Saul (Voltaire)
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| Title: | Saul |
| Genus: | tragedy |
| Original language: | French |
| Author: | Voltaire |
| Publishing year: | 1763 |
| Premiere: | 1768 |
| Place of premiere: | Berlin |
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Saül , also under the title Saül und David in later editions , is a prose tragedy in five acts by Voltaire . The play, completed in 1763, was only performed once at the express request of Frederick II in Berlin . Created for the Écrasez l'infâme campaign , the book edition placed on the index on July 8th in Rome experienced several single and collective editions.
action
The plot is a series of motifs from the time of the first kings of Israel, which were taken from the Bible . Voltaire parodied the language of the Bible and therefore dispensed with meter and rhymes. The title character of Saul appears only in the first two acts. The last three acts deal with the crimes and rules of succession of his successor David . With five locations and events from several decades, the unity of time, space, time and action is dissolved. The plot, which is overloaded with roles, is not oriented towards representability. In the third act of the first act, Agag is carved up on stage with axes. According to Voltaire's side note, this scene was moved backstage at the Berlin performance. The play ends with the intended abuse of the naive village girl Abisag by David and his successor Solomon .
Literary source and biographical references
Voltaire issued the tragedy as a translation by the fictional English parliamentarian Huet, a great-nephew of Bishop Pierre Daniel Huet . Huet had therefore caused a scandal in 1728 because he had relativized a comparison between King George II and the biblical King David with the title The man after the heart of God . Voltaire intended during the Calas affair and the subsequent Écrasez l'infâme campaign to expose the material of the Bible as literary fictions.
Performances and contemporary reception
The difficult-to-perform tragedy, after a later title a hyperdrama, was not submitted to the stages by Voltaire. Only one performance in Berlin in 1768 on the orders of Frederick II is known. The young Goethe was more than outraged by the tragedy in his 12th book of Poetry and Truth :
“It was from this cozy side that I was protected against all mockery, because I immediately saw their dishonesty. I not only hated her, but I could get angry about it, and I still remember clearly that in childish fanatical zeal I would have strangled Voltairen because of his "soul" if I had got hold of him ... "
Going to press
Manuscripts of the tragedy, written in 1762, circulated in Paris from January 1763. Probably the first printed edition was published with the wrong date in 1755 by the Cramer brothers in Geneva . The backdating served to confuse censors and possibly resulted in the 1765 tragedy being indexed in Rome with a delay. Saul saw several single editions with changed titles and subtitles. A Parisian pirated print from 1763, in the opinion of the police inspector d'Hemery a Liege print, was rejected several times by Voltaire. In 1764 Saul was included in the atheistic and anti-church collection Evangile de la Raison, edited by Voltaire, and in 1768 in the fifth volume of the Nouveaux Mélanges philosophiques . Contrary to Voltaire's custom, the tragedy came out without dedications or additions.
First editions
- Saül, tragédie tirée de l´Ècriture Sainte , without imprint (recte Geneva Cramer), 1755 (recte 1763), 8 °, 48 p. [1]
- Saül, tragédie tirée de l´Ècriture Sainte. Par Mr. DE ....... , without imprint, MDCCCLVIII (sic!), (Recte 1763), 8 °, 46 p. [2]
- Saül, tragédie tirée de l´Ècriture Sainte. Par M. de Voltaire , Génève (recte Paris), 1763, 8 °, 61 p. [3]
- Saül, hyperdrame héroi-comique en cinq actes, par M. de V. , without imprint (Jean-Baptiste-Hyacinthe Leclerc, Nancy, 1764), 8 °, 57 p.
- Saül, tragédie tirée de l´Ècriture Sainte. Par M. de Voltaire. Nouvelle Edition , London, Pierre Marteau, 1767, 8 °, 64 p. [4]
- Saül et David, tragédie en cinq actes, d'après l'anglais intitulé "The Man after God's own heart" , Robert Freemann in Pater-Noster-Row, 1760 (recte Amsterdam, Marc-Michel Rey, 1768), 8 °, 56 p. [5]
- Saül et David, Tragédie, D'après l'anglais intitulé "The Man after God's own heart" , Robert Freemann in Pater-Noster-Row, 1760 (unknown, recte after 1768), 8 °, 43 p. [6]
literature
- Eric van der Schueren: Saul, in: Dictionnaire Voltaire, Hachette Livre, 1994, pp. 208f.
- Siegfried Detemple: Saul, in: Voltaire: The works. 300th birthday catalog. Reichert, Wiesbaden 1994, p. 148 f.
- Marie-Hélène Cottoni: Une tragédie de Voltaire en marge de toute règle , Marginalité et littérature: Hommage à Christine Martineau, dir. Maurice Accarie ', Nice, Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis (ILF-CNRS), 2001, pp. 407-421.
- Clément van Hamme: Voltaire et l'histoire biblique. Notes on Saül (1762) . ( online [accessed October 21, 2017]).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christophe Paillard: Ça Voltaire nous écrit: Marginalia de Voltaire sur trois exemplaires de Saül, La Gazette des délices, n ° 37, Institut et Musée Voltaire.
- ↑ See Siegfried Detemple: Voltaire: Die Werke, catalog for the 300th birthday, Berlin, 1994, p. 149.
- ↑ Eric van der Schueren: Saul, in: Dictionnaire Voltaire, Hachette Livre, 1994, p. 208.
- ↑ Eric van der Schueren: Saul, in: Dictionnaire Voltaire, Hachette Livre, 1994, p. 209.
- ^ Heinrich Joseph Wetzer: Kirchen-Lexikon: or, Encyclopedia of Catholic theology and its auxiliary sciences, Volume 11, Part 1, p. 742.
- ↑ Jean Marie Querard: Bibliography Voltairienne, Paris, Didot, 1842 S. 43rd