DON'T JEST WITH LOVE 2/1 N14, ALFRED DE MUSSET, JACQUELINE TURGIS-LE-BOURSICAUD

Undoubtedly, "one does not trifle with love." Yet it is this dangerous game that Camille and Perdican play, caught between cruelty and carelessness, fear and desire, purity and deceit. On the threshold of the adult world, with its compromises and contaminations, will the "children of the century" depicted by Musset manage to believe in love and in the future? By combining fantasy and pessimism, comedy and drama, *On ne badine pas avec l'amour* expresses the aspirations, doubts, and disillusions of youth, that of the Romantic generation and perhaps also that of today.