Pity, Compassion, Commiseration: Theories of Theatrical Relatedness

Author: Ibbett, Katherine

Source: Seventeenth-Century French Studies, Volume 30, Number 2, December 2008 , pp. 196-208(13)

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Abstract:

In this essay I address the language of fellow feeling in seventeenth-century French discussions of tragedy. I argue that as dramatic theorists move away from Aristotle's Poetics and its assessment of catharsis, they broker a distinction between pity and compassion. Pity is understood as a part of the great machine of catharsis that serves as a schooling for the purged self, whereas compassion ushers in a broader vision of the social, where theatre is prized not because it schools the individual but because it gives rise to a commonality of experience. Looking at theorists such as d'Aubignac, La Mesnardière, Corneille and Rapin, I argue that although the discourse of compassion is first imagined as a private response to staged suffering, the shared nature of that response means it also comes to form a particular sense of the social.

Keywords: CORNEILLE; LA MESNARDIÈRE; TRAGEDY; D'AUBIGNAC; RAPIN; PITY; COMPASSION

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/175226908X372350

Publication date: 2008-12-01

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