French Literature Reviews - 2026

A. Rykner, Corps obscènes. Pantomime, tableau vivant et autres images pas sages suivi de Note sur le dispositif
Theatre and Performance

Bibliographic reference: A. Rykner, Corps obscènes. Pantomime, tableau vivant et autres images pas sages suivi de Note sur le dispositif, Orizons, collection "Universités / Comparaisons", 2015. EAN13: 9782336365527.

Arnaud Rykner, Corps obscènes. Pantomime, tableau vivant et autres images pas sages suivi de Note sur le dispositif

Paris: Orizons, coll. "Universités / Comparaisons", 2015.

EAN 9782336365527.

252 p.

Price 18.99 EUR

Publisher's overview:

There is nothing well-behaved about certain images spanning from the 19th to the 21st century, which seem intent precisely on unsettling the implicit discourse upon which they are built. By making it tremble and waver at its very foundations, they force it to rethink itself no longer as a vehicle for transmitting the world, but as a screen interposed between the world and ourselves. Bodies at once frantic and mesmerizing thus expose themselves within "minor" genres such as pantomime and the tableau vivant, alternately challenging and revitalizing the "major" genres...

The nineteenth century witnessed a profound questioning of traditional representative forms across the arts, as artists increasingly experimented with minor theatrical and visual genres. Within this broader aesthetic landscape, practices such as pantomime and the tableau vivant offered alternative sites for creative expression that deliberately bypassed canonical hierarchies. Arnaud Rykner's Corps obscènes . Pantomime, tableau vivant et autres images pas sages suivi de Note sur le dispositif examines these visual displays spanning from the 19th to the 21st century, engaging with forms of representation that operate outside the boundaries of mainstream theatrical and literary traditions.

Readers interested in the intersections between visual culture and performance arts, as well as the critical history of minor genres, may find this volume relevant to their inquiries. The study focuses specifically on images that challenge implicit cultural discourses and prompt a rethinking of the relationship between the observer, the screen, and the world. The text discusses how bodies exposed within these alternative formats continually negotiate their status between visual spectacle and theoretical reflection.