Rois et reines sur la scène romantique, ou la reconfiguration du pouvoir

After 1814, once royalty had been restored and “la chaîne des temps que de sinistres écarts avaient interrompue” had apparently been strengthened, the representation of kings and queens invaded the theater. At first encomiastic, in neo-classical tragedies or “pièces de circonstance,” the staging of sovereigns is more and more openly depreciative during the Restoration and the July Monarchy. The great dramas are built around cruel or weak kings and queens, as heroes of classical tragedy are transformed into traitors of melodrama or puppets. A profound theatrical reconfiguring made monarchs into men among other men. This dramaturgical and scenographic democratization prepares the appearance of a new monarch, “the sovereign people,” for which the theater of constitutional monarchies sows the early seeds. (In French)