"Sujets précieux": Comedy and conversion in Françoise Pascal's Agathonphile martyr, tragi-comédie
Abstract
Françoise Pascal (1632-1689) is the little-known author of various plays, poetry, and an epistolary novel. This presentation, drawn from a research article funded by UVM’s Humanities Center Summer Research Award, presents Pascal in the context of her ‘préciosité’ and her participation in a constellation of theatrical, literary, and religious developments of seventeenth century France. Focusing on her first tragicomedy, Agathonphile martyr (1655), I consider how Pascal reconceptualizes theatrical conventions in her rare example of a tragicomedy with a tragic ending. The comic elements present in this tragic conclusion invite new possibilities for reading feminine agency in seventeenth-century literature.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Joseph Acquisto
Status
Undergraduate
Student College
College of Arts and Sciences
Program/Major
French
Primary Research Category
Arts & Humanities
"Sujets précieux": Comedy and conversion in Françoise Pascal's Agathonphile martyr, tragi-comédie
Françoise Pascal (1632-1689) is the little-known author of various plays, poetry, and an epistolary novel. This presentation, drawn from a research article funded by UVM’s Humanities Center Summer Research Award, presents Pascal in the context of her ‘préciosité’ and her participation in a constellation of theatrical, literary, and religious developments of seventeenth century France. Focusing on her first tragicomedy, Agathonphile martyr (1655), I consider how Pascal reconceptualizes theatrical conventions in her rare example of a tragicomedy with a tragic ending. The comic elements present in this tragic conclusion invite new possibilities for reading feminine agency in seventeenth-century literature.