TORTURE ET GUÉRISON PAR LA PAROLE DANS LA PASSION DE MONSIEUR SAINT-QUENTIN DE JEAN MOLINET
TORTURE AND HEALING BY THE WORD IN THE PASSION OF MONSIEUR SAINT-QUENTIN BY JEAN MOLINET

Summary/Abstract: Based on the paradoxical aesthetics of hagiographic mystery plays, the Passion of Monseigneur Saint-Quentin (1460-1470), attributed to the court poet Jean Molinet, stages the martyrdom of an exceptional personage who displays a provocative joy during the atrocities that his torturers inflict on him. Inspired by the grace of God, the future saint however is also an outstanding orator who is able not only to convert a great Amiénois population to the Christian faith but to punish his adversaries, using mockery and derision, even driving one of them to madness. Does such an ambivalent discourse uttered by a follower of Christ who also plays the role of a farce character manipulating the “passions” of his interlocutors, find ethical legitimacy within a mystery play the aim of which consists of illustrating the moral perfection of the martyr embodying divine grace? Is laughter, which seeks to bring together a community at the expense of another, compatible with Christian charity?

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