Abstract: Heir to the Senecan maniac of humanist theater, the tyrant in the tragedies of Tristan L’Hermite embodies certain extraordinary forms of modern judicial power. His representation is served by a dramaturgy of suspicion which makes the effects of judicial persecution palpable to the spectators. The tyrant’s fall from grace no longer gives rise to exemplary laments, but to a critical investigation, which sometimes, in Osman, entails a paradoxical heroization.
