Senses and powers of the theatrical assembly: drama criticism in the Mercure galant and the daily registers of the Comédie-Française (1680-1700)

Résumé

The study of original theatrical productions at the Comédie-Française from 1680 to 1700 via the theater's nightly box office receipts, and articles in the periodical Le Mercure galant, reveal a public that was an instrument for measuring the value of a spectacle.  This public's critical perspective was based on rhetorical probability and mathematical calculation.  Based on these sources, one might ask whether this pragmatic theater criticism based on opinion and calculation was a response to a non-theoretical model of criticism.