L’ambivalence d’un chef-d’œuvre : « Une lettre perdue » de I.L. Caragiale

Abstract

The Ambivalence of a Masterpiece: A Lost Letter by I.L. Caragiale. A Lost Letter by I.L. Caragiale, a landmark in the history of Romanian theatre, has enjoyed throughout time numerous critical interpretations, without losing its dramatic potential. We intend to study the comic mechanism through a variety of dramatic strategies: the diversity of the scenes, the circular actions, the baffling succession of situations, starting with the loss of the compromising love letter. This play features the actors of a political electoral farce overflowing with a vaudeville-like comic, that in conjunction with parody, is targeting the ideological clichés and verbal stereotypes. A logically inconceivable humour that borders the absurd. The purpose of this kind of humour, unleashed during comical situations, is not hiding the immorality, the demagogy of a socio-political reality put under the critical scope of the author. The joyful, bitter or cruel laughter are being in a continuous competition here. The humour is thus the element that subverts the values of political commitment.