Theatrical technique in seventeenth century prose fiction

Abstract

This dissertation examines a selection of 17th-century French and English novels in order to determine if and how contemporaneous dramatic techniques contributed to the development of the fictional narrative. An analysis of texts by Sorel, Claireville, Scarron, Madeleine de Scudery, Mme de Lafayette, Le Noble, Nashe, Forde, Behn and Congreve indicates that these novelists did introduce dramatic theory and practice in their works to achieve "realism" and psychological effects.

The first part of the dissertation examines cross-generic attitudes in 17th-century French and English literary history, criticism and theory. The literary-intellectual climates were congenial to the development of correspondences in the production and reception of dramatic literature and novelistic fiction. Also important were the activities of literary groups and of playwrights-novelists, and internal factors such as the various interpretations of the concept of verisimilitude. The second part studies the representation of background in novels and finds a close correspondence between the novelists'' attempts to create "realistic" settings and the introduction of two types of perspective in theatrical decors. The third part focusses on the representation of speech in novels. The monologic and dialogic forms of theatrical speech are used discriminately by novelists for plot-and psychological purposes. As on stage, "tragic" fiction favors the soliloquizing monologic mode for analytical situations whereas "action" novels rely on dialogue. In the course of the century, however, the authors studied developed a system independent from the dramatic models in order to represent the novel''s increasing concentration on psychological analysis. The fourth and final part studies the "subtext of performance" that novelists introduced in their texts to create a visual-aural rhetoric and to stimulate a three-dimensional reading of the stories. This subtext consists of "stage indications" and references to character movements, dress, properties, sound and light-effects, and it generally follows contemporary stage practices. Finally, three Dutch novels are examined in an appendix; the analytical model applied to French and English novels does not work for Dutch fiction, perhaps because the theatrical situation, too, was very different in the Netherlands.