Le succès du crime sur scène avec Robert Macaire : modernité théâtrale et protestation sociale au xixe siècle
This paper focuses on the literary and political strength of Robert Macaire, a criminal who first appeared on stage in 1823 when it was played by Frédérick Lemaître. Acting as Robert Macaire, Frédérick Lemaître was the first one to reverse the melodramatic order by shedding a positive light on the c...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Criminocorpus
2012-12-01
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| Series: | Criminocorpus |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/2218 |
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| Summary: | This paper focuses on the literary and political strength of Robert Macaire, a criminal who first appeared on stage in 1823 when it was played by Frédérick Lemaître. Acting as Robert Macaire, Frédérick Lemaître was the first one to reverse the melodramatic order by shedding a positive light on the criminal. In the traditional French melodrama, the traitor was always an unsympathetic character, which prepared the audience for a moralizing outcome of the play, with either remorse from or punishment of the "villain". Frédérick Lemaître undermined this tradition by turning the murderer into a hero. His farcical portrayal of the scoundrel reshaped the status of the character.The article develops four main ideas. First a study of the creation of Robert Macaire in the evolution of the melodrama, then an examination of the multifaceted personality of the character, followed by an analysis of its realistic aspect, and finally a look at the danger he embodied for the legal order of the monarchy during the 1820-1830 years. |
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| ISSN: | 2108-6907 |