LES BELLES INFIDELES ET LA RECEPTION DE SHAKESPEARE EN FRANCE (XVIIEME-XVIIIEME SIECLES)
THE BEAUTIFUL NON-BELIEVERS AND THE RECEIVAL OF SHAKESPEARE IN FRANCE (XVII-XVIII CENTURIES)

Summary/Abstract: This paper contains a brief analysis of the French cultural environment between the 18th and 19th century in order to closely observe, starting with the reception of Shakespeare‘s texts, the way in which translation was imagined and accomplished during the ,,belles infidels” era. The study takes into consideration both the opinions of the French literati regarding the threat that Shakespeare‘s theatre poses to the neoclassicist paradigm and the way in which these literati chose to translate the author. A general direction in the reception of Shakespeare‘s plays is thus identified and is represented by the resistance to foreign elements that, from one case to another, involves either a categorical refuse towards change or an attempt at cultural acclimatization. The study of the aforementioned translations, from Voltaire to François-Victor Hugo, is representative to a culture that slowly transitioned, from the point of view of translation studies, from cultural hegemony to the ideal of univocacy. The subject approached also occasions a discussion about the creation of meaning, at the level of the author‘s intentionality as well as at the level of reception. The study of Shakespeare‘s translations presupposes the analysis of a cultural mentality that, shifting between its preservation instinct and its need to evolve, creates new meanings.

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