Drama of the Group: A Study of Unanimism in the Plays of Jules Romains

This book was originally published in 1958. It is a highly useful introduction to Jules Romains and the unanimist movement as a whole. Its author, P. J. Norrish, begins by giving the reader a comprehensive grounding in the theory and ideals of Unanimism, an early twentieth-century movement that takes ideas of collective consciousness and crowd behaviour and implants them within art and literature. He then contextualises Romains' own Unanimism by showing the existence of unanimist thought within works written before Romains established the movement itself. The main body of Norrish's text, however, is a detailed study of Romains' theatrical works, an analysis of the ways in which the theories and ideals of Unanimism are identifiable within L'Armée dan la Ville, Knock, Le Dictateur and many of Romains' other dramatic pieces. This book will appeal to scholars of Romains, of French theatre and literature, and of the unanimist movement itself.