French Literature Reviews - 2026
B. Ferrier, La Bible à l'épreuve de la scène. La transformation du sacré dans l'histoire de Samson (1702-1816)
Theatre and Performance
Bibliographic reference: B. Ferrier, La Bible à l'épreuve de la scène. La transformation du sacré dans l'histoire de Samson (1702-1816), Honoré Champion, collection "les XVIIIe siècles", 2017. EAN13: 9782745327215.
Béatrice Ferrier, La Bible à l'épreuve de la scène. La transformation du sacré dans l'histoire de Samson (1702-1816)
Paris: Honoré Champion, 2014
EAN 9782745327215
472 p.
Price 90EUR.
Publisher's overview:
The singular story of Samson has rarely been among the favorite subjects of religious theater. It was during the 18th century in France that its full dramaturgical potential was finally unlocked. Transposed, adapted, or transformed depending on the reception context, censorship, intertextual interplay, and authors' ideologies, the biblical episode gave rise to numerous and often unexpected theatrical rewritings. It was performed on stages as surprising as those of the Comédiens Italiens, the fairs, the boulevard theaters, as well as during revolutionary and Masonic festivals, yet it remained banned at the Opéra—despite the collaboration of Voltaire and Rameau, and despite the efforts of Beaumarchais. At the same time, it was also performed in more traditional forms, devoid of Venus and Harlequin, at private concerts or the Concert Spirituel.
Beyond the sheer curiosity they arouse, these plays shed light on the ongoing shifts in the history of ideas. Judging by the reactions of the public and the authorities, Old Testament subjects could never be treated simply as mythological ones. They still seemed to be regarded as sacred, even as secular stages severed them from any religious message, secularized them for contemporary audiences, and steered them toward pure entertainment. Yet if the Bible remained sacred under such conditions, it was no longer in the traditional Christian sense. This book therefore seeks to examine this transformation of the sacred and the emergence, catalyzed by the stage, of new forms of the sacred that marked a crucial early turning point toward modern thought.
Senior Lecturer in French Language and Literature at the Université d’Artois, Béatrice Ferrier focuses her research on 18th-century theatrical adaptations of the Bible and has a particular interest in Voltaire's operas, on which she has published several articles. Her scholarly work also explores educational theater and theater pedagogy.
The theatrical adaptation of biblical narratives forms a distinct strand within eighteenth-century French dramatic history, intersecting with broader shifts in censorship, entertainment, and public performance. During this period, playwrights and organizers engaged with sacred stories across diverse venues ranging from elite institutions to popular fairs and revolutionary celebrations. Such practices reflect complex negotiations between theatrical innovation and religious oversight, highlighting how traditional subjects were reinterpreted for secular audiences in varying cultural contexts. Scholars of theatrical history often examine these adaptations to understand the evolving relationship between dramatic arts, institutional authority, and shifting ideological currents in pre-revolutionary and revolutionary France.
Béatrice Ferrier investigates the various transformations of the Samson story on French stages between 1702 and 1816, analyzing how the biblical episode was adapted across different performance spaces and ideological frameworks. The volume addresses the reception of these works by the public and authorities, considering the persistence of sacred interpretations alongside the growing demand for secular entertainment. Readers interested in eighteenth-century drama, the history of theatrical censorship, and the evolution of sacred representations in literature may find this study relevant to their inquiries into the period.