Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1991. British and American Philologycal Studies (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 20)

Tibor Tóth: William Shakespeare's Reception in France and Germany

73 Although the above mentioned translations resulted from a sincere and somewhat more comprehensive evaluation of Shakespeare, the translators could not easily free themselves from the classicist rules and thus clearly presented, showed the tendency to attribute to the translated drama the characteristics of the classicist French drama, altering the Shakespearean work at times. Nevertheless, we must consider the fact that Ducis for instance, was a preromantic whose aesthetic conception, besides being reminiscent of the classicist aesthetics, demonstrated new ideas as well. Thus, the great influence of English literature on his ideas determined Ducis to handle his material with utmost accuracy. Delaplace's translation of Shakespeare published in Le Théatre Anglais * ® did not represent a better achievement than Ducis' adaptations, but Delaplace published in the preface* * a series of considerations of great importance regarding the Shakespeare image. From among the ideas formulated in this preface two are of major importance, namely that "he was as great a philosopher as a poet" and '"Dedicated his work to the nation."*

2 Delaplace, as one of the leaders of the anti-absolutistic movement, found a great help in Shakespeare in contradicting some of the basic concepts of absolutism: By stressing the popular character of the Shakespearean drama, Delaplace, in fact, announced the advent of a new trend in literature: the blending of art and literature with social matters. This idea led to the conception that literature and art were to play a definite role in preparing the way for social transformations. The Shakespearean dramas in their translation and interpretation assumed a positive character: French literary criticism of the time deliberately attached to Shakespeare an anti-absolutistic character. This French approach was taken over by Hungarian literary criticism, and the translation of Shakespearean dramas came to be considered an integral part of the progressive movements aiming toward Hungarian independence: Another important contribution to the Hungarian reception of the works of William Shakespeare. Has the development of German literary criticism and its conception on art in the 18th and 19th centuries. Thus a short survey of Shakespeare's German reception seems compulsory if we want to have a sufficiently complex image of the premises created on the Continent for the Hungarian reception of his works. British companies began to perform different plays in Germany as early as 1417: In the second half of the 16th century their tours in Germany became more numerous. The German stage of the time was dominated by the dramas of Gryphius and Lohenstein and the plays of William Shakespeare.