La vertu de l'héroïne tragique (1553-1653)

La vertu féminine théâtrale apparaît dans le discours et dans l'action de l'héroïne : ils définissent son ethos tragique, plus qu'ils n'illustrent les catégories morales traditionnelles. Dès lors, cette vertu constitue un objet dramatique, esthétique, modelé par et pour la mimèsis tragique. Le personnage féminin, de la tragédie humaniste de Jodelle au théâtre de Corneille, pendant la Fronde, révèle sans doute l'idéologie propre à chaque période littéraire. Mais la vertu redéfinie par les théoriciens permet l'élaboration dramatique du caractère, surtout lorsque le plaisir théâtral et les contraintes d'ordre dramaturgique priment sur la volonté d'instruction morale et sur l'illustration, dans un personnage, d'un discours moral cohérent établi par la tradition. La vertu étant un objet dramatique, elle doit être donnée à voir ; ce défi montrer la perfection morale, par définition moins scénique que les passions implique une codification esthétique pour la représentation. Cette vertu féminine aurait alors pour fonction la représentation idéalisée, mimétique selon la définition aristotélicienne (déformante, mais efficace), de l'éthique d'une société. La notion de vertu est médiatisée par le personnage féminin, dans ses divers aspects traditionnels, souvent dichotomiques : vertu chrétienne et vertu stoïcienne, héroïque et morale, virile et féminine, active et passive, le plus souvent, mêlées. Comme les passions mêmes, elle aurait été convertie par les auteurs tragiques en matériau pour construire une œuvre dramatique, au prix, parfois, de ses valeurs philosophiques et morales. La vertu serait devenue elle-même sur scène, peut-être, une passion comme les autres, pour susciter le plaisir tragique.In plays, feminine virtue appears in the words and actions of the heroine : they give a definition of her tragic "ethos" more than they illustrate the traditional moral categories. Therefore, this virtue represents a dramatic and aesthetic object shaped by, and for, the tragic "mimesis". This female character, from the humanist tragedy by Jodelle to the palys bu Corneille during the insurrection of the Fronde, probably reveals an ideology belonging to each literary period. But virtue, redefined by the thoereticians, allows the dramatic creation of the character, especially when the theatrical pleasure and dramatic constraints are more important than the wish for moral instruction and the illustration of a coherent moral speech established by tradition. Being a dramatic object, virtue must be shown ; this challenge, consisting in showing moral perfection which is by definition less scenic than passions, implies an aesthetic coding for the representation. This feminine virtue would then become the idealized, mimetic -according to the definition given by Aristotles- representation of of the ethics of a society. The notion of virtue appears trough the female character in its diferent traditional aspects which are often opposed and mixed : Christian and stoïcal, heroic and moral, male and female, active and passive. As with the passions, this notion of virtue would have been turned into play material by tragic playwrights, sometimes to the detriment of the philosophical and moral virtues. Virtue itself would then become a passion like any other in stage in order to create tragic pleasure.PARIS4-BU Serpente (751052129) / SudocSudocFranceF

Knowing me, knowing you: Spontaneous use of mentalistic language for self and other in autism

Recent studies on mentalizing have shown that autistic individuals who pass explicit mentalizing tasks may still have difficulties with implicit mentalizing tasks. This study explores implicit mentalizing by examining spontaneous speech that is likely to contain mentalistic expressions. The spontaneous production of meta-statements provides a clear measure for implicit mentalizing that is unlikely to be learned through experience. We examined the self- and other-descriptions of highly verbally able autistic and non-autistic adults in terms of their spontaneous use of mentalistic language and metarepresentational utterances through quantitative and qualitative analysis. We devised a hierarchical coding system that allowed us to study the types of statements produced in comparable conditions for the self and for a familiar other. The descriptions of autistic participants revealed less mentalistic content relating to psychological traits and meta-statements. References to physical traits were similar between groups. Within each group, participants produced a similar pattern of types of mental utterance across ‘self’ and ‘other’ conditions. This suggests that autistic individuals show a unique pattern of mental-state-representation for both self and other. Meta-statements add a degree of complexity to self- and other-descriptions and to the understanding of mental states; their reduction in autism provides evidence for implicit mentalizing difficulties. Lay abstract Autistic people can have difficulties in understanding non-autistic people’s mental states such as beliefs, emotions and intentions. Although autistic adults may learn to overcome difficulties in understanding of explicit (overt) mental states, they may nevertheless struggle with implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states. This study explores how spontaneous language is used in order to specifically point to this implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states. In particular, our study compares the spontaneous statements that were used in descriptions of oneself and a familiar other person. Here, we found that autistic and non-autistic adults were comparable in the number of statements about physical traits they made. In contrast, non-autistic adults made more statements about mentalistic traits (about the mental including psychological traits, relationship traits and statements reflecting about these) both for the self and the other. Non-autistic and autistic adults showed no difference in the number of statements about relationships but in the number of statements about psychological traits and especially in the statements reflecting on these. Each group showed a similar pattern of kinds of statements for the self and for the other person. This suggests that autistic individuals show the same unique pattern of description in mentalistic terms for the self and another person. This study also indicates that investigating spontaneous use of language, especially for statements reflecting about mental states, enables us to look into difficulties with implicit (indirect) understanding of mental states