Macbeth. Tragédie, remise au Théâtre le premier juin 1790

1790 Paratext Forms: Preface Paratext Functions: Meta-communicative, Text-activating French URL

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Jean-François Ducis

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Summary (extracted citations)

From the Avertissement (page 2): "Peut-être aurois-je dû craindre que cette pièce, quoique fort applaudie à Londres, n'eut pas le même sort à Paris, à cause de la nature du sujet. Je me suis appliqué d'abord à faire disparoître l'impression toujours révoltante de l'horreur, qui certainement eût fait tomber mon ouvrage; et j'ai tâché ensuite d'amener l'âme de mon spectateur jusqu'aux derniers degrés de la terreur tragique, en y mêlant avec art ce qui pouvoit la faire supporter."

Notes

In the Avertissement Ducis comments on his adaptation of the original play of Shakespeare.

In particular, Ducis says that the adaptation was required by the nature of the subject, to wit, the assassination of the king.

Most likely, Ducis was trying to follow the guidelines of the neo-classical French theatre in which to show scenes of murder or even those of rage or strong emotions was deemed to be an inadmissible offence to the tender feelings of the spectators. All "horrible" acts that could potentially produce terror in the spectators had to happen backstage and then only announced by menas of words to the audience. If somebody had been killed, then the spectators would usually know about it only insofar as some character in the play actually said so: none of it was openly performed on the front stage.

Here is how Ducis himself described this need to adapt, to "ameliorate" scenes of murder or of violent emotions for the all-too-tender French stage: "Je n'ignorais pas que la sévérité de nos règles et la délicatesse de nos spectateurs nous chargent de chaines que l'audace anglaise brise et dédaigne, et sous le poids desquelles il nous faut pourtant marcher dans des chemins difficiles avec l'air de l'aisance et de la liberté".

Quoted in E. Preston Dargan, "Shakespeare and Ducis," Modern Philology 10, no. 2 (1912): 144, https://www.jstor.org/stable/432678.