Tabarin

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Tabarin (right) and Mondor. Cover picture of the work edition from 1622

Tabarin has been a standing role or funny person of the Parisian fair theater since the beginning of the 17th century, which was mainly associated with the actor Antoine Girard (1584-1633).

characterization

The name comes from the identification mark of this figure, a skirt-like coat called tabard (in German Tappert ), which was out of fashion around 1600. Tabarin is the servant of his master Mondor, played by Girard's brother Philippe, and is also active as a charlatan . The grossly comic numbers of the comedian couple were called tabarinades , a selection of which appeared in print in 1622 (reprint 1858). Girard is considered the creator of the character, but after the brothers withdrew from the entertainment scene in 1624, she was also embodied by other actors, which can be seen above all from the fact that she remained in conversation for generations.

Historical meaning

Counter-image of the French classic

Tabarin has historical significance insofar as it served the creators of French classical music as a counterpart in the run-up to the founding of the Académie française in 1635: as the epitome of a deeply submerged entertainment culture, from which a refined courtly culture based on ancient models must be differentiated. In this sense, Tabarin is cited by Jean Chapelain or Nicolas Boileau . As an example of the criticized kind of humor, William Driver Howarth quotes a dialogue in which Tabarin, when asked why women have larger breasts than men, gives the answer that the anvil must have greater mass than the hammer, which every craftsman can confirm .

Boileau advised the poets to avoid trivialities so that Parnassus would not speak the language of the market halls and Apollon would not become a travested Tabarin ( L'Art poétique, v. 86). A hundred years later, the German buffoon dispute bears a certain resemblance to this controversy.

Jean de la Fontaine mentions Tabarin in his fable The Pig, the Goat and the Mutton (8th book, 12th fable) as urban entertainment for the rural population. The literary historian Gustave Lanson suspected an influence of the Tabarin character on Molière's comedies at a time when people wanted to recognize French national culture more in popular than in courtly entertainment .

Medical historical aspects

Girard, the actor who played Tabarin, sold medicines that were part of the craft of actors until the 18th century, who also worked as dentists like Josef Anton Stranitzky or amputated limbs. The distancing of French classical music from Tabarin also meant turning away from charlatanry . The branding of the charlatan and the comedian, as it happened in Molière's The Conceited Sick (1673), paved the way for the recognition of pharmacy or practical medicine and acting as righteous arts ( vanitas - overcoming) as they are completed in the 18th century.

Namesake

The Parisian Music Hall Bal Tabarin in the 9th arrondissement , which existed from 1904 to 1953, was named after Tabarin . Celebrities like Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf could be seen on this stage. An American film of the same name by Philip Ford made it the location in 1952. In Vienna there was also a Tabarin establishment at St. Annahof for a while .

The British military operation Tabarin 1943 was named after the Bal Tabarin amusement bar, which was frequented by German officers in Paris, which had been occupied since 1940. After the Second World War, it led to the geographical names Tabarin Peninsula and Mondor Glacier .

literature

  • [Antoine Girard:] Inventaire universel des œuvres de Tabarin, Rocollet, Paris 1622.
  • William Driver Howarth (ed.): French Theater in the Neo-Classical Era, 1550-1789, Cambridge Univ. Press 1997, pp. 49-52. ISBN 978-0521230131
  • Charlotte Farcet (ed.): Tabarin philosophe: le recueil général, Belles lettres, Paris 2007. ISBN 978-2251344782
  • Grete de Francesco : The Power of the Charlatan . Basel: Benno Schwabe, 1937, p. 90f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Driver Howarth (ed.): French Theater in the Neo-classical Era, 1550-1789, Cambridge Univ. Press 1997, p. 51.
  2. ↑ Henk de Wild: Tradition and New Beginning: Lessing's Orientation to European Tradition, Rodopi, Amsterdam 1986, p. 164. ISBN 978-9062037285
  3. ↑ Gustave Lanson, Paul Tuffrau: Manuel d'histoire de la littérature française, Hachette, Paris 1932, p 253rd
  4. ↑ Henri Bonnemain: Les charlatans, in: Revue d'histoire de la pharmacie, .. No. 179, Vol 51, December 1963, pp 233-236.
  5. ^ Fred G. Alberts: Geographic Names of the Antarctic , National Science Foundation, 2nd Edition, San Diego 1995, p. 500.