“What a sublime disease": ‘Une visite inopportune’ [1988] by Copi or the “Comedy of Death”

Abstract

On 11th December 1987, Copi, dying of the new disease that was terrorising the world, and having gained the esteem of more than one intellectual, received the Grand Prix de Littérature Dramatique awarded by the City of Paris. Sadly, three days later, on 14 December, he died at the Claude-Bernard Hospital in Paris. Copi was aware of the arrival of an untimely “visit” that would lead him to create one of his best plays: Une visite inopportune [1988]. In this study, we want to commemorate, in a way, the creative ingenuity with which Copi faced his agony due to Aids and to highlight the validity of an autobiographical play created in the midst of a disease that condemns homosexuals in the 1980s in France (and in the whole world). First, we will try to briefly contextualise the first years of the pandemic in France in order to relate the story to the Aids writing. And secondly, we will analyse the dramaturgical resources that Copi used with humour to stage the arrival of the “My Aids anniversary” and we will highlight the importance of this subversive “comedy of death”.