RHADAMISTE ET ZÉNOBIE

Tragédie en cinq actes, en vers

Représentée pour la première fois à la Comédie-Française le 23 janvier 1711

CRÉBILLON

Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674-1762) was born in Dijon, January 13, 1674, the son of a notary. Little is known of his early education, though it is supposed that he attended the Jesuit college in his native town. Later he studied law at Besançon and was admitted to the bar in Paris at some time between 1693 and 1700. Very soon he began to frequent Parisian literary circles. In his professional employment he was connected with the law office of Louis Prieur, a man much interested in the theatre. At his urging, Crébillon undertook to write a tragedy, la Mort des enfants de Brutus, which the Comédie-Française refused to accept. It was never published. Next Crébillon composed another tragedy, Idomenée, which had some slight success when performed in 1705 and gave promise of the author's ability as a dramatist. Then followed in 1707 the tragedy Atrée. Here Crébillon really found himself and showed his originality, especially in the introduction of the element of terror for which he became famous. This play gave him a place above his contemporaries as a writer of tragedy. On January 23, 1711, the Comédie-Française produced his Rhadamiste et Zénobie, which enjoyed thirty performances. It is the crowning point in his dramatic career, and was acclaimed a masterpiece. The two tragedies which followed, Xerxès, 1714, and Sémiramis, 1717, were unsuccessful. In the Law débacle Crébillon, who had taken to speculating, lost most of his small fortune. Burdened with debts and unable to rehabilitate himself, he dropped out of sight from 1721 to 1726. After nine years he once again came forward with a tragedy, Pyrrhus, 1726, a meritorious and successful effort. Five years later, 1731, he was elected to the Academy. In 1733 he was named royal censor and in 1735 was given the additional appointment of police censor. These positions he held until his death. As a censor of plays he came into conflict with Voltaire, and a lasting enmity ensued. The bad feeling and jealousy on Voltaire's part resulted in his attempting to dramatize the themes of some of Crébillon's tragedies in a manner which he thought would be so superior as to crush the latter's reputation. Thus he produced a Sémiramis (1748), the Electra theme in Oreste (1750), Catalina as Rome sauvée (1752), and Atrée as les Pélopides (1771). Crébillon, who disliked disputes, refused to be drawn into controversy. The last thirty years of his life he lived a commonplace and rather secluded existence, too indolent to take advantage of the fame which he had achieved. The esteem in which he was held in Court circles procured him several pensions and an appointment as one of the royal librarians. Furthermore, his works were published at the Louvre in 1750 at the king's expense. After twenty-two years of silence, upon the insistent urging of his friends, he finally produced Catalina. 1748. The royal treasury paid the cost of the luxurious staging of this tragedy, and its success was due in part to the splendor of the production. Taking advantage for a moment of the prestige of royal favor, Crébillon wrote his last tragedy, le Triumvirat, which had a succès d'estime when performed in 1754

From this time until his death at Paris, June 17, 1762, his life was marked by no event of importance.

In the estimation of the majority of the Frenchmen of the eighteenth century, Crébillon occupied a position second only to that of Corneille and Racine among writers of tragedy. Modern criticism has been on the whole rather harsh and at times unjust to him. Whatever his defects, he occupies a distinct place in the evolution of the French drama. Like Voltaire, he seems to have realized that the classical tragedy of the previous century was losing its appeal to the contemporary audience, and that this dramatic form required reinvigoration if it was. to survive. He accepted without question the framework of the tragedies of Corneille and Racine and their rules of dramaturgy, and all his subjects are taken from antiquity. Into this traditional form he attempted to infuse a few new elements, and whatever originality he contributed to the evolution of the drama lies here. These original contributions have been characterized by two terms, not mutually exclusive: the romanesque and the terrible. By romanesque is usually meant certain characteristics of the novel, especially of the French novels of the seventeenth century, which depend for their motivating forces and development upon such elements as disguises, mistaken identities, recognitions, abductions, and the like. Crébillon complicates the simple form of classical tragedy by the introduction of such elements. Five out of nine of his tragedies contain cases of disguise and recognition. The peripeteia of his plays frequently result from such devices. To these he adds the element of terror. He claimed that in doing this he was merely producing pity through terror. In Atrée he came close to approaching the horrible, with the cup of blood. On the whole, however, he endeavors always to keep the terrible toned down so as to offer no offense to his public. The latter was still a little too sensible (i. e., sentimentally sensitive) to fully tolerate these innovations, with which Crébillon was unwittingly helping to sow the seeds for the ruin of tragedy. During the eighteenth century the romanesque, which is in certain respects synonymous with the realistic, grows slowly but surely in the French drama, undermining the foundations of tragedy. Finally the new elements which Crébillon had introduced came into full bloom in the melodrama, and were carried over in part into Romantic drama. It is not without reason that Crébillon has been called "the father of melodrama." He unfortunately came a century too early. The melodrama appeals to a popular audience and not to one of the élite type for which he wrote. He failed to understand the fact that the romanesque always tends to the particular, and therefore away from the universal at which classical tragedy aimed. Corneille and Racine are not wholly free from it, but in their efforts at universality they keep it down to a minimum.

Crébillon has been censured for his style. It has its defects and inequalities; but it is not inferior to that of Voltaire, and at moments rises to heights that parallel Corneille and Racine. In character-drawing also Crébillon is not especially strong. The chief characters in Rhadamiste et Zénobie are among his best efforts in this respect. He gives Pharasmane considerable individuality and endows the jealous, impetuous, and barbaric Rhadamiste with many of the qualities of his father. Rhadamiste is nicely balanced by the figure of his wife, Zénobie, who resembles Corneille's heroines in her calm, dutiful, and selfpossessed manner. The complications of the plot of this tragedy (whose chief

sources are Tacitus' Annales, Bk. xii, and Segrais' novel, Bérénice, 1648-51, 4 vols.) are characteristic of Crébillon. Thus we find Zénobie promised in marriage by her father, Mithridate, to her cousin, Rhadamiste, the son of Pharasmane. For political reasons, Mithridate is forced to change his mind and betroth her to another. Rhadamiste in a rage slays Mithridate, marries Zénobie, and flees with her. He is so closely pursued by his enemies that he fears that she will fall into another's hands; so he stabs her and throws her into a river. She is rescued still alive, and survives. Then after ten years of wandering under the name of Isménie, she arrives at the court of Pharasmane, her father-in-law. Both he and his son, Arsame, desire to marry her. She really loves Arsame. Then Rhadamiste appears under the guise of a Roman ambassador without his identity being known, and eventually finds his wife in the supposed Isménie. Thus a father and two sons are rivals for the same woman. About to carry off Zénobie, Rhadamiste is slain by his father who has not recognized him. Here are all the elements necessary for a typical melodrama. The developments in the plot result largely from melodramatic coups de théâtre. One needs but read this play to understand why Crébillon, considered by his admirers as the third great French writer of tragedies, has failed to maintain a rank beside the other two, or even beside Voltaire.

Bibliography: CRÉBILLON: Rhadamiste et Zénobie, Paris, 1711. J. DE CRÉBILLON: Théâtre complet, Paris, 1885 (with Notice sur Crébillon by A. Vitu). M. DUTRAIT: Étude sur la vie et le théâtre de Crébillon, Bordeaux, 1895. G. D'HUGHS: Étude sur Crébillon le tragique. Dijon, 1887. F. BRUNETIÈRE: Les Époques du théâtre français, Paris, 1892. G. LARROUMET: Rhadamiste et Zénobie, in Revue des Cours et Conférences, Paris, 1899-1900. C. DÉJOB: De l'Emotion dramatique. "Rhadamiste et Zénobie," in Revue des Cours et Conférences, Paris, 1899-1900.