The French dramatist Jean-François Ducis (1733-1816) is, to our knowledge, the only author who ever wrote both a tragedy in- spired by Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus and an adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. His Œdipe chez Admète (1778) – a pecu- liar hybridization of the Sophoclean source with elements taken from Euripides’ Alcestis – originated from his liking for the trag- ic theme of Oedipus’ old age and death, confirmed by the reviv- al of Œdipe chez Admète in 1792 and the creation of Œdipe à Colone in 1797. While the treatment of this theme is Ducis’ only themat- ic descent into Greek tragedy, Le Roi Léar (1783), following Hamlet and Roméo et Juliette and preceding Macbeth, Jean sans Terre, and Othello, is one among the many passionate and unfaithful hom- ages the Versailles author paid to Shakespeare. We should look at Œdipe and Léar as contiguous works, especially if we take into ac- count that Ducis’ dramatic muse fell silent during the five-year in- terval between the composition of these plays. This circumstance stimulates a critical comparison of the two dramas with special re- gard to their common elements. In the first place, I will devote spe- cial attention to the similar enlargement, in both pieces, of the roles of the daughters (Antigone and Helmonde, the Cordelia-figure in Le Roi Léar) which, differently from the originals, results in a more pre- cise focalization on the relationship between the fathers and their favourite daughters. Secondly, I will focus on the two Providence- inspired happy endings both works progressively tend to and which, in a perspective of Christian theodicy, eventually redeem the tragic course of the two old kings.
Happy Endings for Old Kings: Jean-Francois Ducis' "Oedipe" and "Léar".
Pasqualicchio, Nicola
2019-01-01
Abstract
The French dramatist Jean-François Ducis (1733-1816) is, to our knowledge, the only author who ever wrote both a tragedy in- spired by Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus and an adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. His Œdipe chez Admète (1778) – a pecu- liar hybridization of the Sophoclean source with elements taken from Euripides’ Alcestis – originated from his liking for the trag- ic theme of Oedipus’ old age and death, confirmed by the reviv- al of Œdipe chez Admète in 1792 and the creation of Œdipe à Colone in 1797. While the treatment of this theme is Ducis’ only themat- ic descent into Greek tragedy, Le Roi Léar (1783), following Hamlet and Roméo et Juliette and preceding Macbeth, Jean sans Terre, and Othello, is one among the many passionate and unfaithful hom- ages the Versailles author paid to Shakespeare. We should look at Œdipe and Léar as contiguous works, especially if we take into ac- count that Ducis’ dramatic muse fell silent during the five-year in- terval between the composition of these plays. This circumstance stimulates a critical comparison of the two dramas with special re- gard to their common elements. In the first place, I will devote spe- cial attention to the similar enlargement, in both pieces, of the roles of the daughters (Antigone and Helmonde, the Cordelia-figure in Le Roi Léar) which, differently from the originals, results in a more pre- cise focalization on the relationship between the fathers and their favourite daughters. Secondly, I will focus on the two Providence- inspired happy endings both works progressively tend to and which, in a perspective of Christian theodicy, eventually redeem the tragic course of the two old kings.
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