UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — “Jean de Rotrou: Bibliographie Critique,” a comprehensive annotated bibliography by Jean-Claude Vuillemin, is now available through Penn State University Libraries' open access publishing service at openpublishing.psu.edu/rotrou. A poet and a dramatist, Rotrou (1609-1650) wrote more than 30 plays during his short lifetime and was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the most influential French playwrights.
Researched and written by Vuillemin, liberal arts research professor of French literature in the Department of French and Francophone Studies at Penn State, this digital bibliography includes 662 citations from multiple sources organized into 13 categories. Each citation is documented to provide clarity and accuracy of the sources cited and includes Vuillemin’s comments. The bibliography also provides links whenever free versions of discussed documents are available, and a substantial introduction on Rotrou’s theater.
A frequent lecturer on both sides of the Atlantic, Vuillemin is a specialist in early-modern literature and philosophy, performance reception, and literary theories. He collaborated on the first critical edition of Rotrou’s complete theater (Belles-Lettres / Sorbonne-U. Paris-4, 1999-2017) and to the first "Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century French Philosophers" (Classiques Garnier, 2015) and wrote a monograph on Rotrou’s dramaturgy ("Baroquisme et théâtralité," Biblio17, 1994). Vuillemin co-edited a volume on baroque aesthetics (Gunter Narr Verlag,1998), three critical editions of Rotrou’s plays, a comprehensive study of the French baroque titled "Épistémè baroque: le mot et la chose" (Hermann, 2013), and he is the author of many articles, book chapters and reviews. He is presently working on a book on Michel Foucault’s genealogy of the self.
“It is my hope that this annotated bibliography, while furthering Rotrou’s studies, will inspire theater practitioners to stage some plays of this eminent representative of the French baroque drama,” Vuillemin said.
Vuillemin was the 2014 recipient of a King Faculty Research Award, an honor bestowed from the Department of French and Francophone Studies in the College of Liberal Arts, which contributed to the completion of this annotated bibliography.
“Jean de Rotrou: Bibliographie Critique” by Jean-Claude Vuillemin is identified through its assigned doi: 10.18113/P8RP4Z and can easily be accessed at openpublishing.psu.edu/rotrou.
For more information on "Jean de Rotrou: Bibliographie Critique," or on author Jean-Claude Vuillemin, contact Mark Mattson via email at mam1196@psu.edu or by phone at 814-863-2480 or +1-814-863-2480 for calls originating outside the United States. Penn State is located in the Eastern time zone, UTC-4 during daylight saving time March through November and UTC-5 from November through March each year.