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Chapter 8. Before sentimental empire

Slavery, genre and emotion on the seventeenth-century French stage
  • Toby Erik Wikström
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A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery
This chapter is in the book A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery

Abstract

This article seeks to historicize the eighteenth-century sentimental literature of slavery by examining theatrical performances of cross-cultural servitude from an earlier, markedly different historical context, that of seventeenth-century France. In contrast to the sentimental period, transatlantic empire was still more aspiration than reality for France in the 1600s, slavery more a Mediterranean than an Atlantic phenomenon, and racial discourse still in gestation. I demonstrate that the ways in which French seventeenth-century playwrights modeled their audience’s emotional response to cross-cultural slavery evolved over time, moving from the possibility of audience identification with enslaved characters to a foreclosure of that possibility. The mechanism for this tendency to prevent identification is what I call generic drift, the migration of representations of servitude from the tragic to the tragicomic and comic stages. To demonstrate the evolution of the theater’s modeling of emotional responses to slavery from possible identification to the prevention of identification over time, I analyze representations of servitude in Le More cruel, an anonymous tragedy from 1610, Scudéry’s 1636 tragicomedy L’Amant liberal and Montfleury’s 1663–64 comedy Le Mary sans femme. I show that the tragedy partially encourages the audience to feel compassion for the plight of the slave, whereas the tragicomic and comic plays incite erotic pleasure or scorn, reactions that distance the audience from the enslaved. I also relate the generic drift to the increased disciplining of compassion in the 1600s and to France’s growing participation in the Atlantic slave trade.

Abstract

This article seeks to historicize the eighteenth-century sentimental literature of slavery by examining theatrical performances of cross-cultural servitude from an earlier, markedly different historical context, that of seventeenth-century France. In contrast to the sentimental period, transatlantic empire was still more aspiration than reality for France in the 1600s, slavery more a Mediterranean than an Atlantic phenomenon, and racial discourse still in gestation. I demonstrate that the ways in which French seventeenth-century playwrights modeled their audience’s emotional response to cross-cultural slavery evolved over time, moving from the possibility of audience identification with enslaved characters to a foreclosure of that possibility. The mechanism for this tendency to prevent identification is what I call generic drift, the migration of representations of servitude from the tragic to the tragicomic and comic stages. To demonstrate the evolution of the theater’s modeling of emotional responses to slavery from possible identification to the prevention of identification over time, I analyze representations of servitude in Le More cruel, an anonymous tragedy from 1610, Scudéry’s 1636 tragicomedy L’Amant liberal and Montfleury’s 1663–64 comedy Le Mary sans femme. I show that the tragedy partially encourages the audience to feel compassion for the plight of the slave, whereas the tragicomic and comic plays incite erotic pleasure or scorn, reactions that distance the audience from the enslaved. I also relate the generic drift to the increased disciplining of compassion in the 1600s and to France’s growing participation in the Atlantic slave trade.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. General introduction xi
  5. Slavery, literature and the emotions 1
  6. Part One. Slavery, sentiment and affect
  7. Chapter 1. Slavery, sentimentality and the abolition of affect 18
  8. Chapter 2. Race and affect in Gustave de Beaumont’s Marie, ou L’esclavage aux Etats‑Unis 34
  9. Chapter 3. Touching difference and colonial space 50
  10. Part Two. Slavery between literary codes
  11. Chapter 4. In search of home 78
  12. Chapter 5. Showing and feeling the atrocities of slavery 95
  13. Chapter 6. Politics and faith, slavery and abolition in nineteenth-century Brazilian literature 110
  14. Chapter 7. Melodramatic tableaux vivants 136
  15. Part Three. Pity, identification and interpellation
  16. Chapter 8. Before sentimental empire 158
  17. Chapter 9. “No one can imagine my feelings” 173
  18. Chapter 10. Orientalism, slavery and emotion 191
  19. Chapter 11. Haunting slavery 207
  20. Part Four. Affective ties
  21. Chapter 12. Testamentary manumission and emotional bonds in eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue 226
  22. Chapter 13. Affection amidst domination in a post-slavery society 239
  23. Chapter 14. Bárbora and Jau 254
  24. Part Five. First-person voices
  25. Chapter 15. Scenes of emotion in French early-modern travel writing from the Caribbean 272
  26. Chapter 16. Fear and love in Matanzas 289
  27. Chapter 17. The blood-stained-gate 307
  28. Volume 1. Biographical descriptions 325
  29. Name index 331
https://doi.org/10.1075/chlel.xxxvi.08wik

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. General introduction xi
  5. Slavery, literature and the emotions 1
  6. Part One. Slavery, sentiment and affect
  7. Chapter 1. Slavery, sentimentality and the abolition of affect 18
  8. Chapter 2. Race and affect in Gustave de Beaumont’s Marie, ou L’esclavage aux Etats‑Unis 34
  9. Chapter 3. Touching difference and colonial space 50
  10. Part Two. Slavery between literary codes
  11. Chapter 4. In search of home 78
  12. Chapter 5. Showing and feeling the atrocities of slavery 95
  13. Chapter 6. Politics and faith, slavery and abolition in nineteenth-century Brazilian literature 110
  14. Chapter 7. Melodramatic tableaux vivants 136
  15. Part Three. Pity, identification and interpellation
  16. Chapter 8. Before sentimental empire 158
  17. Chapter 9. “No one can imagine my feelings” 173
  18. Chapter 10. Orientalism, slavery and emotion 191
  19. Chapter 11. Haunting slavery 207
  20. Part Four. Affective ties
  21. Chapter 12. Testamentary manumission and emotional bonds in eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue 226
  22. Chapter 13. Affection amidst domination in a post-slavery society 239
  23. Chapter 14. Bárbora and Jau 254
  24. Part Five. First-person voices
  25. Chapter 15. Scenes of emotion in French early-modern travel writing from the Caribbean 272
  26. Chapter 16. Fear and love in Matanzas 289
  27. Chapter 17. The blood-stained-gate 307
  28. Volume 1. Biographical descriptions 325
  29. Name index 331
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