A-and part three! This is the last, and it's actually quite short.
I like Rolland's plays very much (though I find them less interesting to study than the other ones for the same reason) - they seem, to me, to be among the most balanced fictionalisations there are, particularly in their contrasting of D. and R. (I also like the way this is handled - in just one scene - in Victor Hugo's "93", where the two [plus Marat] are described in detail before their names are given, and they are instantly recognisable because all the old iconic-demonic traits are there, yet the conversation that follows shows them as three-dimensional human beings and idealises or villainises neither). I think "Robespierre" is a little cartoonish in its villainisation of Fouché, and I don't like the way Le Bas is so heavily featured, but not characterised as an individual, only as an appendix to Saint-Just - literally! there is that 'our names will forever be linked in history' line, and Saint-Just calling him 'my Pylades', which I am convinced is a shoutout to Hugo's definition of a Pylades as a type (i.e. a man who will only ever be remembered in conjunction with another; other writers - Przybyszewska most notably and most regrettably, considering her highly positive attitude towards them on the whole - have treated Saint-Just in this way, relegating him to the role of Robespierre's Pylades) in "Les Misérables", and half the time either he or anyone speaks of anything he did or ought to do, it's 'Saint-Just and I'/'Saint-Just and you' - but its characterisation of Robespierre himself is magnificent in its depth and humanity, and (unlike others) seems to be barely infused with the author's own opinions and theories. (Or perhaps Rolland is merely more subtle about it? That is also a possibility.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-09-06 12:24 pm (UTC)I like Rolland's plays very much (though I find them less interesting to study than the other ones for the same reason) - they seem, to me, to be among the most balanced fictionalisations there are, particularly in their contrasting of D. and R. (I also like the way this is handled - in just one scene - in Victor Hugo's "93", where the two [plus Marat] are described in detail before their names are given, and they are instantly recognisable because all the old iconic-demonic traits are there, yet the conversation that follows shows them as three-dimensional human beings and idealises or villainises neither). I think "Robespierre" is a little cartoonish in its villainisation of Fouché, and I don't like the way Le Bas is so heavily featured, but not characterised as an individual, only as an appendix to Saint-Just - literally! there is that 'our names will forever be linked in history' line, and Saint-Just calling him 'my Pylades', which I am convinced is a shoutout to Hugo's definition of a Pylades as a type (i.e. a man who will only ever be remembered in conjunction with another; other writers - Przybyszewska most notably and most regrettably, considering her highly positive attitude towards them on the whole - have treated Saint-Just in this way, relegating him to the role of Robespierre's Pylades) in "Les Misérables", and half the time either he or anyone speaks of anything he did or ought to do, it's 'Saint-Just and I'/'Saint-Just and you' - but its characterisation of Robespierre himself is magnificent in its depth and humanity, and (unlike others) seems to be barely infused with the author's own opinions and theories. (Or perhaps Rolland is merely more subtle about it? That is also a possibility.)