Adversaire, adversaires: mise en scène du diable et diabolisation dans les tragédies protestantes du XVIe siècle (1550-1572)
Creators: name: N'zué-Agbadou, Séraphine A.
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2022

description: Sixteenth-century French religious theater inherited the character of the devil from the Middle Ages; more specifically, from “Medieval” mystery plays whose popularity was still strong, if increasingly controversial, at the time. However, the period’s religious schism and subsequent wars produced a shift in the traditional role of this character. In addition to being presented as the “adversary” of the believer in general, it also came to symbolize and “otherize” a Christian faith (namely, Catholicism) presented by Protestants as a corruption of the true one. It was much later, at the height of the civil war, that Catholics in turn – Ligueurs to be exact – put the devil (or a stand-in) on stage as a figure of their enemies, who in this case were “moderate” Catholics, favoring a compromise with the Huguenots, rather than the Huguenots themselves.So, the latter were first to put the devil on stage, in the 1550s and 60s. Accordingly, our dissertation focuses on this initial moment. It asks why, how, and to what effect pioneering French Calvinist playwrights, in order to convey their message, chose on the one hand to write tragédies (thus invoking a classical model) and chose, on the other hand, to retain Satan in their cast of characters, while ruling out the representation of God, which was allowed in mystères but was considered sheer idolatry by the Reformation. In moralités, polemical morality plays, which some of their colleagues favored, the presence of Satan and other devils among allegorical figures would seem less strange in itself; but in the tragédies saintes studied by this dissertation, the devil inevitably stands out. Why did writers such as Théodore de Bèze and Louis Des Masures, advocates of sola Scriptura, not only make deliberate and purposeful changes to the key Biblical narratives they chose as subjects for their plays, but end up doing so by inserting in them – and showing on the stage – a supernatural agent of evil?The ultimate question that we are aiming at is this: by endeavoring to entertain, educate, and above all encourage their coreligionists (their primary audience) in this way, namely by using a Satanic figure to account for the challenges faced by such Old Testament characters as Abraham or David, as well as – via an implicit analogy – for the persecution of their own faith at the hands of Catholics, did these writers end up “demonizing” the latter more than they intended to? Did they displace and trivialize, consciously or not, the wicked role played by the devil in the life of any believer, as described by Reformation thinkers such as Jean Calvin? At what moment does a spiritual diagnosis of the presence and role of evil in certain persons become a social and political tool to “demonize” the persons themselves, as individuals and as a group? Did our writers risk overshadowing or undermining the message they intended to convey in their plays, regarding faith and divine grace, by helping to foster or justify, however unwittingly, a physical war, where the likes of Saint Paul and Calvin only urged a spiritual one? Furthermore, were they not elevating the status of the devil, the enemy of Christians and iv a hindrance to their salvation, by drawing too much attention to him, thus exaggerating his power, not just in the world, but vis-à-vis God Himself?It is important not to rush to conclusions with respect to such large questions, which we consider here from the narrow angle of theater writing only. To understand why the devil is on stage in the first Calvinist tragedies, we must describe what he is doing there, and how he is doing it; while also comparing different plays in this regard, including one where Satan does not appear. What we are proposing, therefore, is a comparative analysis of the texts themselves.The first chapter, however, gives an overview of “demonization” precedents in the Medieval period, against other faiths – Jews particularly – and marginalized groups, as well as against women. We pay special attention to witches, whose persecution flourished at the end of the Middle Ages and even more so during the 16th and 17th centuries, with Protestants and Catholics both supporting it: a reminder that the most criminal forms of demonization, at that time, assumed the actual presence or action of the devil himself in certain human beings. Next, we take a preliminary look at the ways in which Satan came to represent one’s religious opponent, Protestant or Catholic: thus, was birthed a mutual demonization, based on different interpretations of the Scriptures.The second chapter examines the (relative and complex) demonization of theater itself by both Catholics and Protestants, who objected to its seductive power and ability to simulate reality: there was, to the eyes of many, something inherently diabolical in a theater performance. Such objections focused particularly on the representation of God and the Saints, as well as on the often-grotesque way in which Lucifer or Satan were portrayed in the mystères. While such views were strongest on the Protestant side (and ultimately led to a total ban on theater), Catholics shared them at least in part, which led to attempts to ban the mystères, most famously in Paris in 1548. At the same moment, traditional religious theater was also rejected for secular reasons, in favor of classical models for poetry, theater included, advocated by the likes of Joachim Du Bellay (in his 1549 Deffence et illustration). This meant that Christian playwrights on both sides felt pressured to reconcile their religious inspiration and subjects with aesthetic models and constraints borrowed from Antiquity: Seneca’s tragedies first and throughout; then, increasingly, rules inspired by Aristotle’s Poetics, most visible in the plays and ideas of Jean de La Taille, another Protestant writer. The religious conflict only made this synthesis more urgent, on the Reformed side first, then on the Catholic side. With the onset of the Guerres de religion, theater written à l’antique came to echo, or even directly represented, contemporary events, and the dreadful consequences of the war.Chapter three analyzes the first French Protestant tragédie, Abraham sacrifiant, based on chapter 22 of Genesis (the sacrifice of Isaac) by the theologian, preacher, and leader Théodore de Bèze, who, in the service of his Calvinist message, attempted to strike a middle course between “Medieval” theater and classical models. The trilogy of tragédies saintes by Louis Des Masures (David combattant, David triomphant, David fugitif), which we study in chapter four, uses a similar strategy with key events in the life of young David, the future king of Israel. Neither playwright adopted a truly classical form, yet both were accomplished humanists, fully trained in the knowledge and appreciation of Antiquity. This allowed them (Bèze especially) to create original plays that streamline the sprawling matter of the mystères into a more focused shape, so as to concentrate the reader or spectator’s attention on one course of action and on the acute vi spiritual drama of characters facing faith-threatening ordeals. In both chapters, about all four plays, we study the role played by the character of Satan.Bèze and Des Masures refrained, in fact, from presenting the devil as a full-fledged “character,” directly participating in the action and dialogue, as was the case in the mystères. In this respect too, they struck a middle course. Satan is there, yet not materially, except as a theater device, a prop: only the spectators see and hear him on the stage. The other characters do not: they only “hear” him in their souls, as an inner voice inducing fear, despair, pride, etc. What Satan says is either in the form of monologues or “pseudo-dialogues,” in which only interior interaction takes place between him and someone else. Abraham and David feel unconsciously tempted by his “words,” then consciously reject temptation, not on their own volition, but thanks to their faith. Thus, the spectators get to “see” how Satan operates yet understand that they do not “really” see him, since he resides inside the other characters, as he does inside each of us. This device illustrates the Calvinist notion of evil as our very condition, from which only God’s grace can save us. In this way, Bèze and Des Masures limit the risk of embodying Satan on the stage. They show him in a manner that is both spiritually sound and highly dramatic: in his pseudo-dialogues with David or Abraham, what is at stake is faith itself. Yet because he is only a prop, he can also be dressed by Bèze as a Catholic monk, for example: thus, implicitly pointing to another enemy doing the devil’s work.The fifth and final chapter analyzes the tragedy of Aman, based on both versions of the book of Esther by André de Rivaudeau. While Rivaudeau was a Calvinist too, he rejected the hybrid form developed by Bèze, and wrote his play according to the strict classical model advocated by Du Bellay among others. It follows that he would not put vii Satan on the stage: the task of representing and (this time) fully embodying evil was given to Aman, planning to exterminate the Jews and talking in the violent style of Seneca’s furieux. Rivaudeau’s refusal to make a character out of Satan, be it as a prop, led him to intensify the actual presence of evil on the stage. La Taille’s Saül le furieux, under Aristotle’s influence, went in the opposite direction: the playwright ended up mitigating his protagonist’s wickedness. Rivaudeau, on the other hand, made sure to select the worst possible character, and had him speaking as though he were already burning in Hell. In Bèze or Des Masures, Satan rages at times, but he can also speak calmly, with finesse, even candor occasionally. The fact that the audience was invited to recognize a Catholic oppressor in a monster like Aman suggests that demonization accelerates when Satan himself is not on stage and we only see those he possesses.Our writers were indeed obsessed with the devil: first because he is the “author,” as Calvin puts it, of evil in all of us; but also, because he came to embody their Catholic persecutors. While Bèze and Des Masures took care to “dematerialize” Satan’s presence on the stage, it still had the power to persuade the faithful that the oppression they endured was his work, and the oppressors his agents. In Aman, paradoxically, Satan’s absence ended up proving that fact even more. While we understand why the Protestants needed to point to the source of the evil they were facing and used theater to show it, we should note the incitement potential of this theatrical demonizing, which fanaticized Ligueurs would adopt in turn later on. It may have not directly caused it, but neither can it be absolved from the religious violence that ensued, in violation of the teachings of Saint Paul and Calvin, which advocated for peaceful resolutions of conflicts through prayer and the active reading of the Scriptures, sola Scriptura.