Pierre Loti’s Dramatic Works

Author: 
Year:
Pages:128
ISBN:0-7734-8247-4
978-0-7734-8247-0
Price:$139.95 + shipping
(Click the PayPal button to buy)
This book traces Loti’s to the stage from the miniature theatre of his childhood, his first impressions of Hernani in Paris and subsequent friendship with Sarah Bernhardt, to the production of his plays by Porel and Antoine and the staging of his and Judith Gautier’s “Chinese” drama in America. It includes an introduction focusing on development in the French theatre around 1890. Loti’s talents as artist and novelist are evaluated. Following chapters with full notes deal with each of his plays in turn. This study of a different and sor unexplored aspect of Pierre Loti provides not only new material on the writer himself but offers fresh insights into the theatrical world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Reviews

“For each of four of Loti’s own text we are shown the literary and practical sonciderations that drive or constrain him as he creates the play of the book (Pêcheur d’Islande, Ramuntcho), and as he writes (Judith Renaudin) or with the daughter of Théophile guatier co-authors (La Fille du Ciel) a new piece. The fifth text under consideration, the successful translation/adaptation, with Emile Vedel, of Shakespeare’s King Lear, is carefully analysed and placed in the tradition, surprisingly short, of French versions and performances of that tragedy. . . . From this combination, of a close focus on colourful detail with an assured overview, emerges a stimulating, substantial contribution to scholarship.” – Olive Classe, editor of the Encyclopedia of Literary Translation

“Dr. Lerner is the leading Loti scholar in this country at the present time and he writes with authority and expert knowledge. He places his subject clearly in the wider context of French theatrical history in general and of the ‘Belle Epoque’ in particular. The presentation throughout is lucid and unpretentious. There are detailed notes to each chapter and an excellent bibliography. All in all, therefore, this is an important and enjoyable study from which specialists and general readers alike will profit.” – Colin Burns, Southampton “Lerner’s prose style is clear, crisp, and blessedly free of jargon. . . . Lerner’s research is very thorough and his presentations of the five dramatic works make them clear and understandable.” – Robert Stanley, University of Tennessee

Table of Contents

Table of contents: Illustrations, Preface, Foreword, Introduction
1. Pêcheur d’Islande
2. Judith Renaudin
3. Ramuntcho
4. La Fille du Ciel
5. Le Roi Lear
6. Operatic Adaptations
Conclusion; Cronology; List of performances and bibliography; Index

Other France/French: All Subjects Books