Du Romantisme à propos des débuts de Mlle Rachel. (2nd April 2016) - McCready, Susan
Abstract : Rachel Félix, known as Mlle Rachel burst onto the stage in France in 1837 and reigned as its leading star until her death in 1858 at the age of 36. Despite the brevity of her career, she profoundly marked her era, occasioning a minor revival of classical theatre just at the moment when the Romantics seemed to dominate. In this essay, I analyse the way in which Rachel's celebrity inflected the debate about classic vs. romantic theatrical form in the 1840s and 50s. The influence of Rachel's celebrity can be discerned in this late evolution of romanticism, an evolution caused to a certain extent by commercial rather than artistic developments in the theatre and the press starting in the late 1830s.