La Mariane : une poétique moderne du naturel

The “foreword” to La Mariane is not remembered as an important text in reflections on the theater. Yet it sets out a literary project, which becomes meaningful if we put it in the context of the “rebirth of tragedy” of the mid-1630s. Tristan L’Hermite takes up the old idea of the proper representation of characters to propose a new ideal for tragedy, that of the natural.