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Racine and Chauveau: a poetics of illustration

Abstract:
This article examines the original illustrations for Racine's plays, mostly drawn by François Chauveau, and attacks several perennial received ideas about them: that they mostly depict off-stage violent action; that they are aesthetically at odds with the plays themselves; that the illustrations owe more to the artist's fantasy than to Racine's text. The article demonstrates that most of the illustrations depict on-stage events, and, with particularly detailed analyses of the illustrations for La Thébaïde and Mithridate, argues that, whether the event depicted is on-stage or off-stage, the artist engages scrupulously with the text of the play, producing an illustration that is faithful to Racine's work and inviting the reader to engage in fruitful parallel readings of text and image. The illustrations respond to, and capitalize on, Racine's dramatic poetry.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publisher copy:
10.1093/fs/knm082

Authors

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Institution:
University of Oxford
Oxford college:
Keble College
Role:
Author

Contributors


Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Journal:
French Studies More from this journal
Volume:
61
Issue:
3
Pages:
280-297
Publication date:
2007-07-01
DOI:
EISSN:
1468-2931
ISSN:
0016-1128


Language:
English
Keywords:
Subjects:
UUID:
uuid:f6ff1a93-5a67-4c57-be24-58f02c010f70
Local pid:
ora:3493
Deposit date:
2010-03-12
ARK identifier:

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