Break of Noon: Partage de midi - Softcover

Claudel, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848617550 ISBN 13: 9781848617551

Publisher: Shearsman Books, 2021

Synopsis

Break of Noon (Partage de midi) is a collaborative attempt, edited by Anthony Rudolf, at preparing an English-language edition of Paul Claudel's remarkable and complex play, an unstable text which gave Claudel many problems throughout his life. These are explored in essays by David Furlong of Exchange Theatre in London, which put on a production of the play in 2018 and John Naughton, a leading authority on Claudel. The critical apparatus is completed by the late Susannah York's essay on her own involvement with the play and recounts her interaction with her fellow translator, Jonathan Griffin. The instability of this strange and compelling work in its various original versions is mirrored by the three critical essays in the present work, which do not always see eye to eye. It is thirty years since Jonathan Griffin died and nearly fifty years since Pierre Rouve's Ipswich production of Jonathan's translation, starring Ben Kingsley and Annie Firbank.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Claudel (1868-1955) was a French poet, dramatist and diplomat, and the younger brother of the sculptor Camille Claudel. A devout Catholic, he was best-known for his verse dramas. He was born, in the Aisne departement, into a family of farmers and government officials. His father was a financier, while his mother came from a family of farmers and priests. An unbeliever in his teenage years, Paul experienced a sudden conversion at the age of eighteen on Christmas Day 1886 while listening to a choir sing Vespers in the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris. He would remain an active Catholic for the rest of his life. As a young man, Claudel seriously considered entering a monastery, but in the end took up a post in the diplomatic corps, in which he would serve from 1893 to 1936. He was first vice-consul in New York, and later in Boston; French consul in various cities in China (1895-1909); then later in Prague, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Rome. He was Minister Plenipotentiary in Rio de Janeiro, and then Copenhagen (1920); ambassador in Tokyo (1921-1927), Washington, D.C. (1928-1933) and Brussels (1933-1936). In 1936 he retired. Due to his position in the Diplomatic Corps, during his early career Claudel published either anonymously or under a pseudonym. This led to him remaining obscure figure until the editors of the Nouvelle Revue Francaise recognised his work and began collaborating with him. The best-known of his plays are Le Partage de midi (1906), L'Annonce faite a Marie (1910), and Le Soulier de satin (1931). He also wrote the text for Jeanne d'Arc au Bucher (1939), Honegger's 'opera-oratorio'. In addition to the verse dramas, Claudel also wrote a substantial corpus of lyric poetry.

Edition details

• Publisher: Shearsman Books
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1848617550
• ISBN 13: 9781848617551
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128
• Editor: Rudolf Anthony