Comptes rendus PFSCL XLVII, 93 (2020) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2020-0023 306 François Lecercle et Clotilde Thouret (dir.) : La haine du théâtre. Controverses européennes sur le spectacle. Vol. 1 : Controverses et polémiques. Littératures classiques n o 98 (2019). 202 p. In 2013 the editors of this collection founded at Paris-Sorbonne a research group entitled “Haine du théâtre” in order to study antitheatrical prejudice in a wider context than ever before. In particular, they wanted to expand the corpus to include defenses of drama as well as attacks, to include nontraditional sources such as legal and medical texts, to embrace as many countries as possible, and to situate the debates more fully in their social and political contexts, rather than viewing them purely within the history of ideas. One of their core projects was to produce an online database consisting of a bibliography complemented with editions (in modernized spelling) and translations of all the relevant source texts. They also sponsored a colloquium in 2014 and issued two volumes of studies stemming from that event. Volume 1 contains fourteen articles covering discussions and controversies from the period of the Roman Empire and from the 16 th through the 18 th centuries; the countries studied are France (with 4 articles), England (3), Spain (2), Germanspeaking regions and Japan (1 each). I shall limit myself here to the aspects mostly directly relevant to specialists in French drama. The first two articles deal with the prehistory of antitheatrical views. Guillaume Navaud shows how positions inherited from pagan Greek authors were adopted and reworked by Christian authors. Thus, Plato’s claim that (male) performers get contaminated by impersonating female or mad characters was transferred from a moral and pedagogical concern to a religious one (denaturing the person as created by God); inspiration of the poet or reciter by a daimon was converted into possession by a demon. Even when arguments from Plato were accepted without change, as in the denunciation of the subject matter of drama (immoral conduct, scandalous depiction of the gods), Church Fathers tended to give him little or no credit, unwilling to view a pagan writer as an authority. Anne Duprat, examining the most influential condemnation of drama by a Church Father (Tertullian’s De spectaculis from ca. 200), situates it in its original context and shows how radically it was reinterpreted in a later period. Tertullian had in mind not just plays that we would call literary, but also popular spectacles such as circuses and gladiator fights. Moreover, he was urging Christians to separate themselves from their neighbors by not participating in activities that played a large role in the social and cultural life of the Roman world. He also wanted Christians to view their lives as a spectacle with God as the true spectator, especially in their willingness to undergo martyrdom. One part of the treatise seen as especially relevant by writers of the early modern period was Comptes rendus PFSCL XLVII, 93 (2020) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2020-0023 307 Tertullian’s prophetic vision of an apocalyptic era when the elect would become spectators of the punishments meted out to the wicked; this was sometimes applied during the Reformation to the development of Christian sacred drama or to works dealing with the current religious strife. Two essays examine little-known texts in France that argued for or against the morality of drama. The earliest of these, dating from 1541, is the record of a lawsuit in which the Parlement of Paris sought to block production of a mystère, even though the organizers had already obtained royal approval. The arguments against drama included nearly all of the main charges found in later polemics, while the representative of the organizers denied that theatrical performances had any harmful effect on citizens. François Lecercle explains how a variety of circumstances caused the controversy to erupt at that moment: concerns over the professionalization of drama, which was becoming a lucrative activity; the intrusion of lay people into what had been the exclusive domain of the Church; worry about attacks from Protestants, who wanted to wrest control of Scripture from Church authority and also objected to religious imagery and ceremonies, including dramatic representation. One lasting legacy of that lawsuit was the demand by civil authorities that troupes make substantial contributions to designated charitable organizations. The earliest pro-theater texts to be printed, from the early decades of the seventeenth century, came from professional actors who responded to attacks, mostly from clergy, by either agreeing with them to a limited degree or by mocking them in subversive ways. Hugh Roberts notes how actors who delivered their defensive statements in live performance, including the celebrated farceurs Bruscambille and Guillot-Gorju, could count on solidarity with the well-educated part of the audience and hint at a shared tolerance for libertin views. The other articles devoted to France cover polemical episodes that are very well-known. Déborah Blocker, reexamining the arguments during the quarrel over L’Ecole des Femmes, notes that Molière and his main rivals spent relatively little time on morality-based defense (plays can be instructive and honnête), preferring to focus on the intrinsic goodness of pleasures connected with the body (laughter and food, with vague hints at sexuality), which suggests a rejection of religious views that condemn the senses outright. In L’Impromptu de Versailles Molière went further by noting that the king himself felt genuine pleasure at spectacles and that he and his subjects could appreciate the same works. Laurence Marie explores an intriguing instance where arguments originally intended as a critique of drama were appropriated by its supporters. Rousseau, the first to use the term sang-froid to describe the way actors operate, considered the act of performing innocent, rather than deliberatively deceptive, though he found the lack of empathy on Comptes rendus PFSCL XLVII, 93 (2020) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2020-0023 308 the part of both performer and spectator morally problematic; this also constituted a break with the traditional position that actors really felt the passions of the characters they portrayed. But Diderot would adopt the same concept in praise of actors: viewed on aesthetic grounds, emotional detachment leads to a more convincing representation of reality. In a comparative study of apologists in France and England, Clotilde Thouret explores a favorite technique for satirizing drama’s opponents: the théâtrophobes could depict either specific writers or a generic type. Accusing them of vices and flaws such as hypocrisy or melancholy allowed the defenders to devote less time to, or even avoid, giving proofs of drama’s merits. In England, unlike France, the apologists could claim to have patriotism on their side, since enemies of drama, going back to the 1640s, had been associated with sedition and regicide. The first of the studies just about England focuses on antitheatrical treatises from the Elizabethan era. As Nathalie Vienne-Guerrin demonstrates, the writers denounced what they saw as malicious satire (of humanity in general and of specific professions), the presentation of immoral behavior and the use of bad language, including blasphemy. Amusingly, the language utilized by the pamphleteers was itself frequently abuse-filled. The other two studies show how theatrical controversy could impact the writing or reception of individual plays. Zoé Schweitzer examines a curious instance where a playwright, trying to refute anti-theatrical views, ended up with a creative form of self-censorship. Charles Gildon, who argued simultaneously that plays can be schools of virtue, that it is possible to adapt the works of ancient authors to fit modern viewpoints, but that one must not go too far in accommodating public taste, drastically reworked the Medea of Euripides in his Phaeton in hopes of eliminating all the shocking elements of the original story. However, neither in his tragedy nor in his polemical preface did Gildon develop a coherent position. Yan Brailowsky’s discussion of the controversy surrounding the court performance of Jonson’s Masque of Blackness in 1605 shows that the issues were political and religious as much as aesthetic. Although much of the ire was directed to the presence of women on stage and to the daring costumes and makeup, those who commissioned the work (the king and queen) grasped the value of spectacle as pro-royal propaganda. The articles devoted to Spain indicate cases where arguments for or against the theater break out of the usual pattern. Anne Teulade, in an overview of discussions during the whole Golden Age period, notes that many of the writers, instead of rehashing the standard moral arguments, focus on political and pragmatic concerns. Given that monarchs had the power to close and reopen theaters and that lengthy closures were ordered following the deaths of members of the royal family, polemics were often addressed to the Comptes rendus PFSCL XLVII, 93 (2020) DOI 10.2357/ PFSCL-2020-0023 309 ruler and in many cases coincided with periods of closure. The writers were concerned with the effects of drama, not on individuals, but on society as a whole. Detractors listed the ways in which plays could harm the social order, while defenders claimed that plays could instruct both the nobility and the common people in areas such as history, good behavior, heroism and religious doctrine. Carine Herzig, concentrating on texts from 1672 and 1681 (a period between two of the major quarrels over drama), pinpoints the reorientation of arguments, from writers on both sides, toward the impact of specific current forms of Spanish drama, deemed either deleterious or useful to society. Marie-Thérèse Mourey, analyzing controversies in German-speaking lands, shows how the influence of Calvinists and pietists, linked to suspicion of art forms (especially opera and court ballet) imported from Catholic countries, was sometimes sufficient to shut down the theaters, but by no means always. While all of these articles contain interesting material, the main value of the collection is its demonstration that the historical and political approach to the polemical texts is a fruitful one. Perry Gethner