Home Die Aufklärung als Nullpunkt epischer Auralität der Moderne? Voltaires Henriade und die Rezitations- und Deklamationspraktiken im Frankreich des 18. Jahrhunderts
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Die Aufklärung als Nullpunkt epischer Auralität der Moderne? Voltaires Henriade und die Rezitations- und Deklamationspraktiken im Frankreich des 18. Jahrhunderts

  • Marco Thomas Bosshard
Published/Copyright: October 24, 2013
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Abstract

This article analyzes the performative context of Voltaire’s epic poem La Henriade. Using the concept of ‘aurality’, that implies the presence of a written text together with its public reading, the author does not focus on the epic text as such but on the text of epic representation in order to discuss the genre as a media of communication that relates poet and public. In this context, it is significant that Voltaire eliminated graphic rhyme, the so-called rimes pour l’oeil, in later editions of La Henriade, promoting phonetic - i.e. audible - rhyme and anticipating thus French spelling reform by almost hundred years. Retracing Voltaire’s own public readings of epic texts on one hand, and discussing his position towards declamatory practices in French theatre of the 18th century on the other - bearing in mind the distinction between declamation and recitation made by Du Bos and Marmontel -, it can be observed that Voltaire does not only aim at a dramatization of epic poetry, but even seems to suggest its theatralization as performance.

Online erschienen: 2013-10-24
Erschienen im Druck: 2012-12

© 2013 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co.

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