Guignol’s landlord – Vautour – complains about financial hardship, as his tenants do not pay the rent. He asks Guignol to settle the previous months of arrears, but Guignol ridicules him extensively and then refuses to pay. Gnafron helps Guignol get rid of Vautour. They both fear that Vautour will have Guignol’s furniture seized, and so they move it all before having a drink together.

Glove-puppet

Not specified

France

Lyon

Printed

Rent

Debt

Scatology

Furniture

Comical

Farcical

Le Déménagement de Guignol. Lyon: Elardin, 1876 (couverture).

French

arrangé par Louis Josserand

Guignol

Gnafron

Landlord

Monologue

Fight

Dialect as a social marker

Comic distortion of language

Trap

Misunderstanding

Final song

Le Déménagement de Guignol

Guignol’s Move

After Polichinelle’s greeting to the public, the play starts with the entry of Aveugle (Blindman), who begs for money. Aveugle accidentally hits Polichinelle with his cane; the two of them quarrel and Polichinelle knocks Aveugle unconscious. La Femme de l’Aveugle (Blindman’s Wife) is furious; she attacks Polichinelle and bites his nose. He knocks her unconscious as well and throws them both out of the hand-puppet booth. Commissaire (Superintendent) arrives and wants to take Polichinelle in. He asks Chat (Cat) for help, but the cat scratches him. Commissaire makes Chat believe that the gallows are destined for someone else. Pretending not to know how to slide his head through the slipknot, Polichinelle asks Commissaire to show him how to do it and takes advantage of the opportunity to hang him. He leaves, carrying Chat under his arm.

Trained animal

Paris

Beggary

Clumsiness

Cruelty

Cunning

Disobedience

Cheekiness

écrit sous sa dictée aux Champs-Élysées

Polichinelle

Blind

Wife

Police Superintendant

Song

Address to the public

Blind character

Blow-with-a-stick

Character thrown out of the scene

Comedy of language

Fight with an animal

Hanging scene

Drame du Polichinelle français

Drama of the French Polichinelle

Kasperl returns drunk from the tavern and his wife Grethl refuses to let him in. He meets the night watchman, whom he frightens by pretending to be a ghost. He picks up the halberd and the lantern that the watchman dropped in his flight. That night, the moon is off duty and wanders through the streets. Kasperl apprehends it for wandering at night: as the moon refuses to comply, he strikes it in the face with his halberd, which destroys it. He then meets death and beats it with a stick. Finally the rooster crows. Kasperl is annoyed that the rooster can't say anything except "cock-a-doodle-doo" and kills it, then brings it back to Grethl for a meal: when she sees the poultry, she lets him come inside.

String marionette

Young audiences

Pocci Franz von

Germany

Munich

Drunkenness

Drunkard

Couple

Night

City

Village

Celestial body

Phantom

Ghost

Halberd

Poultry

Chicken

Tavern

Fantasy

Burlesque

German

Kasperl

Madame Kasperl

Night watchman

Moon

Death

Cock, cockerel

Apparition

Disguise

Animated natural element

Personification

Domestic scene

Versified passages

Metatheatre

Kasperl als Nachtwächter

Kasperl the night watchman

Wiltrud and Scohlint, the bad witches, make Princess Röslein (or Dornröslein, “Thorn Flower”) fall asleep, along with the whole court of King Purpur and of Queen Hermelin, by pricking her finger on a distaff when she turns fifteen. The fairy Sconea mitigates the curse by promising that it will turn into a blessing. Years later, the knight Minnamunt finds the bewitched castle, defeats the giant Schlafdorn (“Sleeping Thorn”) who was guarding the gates and wakes the princess and her court.

Romanticism

Poetry

Sorcery

Philosophy

Childhood

Adult

Nature

Mechanization

Heroism

Sleep

Shakespeare

Humorous

Illustration by Franz von Pocci for the original edition of the play

Queen

Prince

Poet

Valet

Fairy

Old woman

Herald

Giant

Word for another

Dialogue of the deaf

Talking animal

Transforming scenery

Current affairs

Dornröslein

Sleeping Beauty

The tenants of a building (a Baroness, a Knight and a Marquis) meet to ask their landlord, Monsieur Dubost, to evict Guignol, another tenant who plays tricks on them. For instance, he ties a cat to a bell-rope, puts a tight string in the stairs so that everyone who walks there falls, nails planks on the door of an apartment and writes “closed due to a death”. The landlord asks that Guignol explain himself and the latter tells him that this is how he takes revenge on his neighbours for what they put him through. Because he cannot evict Guignol since he pays his rent duly, he offers him to change apartments but Guignol requests a hundred ecus to move out. The landlord refuses and then fetches the Bailli (bailiff) to make a complaint. The Bailli wants Guignol arrested and calls two Cavaliers (Knights) to help him. Guignol drives the three of them out by handing them blows with a stick.

Vuillerme-Dunand Victor-Napoléon

Manuscript

Neighbourhood

Joke

Revenge

Expulsion

Relocation

Arrest

Les Locataires, manuscript given to the censure authorities, 1866.

Baroness

Knight

Marquis

Story

Argument

Les Locataires

The Tenants

The Emperor is moved by the sadness of Guerrino il Meschino, who learnt about his origins through the perfidious Brunoro: when he was an infant, some privateers took him away from his parents, who were left at the mercy of the waves. The Emperor convokes an Enchanter who reveals to Guerrino that he must go to the Trees of the Sun in order to find his parents. He leaves with his squires, Faggiolino and Giuppino. The journey is not easy and Guerrino has to overcome many obstacles, such as the encounter with a cannibal whom he manages to kill. Once he has arrived at the Trees of the Sun, Guerrino manages to communicate with the Oracle of the Sun, whose voice tells him about his noble origins and explains that, in order to find his parents, who are still alive, he needs to head west. Guerrino and his squires are helped by the Solitario (“Solitary”), who tells them to find the fairy Alcina. There, Guerrino risks being caught in her net: Alcina does everything she can to seduce him and make him stay forever in her enchanted garden. But Guerrino comes back to his senses, threatens her with his sword, and she transforms into a statue. Alcina’s statue reveals that Guerrino’s parents are living in prison, in a state of famine. Guerrino resumes his journey and finally arrives at Taranto, where he helps his cousin Antinisca, Queen of Taranto, fight the villainous Saracen prince, Nadar. It is he who has usurped the throne of Durazzo, stealing it from Milone, Guerrino’s father, and who has separated the prince from his parents. Antinisca and Guerrino fall in love. The Queen gives Guerrino permission to search Taranto’s prisons for his parents, and to free them if he finds them, which he does. When Nadar learns about it, he abducts Guerrino’s parents again. Guerrino, with the help of his friend Alessandro, attacks Durazzo and finally manages to kill Nadar. The kingdom is handed over to Milone, and everyone joyfully celebrates the wedding of Guerrino and Antinisca.

Italy

Bologna

Handwritten summary

Foundling

Filiation

Quest

Journey

Love

Power

Epic

Italian

Guerrino detto il Meschino Agl'alberi del Sole Alla grotta della Fata Alcina Con Faggiolino suo scudiero

Emperor

Princess

Astrologer

Fagiolino

Page

Guerrino il Meschino

Cannibal

Innkeeper

Priest

Hermit

Voice

Alcina

Maid

Snake

Father

Mother

Head of the Guard

King

Soldier

Dragon

Unexpected turn of events

Enchantment

Release of a prisoner

Change of social status

Statue coming to life

Parody of formal language

Nursery rhyme

Dialect

Final wedding

Guerrino Meschino

Having graduated from the University of Heidelberg, Anselme has become an assistant at old Hans’s toyshop, in Nuremberg, in order to grow closer to his employer’s daughter, Wilhelmine, whom he secretly loves. The son of the adviser Paykul also courts her. The Jew Mardochée sells them dolls which look like little women sleeping, and he says that they come from the Moon. In the evening, when Anselme is alone, Queen Lunaria and her companions wake up and tell him that they have come from the Moon. Anselme protects them from the monster Angramanyou, genie of underground fire, by delivering toys to him instead. Spiders threaten the women of the Moon, then different objects (household utensils, balloons) become animated, introduce themselves one after the other and dance. Anselme confesses his love to Lunaria, who grows and reveals herself to be Wilhelmine, the two women having been mistaken for one another in a dream. With Hans’s permission, Anselme and Wilhelmine decide to get married.

All audiences

Maurice Sand (Maurice Sand)

Nohant

Dream

Impossible love

Doll

Genie

Shyness

Fantastic

Frontispiece for the volume containing the play Jouets et Mystères

Le Déménagement de Guignol

arrangé par Louis Josserand

Drame du Polichinelle français

écrit sous sa dictée aux Champs-Élysées

Kasperl als Nachtwächter

Dornröslein

Les Locataires

Guerrino Meschino

Guerrino detto il Meschino Agl'alberi del Sole Alla grotta della Fata Alcina Con Faggiolino suo scudiero

Jouets et mystères

Les Prussiens en France

Yvon, ou la Barbe d'Acier

Die Taufe

Idyllisches Lustspiel in einem Akt