PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names N INA E KSTEIN (T RINITY U NIVERSITY , S AN A NTONIO ) The proper name is an almost universal feature of Western theater. With the exception of certain experimental plays - those of Beckett, most obviously -, theater typically makes use of proper names both to designate embodied characters who appear on stage and to refer to someone who never appears, and who is thus a purely linguistic presence. The proper name is ubiquitous and vital to the creation of a fictional universe. Leo Spitzer calls the proper name “l’impératif catégorique du personnage” (222) and Roland Barthes refers to it as “le prince des signifiants” (“Analyse” 34). A proper name is what Saul Kripke terms a “rigid designator,” that is, one that refers to the same object in all possible worlds. 1 It is thus as stable a sign of identity as one is likely to find in literature. Proper names have not gone unnoticed in the study of the French classical theater. Alain Faudemay discusses the use of proper names in Corneille’s plays, focusing particularly on their placement; Jean Prophète devotes an entire book-length study to what he terms “le para-personnage” in Racine’s theater. 2 In this study, I would like to do something quite different, casting a wide net and considering the issues raised globally rather than as a key to the interpretation of individual plays. I will concentrate on the broad presence of names that appear in seventeenthcentury theater: known or unknown to the audience, repeated several times 1 Kipke 48. John Searle concurs: “It is characteristic of a proper name that it is used to refer to the same object on different occasions” (489). Stratis Kyriakidis focuses on the temporal aspect of this rigidity: “Unlike all other things, it [the proper name] may alone continue its existence through time” (130); as does Jean Starobinski: “C’est lui [the proper name] qui traversera la durée en résistant à la durée. C’est à lui que sera délégué la permanence de l’être” (61). 2 Onamastics has also been the focus of several studies relating to seventeenthcentury French theater: see Constance Cagnat-Deboeuf, Stéphane Natan, and Betty Davis (“Molière” and “From Précieuses”). Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 134 or merely once, crucial or incidental. I will move beyond the names of individuals who never appear on stage to consider as well place names and names of peoples. Of central interest will be how seventeenth-century playwrights employ names to develop, broaden, and populate their dramatic universe. My corpus is made up largely of tragedies, but with select comedies and tragicomedies as well; it includes 66 plays of the period, including all of the plays by Corneille and Racine (see appendix at the end). Indeed, much of what follows deals largely with those two playwrights, primarily because both were masters at grasping the rich potential of names. 3 The profound difference between the names of the characters one encounters on stage and unembodied proper names bears emphasizing. The physical embodiment provided by the actor brings the character to life in a manner outside the realm of the possible for a mere name. Indeed, the global absence of the physical support provided by actors can be said to be the primary shortcoming of a play as read rather than performed. Characters that are only named on stage bear a strong resemblance to characters in a novel, and share many of the same features. The proper name in itself, absent embodiment by an actor, has a certain power of generation and creation. Barthes puts it well: “Ce qui donne l’illusion que la somme est supplémentée d’un reste précieux (quelque chose comme l’individualité, en ce que, qualitative, elle échapperait à la vulgaire comptabilité des caractères composants), c’est le Nom Propre, la différence remplie de son propre” (S/ Z 197). Just what that “propre” might be is related to questions of reference, but also to the possibility that the name itself may convey meaning. 4 Proper names, even of individuals who seem to have little importance in a play, raise the question of meaning attached to the name. Almost invariably, the names in our study offer cultural harmony, such as Roman names appearing in plays situated in Rome, etc. The theoretical issue of whether proper names have no meaning on their own and are purely referential or whether they constitute a kind of descriptive predicate 3 Georges Forestier approaches this issue obliquely by stating that Racine followed “Corneille dans la voie de ‘l’ingénieuse tissure des fictions avec la vérité, où consiste le plus beau secret de la Poésie’: parmi les épigones de Corneille, il [Racine] est le seul qui ait eu cette ambition” (1999 xlviii). 4 Searle offers an in-depth discussion of whether meaning (what he terms “description”) precedes or follows naming. While he points out that “we do not have definitions of most proper names” (488), he also discusses the need for proper names to perform reference, and that reference “never occurs in complete isolation from description, for without some description, reference would be altogether impossible” (491). Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 135 is of limited pertinence in this context. 5 In the tragedies and comédies héroïques in our corpus the proper names are either taken from history, legend, or myth, or seem to have been. While Hélène Merlin-Kajman asserts that in the seventeenth century the proper name was perceived as a sign open to deciphering (326), generally speaking, the names themselves of characters who do not appear on stage do not arrest our attention as having a particular significance beyond cultural homogeneity. Michael Riffaterre points out that “Emblematic names, that is to say, patronymics with a meaning related to the part played by their bearers in a story, are especially blatant indices of fictionality” (33). However, as we shall see, names in seventeenth-century theater are concerned with referentiality, not fictionality. This study has its origins in multiple readings of Virgil’s Aeneid. 6 During one of those readings I was struck by the enormous number of names in the epic. They provide context and function as a kind of complex backdrop, a viscous morass of references through which the reader must wade. They are of varying importance: known and unknown, names alone or in catalogues, at times accompanied by mini-narratives or short genealogies. At times they seem to overwhelm the action. Names from the future, names from the past, names of current comrades and enemies. 7 The Aeneid is a highly populated work, as are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Of course, Virgil’s and Homer’s texts are epics and not theater, but the parallels between the use of proper names in the ancient epic and in French classical theater are striking. Ancient Greek tragedy is itself rife with the names of characters who never appear on stage, such as, for example, the dead relatives of the House of Atreus who are mentioned, some often, in Æschylus’s Oresteia or Sophocles’s Antigone. As Robert Byrd asserts, “The unseen character was almost certainly a part of the theatre from its beginnings” (2). An overview of the terrain, particularly the parameters for inclusion and the different types of names that appear in these 66 plays, is necessary at this juncture. Only names of characters who never appear on stage will be considered. A case could easily be made that a character functions merely as a name until s/ he comes on stage. Phorbas, for example, in Corneille’s Œdipe is mentioned 15 times before he finally appears in Act IV, scene 3; 5 See Claire Beyssade 150-51. 6 I will not pretend to be a scholar of classical antiquity, but I have long taught a first-year seminar on ancient Greek and Roman texts, whence 14 careful readings of the Aeneid. 7 Robert Fagles’s edition of the Aeneid includes a complete index of names, running some 60 pages. Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 136 Tartuffe’s name is mentioned 20 times in Molière’s play before the audience sees him (III,2); a particularly late appearance is made by the goddess Diane in Rotrou’s Iphigénie - in the final scene of the play - , after reference is made to her throughout. However, the fundamental difference between a name spoken and a character embodied leads me to exclude this group, even though the spectator may have a long wait before encountering them “in the flesh.” I exclude titles, such as “roi,” “empereur,” or even “César.” Titles imply a social, political role; the proper name is more unalloyed and specific. I include periphrases that contain a proper name: the audience knows that “le fils de Maurice” refers to Corneille’s Héraclius; the paraphrase thus provides both the name spoken and the name understood, thereby enriching the context. 8 However, I omit paraphrases that do not themselves contain proper names (e.g. “fils du roi”). Such descriptors are shifters, while the proper name is not. The result is that the focus here is not on the degree of saturation of a character in the language of the play, a piece of information that would be valuable, but outside of my purview. Rather, the subject is the proper name itself. Thus places that are names are counted (e.g. la Place Royale) and those that are not are ruled out (e.g., la Cour). Abstractions such as l’Amour, la Fortune, l’Hymen, too, are excluded on the grounds that they are insufficiently individualized. 9 Given the verse form of most seventeenth-century French theater, questions of euphony are pertinent to any discussion of these proper names. Some names, either because of their sonority or their propensity to rhyme easily will no doubt tend to appear more often, although to what degree it would be impossible to specify, while those that offer neither advantage may well be shunned. “Hélène” and “Rome” are obvious examples of easily rhymed and euphonious names, while “Torianius” (Émilie’s father in Corneille’s Cinna) is not. 10 A clear indicator of the importance of euphony is the rather widespread and curious treatment of the names of Greek and Roman gods. Historically, the Romans adopted numerous Greek gods and 8 See Natan for a discussion of the role of periphrasis in Racine’s Andromaque; also Jules Brody 444. 9 The equivalences between the gods of antiquity and such terms (e.g. Amour = Venus) causes some problems, as when Pradon has Hippolyte say “Je méprisai l’Amour, et j’adorai Diane” (Phèdre et Hippolyte 122). I have made judgment calls as needed. 10 Faudemay says of the place name “Rome”: “Le lieu du monde qui dit le mieux la puissance du nom rime, justement, avec nomme” (419), while André Lebois notes that “même Corneille recule devant Cacan, roi des Avariens ou Huns et devant Cunibert [Rodelinde’s son in Pertharite]” (188). Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 137 changed their names, generally to something quite different. Yet in Corneille’s Médée, Racine’s Iphigénie and Phèdre, as well as Rotrou’s Iphigénie, one finds the Roman names of gods in an ancient Greek context. It would seem that “Vénus,” for example, is easier to handle in alexandrine verse than “Aphrodite.” Even more surprising is the fact that Racine in Phèdre, as well as Corneille in Œdipe, use both the Greek name “Alcide” and the Roman “Hercule” to refer to the same individual. 11 The doubling of the signifier (the proper name), while perhaps a reflection of the Greek practice to refer to gods by more than one name, adds a slightly destabilizing note. In both plays “Hercule” invariably appears at the beginning of the line while “Alcide” appears at the end, in the rhyming position. One may conclude that it is easier to find a word to rhyme with “Alcide” than with “Hercule.” 12 Corneille’s Rodogune offers a curious example of name avoidance for both euphonic and substantive reasons. As Corneille explains in his Examen to the play, he does not permit the name “Cléopâtre” to be uttered by any character on stage because he wants to avoid any confusion between his Cléopâtre and the notorious Egyptian queen. 13 Christian Biet notes that the play’s refusal to speak the queen’s name parallels her silence concerning the identity of the elder twin (“C’est un scélérat” 73). 14 Euphonic reasons also have some role to play, as the queen’s name is long and its ending in “âtre” is neither pleasant-sounding nor easy to rhyme. Coupled with the suppression of Cléopâtre’s name, Corneille includes two characters with the name “Antiochus” in Rodogune. The latter name refers to both the onstage son of Cléopâtre and the now-dead brother of Nicanor, whom Cléopâtre married when she believed Nicanor to be dead. The name of the onstage Antiochus is nearly silenced as well, appearing only twice, and not until the fourth act. 15 11 In Phèdre, Alcide: I,1,78, II,2,470; Hercule: II,1,454, III,5,943. In Œdipe, Alcide: V,5,1822; Hercule: I,4,306. 12 Dominique Moncond’huy notes the relative ease or difficulty of finding a rhyming word, using, respectively, the examples of “Junie” and “César” (122). 13 “...Cléopâtre, que je n’ai même osé nommer dans mes vers, de peur qu’on ne confondît cette reine de Syrie avec cette fameuse princesse d’Égypte qui portait même nom, et que l’idée de celle-ci, beaucoup plus connue que l’autre, ne semât une dangereuse préoccupation parmi les auditeurs” (Corneille, Examen to Rodogune, 2: 199). 14 See also Ralph Albanese’s excellent article on Rodogune. Biet remarks as well that the Egyptian Cléopâtre was considered “innommable” by Virgil, Horace, and Propertius, none of whom ever used her name in their writings: “Tous trois conviennent du fait que Cléopâtre est un nom maudit” (“C’est un scélérat” 74). 15 Albanese notes that the twins - Antiochus and Séleucus - never address each other by name (5). Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 138 Categorizing the names of characters who never appear on stage is both illuminating and in certain respects futile, as no category is truly discrete. Roughly speaking, one may posit four categories of types of names in our corpus: 1) the historical, 2) the legendary or mythological, 3) the divine, and 4) the purely fictional. It was of course standard practice in seventeenth-century theater to take the subjects of tragedies from ancient and/ or historical sources. The fact that the names of characters who never appear on stage come primarily from the first two categories is evidence of the playwrights’ efforts to create a broad and well-populated dramatic universe. The names in the first group are historically attested, while legendary and mythological ones predate history and perhaps exceed the vraisemblable. (e.g., Médée or Persée). The distinction between the two groups, however, is imprecise. Names such as Néron or Pompée are so legendary that they seem as mythological as they are historical. 16 And classicists often interrogate the possibility of historical origins for characters of Greek myth. A mythical name is by its very nature a trigger for multiple associations, stories, and characteristics. 17 Legendary and mythological names are very widely distributed in tragedy, but also found, interestingly enough, in a few comedies. In Corneille’s first play Mélite, scenes of Éraste's folie are peopled with names (and places as well), all from myth and none referencing the “real” world (see especially IV,6, IV,8, IV,9, and V,2). The introduction of mythological names is a sign of the protagonist’s madness, a non-differentiation of reality and fantasy. Divinities, whether individuated Greek and Roman gods or the Judeo- Christian God, pose special problems. First, as a general rule, gods do not appear on the classical stage. 18 A liminal case is the disembodied voice that may be that of Dieu in Rotrou’s Saint Genest; that voice speaks four lines of encouragement to Genest who is being slowly drawn to Christianity. 19 The 16 Within our corpus, the name “Néron” appears in Corneille’s Othon and Tite et Bérénice, Racine’s Britannicus and Bérénice, and Tristan’s La Mort de Sénèque. Pompée’s name appears in Corneille’s Cinna, La Mort de Pompée, and Andromède; Racine’s Mithridate; and Rotrou’s Saint Genest. 17 See Kyriakidis 84-85 and Faudemay 425. For Ubersfeld, “[t]out l’usage que fait Racine des noms propres mythologiques a cette signification : c’est une plongée au royaume de l’inconscient” (64). 18 Exceptions include Corneille’s machine plays, certain of his prologues and intermèdes, a few comedies (e.g., Molière’s Amphitryon, Rotrou’s Les Sosies), and the tragédie-ballet collaboration Psyché (in Corneille, vol. 3). 19 Poursuis, Genest, ton personnage; Tu n’imiteras point en vain; Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 139 “Dieu caché,” for obvious reasons of bienséance and vraisemblance, is the norm. Second, “Dieu” is a tricky name because the word is often employed in exclamations or even at times as filler to reach the twelve syllables in a line. The plural “Dieux” does not count as a name, because it refers to a multitude of divinities and thus is not a proper name as defined above; it too is often merely an exclamation. The religious plays in our corpus (Le Véritable Saint Genest, Corneille’s Polyeucte, Racine’s Esther and Athalie) make massive use of “Dieu” and “Dieux”; the word “Dieu” appears 156 times in Athalie, both sung by the chorus and spoken by characters. More subtle, Saint Genest offers two systems of categorizing the naming of the divine: within the interior play as opposed to the play itself; and second, between “Dieu” and “Dieux.” The fact that “Dieu” is mentioned 49 times in total, while “Dieux” appears 57 times may be read to support interpretations of this complex play that acknowledge its undecidability, such as those of Jean-Pierre Cavaillé or John Lyons (Saint Genest). 20 Whereas divinities have little place on stage in seventeenth-century French theater, fictional characters are typically embodied. And while fictional names are obviously more at home in comedy and tragicomedy, where the playwright is not constricted by the source material, genre matters little. Non-historically-attested characters appear frequently in the tragedies; one can point to Sabine in Corneille’s Horace, Émilie in Cinna, or Dircé in Œdipe (to say nothing of the invariably fictional confidants and other secondary characters). But fictional characters of some significance to the play’s action are not evoked by name, as a general rule, without also appearing on stage. Comedy allows for some exceptions, such as Prince Florilame in the fifth act of Corneille’s L’Illusion comique or Dorante’s invented wife and father-in-law in Corneille’s Le Menteur, but even in comedy, fictional unembodied proper names are uncommon. A second means of categorizing unembodied characters involves whether they belong to the pre-dramatic past or the offstage present. This division according to the dimensions of time (the first case) and space (the second) goes to the heart of the organization of the French classical stage. Names that refer to an individual situated in the past (e.g., Pirithoüs in Phèdre, Néron in Othon) work to create context and may even help to define the character who utters their name. Such names are world-building. Names from the past can be further differentiated by their relative distance in time from the onstage present: Pasiphaé (Phèdre) may be long dead, but Ménécée Ton salut ne dépend que d’un peu de courage, Et Dieu t’y prêtera la main. (II,5,421-24) 20 In Polyeucte the situation is reversed: “Dieu” appears 42 times versus 36 for “Dieux.” Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 140 in Rotrou’s Antigone has just died when the play opens. Such distinctions work to support a temporal layering of the dramatic world. In contrast, the offstage absent individual populates the immediate dramatic universe through the mention of his or her name. The restricted space of the stage opens up to include such characters as the active Calchas in Racine’s Iphigénie, the passive Flavie in Corneille’s Théodore, or the menacing Amurat in Racine’s Bajazet. The eponymous Pompée of Corneille’s play actually moves from the second category to the first: in Act I he is offstage and we learn he is ready to come ashore in Alexandria; by Act II he belongs to the past because he has been murdered. Restrictions of time and space govern the need for proper names in a manner reminiscent of the récit. It is thus not surprising to find a relatively high density of proper names in extended récits. The third means of categorization that I would like to propose concerns the importance of the role played by the named individual. One may establish a continuum with at one end a name without a known referent and at the other a full-blown absent character who is crucial to the play’s action, such as Sylla in Corneille’s Sertorius, Pompée in La Mort de Pompée, or Amurat in Bajazet. It stands to reason that the more often a proper name is mentioned, the more significant that character is to the action of the play. It is nonetheless worth noting how passive many of these oft-named characters in fact are, even those who belong to the offstage universe rather than the past. A good number of them die during the course of the play (e.g., Hémon in Œdipe, Flavie in Théodore, Aétius in Corneille’s Attila, Don Garcie in Corneille’s Don Sanche, as well as the eponymous Pompée); Pison in Othon, while mentioned 55 times by name, does absolutely nothing; Octavie and Pallas suffer Néron’s mistreatment nearby offstage without giving any indication of reaction (Britannicus), and Mandane merely approaches the city of Séleucie (Corneille’s Suréna). Of course absent characters who are passive make perfect sense, as it is largely on stage that the crucial action transpires. Yet some offstage absent characters take steps that have significant consequences: Pompée decides to come ashore (La Mort de Pompée), Métrobate and Zénon first lure Nicomède back to Bithynie and then falsely accuse him of planning to kill his step-mother (Corneille’s Nicomède), Orcan spends the fifth act of Bajazet killing off stage; Scipion keeps Massinisse from Sophonisbe throughout the fifth act of Corneille’s Sophonisbe; Calchas determines the need for a human sacrifice and who is to be sacrificed (Racine’s Iphigénie). Calchas’s absence may well preserve his sacred aura, as Prophète notes (82), but it does not keep him from acting. It Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 141 goes without saying that the religious plays have a very active absent character, namely Dieu. 21 At the other end of the spectrum are the proper names that seem largely superfluous because they carry no weight politically, emotionally, or symbolically. Names that we hear and recognize or do not recognize (the issue of audience familiarity will be addressed below), names that are attached to minor plot functions (e.g., that of Médée’s deceased fiancé in Corneille’s La Toison d’or or the name of the owner of the cassette in Tartuffe), names that appear a single time (hapaxes) and pass by so quickly in performance that it is uncertain how or even if they register with the listeners. All three means of categorization - by type of name, by time and space, and by importance to the play’s action - have their advantages, and in tandem, suggest a multi-dimensional perspective on the subject of unembodied names. Of the three, the second may be the most fruitful, as it relates directly to function. It is one of the primary functions of names unsupported by stage presence, whether they be proper names, names of places, or names of peoples, to create referential texture and density, thereby expanding the time and place of the play’s action. The pared-down classical stage with its single scene, modestly populated because of the limited size of theatrical troupes, as well as the restricted physical space on the stage (compounded when it became fashionable to place seats on the stage itself), all point to relatively few onstage characters. Unembodied names, on the other hand, bespeak a wider world of individuals, peoples, and places that counterbalances the intensity that accompanies the severe restrictions of the classical stage. 22 I claim that what elaborate description was to the nineteenth-century French novel, unembodied names are to the French classical theater. There is virtually no actual description present in the language of these plays: objects are seldom mentioned, 23 and the physical nature of people and things is rarely evoked. Honoré de Balzac’s lengthy descriptions, to take a famous example from the nineteenth century, created a rich, textured universe in which to set the action of his novels. 21 Religiously associated names of peoples abound in these plays: “Chrétiens” in Polyeucte (21 occurrences) and Théodore (10), “Juifs” in Esther (18) and Athalie (9). 22 Ronald Tobin notes that “Racine’s theater is, therefore, vast in its implications for the world beyond the stage and, at the same time, suffocatingly intimate for the dramatis personae” (56). Byrd puts it more succinctly: “Whereas the use of real food on stage means ‘This isn’t artificial,’ the unseen character means ‘This isn’t all’” (11). 23 See Marc Vuillermoz for an in-depth examination of objects in French theater between 1625 and 1650. Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 142 Here, while the degree of referential construction is of vastly smaller dimensions, the use of unembodied names works in the same manner. They are, in the most general terms, a kind of effet du réel. 24 Each historical name carries with it its own “lustre de la réalité,” as Barthes puts it (S/ Z 109). Even plots with little historical basis (e.g., Nicomède) gain credibility from the mere use of historically attested names (Joseph Harris 83). 25 Particular examples may function quite differently, of course, and are to be read in their specific context, but reference is central to the presence of unembodied names in seventeenth century plays. This close connection to reference may explain to the paucity of unembodied fictional names. Indeed the potential for instability posed by fictional names is exacerbated when such names manifestly lack a referent, as in Le Menteur: when Dorante invents a wife and a father-in-law to keep his own father at bay, he loses track of the names he has chosen; what was “Amédon” in II,5 becomes “Pyrandre” in IV,4. Thus, the unembodied name, while it offers no direct assurance of any tie to reality - as opposed to an onstage character, whose very embodiment provides such assurance - is nonetheless a powerful and compact source of reference, bridging the visible on stage with the invisible realms of the elsewhere and the past. Audience familiarity with the names evoked is intimately tied to reference. Without that recognition, reference cannot operate. One of the first questions I had in reaction to Virgil’s abundance of proper names in the Aeneid concerns reception: was the original audience of the epic familiar with the names that are enumerated? What percentage of those names would have been widely recognized and what percentage simply an anonymous or poetic blur? We may assume that the seventeenth-century spectator probably recognized many but certainly not all the names in the plays, that the world of Greek myth was better-known than that of Roman outposts or Byzance, and therefore that audience familiarity varied from play to play. Playwrights employed certain techniques to facilitate identification, such as placing the name in a list, and thus a category, or using descriptors when the name first appears. Certainly, it is likely that the degree of audience familiarity with the identity of unembodied names has diminished over time. If nothing else, our acquaintance with classical culture is not what it was 350 years ago. An illuminating example of the potential problem for audiences is Dante’s Divina comedia; without the notes 24 Barthes describes “l’effet du réel” as an accumulation of “détails inutiles” and thus a “luxe de la narration” (“L’Effet” 82). 25 Héraclius is an unusual play insofar as names are concerned: the determination of the correct referent for the name “Héraclius” constitutes the plot. Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 143 to explain the names therein, the work is almost incomprehensible to modern readers. Indeed, informative notes are a vital adjunct to reading seventeenth-century plays. But while an editor can take care of the problem on the page, there exists no means of adding such helpful knowledge to the performed play. And even in the case of the written play, if there are too many notes (that is, in terms of our specific subject, too many unfamiliar names), a reader may be discouraged by the extra effort required to read them all. On stage the hapax is the most problematic name in that it is articulated once and disappears. It may be unreasonable, unless the name is exceedingly well known, to expect that the theatrical audience will even process it. Hapaxes are the strongest examples of “l’effet du réel” in the sense that, as Barthes explains, “c’est la catégorie du « réel » qui est signifiée. La carence même du signifié au profit du seul référent devient le signifiant même du réalisme” (“L’Effet” 89). I note a tendency in Rotrou and Tristan L’Hermite to repeat names at least twice, as though they were aware of the problem posed by a single mention of a name; nonetheless, hapaxes are common in our corpus. 26 At times the repetition is more heavy-handed, thereby ensuring that the spectator will apprehend the name. Maurice, the assassinated emperor (and father of Corneille’s eponymous Héraclius) whom few, if any, audience members are likely to be familiar with, is mentioned 30 times. The frequent reference is obviously not merely for the purpose of familiarizing the spectator with a dead character - indeed, far more importantly, he represents legitimacy on the throne - but it nonetheless has that effect. Indeed within our corpus, 37 absent individuals are mentioned ten or more times each in their respective plays. 27 With each play, Corneille, who often favored situations that his audience might not know well, or that he had to a large extent invented (e.g., Rodogune; see Forestier, Essai 62), had to make a choice between the creation of an extra-scenic context through individual and place names, or to avoid such names. He most often chose the former, but not always. Thus Corneille furnished Attila with an extensive background and numerous attendant names, while his use of well-known absent figures such as Hannibal in Nicomède and Néron in Othon help the audience situate the onstage action within a larger context. On the other hand, Le Cid, Horace, and Pertharite contain no more than 5 proper names of non-appearing 26 Hapaxes of proper names appear in 63 of the 66 plays, for an average of 8.5 per play and a range from 0 to 42. 27 Interestingly, outside of the five explicitly religiously-themed plays in the corpus (Polyeucte, Théodore, Saint Genest, Esther, and Athalie) neither Dieu nor any other divinity (e.g., Mars) appears on that list. Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 144 characters each. 28 All three, albeit to very different degrees, compensate with a more abundant use of place names. 29 Racine’s Andromaque offers an unusual example of dealing with the problem of audience familiarity with historical and mythical names: the playwright stands the issue on its head by referencing names that are likely more well-known to the audience (e.g. Ménélas, Hector, Ulysse, Achille, Agamemnon, Priam, Hélène, and Cassandre) than those of the four principal characters onstage. Discussing intertextuality, which is another frame for understanding the names under discussion here, Nathalie Piégay-Gros notes that such allusions “sollicite[nt] différemment la mémoire et l’intelligence du lecteur et ne romp[en]t pas la continuité du texte” (52). Indeed, unembodied names in seventeenth-century theater, generally speaking, operate below the radar, striking outward and yet not calling undue attention to themselves. An exception will suggest the validity of that generalization: when in Horace Camille attacks her brother for having killed Curiace, her violent insistence on the name “Rome” indeed seems to disrupt the onstage action and force our attention to that abstract concept that is also a place name: Rome, unique objet de mon ressentiment! Rome, à qui vient ton bras d’immoler mon Amant! Rome, qui t’a vu naître et que ton cœur adore! Rome, enfin que je hais parce qu’elle t’honore! (IV,5,1301-04; italics mine) But, such rare moments aside, names neither break the flow of the dialogue nor are they essential to audience comprehension; recognizing the names of unembodied characters or place names enriches, broadens, and complexifies the play, but remains on the periphery. The spectator who is familiar with the name(s) will have access to additional information and associations. However, unfamiliar proper names are perhaps almost as effective at creating a rich dramatic universe as familiar ones. Absent the information necessary to flesh out the referent, what remains is the action of populating, of cultural accretion through the kinds of names chosen, of the creation of a perhaps somewhat hazy dramatic universe beyond the stage. The fundamental needs of the spectator are tied not only to name recognition, but also to placement: where do the names of unembodied characters tend to appear within the play? Generalization is difficult, because of the substantial variation encountered from play to play, but the question is nonetheless worth considering because of the implications 28 The average number of different non-embodied proper names in Corneille’s plays is 13.3, ranging from 1 to 53. The total number of such names is larger, averaging 39.1 per play. 29 Le Cid uses 22 place names, Horace 104, and Pertharite 24, including repetitions. Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 145 attendant to any choice in that regard. If the primary function of the range of names under consideration is to aid in the creation of a broad dramatic universe, it would seem to make sense to have them appear earlier rather than later. A play’s exposition, however, is the moment when the spectator is attempting to assimilate the situation and catch the names of the embodied individuals on stage. The names of characters who will appear later in the play are likely to be introduced early on as well, both to orient the audience and because it was considered an infraction of the rules of the classical theater to introduce a new onstage character after the second act without preparing his or her arrival well in advance. Adding further names to the exposition could overwhelm the spectator. Of course not all unembodied names are the same. If the name references a god, it matters little where in the play it appears. If it is a particularly active unembodied character, then mention is likely to be made when he or she takes action. For example, we only hear the name “Orcan” in Bajazet at the very end of act III when Zatime announces that Amurat has sent him. Orcan will go on to kill both Roxane and Bajazet. On the other hand, Calchas is mentioned in 25 of Racine’s Iphigénie’s 37 scenes, including the opening scene. Looking at the entire corpus, one finds multiple examples of early and late reference to an unembodied character, suggesting strongly that contextual needs are determinant. In Phèdre, for example, almost half of the individual names evoked in the play appear in the first act, and over two-thirds of those in the first scene. Their early presence can be ascribed to Racine’s need to establish immediately the very particular world in which events transpire: that is, one in which monsters exist and where gods actively undertake revenge. Rodogune, however, despite a complicated backstory, produces the bulk of its names in the second act, and Bajazet contains virtually only the name of Amurat in the first act, where it appears 20 times in that short space. 30 In a few cases, the operation of reference itself is undermined through metalepsis, which Gerald Prince defines as “The intrusion into one diegesis of a being from another diegesis; the mingling of two distinct diegetic levels” (50). Here, the metalepsis is signaled by names. In Corneille’s La Suite du Menteur, Cliton mentions the famous contemporary actor Jodelet (I,3,281, III,1,826); the metalepsis is compounded by the fact that the spectator would have been aware that they were watching Jodelet on stage playing the role of Clindor as the fictional Clindor discusses Jodelet playing him earlier in Le Menteur. Even more egregious is a different example found in the same play. When Lyse mentions the novel l’Astrée in La Suite du 30 There is one mention of Bajazet’s other brother, Ibrahim, in I,1. Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 146 Menteur (IV,1,1238), she breaks the wall not merely between diegetic levels, but between “reality” (the world in which Lyse exists) and fiction (the world of L’Astrée). Lyse even acknowledges the difference in diegetic level, referring to Sylvandre as a character in l’Astrée, but nothing loath, she immediately claims to be related to both Astrée and Céladon. 31 A particularly wide-spread use of non-embodied proper names is the exemplum. In such cases, names are spoken by onstage characters in order to provide a positive model to emulate or a dangerous example to avoid. 32 Onstage characters act and envision themselves in terms of a tapestry of famous others who have preceded them. Néron tries to urge Junie into marriage with an example: “Auguste, votre aïeul, soupirait pour Livie : / Par un double divorce ils s’unirent tous deux” (Britannicus II,2,476-77); in Andromède, both Andromède’s father Céphée (II,6,764) and her betrothed Phinée (IV,3,1218) use such paradigmatic reasoning, citing the 20 suitors of Nérée who tried to save her from the very monster that is to attack Andromède, and who all died in the effort. In Bajazet, Roxane attempts to convince Bajzet to marry her through the use of example: after deftly acknowledging and dismissing the negative example of an earlier Bajazet who instituted the marriage taboo for sultans, she goes on to the positive example of Sultan Soliman who married his concubine Roxelane (II,1,455- 70). Bajazet rebuts her with the counter-example “tout récent” (488) of Osman, murdered by his janissaries because he wed. In Bérénice, Paulin urges Titus to abandon plans to marry Bérénice and employs an apt historical example: [Jules César] Brûla pour Cléopâtre; et sans se déclarer, Seule dans l’Orient la laissa soupirer. Antoine, qui l’aima jusqu’à l’idolâtrie, Oublia dans son sein sa gloire et sa patrie, Sans oser toutefois se nommer son époux. (II,2,389-93) Paulin goes even further, using Néron and Caligula as additional examples of the Roman interdiction against marrying a queen (II,2,397-401). In Corneille’s Agésilas, Hercule is mentioned several times; his status is made explicit by Agésilas himself: “Hercule en sert d’exemple” (III,1,876), the en referring to the envy and hatred that follow heroes. The exemplum, a 31 “Je puis bien lire Astrée, / Je suis de son village, et j’ai de bons garants / Qu’elle et son Céladon étaient de nos parents” (Suite IV,1,1238-40). 32 I make no meaningful distinction between the terms “exemplum” and “example.” See Lyons for a discussion of the tortured relationship between the two terms (Exemplum 9 and passim). Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 147 literary device dating back to antiquity (see Sammons 20), is an apt vehicle for unembodied proper names. It refracts and enriches what the spectator encounters on stage. Parallels and analogies that reference proper or place names function in essentially the same manner, expanding the referential horizon of the play, and often its temporal horizon as well. Orode in Suréna offers the analogy of his brother Mithradate to his son Pacorus: “Car tout ce qu’attenta contre moi Mithradate, / Pacorus le doit craindre à son tour de Phradate” (III,2,857-58). The fraternal enmity (and fratricide) of the past will likely be reproduced in the future. In Rodogune, Séleucus offers a double analogy of the twins’ situation through reference to Thèbes et Troie (I,3,171-79). Like Polynices and Eteocles of Thèbes, Séleucus and Antiochus are rivals for the throne; like Menelaus and Paris, they love the same woman. Those Greek rivalries led to bitter warfare, an outcome that Séleucus seeks to avoid. Arnolphe compares himself to Rabelais’s Pantagruel in their common reluctance to marry (Molière’s L’École des femmes I,1,117-22). More surprising perhaps is the reference to Phèdre, Hippolyte, and Thésée in the original edition of Corneille’s comedy L’Illusion comique. Rosine mentions the trio in the embedded play in the fifth act: she perceives a parallel to the situation in which she finds herself when her lover, played by Clindor, seeks to break off their relationship. She, like Phèdre, will accuse him of making indecent advances. All of the above, whether exempla or analogies, whether historical, mythological, or cultural, are intertextual in nature. The absent “text” - taken broadly - is evoked and brought into relation with the play at hand. Piégay-Gros notes that “la convocation des intertextes [...] traduit toujours une conception des relations de l’écriture au réel” (88), thereby underlining the referential nature of all of the examples above as well as the manner in which they expand the horizons of play. Until this point, the focus has been primarily on the names of unembodied individual characters; I would like to now consider the specific issues attached to first, place names, and then, names of peoples. The distinction made earlier between embodied and unembodied characters is not operant for place names or peoples. Mimetic space - that is, the stage - is severely limited, both physically, as noted above, and because of unity of place. The stage can represent the interior of a palace or a house, at most an exterior street scene. Phèdre, for example, takes place in Trézène (mentioned 10 times), but the reality of that place/ city is functionally as off stage as is the more distant Athènes (13 mentions). Spaces named may indeed be closer to the stage or farther away, but any named space is beyond the stage; it is impossible to embody Rome, say, in the same manner that Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 148 Britannicus is embodied by an actor. Despite that limitation, place names often have a significant role. In tragedy they serve above all to create the geographical fabric of the world in which the play transpires. Michael Issacharoff notes: “Where mimetic space is fixed (when a single set is used), the odds are that the diegetic space will be non-fixed, that is to say, manifold” (222). The ample variety of place names in most of the plays examined supports that assertion: the number of different places named averages 8.3 per play, varying from 1 to 32. Philippe Hamon underlines their strongly referential function, calling place names: “ancrage référentiel dans un espace « vérifiable »” (127). More specifically we often find the political stakes of a play’s plot embodied in the names of places as a kind of shorthand. A place name may stand in for an enemy, as in the case of “Rome” in Mithridate (29 mentions), or for identity (“Carthage” for the eponymous character in Sophonisbe: 37), or a place name may duplicate the political tensions embodied on stage by specific characters (“Rome” [66 mentions] and “Albe” [34] in Horace). Place names may also have poetic resonance and carry symbolic weight; Brody mentions “l’extraordinaire puissance évocatrice de certains noms de lieu” in Racine’s plays, offering the examples of “Le Pont” and “Athènes” (421). At times, place names have an outsize presence. Nine plays (all by Corneille or Racine) contain 70 or more mentions of place names. In 26 plays of the corpus, place names outnumber names of absent characters. Rome cannot be an active offstage character in the same fashion that Iphigénie’s Calchas may be, but the 77 mentions of “Rome” in Nicomède, 52 in Bérénice, 45 in Sertorius, and 35 in Britannicus suggest that place names may indeed constitute a dramatic force. One explanation for the large role of place names is the significant leakage that exists between categories. Not only do characters represent places - Lélius on stage and Scipion off stage represent Rome in Sophonisbe, as do the onstage Paulin and the dead Vespasien in Bérénice, for example - but absent characters can become places. For instance Pallas in Britannicus, is, on four occasions, referenced as a stand-in for a place: “chez Pallas” (I,3,304, I,4,356, II,1,366, II,2,376); Octavie is treated in a similar fashion, but toward the end of Britannicus (V,2,1558, V,3,1597, V,8,1714). The opposite holds true as well at times: a place may be personified and thus resemble a character. Cinna tells Auguste: “Votre Rome à genoux vous parle par ma bouche” (Cinna II,1,606) as he implores the emperor not to abandon the throne; shortly thereafter, alone with Cinna, Maxime employs the same tactic and himself adopts the voice of Rome: “Mais entendez Rome crier à votre côté : / « Rends-moi, rends-moi, Cinna, ce que tu m’as ôté, »” (II,2,848-50). In Bérénice, Paulin Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 149 tells Titus of Rome’s reaction to Bérénice: “Rome [...] gémissait” (IV,6,1221). Place names in this corpus refer typically, but not exclusively, to either cities or countries. They may also on occasion refer to rivers, bodies of water, mountains, even specific sites within cities, provided that they have a name and are not generic. It is the presence of the name that allows the place to take on an identity and contribute to the canvas of the dramatic world. Rivers have an unusual status, because they bring with them movement, and movement is obviously a feature of theater. Rivers also belong to the tradition of catalogues; Kyriakidis notes that most ancient Greek epics, beginning with Homer, contain catalogues of rivers (132). And there are an abundant number of rivers in these plays, many legendary (e.g., Jourdain, Nil, Scamandre), most distant from France. 33 The largest number of place names referring to bodies of water, whether rivers or seas, is found in Mithridate, where they have a significant thematic role as a route of military attack. 34 Place names are generally associated with tragedy because the strongest referential links to specific sites are to be found in historically-based tragedies. Nevertheless, it is in comedies that some of the most interesting uses of place names appear. Both Le Menteur and its Suite contain elevated numbers of place names, especially names of different places. Contrary to reasonable expectation, only one of the place names in Le Menteur is in any way attached to a lie: Dorante claims to have spent four years serving as a soldier in Allemagne (I,3,154, 161). La Suite du Menteur takes place in a Lyon prison, yet offers a larger geographical compass, with references to Venise, Florence, and Rome, along with repetition of the major place names from Le Menteur (Poitiers, Paris). Corneille’s early comedies offer little in terms of place names. Mélite, however, is exceptional with 13 place names, every one of which references the underworld. L’Illusion comique has one of the largest variety of different place names in our corpus (21). Matamore is fond of far-flung sites in which to situate his fabulations (Perse, Éthiopie, Japon, Transylvanie, Chine, Calicut). Unlike Dorante in La Suite du Menteur, he hasn’t been to any of them. The diversity of place names in L’Illusion can be read as a reflection of both the picaresque nature of the hero, Clindor, and of the dizzying mixture of genres, shifting from act to act. As one moves from comedy to tragicomedy to something closer to tragedy, geographical moorings are as varied and unstable as the rest. Overall, place names 33 Rivers are named in 24 of the plays under consideration. 34 See my “Mithridate, Displacement, and the Sea.” Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 150 anchor a play’s plot in tandem with proper names to insist upon a specific world fixed in time and space. Our third category, names of peoples, is far less rich than those of individual names and place names; it includes largely plurals (e.g., les Romains); 35 a family name in the plural will be in put in this category as well (e.g. “la fierté des Nérons”). As in the case of place names, the category of people is subject to leakage. A place may represent a whole people as when Mathan says “Jérusalem pleura” (Athalie, III,3,947). Few peoples have ten or more mentions in a play, and those that do are central political forces in their specific dramatic worlds: Romains (Sophonisbe 28, Sertorius 21, Mithridate 50), Grecs (Andromaque 43 and Racine’s Iphigénie 26), and Chrétiens (Polyeucte 21). Discussing the difference between tragedy and comedy, Ubersfeld makes the following observation: “À la différence des tragédies où la plupart des noms de personnages principaux sont imposés soit par la légende, soit par l’histoire, la comédie laisse à l’auteur la liberté de choisir et même d’inventer le nom de chacun de ses personnages” (229). The distinction applies equally well to names of unembodied individuals, places, and peoples. Tragedies have historical, legendary, and or mythological referents, and are under an obligation to bring those referents to life on stage and through discourse. To understand just how crucial proper names are to that process, imagine for a moment the effect of changing the names of the unembodied characters in a tragedy, of the places and peoples referenced, to more modern names or names stripped of cultural content. In contrast, comedy is free of the weight of referential obligation, and playwrights have infinitely more freedom when it comes to names (and much else, clearly). The most exuberant use of that freedom occurs in Racine’s Les Plaideurs and Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin’s Les Visionnaires. Racine uses a wide variety of proper names in his sole comedy, some of which are quite amusing (e.g., Drolichon, I,7,211), and a number of which are based on a deformation of some sort (e.g., Babiboriens, III,3,681); other unembodied proper names include ancient authors (e.g., Aristotle, III,3,745) and famous jurists of the day (e.g., Arméno Pul, III,3,753). The comic aspect of some of these names, however, can be erased or even created by the passage of time: indeed many of the references Racine makes will require the aid of a good footnote. Ironically, the same resource - a footnote - informs the reader that Citron 35 “Le Romain,” for instance, generally refers to a specific individual susceptible to having his own proper name, and is thus eliminated from consideration. In those cases where “le Romain” in the singular refers to Romans in general - not infrequent in the corpus - then it is counted. Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 151 (II,14,621) is a common name for a dog and thus not humorous. 36 Les Visionnaires, as the title suggests, depicts individuals who possess vivid imaginations to the point of delusion. Numerous figures from mythology, history, and literature populate the embodied characters’ discourse as they seek to impose their own “reality” on one another. In fact, 53 different unembodied names appear as well as 32 different place names, by far the largest figures for either category. 37 Interestingly, our touchstone for comedy, Molière, offers little in this regard. While he is certainly interested in proper names (see Cagnat-Debœuf and Davis [“From Précieuses” and “Molière”]), humor and allusive potential are related in most cases to the names he chooses for his onstage characters (e.g., Purgon, Tartuffe, M. Dimanche, Sotenville); the unembodied proper names in his comedies are often merely conventional (e.g., the names of the individuals who are the objects of Célimène’s portraits in Le Misanthrope II,4). Les Femmes savantes is something of an exception, with numerous names of writers and philosophers both ancient and modern bandied about to signify the speaker’s erudition. Tragicomedy is an even less rich source of unembodied proper names, place names, and names of peoples. The genre does not concern itself with historical subjects; thus it is hardly surprising that one finds few references to unembodied historical or even legendary figures. 38 The two primary preoccupations of tragicomedy have nothing to do with names, but are enlightening on the subject nonetheless. The first is love, passion, and attendant sentimental problems (Guichemerre 13). Throughout the entire corpus, tragedies included, when a scene focuses on love, there are few, if any, of the kinds of names we are examining here. It is as though love chases away unembodied offstage characters. Second, action is paramount in tragicomedies (Baby 296). As noted earlier, names are tied to description, rather than to narrative action. So it is no surprise that tragicomedy has relatively little use for unembodied names. Indeed, the paucity of names of unembodied characters in Le Cid may well be related to the play’s original status as a tragicomedy. In the final section of this study I will focus on the two playwrights who make the most extensive use of unembodied proper names, place names, 36 In this case, the footnote is found in the Classiques Larousse edition of Les Plaideurs (88). 37 The closest number for different proper names is 35 in Médée, and for different place names 21 in L’Illusion comique. 38 Hélène Baby says it well: “la tragi-comédie se moque de l’historicité de son intrigue” (296); see also Roger Guichemerre (12). Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 152 and names of peoples in their dramaturgy: Corneille and Racine. The explanation for their focus on names likely lies with Forestier’s insight, quoted above, that they alone among their play-writing peers sought a close interpenetration of history and fiction. While I aspire to report global tendencies in their use of names, in the case of Corneille I am forced to limit myself to rather specific observations; Racine will offer a richer field for a comprehensive treatment. Faudemay addresses Corneille’s central limitation as far as names are concerned: “Le théâtre de Corneille semble fait pour décourager les amateurs d’onomastique. Le poète n’invente pas de noms, comme Rabelais, ne rêve pas sur des noms comme Proust, ne joue pas avec des noms comme Calderón” (413). Yet names there are, and often in profusion. The most obvious observation to be made concerns Rome; its abundant presence has already been suggested above. As Charles Muller notes, “Rome” (with 399 mentions) and “Romain” (with 237) are the two most frequently used names in Corneille’s theater (156). His four plays taken from Greek legend - Médée, Andromède, Œdipe, and La Toison d’or - contain elevated numbers of unembodied proper names and place names. Œdipe in particular, teems with a vast variety (25) and number (90) of unembodied individual names. Among them, one finds not only the expected (e.g. Laïus), but a whole cast of fictional characters, including Thésée’s dying servant Phédime. Indeed, Corneille presents the established Greek mythological context of the play, using names known to the audience, but he goes further with a kind of onomastic exuberance in his effort to tackle the too-well-known subject. Horace was Corneille’s first Roman tragedy, and thus his first play to claim some historical roots. Surprisingly, there are only 5 unembodied proper names, all of which are taken from legend (Romule, Énée, Hercule) or mythology (Apollon, Parques). The playwright compensates with copious use of historical place names, particularly “Rome” (66) and “Albe” (34); the relative size of the totals reflects the inevitability of Albe’s defeat. Polyeucte too makes relatively little use of unembodied proper names: there are only two, but they are repeated throughout the play - Dieu (42 times) and the emperor Décie (18). As in Horace, those two names stand in for the central conflict and through their relative frequency foretell its outcome. Le Cid contains few names overall, but favors place names over proper names (a mere two occurrences of the god Mars), as though Corneille expected his audience to be more conversant with names of places in Spain than with Spanish legend. Thus the only play in the tetralogy where names of all kinds abound is Cinna. It contains 53 individual names, 53 place names, and 21 names of peoples. Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 153 La Mort de Pompée, aside from the 66 mentions of the never-seen Pompée, is geographically oriented, with a strong triangle of place names: Pharsale (13), Rome (33), and Egypte (16). Those three space names are critical to the characterization of César: where he has triumphed, where he is from, and where he finally arrives in Act III. In Sertorius, Corneille engages in the suppression of proper names by having Pompée burn the traitorous letters that Perpenna has provided him in Act V; Pompée chooses to exculpate their authors through a refusal (which extends to the audience) to see/ hear their names. Nicomède marks perhaps the most well-balanced use of names in Corneille’s theater: the past is personalized in the absent figure of the dead Annibal “dont le nom n’est pas un petit ornement,” as Corneille himself notes (“Au lecteur,” 2: 640). Annibal is the exemplum of the heroic leader and his name epitomizes his power; in his first speech, Nicomède refers to “l’effroi de son [Annibal’s] nom” (I,1,26). Absent characters also take significant action during the course of the play: Zénon (6 mentions), and Métrobate (10) make their false accusations between the third and fourth acts. Place names abound as well in this tragedy; beyond the 78 mentions of Rome, which serve to aggrandize the force that Flaminius represents on stage, there are 16 other different place names, suggesting a broad geographical tableau of conflicting interests. 39 It is entirely possible that the diverse and extensive use of unembodied proper names, places, and even peoples (18 “Romains”) is a compensatory tactic that Corneille employed to offset the fact that Nicomède contained little historical truth. 40 As should be clear from everything that precedes, Corneille makes abundant and varied use of names in his theater. He populates his dramatic worlds with names that work to create, expand, and embellish. He does so far more extensively and imaginatively than is generally the case with the works of the other playwrights in our corpus, with one exception. That exception, not surprisingly, is Racine. And what an exception he is in this regard! His use of names has not escaped attention, of course: Marc Fumaroli speaks of “la sorcellerie évocatrice des noms propres, historiques ou géographiques” in his plays (298) and Prophète’s monograph spotlights the use of names of absent characters in his readings of the individual plays. No one, however, has looked at names with a primary focus on the chronological sweep of Racine’s theater. Therein lies a narrative that speaks 39 Bithynie, Arménie, Carthage, Asie, La Cappadoce, Trasimène, Pont, Hellespont, Carthage, Galatie, Trébie, Cannes, Afrique, mont Quirinal, mont Aventin, and Italie. 40 “La seule de ces données [from the entire play] qui soit historiquement incontestable est celle qui concerne la fin d’Hannibal” (Suzanne Guellouz 85). Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 154 once again, as though further proof were necessary, to Racine’s incomparable genius. Racine’s first two plays, La Thébaïde and Alexandre le Grand, contain relatively few unembodied proper names, few place names, and few names of peoples. 41 La Thébaïde deals with one of the most well-known Greek legends, yet Œdipe’s names appear only 3 times and Laïus’s twice. Ménécée with 8 mentions gets the most attention; indeed he is an active absent character. He sacrifices himself offstage between the second and third acts in accordance with his interpretation of the oracle, “Que le dernier du sang royal / Par son trépas ensanglante vos terres” (II,2,395-96). Almost all the peoples mentioned are either Thébains or Grecs, and there are only 4 different place names (Thèbes, Mycène, Argos, Grèce), none of which enrich the tableau in anything but the most expected ways. As noted above, Greek legends unleashed an abundance of names in Corneille, no doubt in part because of audience familiarity with both the legend and the world in which the play transpires. Such is not the case in La Thébaïde. Alexandre has far fewer unembodied proper names overall, but doubles the number of different place names (from 4 to 8). In both cases, Racine seems oblivious to the possibilities that unembodied names offer. With Andromaque there is a sudden explosion of names, as though Racine abruptly understood the dramatic potential of this very particular feature of discourse. From totals of 54 and 42 for all three categories of names in the previous two plays, we suddenly encounter 205 names. That Andromaque contains the names of the generation preceding the characters on stage, that is, the heroes of the Trojan War, is in no way surprising. What is of note is what Racine chooses to do with those names. He employs them in profusion, in almost every scene of the play. He peoples his world with ghosts and creates a tapestry that serves as a counterbalance to the tight, restricted space on stage, and the small, rather petty world the onstage characters inhabit. 42 The two heroes of the Trojan war, Achilles and Hector, are mentioned in virtually every act; and each of their names is uttered by all the four main characters. It is not simply Andromaque’s obsession with her late husband, but a far broader fixation that overwhelms the onstage world, seconded by abundant repetition of Troie (24), Grèce (25), and Grecs (43). 43 Even the one grand historical gesture - the murder of Pyrrhus - 41 La Thébaïde: 14 proper names, 17 place names, 17 peoples; Alexandre: 7, 11, 24. 42 Biet describes Racine’s technique as a “collage référentiel” (“Dans la tragédie” 234). 43 Hector’s name appears in all five acts, and Achille’s in all but Act IV. Of the 40 mentions of Hector’s name, Andromaque speaks only 15; Hermione has 5, Oreste 8, and Pyrrhus 8 as well. Achille’s name appears far less often (a total of 11 times), Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 155 happens elsewhere, and its participants become part of the historical tapestry much like Hector and Achilles, and, like them, are then excluded from the stage. Pyrrhus and then Hermione are dead; Racine wisely (in his 1676 edition of the play) keeps Andromaque off stage after the assassination. Only Oreste, who in fact did not strike Pyrrhus (“Et je n’ai pu trouver de place pour frapper,” V,3,1516), returns, but in short order he goes mad and has visions of the now unembodied Hermione and Pyrrhus. One curious feature of the names in Andromaque is that none refer to mythological figures. Their absence is striking for two reasons: first, because in the source material, whether it be Virgil’s Aeneid or Euripedes’s Andromache, individual gods play an active and sizable role; and second, because all of Corneille’s plays based on ancient Greek source material deploy such names in abundance. 44 It would seem that Racine hit upon the potential of unembodied names in Andromaque and continued to explore that potential for dramatic effects, but never twice in the same way. Whereas enormous variation occurs from play to play in Corneille’s œuvre, here there appears to be a more deliberate progression. In Andromaque, Racine uses names as a means of evoking the past; in his following tragedy, Britannicus, he employs names from both past and present realms as cudgels, or as sources of power, to act upon events in the present. The first thing to note in Britannicus is the abundance of individual names (103), as opposed to place names (36) and names of peoples (5). Both Agrippine and Néron come on stage spouting names (13 and 6 respectively in their first two scenes on stage), but Agrippine’s belong largely to the realm of the past while Néron’s are all references to living absent characters. That distinction will hold true throughout the play, although Agrippine will dominate in terms of numbers in both realms. I mentioned earlier the ties between unembodied names and récits, and Britannicus offers a prime example: Agrippine uses past events and the names associated with that past to manipulate her son, particularly in her lengthy récit in IV,2, in which she traces all she has done for his advancement, employing 25 names as she does so. One may venture that an elevated use of names attached to the past suggests an inability to conceive of a future that is independent of that past. On the other hand, an abundant use of names attached to the present may suggest political acuity or at least an understanding of the relationship of unembodied characters to the no doubt because Hector, and not Achilles, belongs to the love chain of the plot, but all four protagonists speak the Greek hero’s name at least once. 44 The general term “Dieux” appears 24 times in Andromaque, but, as Prophète notes, “Les dieux semblent être soigneusement cachés, leur évocation est dûe à des effets de style, tout au moins au respect d’une certaine couleur locale” (43). Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 156 present moment. Interestingly, neither Junie and Britannicus mention any unembodied names tied to the past, and only a handful of names (1 and 3, respectively) tied to the present. Octavie, Néron’s wife, is mentioned as often as any other absent character, and by all the main characters; her name even appears in every act. And yet, she serves as a kind of anti- Agrippine, silent, hidden, powerless, and pathetic, a ghostly figure of impotence, mirroring in some sense the ultimate frustration and failure that all the characters in Britannicus are doomed to suffer. With Bérénice Racine tries another variant, this time turning the focus overwhelmingly toward place names. 45 Even the deceased emperor Vespasien, whose values Titus believes himself obliged to uphold, is named only three times and never by the young emperor or even by Bérénice. The forces opposing their union are made manifest rather by geography. First and foremost, Rome, with its traditions and anti-monarchical cultural norms, places powerful, inescapable demands on Titus. The word “Rome” appears 52 times, far more often than in Britannicus (35), and is unquestionably the dominant force in the tragedy. Despite its power, Rome does not stand alone in Bérénice; Racine opposes “Rome” to a whole series of place names that work together to create the distant world of the Orient: Palestine, Comagène, Orient, Ostie, Judée, Euphrate, Arabie, Syrie, Césarée, Idumée, and Cilicie. Bérénice and Antiochus are thus represented by multiple place names, while Titus is associated with the monolothic “Rome.” The dominance of that place name is further reflected not merely in numbers, but also in the fact that the only such name in the entire last two acts of the play is “Rome.” The alien Orient figures again in Bajazet, but whereas it was a distant and manifold place in Bérénice, in Bajazet it is the entire universe of the play. And while Racine does not avoid place names (8 different places and 21 mentions), here he favors the name of the absent Amurat as a means of creating atmosphere. 46 Indeed, in the first scene of the play, the name “Amurat” seems to pop up every ten lines or so (for a total of 14 times), like an ominous musical chord that returns regularly to set the tone for what follows. The past is thin, but highly specific, in the names of two former sultans and the women they loved (see discussion of exemplums above); the present is equally unsubstantial, but powerfully represented by the unembodied assassin Orcan in the second half of the play. But the name 45 Names of individuals: 16, places: 82, peoples: 10. 46 Michael Hawcroft notes that in Bajazet, “un nombre très restreint de mots turcs revient fréquemment et produit ainsi un effet cumulatif: sultan, sultane, vizir, janissaire, sérail. A ceux-ci on peut ajouter tous les noms propres et le mot français “muets”, qui évoque une tradition spécifiquement orientale” (62). Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 157 that dominates throughout, as he moves toward the onstage present to destroy everyone, is that of Amurat. In Mithridate, there is a radical reduction in proper names and a large increase in both place names (at 78, the second highest in Racine’s theater), and especially names of peoples (at 55, the highest). The numerous place names speak to Mithridate’s obsession with conquest. The number of different places mentioned is elevated as well; and it includes the largest number of bodies of water, as noted above. 47 As in Britannicus and Bérénice, Rome dominates Mithridate, but in a quite different manner. Whereas “Rome,” with 29 appearances, overwhelms all other named geographical referents, the primary focus here is on the “Romains” (mentioned 50 times). While “Rome” may often represent the Romains because, as noted earlier, the categories seep into one another, here the focus is decidedly on the people, on their potential as active agents and soldiers, rather than on the place or the culture. Indeed, the Romains attack (off stage) at the end of the fourth act. We saw in the above discussion of Andromaque that no specific mythological figure is named in the play; the same is true for Britannicus, Bérénice, Bajazet, and Mithridate. These four plays are largely earthbound, with only the occasional reference to the “Dieux” (23 mentions in Andromaque; then 16, 13, 0, and 16 respectively), but they all refuse any suggestion of specific higher powers directing the action. The situation changes with Iphigénie. This tragedy marks a sudden and strong shift with numerous references to various gods: Jupiter, Thétis, Mégère, Soleil, Neptune, and Diane, as well as 71 references to the “Dieux.” The divine is everywhere. Furthermore, the absent character Calchas (named 40 times) functions as an intermediary between the gods and the humans, providing a central anchor between the two realms. The elevated number of mentions of his name points to his importance while his absence conserves his sacred nature (see Prophète 82). In other respects, Iphigénie is closest to Andromaque in terms of the numbers. There is a large and very diverse representation of proper names, place names, and names of peoples. The whole universe of the Trojan war is open to Racine in Iphigénie, and, in contrast to his first tragedy, he makes full use of it. Iphigénie may well offer the broadest canvas of names we find anywhere. And, unlike the names in Andromaque, here they are not tied primarily to the past, in part because the war proper has not yet begun. 47 20 different place names appear, the largest total for Racine and second only to L’Illusion comique in the entire corpus. The play makes reference to six different bodies of water (13 total references), by far the largest in our corpus. Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 158 Beginning with Iphigénie, references to specific divinities as well as the "Dieux" remain a constant feature. In Phèdre, the divine permeates the play, with its monsters and dynamic divinities, 48 all of whom can only be named and never seen on stage. Phèdre distinguishes itself from Racine’s other plays by the almost total absence of names of peoples. In contrast, place names are abundant: this is a wide, complex world, but one that belongs to passion and gods, not to armies and political ambition. Jocelyn Royé notes perceptively: “Cependant, c’est la description de l’ailleurs, de l’invisible, qui est paradoxalement omniprésente dans la pièce. Dès les premiers vers de la tragédie, Théramène énumère longuement tous les lieux qu’il a parcourus pour retrouver Thésée” (216). The first act also devotes considerable space to the names of monsters and brigands Thésée has killed and women he has loved. Phèdre differentiates itself by employing the greatest number of different proper names, as well as of hapaxes in Racine’s theater. As with place names, the effect is to abundantly populate a complex world, one that extends from the past (Thésée’s feats, Pasphaé and Ariane’s misguided passions, Théramène’s journey to find Thésée, Thésée’s adventures in Épire with Pirithoüs), to the present (Hippolyte’s combat with the monster sent by Neptune), to, quite exceptionally, the future (Minos’s inevitable judgment of his daughter in the underworld). The religious plays at the end of Racine’s career foreground the name “Dieu,” both in the dialogue and in the songs of the chorus. Esther is a clash of peoples, and thus their names - Juifs, Persans, Assyriens, etc. - have a considerable presence. Athalie goes in the opposite direction, massively privileging the individual over the group. Racine’s final play is overrun with unembodied proper names; the total number of such names in Athalie is 276, almost twice as many as in any other play in our entire corpus. 150 of those names are “Dieu,” but that leaves well over a hundred others, all biblical, and most from the past. Athalie was composed to be an operatic grand spectacle, incorporating music and costumes, and this superabundance of names fits well with that intent. 49 I have tried to resist the temptation to overinterpret based solely on unembodied proper names, place names, and names of peoples in Racine’s theater. Whether I have succeeded or not, it should nonetheless be clear that their role in the development and progression of his plays strongly indicates deliberation and consciousness on the part of the playwright, and 48 Prophète observes that in this tragedy Greece is “toute peuplé de monstrueuses créatures, de légendes et de divinité. On distingue à peine les mythes de la réalité. La fable fait corps avec l’histoire” (95). 49 See Tobin for a brief description of the political forces that kept the production relatively stripped down and modest (149). Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 159 that such names rise to the level of a meaningful component of his dramaturgy. While it seems reasonable to note that Racine’s widespread use of these names first occurred at precisely the universally agreed-upon moment of his first masterpiece, Andromaque, thus offering a supplementary demarcation between his youthful attempts at tragedy and his dramatic maturity, it would be a mistake to conclude that a large number of names correlates with dramatic quality. The presence of more names, of any or all of the three sorts, does not mean a better play. Comparing the names in four pairs of plays that ostensibly take the same subject - Racine’s Phèdre and Pradon’s Phèdre et Hippolyte, Corneille’s Tite et Bérénice and Racine’s Bérénice, Mairet’s La Sophonisbe and Corneille’s Sophonisbe, Rotrou’s Iphigénie and Racine’s Iphigénie - proves singularly unenlightening. Comparisons, such as these pairings, are futile, because no play can meaningfully be reduced to its use of names. 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Populating the Dramatic Universe Through Names PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 163 Appendix: Plays Consulted Author Title Places Peoples Ind.Names Corneille Mélite 13 3 32 Corneille Clitandre 2 1 10 Corneille La Veuve 2 0 37 Corneille La Galerie du Palais 17 0 11 Corneille La Suivante 1 0 9 Corneille La Place Royale 1 0 7 Corneille Médée 38 1 52 Corneille L’Illusion comique 26 2 30 Corneille Le Cid 22 15 2 Corneille Horace 107 9 5 Corneille Cinna 58 21 53 Corneille Polyeucte 24 25 64 Corneille La Mort de Pompée 83 13 85 Corneille Le Menteur 45 3 35 Corneille La Suite du Menteur 31 0 23 Corneille Rodogune 14 6 19 Corneille Théodore 18 10 59 Corneille Héraclius 5 0 36 Corneille Andromède 7 4 25 Corneille Don Sanche d’Aragon 42 6 15 Corneille Nicomède 134 18 42 Corneille Pertharite 26 1 5 Corneille Oedipe 43 5 91 Corneille La Toison d’or 45 8 50 Corneille Sertorius 75 20 61 Corneille Sophonisbe 89 34 35 Corneille Othon 29 8 108 Corneille Agésilas 44 5 12 Corneille Attila 36 11 40 Corneille Tite et Bérénice 51 6 28 Corneille Pulchérie 4 4 29 Corneille Suréna 15 16 43 Racine La Thébaïde 21 17 16 Racine Alexandre 24 11 7 Racine Andromaque 76 54 75 Racine Les Plaideurs 11 8 16 Racine Britannicus 36 5 103 Nina Ekstein PFSCL XLVI, 90 (2019) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2019-0008 164 Racine Bérénice 82 10 16 Racine Bajazet 21 10 54 Racine Mithridate 78 55 10 Racine Iphigénie 92 34 88 Racine Phèdre 49 2 55 Racine Esther 40 35 69 Racine Athalie 42 33 281 Rotrou Le Véritable Saint Genest 11 7 88 Rotrou Venceslas 6 2 1 Rotrou Cosroès 20 5 27 Rotrou Antigone 28 5 20 Rotrou Iphigénie 69 27 42 Rotrou Laure persécutée 5 0 15 Rotrou La Bague de l’oubli 10 1 8 Molière Le Misanthrope 5 0 15 Molière Tartuffe 3 0 12 Molière Les Femmes savantes 19 3 37 Molière Le Bourgeois gentilhomme 1 0 7 Molière Les Fâcheux 7 5 10 Molière L’École des femmes 6 2 8 Molière Don Juan 0 0 15 Molière Le Malade imaginaire 1 2 18 Tristan L’Hermite La Marianne 15 8 20 Tristan L’Hermite La Mort de Sénèque 26 6 59 Mairet La Sophonisbe 31 14 18 Pradon Phèdre et Hippolyte 51 2 50 Catherine Bernard Brutus 42 32 43 Desmarets de Saint Sorlin Les Visionnaires 36 11 117 Du Ryer Arétaphile 0 4 5