The Contrast Expression of Speeches in Le Cinquiesme Tome des Histoires tragiques

Abstract

The Fifth Volume of the Tragic Stories carries within it the contrasting expression of human conflicts both through style and through the violent human experiences recounted there. All the discursive and generic resources seem to be used by François de Belleforest who strives to entertain the reader in the vein of his predecessors but also to assert his personal style and political ideas. The systematic use of direct speech appears to be steeped in rhetorical and didactic intentions. Aiming to energize the story, it simultaneously rubs shoulders with bloody outpourings and expected moral discourses where the desire to instruct seems to surpass that of frightening. The weaving of literary genres expresses, moreover, the preponderance of tragedy, harangue but also news items, thus illustrating a form of literary osmosis in the service of the same cause. However, the collision between the doxa of docere and the controversial expression of placere raises even more questions for Belleforest than for his predecessors.