Hector: Tragedy  (1601-1604?)
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Hector: Tragedy  (1601-1604?)

Hector is widely regarded as Montchrestien’s most accomplished achievement within the conventions of turn-of-the-century neo-classical French tragedy, following in the line of Robert Garnier but with increased distance from any topical political application.  Certainly, on these terms it is a powerful piece of poetic theatre.

The Queen of Scotland (La reine d’Escosse)  (1604)
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The Queen of Scotland (La reine d’Escosse)  (1604)

MONTCHRESTIEN, Antoine de

Introduction and Translation by Richard Hillman

Publié le 22/10/2018Scène européenne, « Traductions introuvables »

Among the author’s limited dramatic productions over his brief literary career, The Queen of Scotland stood out in its own time, as it continues to do.

Coriolan (1607?)
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Coriolan (1607?)

The tragedy of Coriolan, by the enormously prolific and popular playwright Alexandre Hardy, offers an outstanding example of French tragic treatment of antique historical material in the baroque period. It also presents special interest as an intertext for Shakespeare’s adaptation of essentially the same material (Plutarch’s “Life of Coriolanus”)

Phalante  (c. 1598; pub. 1611)
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Phalante  (c. 1598; pub. 1611)

This tragedy, intriguingly poised between the humanist model and the emerging baroque aesthetic, is based on a story narrated by Helen, Queen of Corinth, in the Arcadia of Philip Sidney (bk. I, chap. 11). Indeed, it has a claim to be the first substantial French adaptation of an English literary work

The Shepherds’ Court (La Cour bergère) (1638)
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The Shepherds’ Court (La Cour bergère) (1638)

MARESCHAL, André Introduction and English Translation by Richard Hillman Publié le 05/12/2017Scène européenne, « Traductions introuvables » This dramatic adaptation of the Arcadia of Philip Sidney ­– a work well known in France, thanks largely to two published translations – was commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu and carries a political message: its treatment of the schemes of the wicked…

Mankind Justified by Faith: Tragicomedy (Tragiqve comedie francoise de l’homme iustifié par Foy) (1554)
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Mankind Justified by Faith: Tragicomedy (Tragiqve comedie francoise de l’homme iustifié par Foy) (1554)

Although published in Protestant Geneva and disparaging the Roman Catholic church on the grounds of both doctrine and practice, this moral allegory privileges instruction over polemic.

Mucédorus (Mucedorus)  (c. 1590)
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Mucédorus (Mucedorus)  (c. 1590)

Anonyme Introduction, traduction et notes de Jean-Paul Débax Publié le 03/01/2017Scène européenne, « Traductions introuvables » La pièce de Mucédorus (première édition 1598) est loin d’avoir été choisie par défaut; elle nous fournit en effet, de précieux renseignements sur les goûts d’un public ni aristocratique, ni bourgeois – appelons-le plutôt « provincial » – du tournant du XVIe siècle, et nous…