[Rarebooks] fa: LA PRATIQUE DU THEATRE 1657 + TERENCE JUSTIFIE 1656 - FRANCOIS HEDELIN

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, March 30. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/kqrbxkk

Thanks for looking,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


[Francois Hedelin (abbe d'Aubignac):] La Pratique du Theatre : Oeuvre tres-necessaire a tous ceux qui veulent s'appliquer a la composition des poemes dramatiques, qui font profession de les reciter en public, ou qui prennent plaisir d'en voir les representations. Paris: Antoine de Sommeville, 1657. [BOUND WITH:] Terence Justifie : ou Deux dissertations concernant l'art du theatre, dont la premiere est un discours sur la troisiesme comedie de Terence, intitulee Heautontimorumenos. Pour monstrer qu'elle est dans les regles des Anciens Poetes. Et la seconde est une Apologie de ce mesme discours, ou sont traites plusieurs Maximes du Poeme Dramatique. Avec diverses Questions curieuses & utiles a ceux recherchent la connoissance de l'Antiquite... Contre les erreurs de Maistre Gilles Menage, Advocat en Parlement. Paris: Guillaume de Lynnes, 1656. FIRST EDITIONS. Two works in one volume, 4to (23 cm), bound in early/period red morocco, page edges gilt; [4], 514, [6] pp.; [28], 253, [1] pp. With the imprimatur leaves, errata; the first work with the blank leaf corresponding to pp. 469-470, as called for; woodcut decorations and borders.

Two important and uncommon treatises on the theatre by Francois Hedelin, abbe d'Aubignac (1604-1676), a cleric, novelist and unsuccessful playwright who is best (if not only) remembered today for his criticism and theoretical writings. He was a controversialist who zealously weighed in on the great literary debates of his time, alienating in the process many of the era's leading dramatic authors, including Corneille, whom he once admired then later denigrated. Pratique du Theatre, his chef d'oeuvre, published in 1657 but begun as early as 1640 at the urging of his patron Cardinal Richelieu, is credited with being the first work to apply Aristotle's Poetics to a modern European context; the last part of the work consists of Hedelin's "Projet pour le retablissement du theatre francais."

Binding darkened at the edges and spine, wear and loss to the corners, rubbing to the joints; front inner hinge cracked but board is secure; lacking the front blank endpaper; leaves with scattered spotting and light browning to the edges; second work with intermittent damp-staining (mostly light) at the bottom corners; a few occasional small stains; otherwise quite clean and sound, firmly bound.