Abstract
D.Litt. et Phil.
Critics have identified the formulaic nature of the histoire tragique, a genre which
seems to rely on a simple sequence of events. A law, whether natural, divine or
human, will be broken by a transgressor and the resulting imbalance must be rectified
by punishment of the crime. We have limited our field of study to collections of
stories that their authors describe as “histoires”, a term revived in the mid-sixteenth
century, which suggests that the tales have universal truth and serve as exempla. The
term histoire tragique may however be a misnoma as comic and tragic tales are
sometimes juxtaposed by sixteenth-century authors. This study examines the stories in
four collections of histoire tragique from the sixteenth century: Discours des Champs
faëz (Claude de Taillemont, 1553), Le Printemps d’Yver (Jacques Yver, 1572),
Nouvelles Histoires tant tragiques que comiques (Vérité Habanc, 1585) and Nouvelles
Histoires Tragiques (Bénigne Poissenot, 1586). A collection from the seventeenth
century, Les Histoires mémorables et tragiques de ce temps (François de Rosset, 1619)
provides a useful point of comparison for its sixteenth century counterparts.
We look at three kinds of transgression: firstly those outside the stories themselves
(transgressions of genre conventions or transgressions on the part of the author);
secondly, transgressions within the stories themselves (the degree to which the author
has observed the codes of conduct and social hierarchies); thirdly, transgressions at the
level of the plot (how the characters behave, whether or not a crime is punished). This
third category of transgression is further divided into the following categories:
dissimulation, violence, sexual crimes and treason. In addition, we note the type of
weapon used to commit a crime and the nature of the punishment, if any, that follows.
We analyse the stories according to the nature of the offender. Crimes are committed
by a variety of characters, “Barbarians” from North Africa and the Middle East, a
servant, a family member or trusted friend. Crimes are also committed as a result of
tension between aristocrat and peasant, or between catholic and protestant. Finally, we
examine the stories of François de Rosset in the light of the discoveries made in the
preceding chapters.
The sixteenth century authors we have examined seek to instruct the reader and to
arouse pity for the victims of crimes. Rosset, who excludes comic tales from his
collection, seeks rather to arouse fear at the strength of human passions and the
inevitable punishment for the crimes those passions inspire. The sequence of
law/transgression/punishment is not always strictly adhered to by the authors of the
sixteenth-century collections and where punishment does not occur, the sequence may
be modified to law/transgression/redemption. The juxtaposition of comic and tragic
tales varies the mood within a collection, but a happy ending to a story does not
necessarily mean the absence of tragedy. If a crime goes unpunished then the judicial
imbalance remains. Thus, tragic vision does not lie solely in the death of the main
characters, but in the uncertainty of a world where a criminal may escape punishment.