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The Journal of Religion and Theatre, Vol. 9, No. 1, Fall 2010
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Michael J. Lueger
Baroque and Classical in Jesuit Theatre
In many ways, the Society of Jesus occupied an inherently conflicted position in the
political and intellectual world of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The Jesuits
would appear in practically every corner of the world, advancing the cause of humanism in the
intellectual sphere and the style of the baroque in the visual arts. Yet in some respects theirs
remained a backward-looking creed, dedicated to the reestablishment of the old religious (and to
some degree political) order and the predominance of the language and culture of classical
antiquity. This division also appears in their theatre, in which dazzling spectacle shared the stage
with somewhat static displays of oratorical skill, all within the context of plays composed in
Latin verse which nevertheless often violated the rigid unities and code of decorum which define
neoclassicism in the narrowest sense. Reflections of many of these contradictory impulses
appear in the plays written by the Jesuits’ students, Moliere and Corneille. Unfortunately, it is
impossible to adequately and with any degree of certainty answer the question of how much
influence the Jesuit theatre had in shaping the secular theatre of the era. Still, examining the
uneasy coexistence of the baroque and the classical on the Jesuit stage may cast some additional
light on the contemporary secular theatre.
To begin with, it may be necessary to attempt to define what we are talking about when
we use the words “baroque” and “classical.” This latter term is easier to define, most precisely
in terms of adherence to the dramatic unities supposedly prescribed by Aristotle and the later
rules established by the Academy after the controversy over Corneille’s Le Cid. However, in a
wider sense classicism can also be understood to mean a preference for the philosophy and
precepts of ancient Western civilization, along with a somewhat related sense that certain rules
of propriety and decorum must be followed in any artistic work. [1] The baroque, by contrast, is
a bit more slippery. Since many of its defining aspects coexisted comfortably with strongly
classical elements in a single work of art, to define it as merely the antithesis of the classical
would be both simplistic and inaccurate. The baroque might best be described an aesthetic that
promotes “Art as pure form” (Wittkower 11), and at least a partial disregard for the clearly
defined boundaries prescribed by classicism. This last important aspect of the baroque is
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especially prevalent in the eye-popping decoration of Jesuit churches such as Sant’Ignazio in
Rome, where the painted architectural details of the ceiling vault seem to make the building rise
to Heaven while colorful and dynamic figures fill the composition. Indeed, it is in architecture
especially that the Society was most closely identified as a major force in promoting the baroque.
Whatever role the Jesuits may have played in advancing new forms in architecture and
the visual arts, in many ways their educational system—of which their theatre was an important
element—was firmly rooted in the past. The Ratio Studiorum of 1599, which laid out the
guidelines governing the conduct of Jesuit schools across Europe, contains many injunctions
against straying outside the bounds of acceptable discourse and proper thought, barring in-depth
consideration of alternate religious views, potentially racy material, and even the writings of
certain orthodox thinkers. However, the Jesuits somewhat ironically made explicit their desire to
build their curriculum around the classical, pagan legacy of Aristotle—albeit within the context
of the Scholastic tradition, which had fused this legacy with Christian thought, most notably in
the work of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas loomed especially large in the Jesuit school: the Ratio
explicitly states that “none are to be promoted to chairs of theology unless those who are well
disposed towards St. Thomas; but those who are averse to him or not much devoted to him
should be removed from the office of teaching” (Ball 124). With Aquinas, of course, went
Aristotle, and when it comes to the curriculum that the Professor of Philosophy should adopt, the
Ratio is quite clear: “In matters of any importance let him not depart from Aristotle unless
something occurs which is foreign to the doctrine which academies everywhere approve of;
much more if it is opposed to the orthodox faith” (168). Further, the professor was exhorted to
“persuade his students that their philosophy will be but very partial and mutilated unless they
highly esteem this study of the text [of Aristotle]” (171). Finally, nearly all the business of the
school was to be conducted in Latin, and its use was to be “diligently preserved” even in the
writing of letters from one student to another (139).
Given this rigid set of rules, it is not surprising that the Jesuit theatre reflected the
sometimes contradictory impulses of the “Christian humanism” the schools sought to instill in
their students (McCabe 8). Certainly Corneille would be identified with this concept, “where
humanity in the form of the hero benefits from the more optimistic assumptions on human nature
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which are part of the Jesuit view of man in relation to the possibility of salvation” (Phillips 59).
However, this certainly did not mean that Jesuit teaching and theatre essentially constituted a sort
of spiritual cheerleading meant to drown out the more dire pronouncements of the Calvinists and
others; the Ratio indicates just how narrowly prescriptive the lessons the Society imparted could
be. The Jesuit theatre was heavily didactic, and the characters and situations of the plays
featured on its stage offered straightforward and starkly contrasting examples of virtuous and
vicious conduct. The French Jesuit Charles Porée summed up the attitude of many of the
members of the Society towards the didactic potential of the theatre, asking: “Is there any duty,
whether of a private or public, of a domestic or civil nature, which the theatric Muse does not
inculcate? … Is there any species of virtue she does not recommend [?] … Is there any kind of
vice from which she does not deter us?” (Porée, “An Oration”). Vice, of course, always met
with punishment in the end, while the virtuous found their ultimate heavenly reward in spite of
any temporal suffering their strict observance of the moral code might have caused them.
The Jesuits’ attempts to mold their students’ religious and moral outlook was aided by the
heavy emphasis the schools placed on emulation and competition. For the student, this meant
above all the attainment of visible signs of distinction in comparison with his peers; as Virginia
Scott notes, “In practice, what ‘emulation’ meant was that school was a constant series of
contests: boy against boy, class against class” (Scott 19). The students were also competing to
see who could follow most closely the “prescriptions for performance in everyday life” given to
them by their teachers (McCarthy 29). The theatre represented an important extension of this
program, as it presented in especially appealing and clear-cut terms the sort of behavior the
students should imitate and the sort they should avoid. Of course, the students’ success in
achieving these prescriptions was on display in front of an audience. Whether that audience was
particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of sitting through a performance with such a strongly
didactic goal is not clear, but at the very least they seem to have been willing to tolerate the
heavily moralistic tone in order to enjoy the other aspects of the productions. Porèe surely had in
mind his experience with audiences for the Jesuit productions when he spoke of the wider
potential of theatre in general to promote morality.
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The primary goal of the Jesuit theatre was to train the students in the art of rhetoric. This
fit in with the immediate historical circumstances that were the background to the rise of the
Society; with the Catholic Church under continuing attack from the heirs of the Reformation, it
needed a new breed of highly educated men who were fully capable of serving as the intellectual
shock troops of the Counter-Reformation. This meant, among other things, that the ability to
successfully engage in public disputation was more important than ever in convincing people to
stay on the side of orthodoxy. The Ratio is clear on this point, declaring that “none of our
students shall pass on to philosophy until he has spent two years in rhetoric” (Ball 126). While
those two years of rhetoric may have been seen by the faculty partly as a precursor to other
subjects, for many students they constituted the primary portion of their education, and practical
considerations ensured that they would leave without trying to reach those higher disciplines.
Both student and teacher saw the attainment of a certain degree of competency in rhetoric as a
perfectly worthy end in itself.
As we shall see later, the strong link between rhetoric and Jesuit theatre is especially
important for considering the style of the productions themselves. The guidelines for the
Professor of Rhetoric are especially revealing: rhetoric “instructs to perfect eloquence, which
embraces the two highest faculties, oratory and poetry (of these two, however, the preference is
always given to oratory); nor does it serve only for usefulness, but also nourishes culture” (208)
Furthermore, this all-important skill should be taught first and foremost by relying upon the three
great authorities of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. This quote is especially interesting in its
indication of the preference for oratory over poetry (the category under which the drama would
presumably fall) and in the direct connection it draws to the sort of training in decorum for which
the Jesuit schools were so famed. The fact that the Jesuit school’s (and, by extension, its
theatre’s) priorities lay first and foremost in improving the student’s oratorical skills would seem
to accord with the close—and perhaps questionable—association between rhetoric and acting
styles asserted by many theatre historians. Further, the fact that the Ratio champions Quintilian
(amongst others), who had been the dominant authority on the subject for centuries (Roach 29),
indicates a further preference on the part of the Society for a theatrical style that leaned towards
the classical, rhetorically-based conception. Indeed, some Jesuits felt that even this went too far;
Père Binet, the Provincial for the College de Clermont, complained that “Exercises in speaking
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are transformed to veritable plays to the detriment of study…Oratory is neglected in favor of
tragedy” (qtd. in McCarthy 25). It is surely significant that the Jesuits who inculcated the
preference for oratory over poetry were in many cases practitioners of theatre as well as teachers.
They could expect that, if their students wanted to receive further praise and merit, they would
for the most part have had to adhere to the acting style prescribed by their Jesuit teachers if they
wanted to be chosen to take a prominent role in the school productions. It is perhaps impossible
to ever fully determine whether acting theory affected actual practice in early modern France, but
in the case of the Jesuit theatre it seems reasonably clear that there was a direct link between the
theory taught in the classroom and the style and nature of the students’ acting in the school
productions.
Of course, the students’ display of their progress in rhetoric shared the stage with
oftentimes spectacular visual effects. There were large processions stemming from the medieval
and Renaissance royal triumphs, dazzling dance interludes that anticipated Moliere’s comedyballets, and impressive stage machinery capable of lowering angels on clouds. Such features of
the Jesuit theatre were not late developments; as early as 1560 Rome was sending orders to the
Spanish Jesuits to scale back their expenditures for the technical aspects of their productions
(McCabe 62). Viewed from the standpoint of the Jesuits’ wider mission to promote the ideas of
the Counter-Reformation, such displays were important for making their theatre more accessible
to their audience, since many would not have understood the Latin verse that the students were
speaking. The near-miraculous appearance of heavenly beings from aloft would therefore have
served to impart at least some religious message, even if the nuances of the text were lost upon
those who heard it declaimed.
The move to make the Jesuit theatre more accessible to its audience fit in with the trend
the Society was leading in reconfiguring church architecture in order to draw in attendees at
Mass. “The altar,” notes Kenneth Nugent, “had to be placed so that the whole congregation
would participate visually in the Mass and hear the decrees and doctrines of the Catholic Church
expounded from the pulpit unhampered by structural considerations” (Nugent 90). The emphasis
on visual participation in the church clearly parallels the strategy employed by the typical Jesuit
director, or choragus, in his productions. Further, Mass became a far more frequent event, and
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this “made obsolete the kind of church that, prior to 1530, had served the majority of the
congregation only once or twice a year. Now, many altars were required so that Mass could be
said at more than one place at once.” In addition, “Because year-round preaching was seen as
the most effective instrument of public reform, and because the previously empty churches began
to be filled with crowds of worshippers, the nave also had to become an assembly hall”
(Wittkower 19). The Jesuit theatre seems a natural outgrowth of this attempt to make worship
more frequent and accessible. Further, the move in the Jesuit drama towards ever greater
spectacle fit in with the wider drive towards making potentially dry and incomprehensible
theological and moral teachings easier for the congregation or audience to both understand and
even enjoy.
One other important aspect of the baroque Jesuit theatre was its use of dance. However,
here once again the Society’s insistence on imbuing its theatrical productions with a rigorous and
classically-oriented sense of decorum and morality made itself felt. Indeed, Claude Francois
Menestrier, the most significant Jesuit theorist on the dance, confidently asserted that the
schools’ use of the ballet established a direct link to the ancient Greeks. In the Christian world
of his time, however, he could state that “[we] no longer dance as part of our religious practice…
We content ourselves with creating honest theatrical presentations that form the body to noble
action and decorum” (Rock 19). The emphasis on “noble action and decorum” was key to the
Jesuit ballet, and achieving these goals was considered far more important than teaching any
great degree of technical proficiency. Menestrier’s fellow French Jesuit LeJay further explained
that, “It is not sufficient that these movements and these gestures [of the dance] are composed,
elegant, harmonious, agreeable to the eye; if they have not a determined sense, a precise
meaning, they will offer only a vain and futile dance, and will not deserve the name of dramatic
ballet, whose end is imitation” (qtd. in McCarthy 28). The “meaning” of which LeJay spoke
pertained to the delineation of character – for instance, a drunkard’s movements must be
disordered in order to reflect his unbalanced state of mind. Achieving technical proficiency in
dance, while certainly useful from the standpoint of training young men in the skills they would
need to succeed in society, was a secondary concern next to the importance of using that
proficiency to impart a clear message. The Jesuit ballet was therefore in some sense more
directly accessible as a vehicle for presenting moral examples; the audience might have no clue
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as to what was being said by the Latin-speaking actors, but they could easily grasp that the
movements of the dancers reflected either positive or negative moral attributes and they could
understand the lesson that was being presented to them.
To a large extent, these ballet interludes were thematically integrated into the overall
production. Gerry McCarthy proposes that Moliere’s comedy-ballets “adopted a principle which
probably only the Jesuits had considered, namely that there should be a degree of integration of
the different elements of acting, music, and dance" (McCarthy 89). This latter aspect of the
Jesuit theatre certainly seems to place it more within the context of the baroque drive to integrate
the various artistic aspects of the theatre, from set design to acting to music. However, this can
also be viewed from a classical angle. Menestrier dismissed the need for unity of action, but he
insisted vehemently on the importance of unity in terms of the subject of the dance (Rock 22).
The Jesuits’ use of ballet interludes were therefore ultimately aimed (in theory if perhaps not
always in practice) at giving a greater degree of unity to their dramatic presentations, and in such
a way that any potentially obscure aspects of the main drama might be more clearly illustrated
for an audience that could potentially lack the ability to understand Latin.
The juxtaposition of rhetorical displays, spectacular stage effects, and dance interludes
that looked both forwards and backwards leads to two important questions: What were the plays
that held the Jesuit stage like? And, beyond considering the educational emphasis placed on
rhetoric, what kind of conclusions, if any, can we draw about acting in the Jesuit theatre? In both
cases, at least glancing at these questions may help to further illuminate the extent to which the
Society’s school drama incorporated both baroque and classical elements.
The Ratio Studiorum has this to say about the plays to be presented by the Jesuits’
students: “The subject of tragedies and comedies which must not be given except in Latin and on
very rare occasions, ought to be sacred and pious, and nothing should be introduced between the
acts which is not in Latin and is not becoming; nor is a feminine role nor feminine attire to be
introduced” (Ball 140). This is the most explicit comment made in the Ratio about the nature of
the school dramas, and its insistence on adherence to strict rules and a rigid sense of decorum
certainly offers support for a more classically-oriented view of Jesuit theatre. Such rules
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probably account for the decision of at least one Jesuit to refer to the published version of his
prose tragedy as an Actio Oratoria rather than a play, despite the fact that it was published along
with his other tragedies (Misrahi 239). Certainly the ban on portraying or even dressing like
women restricted the nature of the plays one could expect to see at a Jesuit production. Of
course, the rule regarding the nature of the interludes is vaguely worded, and nothing is said
about the use of the dazzling costumes and spectacular machinery for which the Jesuits were
already known by 1599, when the final edition of the Ratio appeared.
There was certainly no shortage of classical models in the school libraries for prospective
playwrights to draw upon, and Seneca seems to have been particularly prominent in a number of
syllabi from individual schools (McCabe 33). [2] The requirement that the verse be entirely in
Latin obviously lent itself to the portrayal of classical subjects, and the prominent place accorded
to Aristotle in the curriculum of the school and the general philosophy of the Society would have
provided further incentive towards employing classical dramatic models. Despite all this, the
testimony of the plays and the men who wrote them indicate that, in many if not most cases, the
Jesuit theatre’s offerings did not adhere strictly to the rules that would eventually come to define
neoclassicism in its narrowest sense. The German Jesuit Franz Lang’s Dissertatio de actione
scenica was posthumously published in 1727, at a time when neoclassicism had established a
firm hold over theatre both in France and the courts of the German principalities, and yet the
author’s lengthy experience leads him to express a skeptical attitude towards the supposedly
unimpeachable authority of the neoclassical rules. Although he recommends Aristotle
(specifically the Rhetoric) as essential reading material for any would-be playwright, Lang
rejects any attempt to force playwrights to conform to a single standard:
In point of fact, there is no art or science which is so prone to disputation as is
human letters, particularly playwriting…Nearly everyone has an opinion about
artistic matters; it is in one’s very nature to do so. Whoever thinks he has found
the perfect method in art also discovers something which does not fit into his
system. He thereupon must label that which lies outside his well-regulated
program as unnatural, a distortion of art. And so there develops so much
contradictory advice, conflicting opinion, calumny, arbitrary pronouncements,
insults and derision. (33-34)
Ultimately, Lang rejects as false the choice between the neoclassical rules and any sort of
contemporary dramatic system, saying that, “it is as unfortunate for experts to say that unless a
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play is constructed according to certain forms it is inexpertly constructed, as it is for those who
wish to toss away Aristotle and the basic notions of the ancients and to declare that just because a
play conforms to the rules it is boring and uninteresting” (44).
Lang’s was a sentiment echoed by many of the most notable Jesuit playwrights. It
suggests that adherence to classical rules need not go hand in hand with the Latin verse and
narrow range of themes prescribed by the Ratio. Of course, it can be dangerous to make too
many assumptions about the uniformity of Jesuit practice across national borders. Sarah Beam
sees Jesuit theatre in France as fully “conform[ing] to contemporary secular standards of the
classical tragedy” by the middle of the seventeenth century (Beam 318). However, Lang bolsters
his argument by citing the very French Jesuits (LeJay and Jouvency) who were seen as the
staunchest proponents within the Society of the neoclassical rules. Of course, this tactic only
goes so far: he is only able to cite them as authorities supporting him in his promotion of
tragicomedy, which was not especially controversial. However, he makes an intriguing and
insightful comparison between the definitions of tragedy given by Jouvancy and Aristotle,
pointing out that the former “ignores the emotional concomitants of tragedy and is satisfied to
have it be concerned only with the actions of an illustrious person” (Lang 48). He further notes
that even the classical playwrights were at the very least guilty of subtly violating the unity of
time they were supposedly bound to observe.
Lang provides an intriguing case study illustrating the balance that Jesuit practitioners of
theatre had to strike between the classically-oriented rules and the practical elements that would
please their audiences. The Dissertatio de actione scenica sums up his experience as a choragus
over the last quarter of the seventeenth century and the first quarter of the eighteenth. In terms of
chronology and geography, Lang’s work is far removed from the immediate circumstances in
which Corneille and Moliere received their education. However, the difficulty he had in getting
the Dissertatio published and the extent to which it subtly challenges some of the neoclassical
orthodoxies championed in part by men like Jouvency and LeJay indicates the strength of those
orthodoxies’ hold over the Jesuit as well as the secular theatre. In addition, it suggests that the
Society’s emphasis on centralized control in matters both large and small and their suspicion of
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new ideas ensured that a certain degree of uniformity in the Jesuits’ theatrical practices prevailed
across both time and political boundaries.
Given Lang’s uneasy attempt to accommodate himself to the prevailing neoclassical
norms while espousing some of the more pragmatic lessons he had learned in his experience with
the stage, it is perhaps surprising that his practical advice to the actor frequently entails repeating
specific admonitions drawn straight from Quintilian. Indeed, Lang insists that the Jesuit teacher
of oratory must follow “the appropriate, decorous bodily movement which Cicero and Quintilian
have identified,” and he goes so far as to include a list of hand gestures specifically
recommended by the latter (Lang 13, 15-16). From this standpoint, Lang certainly seems to
uphold the tradition of the actor as orator that the Society’s theatre had promoted, in theory if not
always in practice; it is especially worth noting that his choice of words tends to blur somewhat
the distinction between “orator” and “actor,” which indicates that the official emphasis on the
didactic nature of the Jesuit theatre remained strong (xv).
Elsewhere, Lang’s Dissertatio paints a more varied picture of the reality of practice on
the Jesuit stage. Much of what he prescribes still seems to fit with our standard image of the
neoclassical actor as a practitioner of rhetoric as much as acting who uses a codified system of
gesture to underscore the text. Lang describes acting as “nothing else but the representation of
customary behavior of characters conceived by a play-maker [choragus] for exhibition in a
theatre,” and he emphasizes elsewhere the importance of remaining true to the playwright’s
conception and the verse as it is given to the actor (3). Movement should be limited—any steps
taken beyond those prescribed are “extraneous, wasteful and incorrect because [they] are not
conducive to the purpose of artful, natural action” (8). In dialogue scenes, “the face and entire
chest should always be turned in the direction of the audience, for it is only proper that the actor
be open to their gaze if the performance is for the audience’s benefit” (19-20). [3] Of course, all
of these carefully considered movements must be conducted in such as way so as not to violate
decorum.
Clearly, the students of Lang and other Jesuits generally were taught to move about the
stage in a manner that we would view as incredibly stilted and formal. And yet this Jesuit’s
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productions—and presumably those of many other teachers—were not just dry and static
displays of rhetorical skill. Lang identifies the excitation of emotion as the primary aim of his
theatre, and he views the actor’s bodily instrument as “such a marvelous force for exciting the
emotions that the choragus who himself is skilled in bodily action, or who knows how to instruct
others in the art, can bend an audience to his will” (1). Furthermore, while Lang directs his
actors to take the unnatural (from our point of view) step of directing dialogue out to the
audience rather than the actor to whom they are speaking, he then stresses the absolute
importance of turning their gaze to the other person in the scene and maintaining their character
while that person speaks. After all, “Unless acting is sustained it becomes silly” (19).
In the time before the Society’s suppression, the Jesuit theatre appeared in almost every
corner of Europe and saw countless productions over the course of more than two centuries.
Much about the nature of Jesuit theatre remains unclear, and in the absence of any specific
evidence, the precise extent of the influence it may have had on Moliere and Corneille (amongst
many others) must unfortunately remain a subject for speculation. It is equally impossible to
determine with any certainty whether the prevalence of Jesuit theatre over such a wide range
geographic range for such an extended period of time led to any widespread change in the
attitudes and expectations of the audience for these secular playwrights. However, the fact that
Jesuit theatre could for the most part reconcile the impulse for baroque splendor with the
classical framework prescribed by the Society’s intellectual background and the dramatic rules to
which secular playwrights were supposed to adhere suggests that further studies might be able to
show how it reflected and, perhaps, influenced the wider artistic world of which it was a part.
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Works Cited
Ball, Asher Raymond, trans., “The Ratio Studiorum.” In St. Ignatius and the Ratio Studiorum,
edited by Edward A. Fitzpatrick, 119-254. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933.
Beam, Sarah. “Farcical Theatre and Reformation of Manners in France, 1500-1650.” Diss.
University of California, Berkeley, 1999. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1999.
Lang, Franz. An Essay on Stage Performance: A Translation of Franz Lang’s Dissertatio de
Actione Scenica (1727). Translated by Alfred Simeon Golding. New York: Theatre Library
Association, 1984.
McCabe, William H. An Introduction to the Jesuit Theater: A Posthumous Work. Edited by
Louis J. Oldani. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1983.
McCarthy, Gerry. The Theatres of Moliere. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Misrahi, Jean. “The Beginnings of the Jesuit Theatre in France.” The French Review 16.3
(1943): 239-247.
Nugent, Kenneth E.T. “The Jesuit Influence on Early Baroque.” The Month (1960): 89-104.
Phillips, Henry. Church and Culture in Seventeenth-Century France. New York: Cambridge
UP, 1997.
Porée, Charles. An oration, in which an enquiry is made whether the stage is, or can be made a
school for forming the mind to virtue; And proving the Superiority of Theatric Instruction over
those of History and Moral Philosophy. With reflections on operas. Spoke March 13, 1733, in
the Jesuits College at Paris, in Presence of the Cardinals de Polignac and de Bissy, the Pope's
Nuncio, and several other Persons of the highest Distinction by Charles Porée of the Society of
Jesus, translated into English by J. Lockman. London, 1734. Eighteenth Century Collections
Online. Gale. BLC Tufts University. Accessed 20 Dec. 2009.
Roach, Joseph R. The Player’s Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting. Newark, N.J.:
University of Delaware Press, 1985.
Rock, Judith. Terpsichore at Louis-le-Grand: Baroque Dance on a Jesuit Stage in Paris. St.
Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996.
Scott, Virginia. Moliere: A Theatrical Life. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 2000.
Wittkower, Rudolf, and Irma B. Jaffe. Baroque Art: The Jesuit Contribution. New York:
Fordham UP, 1972.
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Endnotes
1. The definition of “propriety” and “decorum” might vary somewhat depending on who was
defining it; some of the action in Jesuit drama would probably be considered inappropriate by the
standards of the Academy. At the same time, the Society’s rules barring the representation of
women onstage set much stricter bounds of propriety than those the secular theatre was supposed
to observe.
2. Elsewhere, with regards to drama in the syllabi of the schools, McCabe draws from a rule in
the Ratio showing a skeptical if not entirely prohibitory attitude towards comedy to note that
“Seneca was not too heavy for the Jesuit but much of Plautus was too light.” The Ratio gives a
specific injunction to let students read Terence only if the edition used is heavily expurgated, if
at all.
3. In an additional observation that would render Lang persona non grata with Diderot and many
modern directors and theorists, he opines that to conduct a scene in an entirely realistic manner
would not only present practical difficulties for the audience from a visual and aural standpoint,
but would also be simply rude.
Copyright 2010 by Michael J. Lueger
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