Abstract
Jean-François Ducis's French adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear has received little critical attention since its publication in 1784. The play retains many of the main plot points that are familiar from Shakespeare along with Ducis's changes that helped make Shakespeare and King Lear more acceptable for the French stage. John Golder has interpreted Le Roi Léar as a pro-royalist play, but I argue that the play's portrayal of kingship and treason is much more nuanced. Ducis's Cordelia is framed for rebellion by her oldest sister, a situation which lacks the rich ambiguity of Shakespeare's Cordelia refusing to placate her father by declaring love, but it speaks directly to rising tensions in French society in the decade before the outbreak of the French Revolution. Ducis's Le Roi Léar is not just a sub-par imitation of Shakespeare's tragedy, but an examination of the difficulty in defining treason and a king's responsibilities to his people.
Degree
MA
College and Department
Humanities; English
Rights
https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Biehn, Zerin, ""Our Darker Purpose": Jean-François Ducis's Le Roi Léar in Eighteenth-Century France" (2025). Theses and Dissertations. 11193.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/11193
Date Submitted
2025-04-16
Document Type
Thesis
Permanent Link
https://arks.lib.byu.edu/ark:/34234/q212184e89
Keywords
William Shakespeare, Jean-François Ducis, King Lear, French Revolution
Language
english