La Mariane

by Tristan L'Hermite, Guillaume Peureux

Le tyran Hérode aime et désire passionnément sa femme Mariane. Mais elle se refuse à lui en raison des crimes sanguinaires qu'il a commis dans sa propre famille. Cet amour éperdu enflamme bientôt l'imagination du roi jaloux jusqu'à la folie. Sœur d'Hérode et ennemie jurée de Mariane, Salomé entrevoit le moment favorable pour mener un complot qui précipite l'issue tragique de la pièce.

Genres: School

162 pages, Paperback

Published January 24, 2003

About the author

François L'Hermite du Solier, called Tristan L'Hermite, was a French nobleman and writer: dramatist, poet, and novelist.

Reviews

[Angelina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hérode est un toxic boy je peux pas

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Authors such as Giuseppe Flavio and Caussin had already talked about the tragic love story between Mariane and Herod. In fact, Tristan takes inspiration primarily from these two authors and doesn't add anything fundamentally new to his version.

To many Herod is the king of Judea, but to Mariane he is simply a tyrant, an usurper and someone that has obtained such power after killing almost all the legitimate heirs of the throne. Actually, being a legitimate king comes with certain mental and attitudinal predispositions; for example, a true king is a strong and resolute one, someone who is surely not easily influenceable and who can decide for himself.

However, Herod is not a legitimate king, he is mentally weak and impulsive; this weakness of his will be greatly exploited by his sister Salome, a true Machiavellian advisor, who will do anything in her power to accuse Mariane of various conspiracies and adultery.

Herod is not simply mentally weak, he is mentall ill. He suffers from what was known ( in humoral theory ) as "mélancolie". This disease was given by an excess of "bile noire" in the body which brought symptoms such as insanity, memory loss, paranoia and suicide thoughts.

The duo Mariane-Herod further highlights how a true heir differs from a fake one; if Herod is a weak and easily influenced person, Mariane on the other hand is the true heir and therefore a "femme forte", a chaste and prideful woman who would rather die than living another day close to her husband.

There have been several elements that have caused the death of Mariane, but overall her tragic end was already evident on the day in which Herod killed her family, the day in which he destroyed all opportunities of being truly loved by Mariane.

Herod is also the ultimate reason behind her death; it is true that Salome played a crucial role in influencing her brother by making up various conspiracies, it is also true that Mariane herself asked to be killed, but it was Herod with his "bien, qu'on l'ôte, qu'on l'ôte" that ultimately terminated her life.
In other words, Herod's mental illness cannot justify his actions, and maybe if he was a king "by blood" all of this wouldn't have happened. His call for the Jewish people to kill him and his suicide attempts are yet more evidence of the tragic outline of this character.

Despite its author living mostly through what we refer to as baroque age, this pièce follows almost so greatly Aristotelian unities that it is kind of considered a pièce from the classical age. "La Mariane" was written in a period in which the classical doctrine was just moving its first steps, and most importantly it was written by an author labelled as "baroque", and thus forgotten for quite some time.

Nevertheless, the presence of classical elements is very important since said elements have made of this play a "pièce de transition" ( transition work ) between the two periods, highlighting further more the fact that baroque and classicism aren't two fully separated movements.

However, I personally would not label this play as a "tragèdie classique" since the presence of the baroque elements is something that cannot be ignored. Examples of said elements are the dream/nightmare as the driving force behind the entire story, the presence of a "décor simultané" and the usage of baroque metaphores ( conceptisme ).

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

La Mariane is really good, although it lacks the intrigue and series of reversals that are such a great feature of Tristan L'Hermite's later plays La Mort de Sénèque and Osman. This one is much less dynamic. Still, Herod is an amazing character in this—tyrannical and lovesick and filled with emotion. Mariamne herself appears very little, and we hear much more about her than we actually spend time with her. She is nowhere near the towering diva she is in Alexandre Hardy's version of Mariamne from some 20-30 years earlier. This is a play about Herod. The best scene in the play, however, is with Mariamne and her mother Alexandra (4.3). It's amazingly powerful.

[3r1nette · Rating 1 out of 5]

je me souhaite bon courage pour mon commentaire