‘Staging Justice in Early Modern France’
Special Issue of Early Modern French Studies 42.2 (2020)
Guest edited by Valérie M. Dionne and Michael Meere
Dedicated to the memory of Christian Biet
https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/yemf20/42/2?nav=tocList
Editor's note: We are delighted to present this special issue, Staging Justice in Early Modern France, guest edited by Valérie M. Dionne and Michael Meere. At a time where certain democratic leaders have ignored or appeared to conflate the very meaning and worth of justice and injustice and where truth is all too often paraded before the media as a dispensable commodity, it seems an appropriate time to look back at ways in which justice is represented on the early modern French stage. When Pascal, taking his lead from Montaigne, is able to write, ‘Plaisante justice qu’une rivière borne’ (Pensées, S94), we quickly realise that unstable notions of justice are not unique to the present times. It is a tribute to the work of the guest editors and the contributors that so many interesting perspectives and layers of meaning are explored in this issue.
Contents:
In Memoriam—Christian Biet (1952-2020)
Michael Meere
Introduction: Staging Justice in Early Modern France
Michael Meere
Charles IX et la Justice dans l’Antigone de Jean-Antoine Baïf
Valérie M. Dionne
Pardon paternel et justice d’exception dans Les Corrivaus (1573) de Jean de La Taille
Corinne Noirot
Death Sentences: Corneille’s Prison Monologues
Joseph Harris
Bérénice on Trial: Judging Corneille against Racine
Hélène Bilis
‘Neither Completely Guilty nor Completely Innocent’: Representing Injustice in Jean Racine’s Phèdre
Marc Bizer
The Stage against the Scaffold: French Adaptation of George Lillo’s London Merchant
Annelle Curulla
Vigilante, Brigand, Terrorist: Staging Popular Justice in Revolutionary Times
Yann Robert