SoS #54 | Jean-Christophe Mayer: Shakespeare's Early Readers

Thomas Dabbs speaks with Jean-Christophe Mayer about his recent book, Shakespeare’s Early Readers and about his work with the French National Center for Scientific Research and his other research and administrative activities.

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:30 - CNRS and IRCL: Roles in research

00:08:58 - Human beings in history: materialism and theory

00:21:48 - Trans-disciplinary research

00:26:00 - Shakespeare in Japan

00:27:24 - Montpellier

00:28:48 - First Folio in Japan: Meisei, Used Books

00:42:32 - Early readers: Finding yourself in a book

00:51:03 - Elizabeth Montague and Voltaire

00:57:10 - Popular theatre: Shakespeare, Molière

01:09:07 - The early modern print industry 

01;14:35 - Reception theory and appropriation

01:18:04 - The Tempest: Here and There

01:21:34 - English drama and the French

01:27:25 - Cahiers Élisabéthains and literary journals

01:35:00 - Closing remarks

Transcript

This is speaking of Shakespeare conversations about than experience I'm Thomas Dabbs broadcasting from Aoyama Gakuin University in central Tokyo. If you are joining us on YouTube, you should know that this program is also available on your favorite podcast platform. This talk is with Jean-Christophe Mayer, who is a research Professor employed by the French national Center for scientific research or CNRS. He is also a member and the deputy head of the institute for research on the Renaissance, the neoclassical age, and the enlightenment or IRCL at the University of Paul Valerie Montpellier 3. We will talk about Jean-Christophe's role in CNRS and IRCL and also generally about his research including his views on postmodernist theory and also about his recent book entitled Shakespeare's Early Readers: A Cultural History from 1590 to 1800. This talk is funded by the Aoyama Gakuin information Media Center. This Series has been maintained with support from the Aoyama Gakuen Institute of the Humanities and from the Japan Society for the promotion of science. Jean-Christophe thank you so much for joining our little series here at speaking of Shakespeare it's great pleasure thank you for inviting me thank you for having me it's it's our pleasure the pleasure is all ours and uh I wanted to make sure that our audience knew who you are you are a research Professor employed by the French National Center for Scientific Research in in English the acronym for that is  CNRS and you are also a member and the deputy head of the institute for research on the Renaissance the neoclassical age and the enlightenment IRCL again that's IRCL at the University of Paul Valerie Montpellier 3 along with this administrative and research work you have been the author of many articles and a book that I love uh entitled Shakespeare's Early Readers: A Cultural History from 1590 to 1800 and that's out of the Cambridge University Press that's not your only book that's your most recent one and get a chance to talk about that and I certainly want to insert your work in Japan seeing as that we're in Tok I'm in Tokyo now not we but I'm in Tokyo now and I have colleagues in the Shakespeare Association Shakespeare Society excuse me Shakespeare Society of Japan and they will be very interested in the work that you've done at Meisei University so let's start out with your work as a research professor and also as a deputy head yes um well I was recruited in 2000 as a junior research professor and about 10 years later I got promoted to to what you would call either senior researcher or director which in English which would translate as research Professor so in other words I'm very lucky in the sense that and I realize that that I am lucky because it's like the C gives you so the center the center the National Center for Scientific Research I'm sorry there's so many acronyms of CNRS um gives you the opportunity to um um carry out your your research without any teaching and for life um I'm jealous so as you can imagine places that quite hard to get and I didn't get in first time so just to reassure

you um and they they are my my main employer and they um we are recruited in Paris and I know that that Belgium has a a similar organization called the FNRS um but I'm not sure it's it's for life so it's like an endowed chair but with without the money with it if you see what I mean um and so yeah it gives you a lot of freedom and also a lot of freedom to move around topics throughout your career um not just stay you know as because I would say we lecturers, senior lecturers, professors because I used to be a senior lecturer as well in my early career we are given so little time for research that we tend to research the same topic the whole of our career whereas for um for really research professors you are um able to change topics and I've changed topics through throughout throughout my my career but I I really um well should thank the SES Onan bti who is the CEO of the CNS and and also I should mention my head Florence Mark uh who is Professor of uh theater and English or English and theater and the former head of my Center who is now dean of humanities and who um really um transformed the center even more before Florence even um before Florence came and such a lovely person and that's Professor natal viener all right so she's the head of humanities you are sponsored by the national Center but you also are part of this institute for research and any directives or any types of mission statement or any current uh involvements that you have in research your own or some type of collaborative research anything that you would like to let us know about that is going on there in monel right well we're we're a center that as you said um goes from the 16th century to the 18th century and includes a variety of of um of Specialties um such of we started first as an Anglo French center with angl French professors and then um we enlarged our field and um we we got people specialists in Portuguese um we got people specially in in architecture 16 17 architecture music even um so really we're a hub for uh modernity or early modernity our mission statement really was to look at the formation of modern it um whether you know the the term modernity is is used properly and what does modernity uh entail or what does early modernity entail um hence the you know the usual barriers between we're looking at the usual barriers between those between the centuries and um and periodization in particular um we um were very much involved in that as far as my general mandate is concerned coming from the French national Center for scient scientific research well that's quite simple which means going above going Beyond um borders going Beyond borders in science um this is why I've throughout my my career I've always tried to do things that that my colleagues for lack of time at University um could not do and hence I've I've centered on on quite in depth on um topics such as Shakespeare and religion which involved a lot of work on on Jesuit archives in particular and you know nobody well it would take a life well not a lifetime but 20 years at least to to go into it where it's it took me well about 10 years or a little less and then um and then I moved on to um Shakespeare and in theory you know can we say that Shakespeare is postmodern uh in in many ways and to look at at postmodern Theory compared to to to Shakespeare um other of course researchers have done that but it it really meant going through the whole Corpus of of Dera fuk um Etc and um and and look at and and pointing sometimes at how oldfashioned they are you know compared to uh current French research like um Anto comp research which is totally I think totally unknown um overseas my leading thread throughout my career has been um uh has been history and also the place of human beings in history so in other words um bringing back to life as much as I could um are the people who lived in you know their ordinary lives in 16 17 18th century who had to suffer because of their religion um and um in the the theory book I um I also look at I start looking at early modern readers because really I'm steering towards um not a postmodern um approach so really the the title is a little misleading but uh but but it's it's on purpose it's talking more about empirical uh uh readers and and it's turned to really more um materialist history and I think that that um fuku is a great philosopher but um a lot of French people would say in Academia he's a lousy historian well I noticed I noticed this in your writing a while back and quite liked it you are critical of poststructuralism in the sense that it does tend to leev levitate upon the above the empirical evidence of the subject that it's dealing with and not look at the material base and I do think Fuko could be a portal to that but probably more immediate would be uh wul Kong isar or h the reception theorist uh you have modified this idea of reception I worked in reception and I still do uh but adaptation in in the sense of bringing forward bringing forward the details of readership even down to a pen that you may find somehow in a page of the first folio or a win stain perhaps or kind of things those kinds of things who reflect what we might call the actual reader or the actual time but this goes this expands Beyond just the readers it's it's a material based the publishing the uh modes of production that sort of thing and uh that's that's very strong in your book I'm very happy to hear that the Institute really seems to have this material base empirical B that I find be interesting maybe it bores some people it never has me and so uh oh well we have a we have a slightly more well I'd say different I'd say I was going to say exciting but but I think it's different really um strain within the center we have a very strong team of uh which is led by Florence Mark whom i' I've already mentioned the the head um um who is looking into um the aen festival and festivals in the south of France and um who works on on living on on on living theater and goes into schools um does outreach work into into schools into poorer areas of M and and get students involved in in that and um and playing some extracts also of of of of Shakespeare um and that's um that is one of our um uh we have also um a very strong 18th century um um stream of research um which is Phil philosophical um historical but also um we've recruited recently professor sophii who is um specialists in in water and and taking uh water um so she's Specialist of like cities like bath um Etc so she's very interested in again in the Humane you know the the human element as well as the um metaphorical uh element and she's very Dynamic person very Smiley very Dynamic person so yeah you you could say there were about four four very strong strains um in in the center as far as as my work is is concerned well yes it is true that it is um my my book on theory was was was a book on on anti- Theory really even though I tried to save some of the um uh some of the theory but I I try to also show that that the de or fuku contradicted themselves the I the persons I in C in a certain way okay because like saying there there is nothing outside the text I mean please that always that always bothered me you know that always bothered me this it just uh but it's amazing how strong that holds even now even still uh and I remember uh some years ago at a Shakespeare Society uh Shakespeare Association of America uh conference we were doing historicism and uh the panel was admonished by Professor for daring to go outside the text uh and departing from formalist View and I I've just never maybe I'm not smart enough I've never seen a text that has anything outside it's just belong s it's in this huge current of everything else I mean as soon as it's printed it's a historical document you know let's just there uh so I don't know I fought back a little bit maybe uh and uh that's good I'm interested in the fact that the uh this isn't done so much in the uh what would we call it the Anglo tradition that the 18th century is broken into Enlightenment and U post the neoclassical there a distinction is made in the title between Enlightenment and neoclassical so when I was studying 18th century we all of that just was bunched together but you you see a distinction there and it is a French thing you know we have to kind of defer

to you know starting you know of course voer but I mean so many others yes yes yes we do have Specialists of of the the Enlightenment I and a very distinguished specialist which who is um um jeanpierre chandir who is also a uh full-time researcher like myself uh so there there are two of us for the moment we're hoping to recruit more but of course these these posts are are difficult to get and and you get them nationally actually it's a national uh competitive exam and because um the the area we belong to the humanities um uh is I think the humanities is the largest of all um institutes within the the N French national Center for scientific research but it doesn't get as many it gets exactly the same number of posts as say um I don't know uh uh mechanical science or what you know some where where where there there are far fewer applicants and then the same number of posts so really it's it's a gigantic um section that we be we belong to which is called section 35 of of the C and so um we you know it really is dagger drawn when it comes to to choosing this is something that is I will selfishly insert here the uh diminishing of the humanities uh globally really uh and I I think this is the case in France I know it certainly is the case in the US and Canada the a few years back I was invited to give a talk to a graduate class at University of Tokyo and it was at their hongo campus and I'd been there a couple of times I felt like I could find uh where I needed to go but I did check a map of the campus that's right there at the uh where you enter and there were just buildings and buildings devoted to engineering and the sciences and everything else this one little spot this one spot that I in fact could not find that was the actual classroom in the their graduate program and I don't think University of Tokyo is different from anywhere else in terms of certainly National universities in Japan but I think if I were to go to the the Ohio State University I would see the same kind of map and so forth and there are two things about that well that's a shame number two is that I keep hearing on news broadcast and so forth how our young people are being indoctrinated uh to to you know Marxist or gender uh studies beliefs that you know they go to college and I have all of these friends who graduated with degrees from stems stem uh programs throughout whatever the us and not one of them ever has seen a gender studies program in their college career they never saw that and if they went now I think they would probably take a couple of classes in composition maybe uh writing and uh maybe a critical critical thinking or something but uh the uh the the the public imagination is that there there's there's this enormous influence that the humanities has on uh young people that is largely negative making them feel bad about themselves and I want to say no it's not that big there not that many people in there and we would like it to get bigger and uh in by and large what most of us do are the kinds of things that we're talking about now we're looking at cultural history and we're trying to cross borders and and build on uh collaborative uh interdisciplinary uh research yes yes yes well that you see you mentioned the the word interdisciplinary um one of our goals and and one of the goals that that um has been given to us by the senar is is to but more generally also by the university which has its own research policy um university one of the goals is is to um um cross borders as I was saying but but also go from inter disciplinary um to transdisciplinary in the sense that we we then have a chance of course it it cannot be decreed you have to be very good um in your field first of all to be interdisciplinary as you know and and then as we say in French May if the mayonnaise is is is a success um if the mayonnaise is a success then you can get to some degree of of interdisciplinarity and people start really finding links that that that are not not artificial at all and and then there's a further step that is trans disciplinarity which involves not only not not only the humanities but but also the science the this The Sciences um and uh what we call the hard Sciences if you you call them that in um in English but sure yeah 20 years ago say or 30 years ago nobody had thought of um because we were this was the reign of new criticism Etc and the text for the text um U nobody thought of of of of linking up or hardly anybody I should say to be fair um hardly anybody had thought of of of linking uh the humanities with medical studies and now it's become an actual field a new field of knowledge um so really that's our aim is to um create new fields of knowledge um and and it's a very difficult Enterprise believe me um and it takes it takes time it takes individuals who work want to work together but ultimately this is what makes you know what the world move on Research uh move on um as well and um and and um opens up new areas of of pertinent and helpful um because we mustn't forget of course why we're doing this we're doing it not just for us but also for the general public um and after all we're doing it for the the taxpayer as we are reminded every now and again and so yeah this is the ultimate um the creation of new Fields but that that's we're trying first of all to be very good at our disp you know disciplinary on a disciplinary level and then um and then and then to build and we we constantly have inter disciplinary seminars during the week we have at least three um per week um so that's a lot to organize but we do have admin staff that that are really very good Vanessa kuna um in particular our secretary who organizes these events wonderfully and um and to pick up on on uh what you were saying earlier on you were talking about Tokyo the last chapter of of my book on theory was was on on going back to the empirical and the material and and the and the human and it was on on on Shakespeare's it was on readers on Shakespeare's real real readers so to speak um not in the sense of you know Stanley fish is there a reader or is there yeah in this class is there a reader in this class is that correct yeah yeah anyway um and so um I went to shortly afterwards I went to to the international Shakespeare conferences TR St for the Bon aen and that's headed Now by Michael Dobson as you as you know and there I met somebody who who eventually became a very very good friend and that's atsuhiko Hira from the University of Tokyo maybe you know you know him uh who is a professor there reputation yes yes and he was he was so so kind that he said do you know that we have more first folios than the British Library so and and also we we have um early modern documents um at maay University um in Tokyo yes I want I want to interrupt just a moment and just finish up with mon peler I don't oh I'm sorry well that's no problem at all uh what I wanted to do is make sure that our viewers and listeners know that meler is the perfect place for this type of research the town itself I've been there a couple of times three times in fact on my travels uh because we my wife and I are are partially in Barcelona and sometimes you just drive up the coast and yes only a three-hour Drive yes you know there we are and then beyond that is all of this stuff it's just wonderful all the way through but the the town itself is just this perfect collaboration between Oldtown and New Town you have the old city that uh is very well preserved and very charming and then you have the new you know the Olympic Training Center and so forth that is just one of the the finest examples I just I told my wife I said man when the French decide they want to do something right they get it right uh you know the it's Mo modern the modernity is there but also with a a bow as we're in Japan here and a bow to the the neoclassical roots of the of of whatever but it's just amazing uh the uh combination of old and new and it sort of fits in with the research but then let me I'm sorry that was sort of rude of me but let's move on let's move on to mesay University and some of the uh things that you did you were in Japan and I just this is just I I talked to people and I realized they were here and we didn't know each other at the time but uh you know I'm right in the center of town you know I wish I'd had a chance to meet you oh yeah what a shame yes according to the acknowledgements in your book and you do acknowledge noro sumimoto at mayay and also ATO Hira that you uh have at kilo University uh exactly yes and so uh you worked with them and I'm sure many others at mayay and I am you know sometimes forign visitors you know I have semi foreign status now I've been in Japan so long uh but you get a a bit more uh access you learn more uh than those of us who are already in and that includes some of my Japanese colleagues too so we would love to hear what your experience was getting access to those vaults at mayay and what you saw and what you experienced there oh by the way this is the year of the first folio the 400 it is yes is highly pertinent right now and of course the first folio was part of your interest there a large part and but they have so much else there too yes and um it was ano actually anuo here who actually um put me in contact with noro simoto who is not only a an eminent professor of of English a paleographer and who has set up a wonderful website where you are able to consult a number of pfolio and also the uh the the complete works of Ben Johnson in high resolution so I I encourage people to to do that if they can't go to Japan but really if they can go to Japan I um would encourage them to go to mesa's research Library um which had the time when I went uh for the F the first time was called the kod um library because this is a university that is very technologically bound and that brings us back to what you were saying before and the place of humanities but this man um behind his perhaps um authoritarian style of of of of governing his University at the time how did Vision that you know he wanted he created this University and um he he being well um having well lots of money he actually bought all the books at the right time that that were on the market and and and bought all the fio the first fos that were on the market because he thought okay we're going to start a department of English so we need books and so and we need early books and so uh he bought all all the first folios so the 11 four first folios there were on the market he bought also some um uh quos um by by Shakespeare but also by other authors he bought some manuscripts and um and you know incredible uh Treasure of um thanks to this man you know I know he's he's not very well revered now because he was um that's why the is no longer called Kodama but that was his style at the time yeah and um but he he did have that vision and not everybody would have that vision of you know creating a university and I um what I often often told when I go there is that he even even bought the Mary cury manuscripts which I'm told are still

radioactive I I just spoke with Eric rasmusen who was also in there and he was concerned about that radio so he's a good friend yes yes and of course you yeah I'm sure you uh communicate because you follow these things where these first folios are going and so forth and may say it's just uh gotten rid of uh not gotten sold off two of them I think and uh yes yeah yes sadly um I was I was only aware of one that was sold um yes but but it could be wrong of course um but r77 the first folio that was is which is to my knowledge the most annotated folio in the world um it has been preserved and and is one of the treasures of of the um of the University library and also um it's it's it's online so you you can have a look at it and anybody can have a look at it and um and it's also been transcribed um and uh so there is no problem if you can't decipher early modern writing um but it's definitely one of the um highlights of of the library so you yes you are ushered in you are given a mask to wear when I when I when I went there and you are given gloves and there there's somebody who is there um who is who Mr Honda at the time um who became a good friend and um and and uh who oversees you of course because these are obviously Priceless um uh documents and um and so I worked my way through with I had a camera at the time DSLR yeah and um I took well thousands of photos yeah of I went through all of the collection all the Shakespeare collection and and took thousands of photos of uh of various things um I think I think um things can be categorized in in various ways um you find traces of Life what I call Life writing that is to say what you were saying a while ago uh some wine spilled somewhere or or tobacco uh having burnt a page or a bullet hole a bullet hole a bullet hole one of them that that's been repaired but yes what it hold will probably save somebody's life um and um uh yeah a pair of scissors as well that the left left its imprint um it's no longer there of course but it left its imprint on on the page and it was probably used as a bookmark um as well uh and you find an awful lot of drawings yeah and and um and and that puzzled me for a long time and that's what I'm working on more or less now is oh okay these signs of use in these books and also there other uh many of course the signs of use are extraordinary and that's uh basically that fits in with your um with your angle let's say of uh wanting to find out more about the actual readers the personalities of course we can determine from wine and maybe tobacco uh someone their little burn marks and so forth and I think you brought up the Samuel Johnson quotation where these people were probably didn't have enough time to read so they're eating and uh drinking while they're reading and you can see but it it's it's extraordinary uh and of course you bring up the you know the fabulous used books the um uh the work from a few years back that um goes into a lot of this and marginalia that sort of thing yes so so yes that was the other aspect it was was looking at so the first one of the the main aspects which of course was was quite attractive was was um finding finding traces of human activity in in book that was that the so-call you know the people would call dead books you know dead boring books well no they're not dead boring books at all and they have a lot to to reveal and uh yes then I focused on marginalia and there's a lot of it and um I had to I plowed through hundreds and hundreds of of not only in Tokyo but elsewhere as you can imagine I I I um uh uh I should mention also a major influence um which was Bill Sherman's book of course yes used which precisely was called Used Books Used Books yes yes yes I remember the you know the picture of the hand how meticulous drawings were made exactly the margins just brilliant work yeah yes yes and you you find that also I mean it's it's it's an old um it's it really goes back to um a long long period because even even in in the late Middle Ages monks were were drawing uh in in the margins um uh jokes and uh whereas you know the Scribe was was employed to uh to to write the book and sometime illuminate it or it would be giving to somebody else still wrote you know they have funny funny little figures as well um but um but really to to get more serious about it the um the the marginalia yes um what came out of um my study of marginalia not only in maay but but definitely in mesay because this is where I I started um and then I I got a schol ship to Fellowship to go to long-term Fellowship to go to the folder and and then then I get my I got my what I call my critical ma Mass um and then I went to other colleges as you could imagine um in the UK and in the US I went to the Library of Congress as well and that was oh yes right beside the Fier right there EXA just walk over what a wonderful yeah yeah it was very exciting yes yes very very a inspiring as well oh yeah um and um and so uh yes the marinia what I discovered is a lot of the strains that um um we usually associate with the 18th century that is the interesting characters the interesting plots um in particular um um and other aspects um were already there in in the 16th and 17th century um that that the margin area reveals that that um uh so so was interested in that character and and um or in in the in that topic as well usually we think of well topical um uh topical subjects appearing really in the 18th century and certainly we think of the of the 18th century as the invention of the character or more or less um and and it's not at all the case uh they they had a very 16 to 17th century readers especially 17th century readers had a a deep interest in characters so you can see the continuity there the the the 18 the early 18th century or the Augustine period you if you like uh didn't really invent but it was a a um a continuous process of of um of of interest in in in this um and there was also third category of of readers um those who were interested in the text and who sometimes corrected the text who compared Editions Etc well we're kind of in we're into your book a little bit and I wanted to make sure the title came out to Shakespeare's early readers and uh it sounds to me like you're going into the idea of the self uh some people finding themselves in these text or finding something revealing at this particular Point yes yes um I noticed that English History plays were were were for far more attractive to um early readers yeah uh very early contemporary with Shakespeare yeah yes yes some of the tragedies as well but but what is left aside and certainly as as we move into the 17th century is comedies because people people cease to understand the jokes because the English language is you know is evolved and they don't get jokes um so it's only after and and thanks to also the restoration of course that that that um for better and For Worse yeah um so the restoration from 1660 onwards um the um it was thanks to them who were actually the the the the writers at the time who P fored Shakespeare but also Al um made his comedies popular again because um Shakespeare ceased to be easily readable um apart from his history plays and some of his tragedies already by the end of the 17th century yeah um so you know there's no um there's no complex to be developed if you're uh you know if you're an early reader I'm not talk about you because you're a specialist but you know you shouldn't be in awe because people already in the 17th century were struggling with which in the late 17th century was struggling with um with with with with Shakespeare's writing with his vocabulary with his jokes that didn't work anymore and so what remained was um was was the history place and the history place um remained in particular and now we're getting into the 18th century because of the N well the so-called nationalist strain that was seen in in some of the plays or was um detected uh brought forward out out um outlined by um people who were were often pists yeah and um I'm thinking of King John you know passages in King John um Henry V 5 of course um that's that's a real biggie um and of course this this goes this goes uh more as we go more and more into the 18th century and there's a kind of as you know um there's a kind of fight between French taste classical taste um and a a more um nationalistic no National vernacular um after all this is the time when when Dr Johnson was um writing his dictionary of the English language so um he was establishing English as something that that had not been established before where is the the uh the the um Academy Fran say predates um which establishes French uh as a language was predates Johnson's um 1765 I think dictionary and of course he produced an addition as well and um of Shakespeare's works but um it was um it was a time when um vernacular language uh uh people became proud of Shakespeare um uh because he seemed to um illustrate the uh and as as the feud in the background between France and and England um grew more and more especially towards the end of the 18th century yeah um Shakespeare was very much on the on the four on the on the four stage a lot of people put him on the four stage really because he you know had no idea of how his Works were going to be used but he was used for that yeah I find I find this very interesting that and the way I was schooled uh you're going in a little bit of a different direction and I like it because I think you're right because because of the aforementioned material base the the nature of your research but uh I mentioned before that I'm kind of jealous of a pure research position actually I love teaching I do not love the administration that goes along with it but I do love the actual classroom but to you're talking yeah the continuity of humor now probably some is lost but the continuity in through to the 18th century when you're trying to teach 12th night to a Japanese uh first language Japanese classroom and trying to explain the jokes well first of all you kill the joke by explaining it second of all I don't know I'm I'm lost in some of the humor that's just you know back and forth and very not just that play many uh many jokes in some ways the tragedies and the histories are easier uh but uh what the way I was taught was that okay you have Dryden and then later you have Johnson Pope whatever uh and they're looking back and they're saying oh this guy was okay but he was you know he needs a haircut uh he's a little bit you know he's a little bit of a wild man here and we need to make it more refined more neoclassical with our heroic couplets and and refine this verse but you kind of are arguing that no there's a continuity here and then uh in the end if there's any criticism and there was of of Shakespeare's forms oh yes Shakespeare won in the end I mean that according to Samuel Shan you know the great that's when he that's the era of bardolatry uh Shakespeare wins that so you're seeing a a continuity whereas other critics may have see uh the 18th century restoration 18th century is viewing the privil war period let's say as um the prior age you know before we became more you know refined maybe like the French uh and you know started following some neoclassical rules uh I I like that I like that emphasis because there has to be linguistic when you look at it there had to be linguistic and cultural continuity not that much changed yeah yeah I actually I mean I did find um some margin areia just saying well what's you know what's a joke here you know I I don't understand the joke you know or um this is a very poor joke um this you know and um and and of course writers saying well um we no longer understand Shakespeare you know in especially as comedies um but really just to go back to the end of the 18th century uh we mustn't forget women and women were very very influential especially somebody called Elizabeth monu who fought throughout her life and through her famous salon and the blue stockings and uh movement who um fought for for a shakes spear that was an untended Garden but a a beautiful one root was is also another figure one should mention because he spans the whole of the 18th century really and he uh was in exile for three years in England and then that's where he dis discovered um Shakespeare and uh he quite like it um well you have a recent article in this and this feeds into your French Anglo that that portion of your research and you talk you focus on Vol and vter is swinging back and forth of course depending on the political circumstances that the War uh you know it was hard for a a French person to love the English uh in periods in there uh however he has this appreciation but he doesn't want Shakespeare thrown up to to the level of Rasin and exactly right okay let's let's back off on some of this bardolatry a bit he's really good so I I love that article how vter sort of switches back and forth oh thank you yeah yes there's the early voler and the late later voler who becomes a bit more of a conservative and um and who um although an admirer of Shakespeare and certainly an ADM of of of of British institutions um because of course he was kicked out of France certainly the political system was was was far less advanced than the the the British system or the English system and um he had he had a lot of admiration for that and he was very curious to discover discover Shakespeare and and he thought well this could actually you know um add some some gist some um um uh interesting uh elements more lively elements into classical theater but you still he was still you know but you could see the boring side of classical French classical theater and he thought well a little B bit little bit more Folly would would would be good um and then of course there's there's this there's this sentence where you know he goes overboard but he's a man who easily goes overboard um and

um I think there must be a few um I'm misquoting there but um um there must there must be a few pears in in that um in that pile of manure to talk about Shak and okay um and so that was one of the unfortunate um sayings by Vol and so um yes just to go back to Elizabeth montigue she was really a really big figure in the in the in the literary circles and she made sure that that the sh Shakespeare became representative almost too much because she was very nationalistic as well so there are two sides she did it for nationalistic reasons but also for for reasons that you know she does have an she does have um as you know she she corresponds a lot and um she has exchanges with a number of people who who who find Shakespeare too untended um and um she has to come up with you know the defense of of this Garden uh that that Shakespeare created where the plants were left to to um to grow naturally and and and not like the uh very tendered plants grown in in um glass houses of the chatau de marle you know that was really um against the French um and that was this that was her way of of showing that the you know it might be untended and and um uh it might be um uh it it might be less um it it certainly is not neoclassical but but at that time even the neoc classicals in Fr in France they changed yeah and uh they change the absolutely perfect neoclassical Garden right which at some points when you reach that kind of perfection you lose something right and uh exactly that uh if it's a garden an actual Garden or if you're using it uh as an analogy for whatever literary stance you you do want something wild in there unpredictable uh exactly going uh a little bit crazy here and there uh I I can see I can see that Dynamic and uh and that that element and yes there's a French neoclassicism and there's the British neoclassicism but when you look under just a little bit just look under the hood of that vehicle whatever uh you get these guys like shared in congreve you get a lot of Ro rockus I mean the Dr that just went you know it's formulated just but brilliant stuff um and I don't they W the weren't aing the French no weren aping the French in in no way and yeah sorry I interrupted you no no no that's uh I'm trying to go back into the early modern period uh where I'm very interested in the uh material base for this explosion in drama in The Shakespearean period but before Shakespeare which I think can be identified to a few accidents uh cultural accidents uh in in some way or at least unintended outcomes of um of things uh that well Reformation involved a lot of destruction of property in London and that and a lot of it was absolutely Reckless and it it led to and I won't go into the whole whole business but it led to of flourishing of the print industry and then from that these dramatist started drawing from it and as you point out in your book more people could read and the playwrights know this and they know the stories that are in circulation and Bam put it on stage you know if Mario PUO writes this book about this Italian crime family pick it up throw it onto the screen right because we already have a base here of you know readership and so forth they knew how to do that and I don't see the same thing happening in France or in really on the continent uh there might be some isolated cases but it seemed that the drama stayed oh the sum result is it goes all the way from the aristocracy to the common person who who can you know at least even if not literate heard the story from a friend who is or what David cresy you uh cite frequently yeah whose work I just love uh calls the semi- literate you know we we can't discount that hey tell me the story you went to see the movie I couldn't see the movie you know I'm old enough to remember where if you missed a movie you missed the movie it was going to be a long a long time you know you couldn't stream it uh so please tell me what happened you know and a good Storyteller can do that and then you want to see the play I don't see this happening in France but I want to ask you do you see it happening say in uh the late 16th early 17th century in French theater where it sort of opens up let say in Paris for um for the the general public and the same play played for them could be played to the you know um to the court well there's the case of M yeah um yes there's a case of Mia but that's that's a little later of course in the in the 17th century but Mia is is somebody who who had a popular appeal an extremely popular appeal who played to you know in in popular theater theaters and um who was also very sort for at the court and um and I think that um uh uh that could be an example uh of course my colleague my my colleagues who are specialized in in 17th Century Theater um uh would know far more than than than I do but but the immediate figure that that comes up is is molier yeah um certainly Rin was was very much um revered as well uh he was a neoc classicist um he wrote In Alex andron is that correct pronunciation I I think this is this is correct is yes okay okay okay I'm sorry um and um is it's true that it's it's um it's sometimes dating for school children today but it it if you really get into it it's quite beautiful yeah and K as well but um they were they were not as popular um Sim was not a popular it it was more um it was more like Court theater um than than popular um Theater now there must be I'm sure my colleagues would correct me on on that because there must be one rst who was um both popular and also well sought of in in the court circles not just like gra and and cor um but uh but as I say moer is the typical example of of somebody who could play on different levels um like Shakespeare I mean after all Shakespeare was was was part of um uh well um what you call the int intelligen yeah or um the um he played on both on both both accounts he was he was a popular dramatist um playing in in the first well popular theaters and um not private um venues and also someone who um was approved by the court after all to the king's man the Queen's man um and and this proves that there there's a stamp put on uh and you only have to read um Andrew G's book to see that um often the city doesn't like Shakespeare or doesn't like theater but the court puts pressure on the city to accept that to they put pressure and they say no you're going to perform that play because we want this play to be performed and they knew they they knew very well how to to play court against City that's yeah but you know when I think of the explosion I'm also thinking of the venues the theater curtain the globe the rose the V yes you know I I don't see that popping up in any major Metropolis at that time and again I could be wrong as far as I know somewhere in in Belgium there was something like that going on but uh the uh and the other playwrights Beyond Shakespeare too uh I'm interested I don't know why reading your work uh rereading uh your your book I thought about Ben Johnson because there you have a guy who had a lot of popular appeal and had these jokes that apparently kept people in stitches and so forth but just Johnson to me is just so forbiddingly difficult he had this uh he had a pre- neoclassical bent in him you know he wanted to preserve some of the U whatever the the forms of the old the the ancient yes so maybe that is why Johnson didn't win the day in the same way Shakespeare did uh brilliant stuff you know yes I you might have been too much of a scholar perhaps but I that's you know um and uh and and and his way of writing I know there um I once spoke to somebody from um the the RSC had a voice um department and um and asked asked um asked him whether um on the difference between Johnson and Shakespeare well when I work with actors with with Shakespeare they're obviously you know daunted because you know it's the Apex of a career to be to be playing Shakespeare but but um when they come to Johnson I could see their they their eyes glaze

because you don't understand what they're saying you know it's it's just beyond them it's not it's not stuff that is easily um put into words and and and for the voice Department of the RSC it was a very very big challenge Johnson was a very big challenge he's very inside his humor even when he's being rockus and on the city references and so forth almost as if you had to be there you know the the joke that in joke yes or know um a lot about the type of cordier he's making fun of and so forth I'm thinking of every man out of his humor uh there's nothing off-putting about that there's a lot of great humor in there but you have to know a lot to get J yeah um just to back about your point about you know European theater is I I think um um you would have to look at possibly Italy as an example The Comedy of and the use also of um not so much theaters as such but various venues used for for theater um very early with Italian um playwrights and um as we know Italians um were were far more well this is a te te theological view of History which I don't like but but I was going to say Advanced no um the they they had a different Renaissance which was earlier yeah and and I think that um they their theaters certainly sprouted uh much earlier than ours well hours say yeah and let's go let's go the opposite way from theology let's just face it they had good stories and somebody wrote those stories down and in one case those stories are translated into French the French love the stories they're translated into English the exactly English love the stories and then the playwrights pick up from the stories you can just see exactly B back to the Italian and you know they wrote down their stories and they had some great stories of French the French it too and and that's uh that's it just became kind of a feeder into the London stage in uh even yes yes yeah no it would be a mistake to on Europe European level to um to not to see the circulation of texts yeah and and the the translation or the poly glossia of uh at work throughout Europe and the and the circulation of of Tes uh uh which brings me to another influence of of mine which the historian Ro chartier who um did some very good work of himself and who's also worked with Peter stallybrass as well and who's a brilliant guy as well as we know the circulation I mean we okay England is an Ireland Etc but but the um the IDE that we've got of of a very contained um uh country is is sotally wrong um and um there will circulate not only circulating tastes but also circulating artists and circulating artists from the Netherlands from Italy there were also people who were doing their European tour and bringing back books um yes Milton John Milton uh and you wonder if he didn't just draw Eve from um Raphael you know you wonder maybe I don't know I had a student I wanted to go she she was going to Italy but I wanted to mention too even Avid even uh Virgil all of that you know can be credited to Italians but but also I was talking about this boom in theater the continent was huge in terms of its publishing in Industry England was small and any historian of the book will just say that you know it was a province in terms of what was going on you know from uh straussburg to on up through just all the way up through there in terms of the major publishing centers of course that were uh uh ignited and charged by religious writing early on and then yes isure is that is true that um English printing was was um not as productive as um as as um continental and certainly French but that has to do also with the fact that um the um the English had to import paper from Normandy the machines they used to print were were also a little oldfashioned and um actually uh we also we we all think of the Great Fire of 1660 as being in London as being a great great catastrophe which it was but um but it it forced actually printers to buy material the latest um printing material from the continent and from then on they could compete and paper mills started as well but there were fewer paper mills that is true than um than paper mills on the continent um and paper had to be important in in rooms um and rolled up and and um Etc so yeah there's there's this problem of of this this Dar of of of Paper really a problem of te technology but that stops being the case as I say in the 1660s where um The Printers could certainly compete and in the 18th centuries in the 18th century um they competed so much that they sold um some some um um some theater directors chose to print the pond book before the play was performed and so and he was it was even sold um uh during well before the performance started but you could also um so you could you you could there were there were three markets really there was a market drawing well before the performance started as you would buy a program these days but this time you would you know you would buy the whole um the whole book um there was a pre market which was meant to draw people to theater um but also to to that was circulated the provinces um of play that that had not been um uh performed yet but um that were supposed to lure these Publications were supposed to lure uh people into going into the theater and then there was a market afterwards um of the that was very important to um spread Shakespeare through um throughout England through should I say throughout Britain um Great Britain um and um and that was some clever clever Ventures by uh a number of um uh of of of printers who some of them well use pired editions The Who circulated um the play as it was played by Etc and and you could see you can in some of these space as I'm sure you're aware you can see the passages I mean in a way it go it goes against the practices of the readers because the readers used to put quotation marks next to the passages that they light well in those books they put quotation marks for passages that were um uh cut in performance you see uh um so you you could go you could or supposedly cut in performance because what happens is when you study these books you um you realize that that other companies in in everywhere in England actually use these books to to reperform Shakespeare and if you take a a good look at them you could see that the passages that were crossed out are reintroduced or not um that things were added as well these texts served as as a basis for any dramatist for any company to create their own plays and that I find really um exciting as well but that that's another kind of study um it's it's it's it's a study on on print of course and on the circulation of print and and on on the um uh the re appropriation and I'd like to say that that we were talking about appropriation I have this theory that that maybe I'm wrong but um I have this the that that that every that that all reception really is appropriation yeah in some regards there are of course there are degrees in the appropriation but but but every piece of of of because if you if you choose a passage um in a book was because you have a um a kind of horizon of expectation as Hans y would say but um but it's also because it touches a core or it's or it's something it's certainly in very early readers you find them um because they've been taught at school to spot similes and and rhetorical figures um you can see them that's the case in of of Edward put's for example Edward put's um manuscripts where you could see in the margin simil you know and he put metaphor or you know he um and um a lot of people also used um Shakespeare's U but that then brings us in the whole area of of um manuscripts Shakespeare and excerpts um a lot of excerpts were uh what you call Purple passages but not always there were they were also used by priests yeah um and as as you know G to to liven up their in the 18th century in the 18th century the Beauties I think the collections of beauty yes come out with the nuggets of wisdom and so forth I'm sorry I used the wrong word earlier in our talk when I I said um adaptation I think instead of appropriation uh I'm working with the student now on adaptation in Japanese the oh that was quite different yes and it's well it's quite different but there is a kind of appropriation that occurs an adaptation because you're trying to bring it into uh that understand so I was dealing with those two words just today looking over her writing um and uh and so I wanted to correct that yes and uh adaptation isn't is encoded there appropriation can be a very vexing issue particularly in terms of modern times you know to to what extent you know you can do it I mean you you have to uh try to make something relevant to your audience if you're a theater in theater or if you're writing or if you're in Translation but I did want to jump a little bit to translation because I'm assuming uh that uh Jean Kristoff was born in a french-speaking environment and may have encountered Shakespeare first through the French language right is that am I right there or um not quite actually because um I remember as a child my my mother was was in France um because we're we're from from the niss area in the southeast of France yeah I remember my my mother studying for her ba in English because originally she she had a ba in German from Royal Hol Royal holay and she so she had to completely um change in order to be able to to have a degree to teach in teach English as a foreign language in France and one of the set plays was the Tempest and I could hear her um speaking you know whole passages aloud of the Tempest and talking about the characters in English and um and I'd never I don't think i' I'd opened um a translation of of Shakespeare before that even though my parents funnily enough uh my grand my English grandparents Liv that's 62 Shakespeare

drive you were

destined you had no choice I don't think either of them had read Shakespeare but um um they had other worries of of um of of their um of their own and and maybe I'm wrong actually um but anyway yes my first encounter with Shakespeare was the Tempest and it's still I think one of the easiest plays to correct me if I'm wrong but one of the easiest plays to um to teach and one of the most lovable uh pieces of of of writing and is often a set a set play for undergraduates in in France so my first encounter was oral yeah the The Tempest you know if we could somehow separate the the text of the player performance and so forth uh is uh just a it's become a a little bit of a there's a lot of gunpowder under the play now in oh yes modern I was talking with James Shapiro a little over a year ago about uh how the Henry cabbat Lodge a famous uh Harvard lawyer or whatnot in the turn of the 20th century and in America uh used the play to as an argument to hold back push back back on immigration uh what we now consider to be oh and how in more recent studies it's become adopted by postcolonial theorists to um to feature you know how the um let's say dominant dominant class views of a character like calaban and and boso yeah so uh the play just works itself through these circuits of uh of Consciousness but then that's what you do when you're looking at readers here Horizons of expectations yes yes yeah well I I wanted to kind of uh move toward closing uh I do want to focus a little bit more uh you write in uh you write in French you publish in French and in English yes uh move fluidly between those two languages uh and I wanted to well I just an anecdote a friend of mine who was at an American Elite University getting his PhD years ago and another the century uh found there was a student a French woman whom he um he he felt that he he might try to ask out for a date and he

did he uh he very mistakenly took her to Kenneth Bros this years ago Kenneth branos Henry the

F say nothing happened there nothing ignited uh he I don't think he got a second date there uh a bad mistake but bad French the French of Henry the F and these uh speaking of um Appropriations uh you know or stereotyping uh French Aristocrats and so forth in this place uh I would just like to hear how how you manage uh your interest in uh Anglo French uh um the Anglo French elements in Shakespeare and you know we can start with Henry the 5 but we can move on to other things of course we already mentioned your article on on voler and his relationship with you know the 18th century British but do you see yourself doing more work in that area well actually work was done in um when I first when I was first hired I was given um a project well I was uh my supervisor of the um and um uh who became a friend Charlesworth de dear friend um um had started a project on shakes and on on um um English drama and and the French so how the French are seen in English drama so we did a database which unfortunately is no longer online because the um uh it happened that we we I think we had a series of alqaeda attacks on cnrs um because it's state related uh service so we're trying to rebuild that but we had a whole team of 15 people to work on uh on on Shakespeare and and France but also on more generally on English theater and France so our limits were 1580 if I remember to 1640 and what came out was that on the whole um and I say on the whole because there are exceptions that one of them you mentioned on the whole the um remarks about France tended to be relatively neutral and that was a surprise to us um you know and they and of course it was the French disease you know uh theme that run through through runs through a lot of plays um there's the the reputation for you know fery and and you know and overdressing and and mannerisms and stuff like that that comes you know that that comes back very very often um what else um I'm having to um look back but that that was in in the year 2000 2003 200 six in those years you see so yeah that's a while back it's a while back oh we published a book um um it's a Delaware book published by Delaware which is actually the fruits of that project yes and it's um it's a collection of Articles representing FR France and the French and you get everything there you get syphilis you get and you also get praise for the French yeah well I'm wondering about the converse of that too what theuh the portrayals of the English at that time uh would have been in France and uh if there would have been the same kind of thing going on um or there might be there may have been a sense of Continental superiority along all along there through the holy Ro Roman Empire into France and uh so forth I don't know I just don't know enough about it uh um I don't really know much about it either um other than um you know a kind of French snoby um that that is linked to um French NE classicism and that um um French writers uh tended to look down on on what was not what what did not follow the three rules in the famous classical three rules of time plays but I mean looking back though you see Elizabeth the younger Elizabeth was courted by uh you know the I mean yes yes so yes and it was yeah it could be very possible a marriage there uh that it was something that was reasonably considered it was considered a reasonable Choice uh and that would have changed history a lot uh so uh well we have that uh I did want to thank you for your involvement as a as an editor with a uh with other editors at um Cay Elizabeth th the oh yes Journal that that's been quite an adventure yeah and it's been uh it has now in terms of literary journals quite a long history uh of success in publishing thank you and well thank you for because journals have had a hard time uh in the humanities because oh yes uh c k has very well adapted to the digital age and a lot of journals didn't and uh have suffered as a result uh in in the humanities of course the science social sciences were very quick to do that but yes that was that was just done superbly well um well uh there's so many other things I would love just Ju Just um a word about K I think um I mean our mandate really is to because we we had a meeting a few years ago and we thought well we have to talk about the identity of in order to survive we have to think about the identity of the journal and and um what's our identity I mean what purpose do we serve well the purpose we serve is that um we um little a little bit like the um the the journal escapes me that's from Florence that's also online they do really brilliant job but but um um our mandate really is is to publish um European research in the sense that that can include English research you know Des despite brexit forget back um and European research and to Showcase it because often um um Shakespeare um research in Shakespeare research in early modern studies has been carried out by um the top um Anglo um American journals and we wanted to to bring new voices to and especially voices from Eastern Europe and this is why we are very close to um an association which is called Ezra the European research um Association and the me twice yearly and um we we get a lot of material from uh from Ezra so so really I think that's how we found our place because if you look um all successful journals are are are butress by an institution um whether you know Shakespeare Shakespeare quarterly it's the um it it's um obviously the folder shakes Shakespeare survey is obviously um Shakespeare Institute U Shakespeare is the BSA um and we we were the only ones really without an association you know that made sense and we thought well why not approach Ezra because a lot of us are parts of Ezra and and anyway and so and so we've built up links with with Ezra and we've we've now got of course this means a lot more work in terms of English because you know of course U people tend to be more or less fluent and uh and so we have our managing editors Danielle yabut and um do I should say that Dr Dan Daniel yabo who had you had the pleasure pleasure meeting Daniel Barcelona just uh yeah great guy he's a great guy and Dr Janice V Russell who who is um now retiring um and who's um teaching all the all that she knows and she knows a lot to to Daniel but but he's already on top of the game I think so so there we are yes I'm sorry if I if I was a bit over long about about KU but um I wanted just to situate the oh not it is you know what what you would be getting if you were Consulting uh uh if you if you had a a k either online or if you subscribed to it um but I I would advise to just get a subscription it's much cheaper yeah um and uh um that's what you're getting you're getting special issues on sometimes on on um Eastern um uh adaptations adaptation yes yes and and we and our latest issue is on Japan hot Shakespeare cool Japan that's right so yeah we try to little article I have a little article in there yeah exactly so we're trying to we're trying to Showcase you you know I mean why you know why not showcase Japan you know um and why not showcase um uh you know you don't have to publish necessarily I mean good for you if you publish in in if if you want to publish in Shakespeare survey or Shakespeare quarterly or whatever or or Shakespeare but um you we we have um we we are here to answer your needs as well and your and your proposals for special issues yeah very very importantly there were Japanese Scholars including uh uh my student who uh you know at my point in the career I'm doing this uh for the love of it uh and for for the profession of course but um in the younger Scholars cases they need this they they need this uh exposure and international exposure and to have a a journal that reaches out to Japanese Scholars uh is just is just absolutely wonderful uh and uh and very helpful to their careers help them to help them move along the way because we we often talk about global Shakespeare but but really what we're talking about is is Anglo American Shakespeare yeah if you if you want to go Global uh go go go glob you can go Global now um it's it's only Africa now but we do have African also um special issues um and um and African Scholars publishing with with us so we're quite proud of of of serving the needs of people whose needs were were not served enough I think yes yes it's wonderful stuff to do I've tried in this series to to make sure that you can really get into the US and North America and not get out of it I mean there's many uh we don't have bubbles that's normal so many you know Scholars and uh so you know I made a a big Point I've tried to I begged a couple of my Japanese colleagues they're kind of shy about uh English language uh speaking uh long form in English which I fully understand you know having to having had to do reports here and there in Japanese uh it's it's scary stuff but but um in terms of getting published you know where you have a chance to have something proof read you know for idiom or that that kind of thing um I there are many many scholars out there from other cultures who uh can can publish I I feel a little bit guilty that the English has sort of become the lingua Franca you know somehow along the way uh but that's the way it is and there's so much discrimin uh against uh Scholars and this is in Europe as well uh that are are not publishing in English and it's a shame uh you know there there used to be a scholarly consensus at least in European very Western that you know if um some some major German scholar publishes in German you better Dam well sure make sure you know enough German to read his work right yes I remember that time yes yeah and also French of course and we had to qualify in these languages in my day uh so that that's a problem we can't solve it here but uh what we um uh can do though uh is is just thank you so much there's so much else I would love to talk with you about it's your morning uh and it's my supper time and so miss that try to uh draw this to a close before you know somebody whoever it is you know comes in and need needs you because I know you're extraordinarily busy you do so much work in so many different areas oh thank you I thank you very much John Kristoff we just want to thank you so much we hope we can uh keep this going and maybe have you on again to update us on what's going on in uh your research and also in uh thank you yes thank you very much [Music]

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