LA LECTURE DU COMIQUE CHEZ PIERRE DE LARIVEY ET LES AUTEURS COMIQUES DE LA FIN DU XVI SIECLE. LE RENOUVEAU DE LA COMEDIE ET SES MODELES ITALIENS

Pierre de Larivey published his first six comedies in 1579, before the theatrical comedy had managed to fulfill the aspirations of the first generation of la Pleiade authors – namely, to enrich the French language, to fight Latin and farce, and to exalt the greatness of the French nation by imitating the very Ancient and Italian texts they translated. In spite of the innovations this first generation of authors introduced, it was not until the second generation, among whom Larivey is the best representative, that the comedy was able to come into its own, and to challenge the Italian model, of which it takes advantage, and to rival as well the noble genre of the tragedy. The precise nature of the innovations they introduced, and more specifically the actual work done by Larivey to rethink this evolving genre, both raise profound questions from this point forward. Larivey’s nine plays seem to designate this translator/adaptor of Italian plays as the main agent of the revival and emancipator of the French comedy from its Italian roots. But other Italianates of the same generation, such as Louis Le Jars, Francois d’Ambroise, and Odet de Turnèbe, also took part in this ambitious project, which not only revitalized the comic genre, but also contributed to the evolution and affirmation of the French language itself. From the close reading of comic works published from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries, this study aims to determine the nature of the links between these playwrights, and to understand better how they helped to revitalize the French comedy and to place it at the service of their noblest and most ambitious aspirations.