“Russian Garrick” and his French Shakespeare: “Les Tombeaux de Vérone” by L.-S. Mercier in V. Pomerantsev’s interpretation

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2024-34-102-124
EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/DDPVRT
УДК / UDK: 821.161.1.0
Issue:

2024. no. 4 (34) 
Author: Elena M. Lutsenko
About the author:

Elena M. Lutsenko, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, Russian State University for the Humanities, Miusskaya Sq., 6, 125047 Moscow, Russia; Assistant Professor, The School for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Vernadsky Ave., 82, 119571 Moscow, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1993-0983

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Abstract:

The methodology of the article is based on the ideas of historical poetics by A.N. Veselovsky and M.M. Bakhtin. The author examines the reception of Shakespeare’s heritage in Russia in the last third of the 18th century. This idea is demonstrated in the analyses of the adaptation of the bourgeois drama The Tombs of Verona (L.-S. Mercier) by V.P. Pomerantsev (the first Russian interpreter of the plot of Romeo and Juliet). In this regard, the author focuses on the genre poetics of Mercier’s play and Pomerantsev’s translation in their correlation to the poetological and pragmatic factors of the epoch. Special attention is paid to the sources of the plot of Mercier’s play, thus confirming the idea of the indirect reception of Shakespeare’s heritage in Europe (and Russia) in the 18th century as well as its genre transformation. Despite the similarity of the genre of Mercier’s play and its Russian interpretation, discrepancies are revealed at the level of poetics. Mercier replaces sonnet imagery vital for Shakespeare’s play with the images familiar to his contemporaries, i. e., the elegiac intonations of E. Parny. Russian readers became acquainted with Parny’s poetry long after Pomerantsev’s translation. That’s why the translator replaced Parny’s gallant imagery with the elegiac imagery of the Russian verse of the 18th century (much more ponderous than Parny’s) as well as with the intonations of the Russian Rousseau. Mercier’s play, like most 18th-century adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, ends happily. Pomerantsev agrees with it because he perceives the genre of this plot as a bourgeois drama, not a tragedy.
Keywords: Vasily Pomerantsev, William Shakespeare, Louis-Sébastien Mercier, bourgeois drama, translation, adaptation.
For citation:

Lutsenko, E.M. “ʽRussian Garrick’ and His French Shakespeare: Les Tombeaux de Vérone by L.-S. Mercier in V. Pomerantsev’s Interpretation.” Literaturnyi fakt, no. 4 (34), 2024, pp. 102–124. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2024-34-102-124
References:
  1. Bogdanovich, I.F. Stikhotvoreniia i poemy [Poems], inrod. article by I.Z. Serman. Leningrad, Sovetskii pisatel’ Publ., 1957. 272 p. (In Russ.)
  2. Bulich, N. Sumarokov i sovremennaia emu kritika [Sumarokov and the Contemporary Criticism]. St. Petersburg, V tipografii Eduarda Pratsa Publ., 1854. 290 p. (In Russ.)
  3. Vigel, F.F. Zapiski [Notes]. München, ImWerden Verlag, 2005. 327 p. (In Russ.)
  4. Svirin, N.G., editor. Dekabrist N.I. Turgenev. Pis’ma k bratu S.I. Turgenevu [The Decembrist N.I. Turgenev. Letter to His Brother, S.I. Turgenev]. Moscow, Leningrad, Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union Publ., 1936. 587 p. (In Russ.)
  5. Derzhavin, K.N. Vol’ter [Voltaire]. Moscow, Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union Publ., 1946. 483 p. (In Russ.)
  6. Dmitrieva, E.E. “Drama” [“Drama”]. Bagno, V.E., editor. Istoriia russkoi perevodnoi khudozhestvennoi literatury. 1800–1825. Ocherki [The History of Russian Translated Fiction. 1800–1825. Essays]. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nestor-Istoriia Publ., 2022, pp. 292–374. (In Russ.)
  7. Drammaticheskii slovar’, ili pokazaniia po alfavitu vsekh Rossiiskikh teatral’nykh sochinenii… [The Dictionary of the Drama or the List of All-Russian Theatrical Performances in the Alphabetical Order]. St. Petersburg, Izdanie knizhnogo magazina “Novogo vremeni” Publ., 1880. 66 p. (In Russ.)
  8. Zaborov, P.R. “Na podstupakh k Shekspiru” [“Approaching Shakespeare”]. Bagno, V.E., editor. Istoriia russkoi perevodnoi khudozhestvennoi literatury. 1800–1825. Ocherki [The History of Russian Translated Fiction. 1800–1825. Essays]. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nestor-Istoriia Publ., 2022, pp. 545–556. (In Russ.)
  9. Mil’china, V. “Frantsuzskaia elegiia kontsa XVIII – pervoi chetverti XIX veka” [“French Elwgy of the Late 18th – the First Half of the 19th Century”]. Frantsuzskaia elegiia XVIII–XIX vekov v perevodakh poetov pushkinskoi pory [French Elegy of the 18th – 19th Centuries in Translations of the Poets of the Pushkin Epoch], comp. by V.E. Vatsuro. Moscow, Raduga Publ., 1989, pp. 8–26. (In Russ.)
  10. Nekliudova, M. “Spor o chuvstvitel’nom komediante, ili Chetyre istochnika ʽParadoksa’.” [“The Discussion on the Sensitive Comedian, or ʽFour Sources of the Paradox’.”] Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 6, 2015, pp. 174–192. (In Russ.)
  11. Pumpianskii, A.V. “Sentimentalizm” [“Sentimentalism”]. Istoriia russkoi literatury: v 10 t. [The History of the Russian Literature: in 10 vols.], vol. 4: Literatura XVIII veka [18th-Century Literature], part 2. Moscow, St. Petersburg, Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union Publ., 1947, pp. 430–445. (In Russ.)
  12. Romeo i Iuliia, dramma v piati aktakh, vziataia iz Shekspirovykh tvoreniiakh g. Mersierom [Romeo and Juliet, a Play in 5 Acts taken from Mercier’s Works], trans. by Pomerantsev. Moscow, V tipografii Khristofora Klaudi Publ., 1795. 158 p. (In Russ.)
  13. Russo, Zh.-Zh. Novaia Eloiza, ili pis’ma dvukh liubovnikov, zhivushchikh v odnom malen’kom gorodke vnizu Al’piiskikh gor [Julie or the New Heloise. Letters from Two Lovers, Living in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps], vol. 1, trans. by P. Potemkin. Moscow, Pri Imperatorskom Moskovskom Universitete Publ., 1769. 308 p. (In Russ.)
  14. <Stikotti, A.F>. Garrik, ili Anglinskii akter… [Garrick or the English Actor…], trans. from German by V. Lepshin. Moscow, Universitetskaia tipogfafiia, u N. Novikova Publ., 1781. 247 p. (In Russ.)
  15. “Teatr. Emiliia Galotti, tragediia v piati deistviiakh sochinennaia Gn. Lessingom; perevod s nemetskago” [“Theatre. Emilia Galotti, a Tragedy in 5 Acts Written by Lessing, Translated from German”]. Moskovskii zhurnal [Moscow Journal], part 1, book 1. Mos- cow, V universitetskoi tipografii Publ., 1791, pp. 62–79. (In Russ.)
  16. Shatobrian, F.R. de. “Opyt ob angliiskoi literature i suzhdeniia o dukhe liudei, epokh i revoliutsii” [“Essay on the English Literature and Reflections on the Human Spir- it, Times and Revolutions”]. Estetika rannego frantsuzskogo romantizma [The Aesthetics of Early French Romanticism], comp., introd. article and comm. by V.A. Mil’china. Moscow, Iskusstvo Publ., 1982, pp. 220–247. (In Russ.)
  17. Alekseev, M.P., editor. Shekspir i russkaia kultura [Shakespeare and the Russian Culture]. Moscow, Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1965. 823 p. (In Russ.)
  18. Frantsuzskaia elegiia XVIII–XIX vekov v perevodakh poetov pushkinskoi pory [French elegy of the 18th–19th Centuries in Translations of the Poets of the Pushkin Epoch], comp.by V.E. Vatsuro, introd. article by V.A. Milchina and V.E. Vatsuro. Moscow, Raduga Publ., 1989. 688 p. (In Russ.)
  19. Etkind, E.G. “Poeziia Evarista Parni” [“E. Parny’s Poetry”]. Parni, E. Voina bogov: poema v desiati pesniakh s epilogom [War of the Gods: A Poem in Ten Songs with an Epilogue]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1970, pp. 182‒227. (In Russ.)
  20. Iastrebtsev, E. “Pomerantsev Vasilii Petrovich” [“Vasyliy Petrovich Pomerant- sev”]. Russkii bibliograficheskii slovar [The Russian Bibliographical Dictionary], vol. 14, publ. under the supervision of the chairman of the Imperial Russian Historical Society A.A. Polovtsov. Petersburg, Tipografiia I.N. Skorokhodova Publ., 1905, pp. 494–495. (In Russ.)
  21. Meldolesi, Claudio. Gli Sticotti: Comici italiani nei teatri d’Europa del Settecen- to. Roma, Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1969. 254 p. (In Italian)
  22. Mercier, Louis-Sébastien. Théâtre complet, t. 4. Amsterdam, Ches Barthelemy Ulam, 1784. 373 p. (In French)
  23. Mercier, Louis-Sébastien. “Shakespeare.” Mercier, Louis-Sébastien. Mon bonnet de nuit, t. 3. Lausanne, De Imprimerie de la Société typographique, 1788, pp. 191–194. (In French)
  24. Potez, Henri. L’Elégie en France avant le romantisme. Paris, Ancienne Maison Michel Lévy Frères, 1898. 488 p. (In French)
  25. Roméo et Juliette. Drame par Ouzicourt (1771). [S. l.], Publié par Gwénola, Ernest et Paul Fièvre. 2014. 63 p. (In French)
  26. Weiss, Christian Felix. Roméo et Julie, tragédie bourgeoise en cinque actes, vol. 4. Paris, Chez Lejay, 1785, pp. 141–354. (In French)
  27. Weiße, Christian Felix. Romeo und Julie, ein bürgerliches Trauerspiel. Wien, Dyckischen Buchhandlung, 1769. 134 S. (In German)
  28. Williams, Simon. Shakespeare on the German Stage, vol. 1. New York, Port Chester, Cambridge U.P., 1990. 245 p. (In English)
  29. Zollinger, Oscar. “L.S. Mercier’s Beziehungen zur deutschen Litteratur.” Zietschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur, Bd. 25, 1903. S. 87–121. (In German)