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Article: The politics of French language in Shakespeare's history plays.(Critical Essay)
- Article from:
- Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
- Article date:
- March 22, 2002
- Author:
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Amid his arduous and apparently superfluous wooing of Princess Katherine of France, Shakespeare's King Henry V exclaims, "It is as easy for me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French." (1) Since he has just conquered the kingdom this is no idle boast, but why does he speak so much French? And why is an entire scene of the same play conducted in French, save for a few words of comically mispronounced English? Why are French words and phrases sprinkled liberally through the speeches of French and English alike? While it is not quite true, as George Watson has suggested, that Shakespeare is "the only Elizabethan dramatist to write at length in a foreign ...
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Article: Shakespeare and the French Poet.(Book review)
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...Shakespeare and the French Poet, by Yves Bonnefoy ... more than a study of Shakespeare. It records the lifetime ... problems of translating Shakespeare, but on what precedes ... found in the English and French languages. Yves Bonnefoy ...
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