Seventeenth century French society was a time in which the arts flourished and were used to create an eminence of power and absolutism. The gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte were commissioned by Nicolas Fouquet and designed by André Le Nôtre. The gardens created a political and social space through the characteristics of design and standards of order which together conveyed power and absolutism. Louis XIV, newly crowned king, recognized at Vaux the perfect vehicle for the portrayal of power. French theater at the same time was gaining popularity and establishing itself as a great art form. Similar to the gardens at Vaux which illustrated beauty and power through order and careful design, the theater also was subject to specific guidelines of order and design. Powerful men such as Cardinal Richelieu helped to establish the early acceptance and development of theater at this time. Principles set forth for the theater were followed in order to create the perfect theatrical illusion onstage. Standards such as those set forth by Scudéry, d'Aubignac and the Academy were closely followed while plays such as Pierre Corneille's Le Cid were criticized for their lack of adherence to the rules. Trends and elements of formal gardens aligned with similar trends in French theater to reflect the power of the king. This power was doubly manifested through the garden setting and the theatrical performances which took place within them. The festivities of The Pleasures of the Enchanted Isle presented numerous plays by Molière such as Les Fâcheux and Tartuffe. These works demonstrated the power of the king while the week-long festivities created a space in which real and the desire for reality combined.

214 Abstract Conceptualization of Mores in Seventeenth-Century French Tragedy This thesis is devoted to the study of interpretations of how tragic characters should be portrayed ("mores", "ethos", "mœurs") in French seventeenth-century theories on Tragedy. The theoretical writings of Jean Chapelain, La Mesnardière, Pierre Corneille, d'Aubignac, René Le Bossu, Rapin, Saint-Évremond, Jean Racine and André Dacier are examined in detail. Their findings are compared with the Latin and Italian commentaries on how the Aristotelian notion "character" ("éthé", "éthos") ought to be perceived and understood and what its impact is on dramatic action. The main focus is paid to the detailed analysis of very divergent and often incompatible interpretations of the four Aristotelian conditions outlined briefly in Chapter XV of Poetics and on how the French theorists and dramatists responded to Aristotle's requirements. The first condition requires dramatic character to be "good of its kind" ("chrestos", "ethos" "chreston", "ethe chresta"). The detailed study of contemporary criticism draws us to a conclusion that there are schematically two approaches on how the French theorists conceptualized this very elusive criterion. Whereas Chapelain in his Préface à l'Adone explicitely rejects the moral meaning of "chrestos" and thus...