Items
Details
Title
Medeé : tragedie.
Created/published
A Paris : Chez Pierre Aubouyn ... : Pierre Emery : Charles Clouzier ..., [1694]
Description
ix, 83 pages, [1] leaf of plates : illustrations ; 15 cm
Note
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Place of creation/publication
France.
Item Details
Call number
270285
Folger-specific note
Purchase made possible by The Gladys Brooks Acquisitions Endowment Fund. Purchase made possible by The Ann Jennalie Cook Acquisitions Fund. FSL copy has Author's name and 1793 written in ink on printed title page. Ordered from Golden Legend, Inc., D 9047, 2017-01-12, Email quote. From dealer's description: "Based on the Medea plays of Euripides, Seneca, and Corneille. Against charges of borrowing directly from Corneille, Longepierre argued that he actually based his plays on Euripides and Seneca, as did Corneille. As a result, both versions had similarities. This was only one of two French tragedies written in the late 17th century to remain in the repertory for an extended length of time; the other was M. Galbert de Campistron's Tiridate (1691) (Lancaster, 352). Medée premiered at the Théâtre de la rue des Fossés Saint-Germain, Paris. Acted only sixteen times until 1728, after its cool opening reception,* Medée was soon revived and stayed in the repertory until 1813. It was considered superior to Corneille's version by La Harpe and Voltaire (with the reservations that it was lacked action in the face of the author's fondness for declamation). To be fair, Corneille's play was written 1639, early in his career, while Longepierre's was written during his mature period. Longepierre's Medée was performed 146 times through 1813. After the 1694 original edition, the play was published again in Dresden, Troyes, and Toulouse. In addition to these publications, it appeared in seven collections between 1784 and 1824 (Lancaster, 358). The popularity of the play was greatly increased through the acting abilities of Mlle. Balicour (Marguerite Thérèse Balicour; ca. 1700-1743) in the leading role. Also, popularity was enhanced by the liberal use of spectacular elements such as ghosts, furies, and a glittering, diamond-covered magic robe. The spectacular elements also appealed later to lovers of opera (see Ewans below, who adds in a footnote that "In a totally gratuitous spectacle, [Medée] also summons up some monsters which her demons assassinate with the poison from the robe, to test its efficacy" [65, no. 34]). Longepierre's Medée was also influential in the development of opera. According to Ewans, due to the play's popularity throughout the entire 18th century, François- Benoît Hoffman had certainly read or seen it, because parts of it were used in his libretto to Luigi Cherubini's Medée (1797). Specifically, "In act II one original feature is that her father's and her brother's ghosts appear, and Medée begs them for pardon. At the end of the scene, all the visions disappear and she is left alone with the Fury, Tisiphon - a touch that Hoffman found suggestive" (66). From dealer's description: "In another element of the play, which also influenced Hoffman, Longepierre echoes Euripides (1021 ff) to write a scene (4.7) which is not found in either Pierre or Thomas Corneille's version of the story. After the children have given the robe to Créuse, they caress Medée, and she alternates between passionate affection for them and fury at being patronized by Créuse. Ultimately, she decides that she has to kill them (4.8) (Ewans, 66). Hoffman includes a very powerful scene (4.2) which only Longepierre had attempted (4.7) since Euripides (1019 ff). Before an aria, Medée embraces her children, and is utterly torn at what she must do (Ewans, 65-69). M. Hilaire-Bernard de Requeleyne, baron de Longepierre (1659-1721), was a tutor to French princes and was also considered the finest booklover of his generation. His Greek was sufficient to publish translations of Anacreon, Sappho, Bion, and Moschus. Greatly interested in theater, he wrote Parallèle de Corneille et Racine (1686). In addition to Médée, he composed Sésostris (1694) and Electre (1702). *Perhaps the lack of popularity of the play during 1694 caused the text to be published in this small unpretentious twelvemo form. The numerous ornaments, some seemingly too large for their page, suggest that a quarto edition may have originally been planned. References: Ewans, Michael. Opera from the Greek: Studies in the Poetics of Appropriation (2007); Lancaster, Henry Carrington. A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century, part IV. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1940."
Folger accession
270285