Tragedy of Language in French Theatre

Tragedy is undeniably one of the oldest forms of theatre. Tragedy as a genre invokes images of Ancient Greek dramas depicting moral dilemmas and the downfall of great men, or of Shakespearian romances doomed to end in failure and death. When considering tragedy’s place in French theatre, we can see a dominance of tragic works in the classical period of the 17th century, and works by Corneille and Racine dominated the theatre. However, with the progression of the years, we can identify a dramatic shift in theatre, and tragedy itself has evolved in French theatre; still abundantly present in contemporary works, tragedy’s form and structure has altered. This essay will explore the traditional forms of a tragedy from its ancient roots, and consider how ‘tragedy of language’ is manifested in classical and contemporary French theatre. Jean Racine’s Phèdre, is a widely accepted classical French tragedy, based on a subject from Greek mythology, in this play, we can see an objective tragedy, but with further consideration, we can identify that the tragedy is manifested in the language of the play. With the development of avant-garde theatre in France, came Eugène Ionesco and later, Bernard-Marie Koltès. Ionesco and Koltès have both referred to their works as ‘tragedy of language’, and this essay will examine Ionesco’s Rhinoceros and Koltès’ Black Battles With Dogs to explore the ways in which language can manifest itself and how it can become the direct root of the disastrous events that form a tragic play. Language is the fundamental tool of any dramatist, and tragedy is a pillar of French theatre to this day, but what can so often be overlooked, is the integral role that language plays, not only in communicating the tragedy of a play, but often as the root cause of the tragic events themselves.

The genre of tragedy is an ancient one, however, to effectively classify any theatre as a ‘tragedy of language’, first the term tragedy must be defined. Every work of tragedy

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