"Conversations" et "Proverbes" (le théâtre de Madame de Maintenon ou la naissance du théâtre d'éducation)

Mme de Maintenon compose entre 1686 et 1719 deux séries de saynètes éducatives respectivement intitulées "Conversations" et "Proverbes". Initialement destinés aux Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr et donc à un public aristocratique, ces dialogues dramatiques ont pour but la formation morale des pensionnaires mais constituent aussi un exercice pratique de civilité. Un nouveau genre est ainsi créé qui connaîtra au XVIIIe siècle une fortune certaine : celui du théâtre d éducation. S inspirant de genres littéraires préexistants, eux-mêmes issus de la sociabilité mondaine pratiquée dans la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle, le théâtre maintenonien s approprie ces formes mais les adapte à des fins pédagogiques : il fait de l enfant à la fois son principal personnage et son destinataire privilégié.Between 1686 and 1719, Madame de Maintenon composed two series of short aducational plays entitled respectively "Conversations" and "Proverbs". Initially written for the Demoiselles of Saint-Cyr, i.e., for an aristocratic public, these dramatic dialogues were conceived for the moral education of female boarding school students. Eventually, they were also used as practical exercises to improve politeness. A new literary style is thus created, the educational theatre, greatly followed in the next century. This type of plays issued from pre-existing literary forms, were inspired by civility used in the polite upper class society during the second part of the seventeenth century. The Maintenonian theatre play appropriates these models and adapts them to its pedagogical project : it institutes the child as its main character and as its privileged addressee.PARIS12-CRETEIL BU Multidisc. (940282102) / SudocSudocFranceF