La réception de La Princesse de Clèves en Angleterre
The reception of La Princesse of Clèves in England bears witness to a failed encounter. Anonymously translated in 1679, the novel did not meet with the expected success. Although the translation was republished in 1688, the novel's reception was thwarted by the great success of the very free th...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institut du Monde Anglophone
2024-02-01
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| Series: | Etudes Epistémè |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/episteme/17853 |
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| Summary: | The reception of La Princesse of Clèves in England bears witness to a failed encounter. Anonymously translated in 1679, the novel did not meet with the expected success. Although the translation was republished in 1688, the novel's reception was thwarted by the great success of the very free theatrical adaptation given by the playwright Nathaniel Lee in 1680 at Queen's Theatre, the text of which was published in 1689. Adapted specifically to the tastes of the Restoration, the play takes up only a few key scenes from the novel, and while the Prince and Princess of Cleves are more or less true to their models, the Duke of Nemours is portrayed as a libertine, in line with the “rakes” who had populated London comedies since the 1660s. This theatrical adaptation seems to have blurred the perception of the French novel in England, acting as a filter for its appreciation. It was not until the eighteenth century, almost half a century later, at a time when novels of sensibility became fashionable, that Mme de Lafayette's fiction enjoyed renewed interest in England. The Princess of Cleves, retranslated in 1720, was then included in several collections of continental novels published over the course of the century. This article looks at the reasons for this gap in the reception of La Princesse de Clèves, by studying the moment in English literary history, around 1680, when French novels were translated by the dozens. Should we explain the relatively lukewarm reception of La Princesse of Clèves in the seventeenth century as a result of the difference between English and French tastes? This article shows that while the novel certainly suffered from the confusion created by the theatrical adaptation of the play in 1680 or 1681, it also represented a form of novel that was difficult to transpose to England in 1679. |
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| ISSN: | 1634-0450 |