Our Trial

Show & Culture

In 2017, a poem by André Chénier was included in the curriculum for the French literature agrégation. On the surface, it appears to be a classical, outdated pastoral with impeccable rhyme. A shepherd desires a shepherdess. She refuses. He insists. She eventually gives in. Candidates were shocked to read not a love scene, but one of rape. Where does the game of desire and seduction end? Where does sexual violence begin? And, two centuries later, what should be done with this now troubling literary work? To settle the question, Bérénice Hamidi and Gaëlle Marti bring the "Chénier Case" to the stage. Surrounding the complainant and the poet, brought back from the dead to defend himself, they summon magistrates, lawyers, specialists in Gender-Based and Sexual Violence, and literature experts. But it is up to the public to judge. Ultimately, this trial is really our trial.