The Slumber of War: Diplomacy, Tragedy, and the Aesthetics of the Truce in Early Modern Europe

Abstract

This essay studies the role of the truce in early modern drama. In diplomatic theory the truce, or sudden cessation of hostilities, enjoys a hybrid status. It simultaneously involves an end to violence and a continuation of the state of war. I argue that this doubleness haunts the ways in which truces are deployed as plot devices in early modern drama. I show how various authors stage moments of truce making in order to raise issues about the ethics of action–both political action and dramatic action. I argue that the truce creates a space within drama for articulating new forms of virtue–what I call “diplomatic virtue”–that would stand in contrast with traditional depictions of heroism. The essay features detailed engagements with two important dramas about national identity, Cervantes’s Numancia and Corneille’s Sertorius, read in the context of reflections on truce-making (and breaking) by such political theorists as Grotius and Ayala.