Marguerite de Navarre et le mystère médiéval

This article examines the relationship between Marguerite de Navarre’s biblical plays and the genre of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century medieval mystery play by focusing on three dramatic elements: staging, characters, and language. While, with respect to staging, Marguerite recaptures the structure of the mystery play, she takes less interest in the representation of the movements of the characters and in the realistic scenes, which were central to this medieval genre; as she reduces the dramatic events and their dynamics, she concedes little to the performance, privileging hearing over seeing. Regarding the characters, Marguerite also moves away from the conventions of the mystery play, according to which characters were endowed with familiar, concrete, human traits. Except for a few conspicuous cases, the queen of Navarre shows a preference for symbolic, abstract entities, or for human characters so disembodied that their faith or holiness takes them away from the human world and closer to the heavens. As for the language of her plays, Marguerite creates a poetic rhythm that almost depletes the life and suppleness of the dialogue. Thus the vivacity of the verbal exchanges is transcended to the advantage of other styles that are less suited to the genre of theater, with the exception of the sermon and spiritual lyricism. In conclusion, Marguerite, in her four biblical plays, undermines the medieval form of the mystery play, which, however, she also recaptures.