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Napoleon’s return to power in 1815 is somewhat of an academic anomaly in the history of theatre. Scholars of theatre during the Empire usually stop in 1814, those working on the Restoration tend to skip over the Hundred Days. I’d like to argue that it is a unique space in which we can see more visibly the complex interplay of art and politics that characterises Napoleonic theatre. During those few weeks in 1815, theatres in Paris and the provinces brought back onto stage some of the hits of the Empire which means that the Hundred Days can be usefully used as a microcosm of the period as a whole. This will be a work-in-progress seminar to give some examples of how plays performed during Napoleon’s return to power can serve to highlight the key aesthetic concerns of the theatrical scene between 1799 and 1815 while also outlining some of the methodological challenges of the research. I’ll be touching upon issues surrounding interdisciplinarity, gaps in the archives, qualitative and quantitative research, the reliability of data, and the difficulties of maintaining extended metaphors, so come along and find out what thorny problems I’ve been grappling with!

Kate Astbury is Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick.