French Theatre of the Napoleonic era

近年来，重新评估革命十年戏剧作品的学者数量急剧增加（例如，美国拉威尔，弗里德兰，马斯兰的工作），但尚未扩展到拿破仑时代的戏剧。对革命后不久进行的为数不多的现代研究继续得出结论，拿破仑时期的戏剧在美学上是低劣的。例如，Horne（2004）的结论是，“没有一部有价值的法国戏剧可以追溯到拿破仑时期”。皮埃尔·弗朗茨在《缪斯帝国》（2004年）中的调查文章中谈到了拿破仑统治下的美学窒息，尽管--或者可能是因为--皇帝对戏剧的重视。革命时期的学者们已经成功地利用了各种方法来表明，即使在审查制度和公开政治化的时代，新的美学戏剧形式也能浮出水面，但这些方法尚未应用于后革命时期。该项目将代表拿破仑时代戏剧研究的一个重大进展，通过纠正缺乏方法创新和最新的研究在法国戏剧生产在1799年和1815年之间。其中三分之一最近已在联合监委会的增强数字资源计划的大量资助下数字化。该收藏的拿破仑时期的全部藏品已经数字化，预计该项目将专注于对戏剧的分析和研究。以Marandet收藏品为起点，它将重新审视第一帝国的戏剧，以了解最近的方法论方法是否可以应用于拿破仑强加给法国戏剧的美学和制度条件。戏剧促进了对艺术过程关键方面的研究--文学文本的创作、公共领域的制作和批评接受--因此，它是重新评估拿破仑文化生活发展的理想媒介。通过将焦点扩展到经典之外，经典是一种人为的建构，只提供了19世纪早期法国文化生活范围的部分画面，通过包括1799年至1815年戏剧的接受和文化背景，该项目不仅将提供对后革命戏剧的更好理解，还将提供对拿破仑时代文化历史以及艺术与政治复杂相互作用的理解。它也将为世纪初法国美学生产的研究提供长期的贡献。通过强调比较、以表演为主导和以接受为导向的方法的好处，它将对戏剧和音乐专家以及从事拿破仑文化工作的人产生重大影响，并将为一个范围广泛的合作性延续项目奠定基础。它还将在培养19世纪下一代学者方面发挥作用。

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of scholars reassessing the dramatic production of the Revolutionary decade (see for instance the work done in the United States by Ravel, Friedland, Maslan) but as yet this has not been extended to the theatre of the Napoleonic era. The few modern studies that have been undertaken on the immediate post-Revolution continue to conclude that theatre of the Napoleonic period is aesthetically inferior. Horne (2004) for instance concludes that 'not a single French play of any value dates from the Napoleonic period'. Pierre Frantz, in his survey essay in L'Empire des Muses (2004) talks of an aesthetic asphyxiation under Napoleon, despite - or perhaps because of - the importance the Emperor attached to theatre. The variety of approaches scholars of the Revolutionary period have successfully exploited to show how new aesthetic theatrical forms can surface even at a time of censorship and overt politicisation have not, as yet, been applied to the post-Revolutionary period. This project will represent a major advancement in studies of theatre of the Napoleonic era by rectifying the lack of methodologically innovative and up-to-date research on theatrical production in France between 1799 and 1815.This project takes as its base the University of Warwick's special collection of Marandet plays, a resource of over 3000 plays of the French 18th and 19th centuries, one third of which has recently been digitised with a substantial grant from JISC's Enhancing Digital Resources scheme. The collection's entire holding for the Napoleonic period has been digitised in anticipation of this project which will focus on analysis of and research into the plays. Using the holdings of the Marandet collection as a starting point, it will re-examine the theatre of the First Empire in order to see whether recent methodological approaches to theatre of the Revolution can be applied to the aesthetic and institutional conditions imposed on French theatre by Napoleon. Theatre facilitates the investigation of key aspects of the artistic process - creation of a literary text, production in the public domain, and critical reception - and is, therefore, an ideal medium through which to re-evaluate the development of Napoleonic cultural life.By extending the focus beyond the canon, an artificial construct which gives only a partial picture of the range of cultural life of early 19th-century France, and by including the reception and cultural context of theatre between 1799 and 1815, the project will provide not just a greater understanding of post-Revolutionary theatre but also of the cultural history of the Napoleonic era and of the complex interplay of art and politics. It will also provide a long-term contribution to studies of French aesthetic production of the early 19th century. By highlighting the benefits of comparative, performance-led and reception-orientated approaches, it will have a significant impact on theatre and music specialists as well as those working on Napoleonic culture, and will lay the basis for a wide-ranging and collaborative continuation project. It will also play a role in training the next generation of 19th-century scholars.