The Orateur in French Seventeenth-Century French Theatre Companies

Abstract

Although offering a description of duties substantially similar to that in the published text, the 1673 manuscript of Samuel Chappuzeau's Le Théâtre françois is more confident about the orateur's central role in a theatre company. In particular, Chappuzeau describes the addresses to the audience and recent moves towards concision, while street posters, prepared under the speaker's guidance, are said to contain wording which surviving copies lack. Literary examples of what have been considered street proclamations are judged to be in-house oral publicity. The varied terms used for the latter are seen as a matter of style and context, and Chappuzeau's treatment of the three main Paris companies as even-handed.