“La Sidonie” (1637) by J. Mairet: Tragedy or Heroic Tragicomedy? Experiment of the Autor with Genre Form

Aim. The purpose of the article is to trace one of the ways to update the tragic genre in France in the first half of the 17th century, in particular, on the principle of experimental combination of tragic and tragicomedic genre models, using the example of J. Mairet’s “La Sidonie”.Methodology. The genre approach, which involves taking into account the typology of the genre, is complemented by a structural-semiotic one, in accordance with which the character of the unfolding of a tragic text as a discursive-rhetorical system is considered.Results. “La Sidonie” is one of the first modern tragedies with a political plot, in which tragicomedic elements that define intrigue play a subordinate role and serve to transmission historical conflict.Research implications. In the work of Mairet, the French classic tragedy begins to take shape. Mairet as the author of tragedies with a political plot (“Sophonisbe”, “Le Marc-Antoine, ou la Cléopétre”, “Le Grand et dernier Solyman”, “La Sidonie”) had a direct influence on the formation of Corneille’s tragic writing.