Martins Pena and the French romantic melodrama

Abstract

During the years 1839-1845, a great repertory of French romantic melodramas arrived in Brazil, attracting the audience to Rio de Janeiro theaters, mainly to São Pedro de Alcântara Theatre, the most important of the Brazilian Court. During this successfull period of the french melodramas, Martins Pena wrote his comedies often performed by the São Pedro de Alcântara Stage Company. Martins Pena was, besides a dramaturge and a theater critic, an assiduous spectator of the São Pedro de Alcântara recitals, which gave him the opportunity to study the French repertory. The comedies "O Judas em Sábado de Aleluia" and "O Noviço" made parodies of the melodrama elements, specially the language and the characters. This research try to demonstrate the dialogue between the Martins Pena comedy "O Noviço" and the French melodrama "Fabio le Novice" (1841), according to the hypothesis that the Brazilian author made a parody using elements of the French play. Considering such evidences, I intend to study the melodrama "Fabio Le Novice" and its authors (Charles Lafont e Noël Parfait) in the context of the romantic French theater and verify its critical reception at Paris. Reading the play, I intend to confirm my hypothesis and understand the impact of the French melodrama to the Martins Pena work. A part of the bibliography is available on internet, however, some texts are available only at the Centre d'Histoire Culturelle des Sociétés Contemporaines Library (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines), where I intend to develop my research project, and the Bibliothèque des Etudes Théâtrales - Gaston Baty (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris III). These libraries keep a collection of French plays and studies about melodrama, as the play "Fabio Le Novice", unavailable at Brazilian libraries or in online books database. (AU)