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French Dramatic Sources of Bulwer-Lytton's Richelieu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Charles B. Qualia
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Extract

Although Bulwer-Lytton, in the preface to Richelieu and in various footnotes, acknowledges certain sources for his drama, notably two French novels, he nowhere records any obligation to French dramas. At the same time he remarks that in handling historical data he has availed himself of that “license with dates and details which poetry permits and which the highest authorities in the Drama of France herself have sanctioned.” This statement in his preface raises a two-fold question: Who were the “highest authorities” whom Bulwer had in mind, and to what extent was he indebted to them? In such an inquiry no less than three French dramatists offer material for consideration.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , March 1927 , pp. 177 - 184
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 Played for the first time at Covent Garden, March 7, 1839. References in this study are to the text found in Bulwer's Works, (P. F. Collier) New York, n.d., vol. IX.

2 Saintine's Une Maitresse de Louis XIII and De Vigny's Cinq Mars.

3 F. W. M. Draper: The Rise and Fall of the French Romantic Drama with Special Reference to the Influence of Shakespeare, Scott, and Byron, London, 1923, p. 140.

4 Montrose J. Moses: Representative British Dramas, Victorian and Modern, Boston, 1921, p. 79.

5 See preface to Richelieu and footnotes.

6 The text used is that in Œuvres Completes, Paris, n.d., Drame, vol. 1

7 Une Maitresse de Louis XIII.

8 Richelieu, Act I, scene 2.

9 Ibid.

10 Cromwell, Act II, scenes 2, 3.

11 Ibid., Act I, scene 4 and Act III, scene 10.

12 Richelieu, Act III, scene 2.

13 Cromwell, Act II, scene 5.

14 Richelieu, Act II, scene 2.

15 Voltaire, Essai sur les Mœurs in Œuvres Completes, Paris, 1817, III, 384.

16 Cromwell, Act II, scene 19.

17 Voltaire, op. cit., III, 385.

18 Cromwell, Act I, scene 1.

19 Richelieu, Act I, scene 1.

20 Ibid.

21 The Duchesse de la Valliere, 1837.

22 Louis XI.

23 Louis XI, Act III, scene 9.

24 Voltaire, op. cit., 383-385.