Bonjour Tristesse!!!

Bonjour Tristesse!!! An anonymous black-clad femme is the first to mention the play, though she does so without actually naming it:

"You know, blokes," remarked one of the girls, a long-waisted, brown-haired lovely in a black knit leotard and pointed sneakers, "this all has a most bizarre resemblance to that ill, ill Jacobean revenge play we went to last week."

So, some stylish young beatnik is the one who points at the play, firmly positioning everything in reference to the Beats. Remember that this is still 1964, the Hippies where just over the pass, revelation was in progress all around her and just about to catch up with Mr. & Mrs. Maas. But not quite yet, it’s all about the Beatniks here. So a work like Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan would be the most probable point of reference for the web or network that grows out of Tristesse.

The key words, offering up the crucial points of reference are Jacobean Revenge Play:

The revenge play or revenge tragedy is a form of tragedy which was extremely popular in the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. The best-known of these are Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and William Shakespeare's Hamlet.

It's Musician Miles who declaims the name of the play:The Courier's Tragedy. If you were to have an LP by a Miles back in '64, most likely it would be Kind of Blue, that modal masterpiece whose title can also be in reference to Melancholy or, if you prefer the French, Tristesse. And please note the Harmon Mute plugged into Miles Davis' trumpet.

Addition points of reference are given when Oedipa hunts down Plays of Ford, Webster, Tourneur and Wharfinger, see a: 101, b: 81.

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