Genèse du comique Du pathos à « l’archiethos »

Beaumarchais transformed ­comedy by letting it play out on a dramatic background. Symmetrically, La Mère coupable was born from a ­comedic plot. However, the interaction between drama and ­comedy is not hugely fertile in La Mère coupable. The striking ­comic success can be explained in terms of the revolution ­constituted by the invention of the ­l’archiethos spirituel. This article proposes this term in order to make sense of the faculty given to all ­comic characters to be, at least momentarily, spiritual.