Friday, September 6, 2019
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Cinna, or The Clemency of Augustus
I have recently published my English translation of Pierre Corneille's play Cinna, or The Clemency of Augustus, in iambic pentameter (unrhymed). It is available from Amazon as a paperback or as a Kindle ebook.
Cinna, his beloved Emilia, and his friend Maximus are participants in a plot to assassinate the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar. What will happen to them when Augustus learns of the plot?
The first performance of Cinna occurred either late in 1640 or early in 1641, most likely at the Théâtre du Marais in Paris, where Le Cid and Horace had previously been performed. The text of Cinna was printed and published in 1643. The subject matter of the play was derived from a chapter in Seneca’s De Clementia.
Pierre Corneille (June 6, 1606 – October 1, 1684) was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine.
---John R. Pierce
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
In our events
In our events always some cares are there
Disturbing the completeness of our peace.
--Don Diego in Act III of Corneille’s The Cid
(translated by John R. Pierce).
Friday, October 19, 2018
Thursday, April 5, 2018
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
The Shepherd's Holiday
The Shepherd's Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy
Sylvia came to live among the shepherds of Arcadia. She and the shepherd Thyrsis are in love. But then she is abducted. Why? What is her true identity? And what is the parentage of Thyrsis, who was found as a child by a shepherd? What will become of Sylvia and Thyrsis when the shepherds are called to entertain the royal court of Arcadia? And what will come of the romantic entanglements of some of the other shepherds and shepherdesses?
Joseph Rutter was a member of Ben Jonson's circle of poets, known for his translation of Corneille's The Cid. The Shepherd’s Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy enjoyed some popularity in its day. The play was performed about 1634 at the Palace of Whitehall before King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, and received public performances at the Cockpit Stage, Drury Lane, London. Professor Felix Emanuel Schelling considered the play “an estimable piece of work not wanting in dramatic power or poetic embellishment.”
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Kindle edition
The Shepherd's Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy, Kindle ebook, amazon.co.uk
The Shepherd's Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy, Kindle ebook, amazon.ca
The Shepherd's Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy (English Edition), Kindle eBook, amazon.de
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Paperback
Publication Date: April 26, 2016
ISBN/EAN13: 1532920911 / 9781532920912
Page Count: 152
Binding Type: US Trade Paper
Trim Size: 6" x 9"
Language: English
Color: Black and White
Related Category: Drama / English
The Shepherd's Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy, paperback, amazon.co.uk
The Shepherd's Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy, paperback, amazon.ca
The Shepherd's Holiday: A Pastoral Tragi-Comedy, Paperback, amazon.de
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Sunday, March 20, 2016
The Cid
In 1637, soon after the first performances in France of Pierre Corneille’s famous play Le Cid, English poet and playwright Joseph Rutter translated the play from the French rhyming alexandrine couplets into English iambic pentameter verse. Two pupils of Rutter, Richard and Edward Sackville, sons of Edward Sackville, fourth Earl of Dorset, may have contributed to Rutter’s translation.
Rutter’s translation was performed at the English royal court before King Charles I and his wife Queen Henrietta Maria, and subsequently at the Cockpit Stage, Drury Lane, London, by the king’s players.
The play, described as a tragicomedy, tells of the Spanish military hero who must avenge an insult to his father by killing in a duel the father of the woman that he loves.
I have edited the 1637 text and have updated the spelling for a new paperback edition of The Cid, and also for a Kindle ebook. I have also added my own translation of two soliloquies that Rutter’s translation had omitted.
Both the paperback and the Kindle ebook can be purchased from Amazon.
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