Roger McGough's verse in Moliere

[Dphillipson]

Le Misanthrope was performed before a live audience in Cardiff and broadcast March 10, in a doggerel translation by Roger McGough. When his version rhymed it did not scan, making the whole an unsuccessful mixture of styles. The actors tried to bring it off but unevenly: some tried to speak metrically as if in French Alexandrines, and others "realistically," thus offering neither the rhythm nor the elegance that makes Moliere go. I do not know what other translations there may be, verse or prose, but surely several were better than Roger McGough's.

[aeolium]

Yes, McGough definitely went for the comic rhyme and often left the metre to fend for itself. I found it quite an enjoyable listen, though, moving on at a good pace and with the verse (or non-verse in the case of Alceste) well articulated by the actors. Also (unusually for a radio play on R3) there were the unaccustomed sounds of a theatre performance, with various stage business that was inevitably lost to the radio audience: the pitfalls of doing a broadcast of a staged performance (which I admit to having advocated in the past ). I thought the main protagonists performed well, especially Colin Tierney as Alceste and Zara Tempest-Walters as Celimene, though I found myself thinking how good Roger Allam would have been in the title role. Incidentally, I thought it was recorded in Powis Castle, not Cardiff.

[I still have to listen to the R4 production (from the Old Vic) of Hedda Gabler, broadcast last Saturday...]

[french frank]

Baroque Spring? Even Molière's Molière is now regarded as 'classical'. McGough's is rather the equivalent of Duchamp's Mona Lisa with a moustache. There's an underlying message that Molière will be boring but McGough's anachronistic humour will entertain.

[aeolium]

Come on, ff, everything is anachronistic in theatre and opera nowadays. Just rejoice () that there is a Molière play broadcast at all....

[french frank]

Come on, ff, everything is anachronistic in theatre and opera nowadays. Just rejoice () that there is a Molière play broadcast at all....

'Fraid I wasn't enjoying it as much as you were . I'm so used to the elegance - and restraint - of French classical drama that gratuitously adding modern 'grossièretés' simply grates. You could say McGough is possibly more 'Baroque' than Molière was, hence the inclusion in the Baroque Spring season - but I objected much as you object to directors messing about with operas

[aeolium]

Yes, I'm sure if I knew the play (and Molière's works in general) as well as you I would probably not have been able to listen to the whole thing. The challenge is a difficult one, though, to translate this work for a modern audience retaining something of the poetic style (perhaps akin to translating Shakespeare for a modern French audience?), and this production was made by a touring company not specifically for radio. Going back to DPhillipson's point, what modern translation do you think would have been a good alternative?

[vinteuil]

Baroque Spring? Even Molière's Molière is now regarded as 'classical'. .

... is it that literature and music are out of step? There seems to be some décalage here - Molière is as French Frank indicates seen as a 'classical' playwright - but Lully who provided the music for his works ( cf 'Le bourgeois Gentilhomme' etc ) is decidely 'baroque'.

The dates for the 'baroque period' are probably shifting sands geographically - the baroque came and went in Italy at an earlier time than the baroque in France - Germany - Scandinavia - Britain - : I wonder if the dates for what we see as 'baroque' are also different if we are thinking about music - literature - painting - architecture...

[french frank]

... is it that literature and music are out of step? There seems to be some décalage here - Molière is as French Frank indicates seen as a 'classical' playwright - but Lully who provided the music for his works ( cf 'Le bourgeois Gentilhomme' etc ) is decidely 'baroque'.

The dates for the 'baroque period' are probably shifting sands geographically - the baroque came and went in Italy at an earlier time than the baroque in France - Germany - Scandinavia - Britain - : I wonder if the dates for what we see as 'baroque' are also different if we are thinking about music - literature - painting - architecture...

In the case of French tragedy of the era it's less a question of chronology as of ideology: French classical drama is clearly rooted in (ancient) Greek drama (as, for instance, observance of the Three Unities and other 'rules'). The use of the word 'classical' is more plainly applicable here. The rules of French versification were also very strict. I'd need to check Molière's text to see if McGough's passage about casting aside 'verse, couplets and alexandrines' was in the original.

I'm afraid I've never read a translation, so can't say of which one I'd approve

[vinteuil]

In the case of French tragedy of the era it's less a question of chronology as of ideology: French classical drama is clearly rooted in (ancient) Greek drama (as, for instance, observance of the Three Unities and other 'rules'). The use of the word 'classical' is more plainly applicable here.

... ahh, distant sleepy classroom memories of Corneille and Rodogune and la Place Royale, and Rotrou, and when 'classicism' took hold.

All forgotten by me now, hélas!

[jean]

Yes, I'm sure if I knew the play (and Molière's works in general) as well as you I would probably not have been able to listen to the whole thing...

I love McGough's Moliere - I'm biased, obviously, and I only have A Level French (I thought then that L'Avare was the most boring thing I'd read in my life - even worse than Racine's Britannicus, which wasn't supposed to be funny, but was easier to get a laugh out of).

But I did see all McGough's versions of Moliere in the company of two retired lecturers in French at Liverpool University, and they loved it too.

It's not quite true that it's been 'updated' - there are knowing anachronistic references in the text, but the costumes and sets are firmly of Moliere's time.

[jean]

...French classical drama is clearly rooted in (ancient) Greek drama (as, for instance, observance of the Three Unities and other 'rules')...

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it's rooted in Aristotle's idea (expressed most fully in the Περὶ ποιητικῆς) of what the great tragedians of the previous century had been doing?

[french frank]

It's not quite true that it's been 'updated' - there are knowing anachronistic references in the text, but the costumes and sets are firmly of Moliere's time.

I don't think it was suggested that it had been updated, but McGough's puns, being somewhat crude, certainly would not have had any counterpart - they might have had in Shakespeare but not in Molière. I suppose it's like the Hollywood film versions of novels: you have to think of them as works in their own right, and comparisons with the original as odious ... Would it be true to say that Molière's intention was satirical, McGough's comical?

[french frank]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it's rooted in Aristotle's idea (expressed most fully in the Περὶ ποιητικῆς) of what the great tragedians of the previous century had been doing?

Yes - but the inspiration, shall we say, was 'classical'.

[Mandryka]

By whatever criteria you can to judge him, I find Roger McGough to be a very poor poet indeed.

[jean]

Your findings are entirely irrelevant to my judgment.