Exaggereated Honor: A Comparative Analysis of Three Continental European Honor Plays of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract

Although it is defined as the integrity to one's beliefs, high respect, merit, or the sincerity for the highest moral principles, the concept of honor is ultimately distorted and exaggerated in the continental European plays under consideration. First, one must define the two types of honor within the plays: (1) the harmless, even ludicrous, honor, and (2) the meticulously constructed code of honor. The first category is usually a subject for· comedy, in which the protagonist is unaware of his/her derision while others receive great pleasure at his/her expense. Furthermore, this type of comedy usually includes ordinary folk. Minna von Barnhelm contains charac ars such as the aristocratic Minna's witty maid Franziska, the inquisitive Innkeeper, and the comic foreigner Riccaut de la Marliniere. The second category, however, presents a multiplicity of conspiracies and tragic misunderstandings between the characters. El Medico de Su Honra concerns a physician's misperception of his wife's actions, which results in her murder. The intrigue of Andromague incorporates unrequited love and rejected lovers, who ultimately commit suicide or go insane, expanding the concept of honor and simultaneously subverting it.