SOURCE: “Exploitation of the Body in Vigny's Chatterton: The Economy of Drama and the Drama of Economics,” in Theatre Journal, Vol. 34, No. 1, March, 1982, pp. 20-26.

In the following essay, Cooper explores references to the body as they contribute to an economic analysis of Chatterton.

In the preface he composed during the night of 29-30 June 1834 for his just completed drama, Chatterton, Alfred de Vigny wrote: “This is not ideology.”¹ That statement was not a pro forma disclaimer of philosophical bias. Rather, it was a deliberately made and seriously intended definition of the grounds on which Vigny meant to fight for the unencumbered leisure to develop his artistic talents.² “Already in Stello, [Vigny] had proclaimed the superiority of Poetry and Imagination over philosophy and ‘the mind that weighs and measures.’”³ That Vigny must make clear he his not arguing his case on the basis of some political or philosophical...