The Cid/Cinna/The Theatrical Illusion [antikvár]

TRANSLATOR'S FOREWORD WHEN, before his untimely death, my friend Robert Baldick asked me to translate a selection of Corneille's works, I accepted the request with considerable hesitation. I felt that the great French writer's robust and often involved oratorical style presented a much greater challenge than the lucid and lyrical half-tones of Racine, however difficult it may have been to render his subtle and exquisite music in English. And so it proved! As the three plays for the present volume I chose The Cid^ which is both a classic and a magnificently stirring drama, Cima^ as being representative of Corneille's political (and more specifically Roman) works, and finally The Theatrical Illusion, a rather unusual comedy from the period of his early glory. The first two plays raised the most formidable difficulties. I rapidly discovered that nothing was easier than to produce a version which would strike our irreverent age as an uproariously comic caricature. It was essential, therefore, to elaborate a style which would render, at least to some extent, the sustained 'nobility' of Corneille's world. Moreover, for both Cinna and The Theatrical Illusion there was no alternative to occasional condensation if a line-by-line version was to be achieved in blank verse (which meant sacrificing two syllables in every Alexandrine). In the end, I found what appeared to me to be a suitable medium which leant heavily on Shakespeare's dramas. My version of The Cid satisfied me most, no doubt because of the constant excitement and tension created through the play. Cinna, from which this martial glamour is absent, was a much tougher proposition. And for both Cinna and The Theatrical Illusion the more involved passages have been streamlined. However, the latter play left some latitude, since the comic effects depend on the sense rather than on the style. The intention of the translator was that Corneille should appear