Mérope: Difference between revisions

'''''Mérope''''' (original French title: '''''La Mérope Française''''') is a [[tragedy]] in five acts by [[Voltaire]]. The text is a reworking by Voltaire of the Italian tragedy ''Merope'' (1713) by [[Scipione Maffei]], dating from 1736/1737.<ref name="DawsonMorere2004">{{cite book|author1=Deidre Dawson|author2=Pierre Morere|author3=Pierre Morère|title=Scotland and France in the Enlightenment|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dIhe9Tp4lLsC&pg=PA73|year=2004|publisher=Bucknell University Press|isbn=978-0-8387-5526-6|pages=73–}}</ref> The play premiered in 1743 and first appeared in print in 1744.

[[Scipione Maffei]] worked the classical story into his tragedy (it) ''[[:it:{{ill|Merope (Maffei)|lt=Merope]]|it}}'' in 1713. Voltaire met Maffei in [[Paris]] in 1733 and secured his agreement that it should be adapted into a French tragedy.<ref name="DeTemple">Siegfried Detemple: ''Die Französische Merope, in: Voltaire: Die Werke. Katalog zum 300. Geburtstag.'' Reichert, Wiesbaden 1994, S. 71.</ref> Voltaire decided to premiere it only after the staging of his tragedy [[Mahomet (play)|Mahomet]], although he had completed work on it in 1737.

The action takes place at the court of [[Messene]]. The queen [[dowager]] Merope, mourning her murdered husband [[Cresphontes|Cresphonte]] regards the newcomer Egisthe as responsible for the murder of her son, when in fact he is her long-lost son. He presents himself at court and eventually deposes and kills the tyrannical usurper Polyphonte, who had killed his father. Egisthe then installs Mérope as queen.<ref name="DeTemple"/><ref name="Hochman1984">{{cite book|author=Stanley Hochman|title=McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama: An International Reference Work in 5 Volumes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=88xIQiXVMCQC&pg=PA116|year=1984|publisher=VNR AG|isbn=978-0-07-079169-5|pages=116–}}</ref>

''Mérope'' was translatedadapted into English by [[Aaron Hill (writer)|Aaron Hill]], who also translated other works by Voltaire, ''Zara'' (''Zaire'') and ''Alzira '' (''Alzire'') for the London stage.<ref name="Gerrard2003">{{cite book|author=Christine Gerrard|title=Aaron Hill: The Muses' Projector, 1685-1750|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xQi7TiXuo28C&pg=PA246|year=2003|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-818388-4|pages=246–}}</ref> [[Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter]] translated the play into German in 1774.<ref>{{cite book|title=Der Freimüthige für Deutschland: Zeitblatt der Belehrung u. Aufheiterung. 1819,&#91;2&#93;. Juli - Dez|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wFlEAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP178|year=1819|page=178}}</ref> <ref>{{cite wikisource EB1911|titlewstitle=Gotter,_Friedrich_Wilhelm Friedrich Wilhelm |wslinkvolume=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Gotter,_Friedrich_Wilhelm |year=191112 |publishershort=Encyclopaedia Britannicax}}</ref>