At a time when the tragedy is steadily disappearing from theater, Giraudoux’s plays can often seem artificial. But we must pay serious attention to the genuinely Freudian connection that they make between language and theater. Although the “representation of the word” seems to be devalued, the plays instead stress the “representation of the thing,” which had been repressed. This explains the “declarations” that are put into action after a careful consideration of words. The revaluing of language in the plays is only matched by the violence with which rhetoric is condemned.
CLIL theme: 4027 -- SCIENCES HUMAINES ET SOCIALES, LETTRES -- Lettres et Sciences du langage -- Lettres -- Etudes littéraires générales et thématiques