Comédie ballet

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Julia Prest (University of St Andrews)

Ed. by David Williams, University of Sheffield
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.03: French Writing and Culture of the Seventeenth Century: Classical and Baroque, 1600-1700.
Vol. editors: Heather Kirk (University of Western Ontario), Kathrina LaPorta (New York University), Polly Mangerson (DePaul University), Julia Prest (University of St Andrews), Allison Stedman (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Ballet
Theatre

Dates

Date of occurrence 1661-1673

Places

France (Location)

Genres and Modes

Comedy

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Comédie-ballet

is a theatrical genre inextricably bound up with the name of Molière (1622-73 – see entry). The term refers specifically to his dozen or so comedies written to entertain Louis XIV (1638-1715) and his court and which include substantial amounts of music and dancing. In the preface to his published edition of

Les Fâcheux

(1661), Molière narrates how this, the first

comédie-ballet

, came into being by chance. He and his troupe had been invited to perform a comedy as part of a great

fête

, organized by Louis XIV’s Minister of Finance, Nicolas Foucquet (1615-80). The

fête

took place on 17 August 1661 at Foucquet’s château in Vaux-le-Vicomte, and was given in honour of the King. Molière explains how the original plan had been to have two separate theatrical…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1957 words

Citation: Prest, Julia. "Comédie ballet". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 December 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1351, accessed 21 November 2024.]