| Author | Przemysław Kossakowski |
|---|---|
| Title | Narrations of the royal power in the 17th century’s French classical tragedies |
| Keywords | classical tragedy, power, usurpation, ideal, legitimacy |
| Pages | 245-262 |
| Full text | |
| Volume | 33 |
The object of this paper is to examine different narrations of the royal power and authority, present in the 17th century’s French classical tragedies. The author proceeds by a typological examination of a representative sample of plays containing such narrations in order to discover and define some types of power there represented. Through the notions of sovereignty, legitimacy, justice, reason of state, the author differentiates tragedies based on leitmotivs of usurpation, legitimate but tyrannical power, to end with a type of authority considered as an ideal of the classical period. The other interesting point is to observe how authors construct narrations and implant them in the political and ideological reality of early modern France.