L’IMAGINATION SCÉNIQUE DU RÉEL : PHANTASIA ET IMAGINAIRE SOCIAL DANS LE THÉÂTRE RÉALISTE ET NATURALISTE FRANÇAIS DU XIXe SIÈCLE
THE STAGE IMAGINATION OF REALITY: PHANTASIA AND SOCIAL IMAGINARY IN 19TH CENTURY FRENCH REALIST AND NATURALIST THEATRE

Summary/Abstract: This study examines the role of phantasia in shaping the appearance of reality on the stage of French realist and naturalist theatre in the nineteenth century. Although these dramatic movements claim fidelity to social and psychological reality, this fidelity is achieved through an imaginative process that organizes, selects, and intensifies what becomes visible on stage. Drawing on Aristotelian and Husserlian theories of phantasia, as well as modern approaches to the imaginary developed by Bachelard, Durand, Eliade, and Ricoeur, the paper argues that realist drama does not reproduce reality mechanically, but reconstructs it through symbolic and imaginal structures. By analysing the dramaturgy of Dumas fils, Augier, Sardou, Becque, and Brieux, the study shows how social tensions, power relations, moral constraints, and psychological conflicts are transformed into coherent scenic images. Scenography, objects, dialogue, silence, and gesture function as mediators between the empirical world and its theatrical representation. The stage thus becomes a space of appearance where invisible social and psychological structures are rendered perceptible. Far from opposing realism, imagination constitutes its very condition of intelligibility, allowing theatre to function as both an aesthetic form and a mode of knowledge.

• Details
• Contents