Theater

Use in the book

The distinction between a person’s performance and private being allows criticism or hissing at his theater but not indiscriminately in his house or street. The ethical question concerns the limits of presentation and audience response. The conversation passage resists treating companions as judges, asking whether conversation is theater or competition. Its damaged wording must remain visible, but the opposed social roles are clear. The Rousseau fragment then invokes taking away a theater alongside removing colors and flesh from thoughts; because the conditional sequence is unfinished, its ultimate verdict cannot be supplied.

Places to read

1. I, p. 157, entry 1, ¶1Criticism of public performance is bounded against intrusion into private life.
2. II, p. 586, entry 6, ¶2Conversation is questioned as competitive performance before judges.
3. II, p. 767, entry 6, ¶1Theater joins other images in an unfinished stripping-away comparison.

Translation in this edition

The English translation retains the first passage’s may, never and unless restrictions. In the conversation note p[…] remains an unresolved French residue, not a certified prize. The external Boileau wording is not reconstructed.

Use in the book

The world is a theatre of love because it sustains persons and objects among which love can act. It is also a theatre of virtues: courage, fidelity, prudence, and repentance require situations and neighbours toward whom they may be exercised. The figure therefore implies participation as well as observation.

The Cross concentrates this double character. It is at once a theatre of joys and a place of sorrows, where the reader beholds love’s action and learns to imitate it. At the widest scale, infinity supplies a theatre adequate to divine power. Across these uses, a scene becomes meaningful through what occurs within it and through the understanding of those who behold it.

Places to read

1. I.58The Cross is a theatre of joys together with a place of sorrows.
2. II.65The world sustains the objects and exercise of love.
3. IV.39The world is a theatre in which virtues can be practised.
4. V.4Infinity offers a scope adequate to divine power’s manifestation.

In this edition

Theatre is not necessarily a reference to a playhouse or fictional performance. The acted virtues and displayed divine works are real within the argument, not merely roles put on for effect.