A Massacre at Paris in French Translation: from Page to Stage

Abstract

In 2020, when we began working on plans for a special Marlowe Festival and conference to be held in Rheims and Paris that would bring together Marlowe specialists and historians of the French wars of religion on the occasion of the 450th anniversary of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, it very quickly became obvious that we wished not just to discuss Marlowe’s last play, but also to stage it. What text, though, would serve for our French staging of Massacre at Paris? What was the history of the text in translation and what were the antecedents to our own project? These questions have led us to inquire into the different French translations of the play and gain insight both into Marlowe’s French reception as well as into the octavo edition of the English text that has come down to us.