Reputation of William Shakespeare: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:08, 30 March 2025

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In the first half of the century, French intellectuals who had visited or sojourned in England for a period of time and, therefore, had had the opportunity to see theatrical representations of English plays, began to express their opinions and judgments on Shakespeare and his theatre.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Crinò |first1=Anna Maria |title=Le Traduzioni di Shakespeare in Italia nel Settecento |date=1950 |publisher=Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura |___location=Roma}}</ref>

[[Voltaire]] was a prominent figure in this debate. In ''Essai sur la poésie épique'' (1728), he declared himself to be an admirer of the English theatre, especially of its tragedies, which he considered to be superior to all the other genres brought to the English stage.<ref name="Essai sur la poésie épique, traduit">{{cite book |last1=Voltaire |title=Essai sur la poésie épique, traduit de l'anglois de M. Voltaire, par M*** [Desfontaines] |date=1728 |___location=Paris}}</ref> Voltaire's appreciation for the English theatre was so sincere that he tried to import some of its characteristics into France. The adoption of such features was not immediate or easy. In ''Discours sur la tragédie'' (1731), Voltaire had analysed all the rules that had to be categorically respected in French theatres, all the events that could be represented and those that were absolutely forbidden. As a result, «la ''delicatesse»'', la «''bienséance» e'', laand «''coutume»''<ref name="Essai sur la poésie épique, traduit"/> dominated the French plays and they constituted an obstacle to the introduction of any innovation. Such mutations were scarcely appreciated by the playwrights, actors and audiences.<ref name="Mucchi">{{cite book |last1=Alfonzetti |first1=Beatrice |title=Il corpo di Cesare. Percorsi di una catastrofe nella tragedia del Settecento |date=1989 |publisher=Mucchi |___location=Modena}}</ref> Voltaire showed his will to partly abandon such conventions, mainly because they were an impediment for the realisation of some scenes he was working on, firstly the death of Julius Caesar. The main impediment for this scene was the rule that in French tragedies, characters could commit suicide, but not murder. Voltaire fought to change this convention, supporting his thesis with examples from Ancient Greek theatre and the contemporary English theatre, where assassinations were regularly represented on stage. However, Voltaire also stated that English tragedies could turn into « un lieu de carnage».<ref name="Mucchi"/> What he wanted to achieve was a compromise between tradition and innovation.

Eventually, innovations infiltrated into French theatre and when Voltaire presented ''La Mort de Cèsar'' to his audience in 1743, he was able to represent Caesar's death as he had originally imagined it.<ref name="Mucchi"/>