L’usage visionnaire de l’hypotypose dans les tragédies de Nicolas Caussin
The Visionary Use of Hypotyposis in the Tragedies of Nicolas Caussin

Summary/Abstract: The article aims at examining the specific use of the hypotyposis in the five latin tragedies of Nicolas Caussin, a French Jesuit priest of the 17th century. As a professor of rhetoric, he wrote a treaty of rhetoric, Eloquentiae sacrae et humanae parallela, in which are emphasized various techniques of description such as hypotyposis, following the principle of the Society of Jesus whose educational activities relied upon persuasive images. In the tragedies of Caussin, the hypotyposis is privileged to such an extent that it is used to describe not only what will happenlater on the stage but also what happens in the spiritual world. The hypotyposis therefore plays an educational role which consists in imagining what lies beyond the visible. And it is the christianized vision of the “theater of the world” that provides the base for this visionary use of hypotyposis: the drama represents in a symbolic way the blindness of humans who are not aware that God observes them.

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