and the real time of the theatre performance merged and from this,theatrality emerged.This was the aim of contemporary drama writing:to avoid illusion and to expose the artificiality of the theatre stage,thus making that world of drama a place to ask questions.The metadramatic discourse embodied itself as a game in front of a mirror and through the autobiographic elements,which brought the narration onto the stage,and thus renewed the relationship between the actor and the audience.We may conclude that "The Figaro Trilogy" by Beaumarchais had the characteristics of the novel for each play and the trilogy as a whole.The mixed theatre genre,the merging of literary genres and the metadramatic discourse constituted a logical development of drama in "The Figaro trilogy",but also an inventive dramatic process.These three technical characteristics of Beaumarchais's dramaturgy formed the organic unity of his dramatic art poetics,which were closely related to the social and literary background of his time,to the development of drama itself and to the perception of Beaumarchais's creativity.Through his dramaturgy of novelization and its successful achievement in "The Figaro trilogy",Beaumarchais completed the theater revolution of the 18th century,out of classicism,guided the French drama into New Times,and announced the future of modern French theater.