Shakespeare in Translation. During the first quarter of the 17th century the
English Comedians, travelling on the Continent, included in their repertory cut versions of several of Shakespeare's plays. Otherwise he remained virtually unknown outside England until well into the 18th century, when
Voltaire first drew attention to him in his
Lettres philosophiques (1734). Early translations of his plays, mostly incomplete and bowdlerized, did little to help. The first versions to be widely read, though not acted, were French prose versions by
Pierre Le Tourneur (1736–88). These were the only ones known in Italy also until the publication in 1819–22 of Italian versions by Michele Leoni, which, together with those of La Place, were read by the novelist Manzoni, the first Italian to be influenced by Shakespeare. They also provided
Ducis, who knew no English, with the basis of some of the first French stage versions used by
Molé. These were tailored to fit the
unities, so that Desdemona in
Othello, for instance, was wooed, wedded, and murdered in the space of 24 hours, while
Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and
King Lear had the happy endings being given to them in contemporary productions in London. In Germany it was the great actor Schröder who first put Shakespeare on the stage with a production of
Hamlet at Hamburg in 1776. It was successful enough to encourage Schröder to put on
Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and
Measure for Measure, which were all failures, and finally
King Lear, which was an unqualified success. Good acting versions of other plays followed, including some by Eschenburg (the Mannheim Shakespeare) and by A. W. von
Schlegel, completed by
Tieck and others. Between 1869 and 1871 good acting versions were produced by the actor Emil
Devrient, and Shakespeare became so popular that he was acclaimed as
Unser (‘Our’) Shakespeare, and his genius was thought to be akin to that of modern Germans. Romanticism brought him into favour in France, as did the publication of his complete works translated by François Victor Hugo, younger son of Victor
Hugo, from 1856 to 1867.
In Italy Shakespeare established himself more slowly, but it was Italian actors and actresses who proved themselves the finest players of his great tragic roles. The first Othello was Ernesto
Rossi, who went on to play Macbeth, Lear, Coriolanus, Hamlet, and Shylock, while Adelaide
Ristori scored a triumph as Lady Macbeth. In spite of fine productions of
The Taming of the Shrew, with Ermete
Novelli, and an outstanding
A Midsummer Night's Dream with Mendelssohn's music in Rome in 1910, the predilection of the Latin genius for his tragic side was shown again in the triumph of
Gide's translation of
Hamlet in 1946, ably interpreted by
Barrault.
Spain was slow to react to Shakespeare; even now there are only a couple of complete translations. These are used also in South America, except in Brazil, where Portuguese translations are current. The first Greek translator was Demetrios Bikelas, some of whose versions, made between 1876 and 1884, were acted in Athens.
There is probably no country in the world today where some knowledge and appreciation of Shakespeare is not to be found. The first translations in central Europe were probably based on German originals, but it was not long before the desire to read him in the original, and so fathom the mystery of his universal appeal, caused many admirers to learn English for his sake. In Russia
The Merry Wives of Windsor was translated by Catherine the Great in 1786 as
What it is Like to have Linen in a Basket. The main Russian theatres have some Shakespeare plays in their permanent repertory, the most popular being
Hamlet. Shakespeare's plays are no longer acted in India by Europeans for Europeans, as they once were, but there are indigenous versions of some of the plays. Japan has also adapted Shakespeare's plays to the conventions of its own theatre. Some of the local re-creations of well-known Shakespearian plots in other settings, as in the Zulu
Macbeth, emphasize that with Shakespeare nothing is impossible!
