Shakespeare in France: 1900–1948

Summary

I do not propose to write a scholarly article on the subject of Shakespeare in France during the last fifty years, such as would offer an exhaustive survey of criticism, translations and productions since the beginning of the century. I am here limiting myself to the taking stock of the ever-increasing interest Shakespeare has raised in my country and of the manifold attempts which bear witness, with various degrees of success, to the fact that Shakespeare belongs to our literary tradition as much as any of our own classics—that he has, indeed, become part and parcel of our literary consciousness. We may not have arrived at a right estimate or appreciation of his works as works of art, but, after all, it is of the essence of genius to offer a wide range of interpretation and influence, and Shakespeare less than any other great writer can escape the common fate.

To make the present position of Shakespeare in France clear, I should like to remind the reader of a few well-known facts of literary history. Shakespeare's real fame in France started in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Voltaire, the 'discoverer' and introducer of Shakespeare, went blind with fury against Letourneur's admirable translation. True it is Voltaire's brilliant though fragile supremacy in the theatre was then being seriously threatened. He had sought to identify his own drama with the great productions of the classical school, which, he thought, he had renewed and rejuvenated with precisely what he had learnt and borrowed from Shakespeare's strange pieces. Letourneur's unrestrained encomium of Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies he violently denounced as an insult to the genius of France, and he trembled with fear and rage at the thought that this 'monster' (Letourneur) already had “a party in France”. Voltaire's wounded vanity carried more than a personal resentment: in fact, two radically opposed aesthetic conceptions and artistic achievements were then for the first time openly facing one another.