A sotie (or sottie) is a short satirical play common in 15th- and 16th-century in France. The word (compare modern sottise) comes from the sots, "fools", who appeared as characters in the play. [1] In the plays, these fools would make observations and exchange thoughts on contemporary events and individuals. Shorter plays, sometimes referred to as parades, need not have any plot at all, but relied simply on a detached dialogue. [2] The genre has its origin in the Feast of Fools and other Carnival-related festivities. The purpose of these events was to present a world turned upside-down, in this case with the fools as fonts of wisdom. [3] The fools were dressed in grey robes, and wore a hood with donkey ears. [3]
There is some scholarly debate over whether the sotie should be considered a separate genre from the farce or the morality play, but it does have certain unique characteristics. Whereas the characters in a farce would be distinguished individuals with proper names, the characters in the soties were pure allegories. [2] The characters had names such as "First Fool" and "Second Fool", or "Everyman", "Pilgrim" etc. Sometime there would be a leader of the fools, called "Mother Fool" (Mère Sotte). [3] These allegorical protagonists were also common to morality plays, but unlike this genre, the sotie was primarily meant to entertain. The plays also had highly complex rhyme schemes, and sophisticated verse structures. [2]
The best known soties playwright is Pierre Gringore, and the best-known play his 1511 Jeu du prince des sots (Play of the Prince of Fools). In this play, "Mother Fool" represents the papacy, and for this reason the satire was tolerated by the French king. [2] Another renowned soties playwright was the court jester Triboulet, whose merits were rewarded generously by René of Anjou and Charles, Duke of Orléans. [4] In the 16th century, soties were banned and went out of use. [1] The term has, however, been used also for modern works. The 20th-century author André Gide referred to his 1914 novel Les caves du Vatican as a sotie. [3]
Georges-Léon-Jules-Marie Feydeau was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his farces, written between 1886 and 1914.
A jester, court jester, fool or joker was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch employed to entertain guests during royal court. Jesters were also traveling performers who entertained common folk at fairs and town markets, and the discipline continues into the modern day, where jesters perform at historical-themed events. During the Post-classical and Renaissance eras, jesters are often thought to have worn brightly coloured clothes and eccentric hats in a motley pattern. Their modern counterparts usually mimic this costume. Jesters entertained with a wide variety of skills: principal among them were song, music, and storytelling, but many also employed acrobatics, juggling, telling jokes, and performing magic tricks. Much of the entertainment was performed in a comic style. Many jesters made contemporary jokes in word or song about people or events well known to their audiences.
René of Anjou was Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence from 1434 to 1480, who also reigned as King of Naples as René I from 1435 to 1442. Having spent his last years in Aix-en-Provence, he is known in France as the Good King René.
Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical humor; the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense; satire, parody, and mockery of real-life situations, people, events, and interactions; unlikely and humorous instances of miscommunication; ludicrous, improbable, and exaggerated characters; and broadly stylized performances.
Octave Mirbeau was a French novelist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, journalist and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, whilst still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde with highly transgressive novels that explored violence, abuse and psychological detachment. His work has been translated into 30 languages.
Alain-René Lesage was a French novelist and playwright. Lesage is best known for his comic novel The Devil upon Two Sticks, his comedy Turcaret (1709), and his picaresque novel Gil Blas (1715–1735).
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
Pierre Gringore was a popular French poet and playwright.
Opéra comique is a genre of French opera that contains spoken dialogue and arias. It emerged from the popular opéras comiques en vaudevilles of the Fair Theatres of St Germain and St Laurent, which combined existing popular tunes with spoken sections. Associated with the Paris theatre of the same name, opéra comique is not necessarily comical or shallow in nature; Carmen, perhaps the most famous opéra comique, is a tragedy.
Le roi s'amuse is a French play in five acts written by Victor Hugo. First performed on 22 November 1832 but banned by the government after one evening, the play was used for Giuseppe Verdi's 1851 opera Rigoletto.
17th-century French literature was written throughout the Grand Siècle of France, spanning the reigns of Henry IV of France, the Regency of Marie de Medici, Louis XIII of France, the Regency of Anne of Austria and the reign of Louis XIV of France. The literature of this period is often equated with the Classicism of Louis XIV's long reign, during which France led Europe in political and cultural development; its authors expounded the classical ideals of order, clarity, proportion and good taste. In reality, 17th-century French literature encompasses far more than just the classicist masterpieces of Jean Racine and Madame de La Fayette.
Medieval French literature is, for the purpose of this article, Medieval literature written in Oïl languages during the period from the eleventh century to the end of the fifteenth century.
18th-century French literature is French literature written between 1715, the year of the death of King Louis XIV of France, and 1798, the year of the coup d'État of Bonaparte which brought the Consulate to power, concluded the French Revolution, and began the modern era of French history. This century of enormous economic, social, intellectual and political transformation produced two important literary and philosophical movements: during what became known as the Age of Enlightenment, the Philosophes questioned all existing institutions, including the church and state, and applied rationalism and scientific analysis to society; and a very different movement, which emerged in reaction to the first movement; the beginnings of Romanticism, which exalted the role of emotion in art and life.
French Renaissance literature is, for the purpose of this article, literature written in French from the French invasion of Italy in 1494 to 1600, or roughly the period from the reign of Charles VIII of France to the ascension of Henry IV of France to the throne. The reigns of Francis I and his son Henry II are generally considered the apex of the French Renaissance. After Henry II's unfortunate death in a joust, the country was ruled by his widow Catherine de' Medici and her sons Francis II, Charles IX and Henry III, and although the Renaissance continued to flourish, the French Wars of Religion between Huguenots and Catholics ravaged the country.
An overview of the theatre of France.
Medieval theatre encompasses theatrical performance in the period between the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century and the beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century. The category of "medieval theatre" is vast, covering dramatic performance in Europe over a thousand-year period. A broad spectrum of genres needs to be considered, including mystery plays, morality plays, farces and masques. The themes were almost always religious. The most famous examples are the English cycle dramas, the York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery Plays, the Wakefield Mystery Plays, and the N-Town Plays, as well as the morality play known as Everyman. One of the first surviving secular plays in English is The Interlude of the Student and the Girl.
Triboulet (1479–1536), also known as Le Févrial or under his family name Ferrial, was a jester for king Francis I.
La Farce de maître Pathelin The earliest accounts of this play can be traced back to as early as 1457 to 1470, with the 1st printed edition dated to 1485; However the date is uncertain as there is no known playwright. It is sometimes attributed to Guillaume Alexis, and even to François Villon. According to the medievalist Bruno Roy, the most likely author is Triboulet, the jester and comedy playwright of René of Anjou.
Cauchois is one of the eastern dialects of the Norman language that is spoken in and takes its name from the Pays de Caux region of the Seine-Maritime department.
Triboulet was a jester and comedy playwright for René of Anjou. He should not be confused with the jester of Louis XII and Francis I, there have been at least three Triboulets: Homonymy was widespread among french court jesters. The name, equivalent to modern French phrase souffre-douleur, comes from the archaic French verb tribouler. Triboulet from the René of Anjou court was the first one.