Louis-Ferdinand Céline dramaturge: poétique au service du théâtre classique = Louis-Ferdinand Céline playwright: poetics at the service of classical theatre

This contribution focuses on Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s dramatic production, consisting of two plays written in 1927 (L’Église and Progrès). The aim of this study is to investigate the function of the theatre for the author, through a literary analysis of the two plays. This production proved to be a first attempt at social denunciation, with which readers have been familiar since Voyage. Furthermore, the article explores the possible influences that led Céline to write for the theatre. By reading the correspondence we discover that Céline was an estimator of French comedy, and particularly that of Molière. The result is an analysis that allows us to associate his production with that of the Théâtre classique of the 17th century. Céline would therefore, quite hypothetically, have been inspired by the famous playwright’s comédies-ballets, thus reviving the classics of French literature on the contemporary stage.