Claudel-THREE_PLAYS.pdf

PAUL CLAUDEL /r

THREE PLAYS /'

THE HOSTAGE CRUSTS THE HUMILIATION OF THE FATHER TBANSLATED BY

JOHN HEARD

BOSTON JOHN W. LUCE COMPANY PUBLISHERS

PQ 2.lots , L~A2.4.

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Copyright 1944, 1945, by Poet Lore, Inc. Copyright 1945, by John W. Luc< Co.

CONTENTS

Prioted in the United States of America

The Hostage Crusts AD rights ~ upr~y reserved. For rights of public performance, pItase ad~ Cus the publishtt!, who are the author's agents.

AU P«SODS are hertby warntd that "The Hostage," "Crusts." and Jhe Humiliation of the Father," are fully, protected by co~rlght. and anyonr presenting any of thtst plays in any form w ttVU, without the writtm consent of ~ translator or his rKogni:ed _ will be liable to the penalties by law provided.

The Humiliation of the Father

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87 153

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE The three plays by Paul Claudel cover the period between the French Revolntion and the Franco-Prussian War. Their purpose, as I interpret them, is to portray, through three successive generations of the same family, not ouly the transformation of France from a semi-feudal, semi-mediaeval people to a modern nation, hut also the evolution of the individual's outlook on life. In the first play, The Hostage, we see the remnants of the old French aristocracy struggling to maintain its tradi. tions through the shipwreck of its caste in the Revolutionary days. To them King and Church came first, and after them, their name and their landed estates. To these traditions all else was subordinate. The individual existed ouly as a member of his caste; and the rules of that caste were the infrangible rules of life for the individual. And over and against this inherited doctrine of life, surged the chaos of Revolution, of nascent Democracy, of Iconoclasts sweeping aside and wiping out the" Ancien Regime." In the second play, Crusts, the younger generation is firmly in the saddle. The chaos of the Revolution, of the downfall of the Empire, and of the reestablishment of a weak shadow of monarchy have successively occn:rred, but their disturbing effects have not had time to be eradicated, nor have the new theories become assimilated. We see the growing spirit of commercialism, of colonization, of industrial development springing up through the ashes of the older traditions, with all the unpleasant vigor of unrestrained youth~ For the first time the Jew is becoming a factor, both socially and in the larger commercial wo,rld. It is the age of crass materialism, of the mad scramble in which only the individual and the present counts. Only one vestige of the "Ancien Regime" remains, an idealism which is obviously hopeless - the exponent of a cause lost beyond possible salvation, although it bas not breathed its last. In the third play, The Humiliatitm of the Father, the author shows the world as it appeared after it had emerged [7J

from the political and social upheavals of the first half of the nineteenth century. Equilibrium has been reestablished and idealism and materialism are opposed to each other in approximately the ratios of today. The old traditions have again come to life, but they are no longer the controlling in· fluences. The individual, not the caste, is the social unit; and no more do the traditions, handed down from generation to generation, govern the every act of the men and women of a given class. Human emotions have taken the place of inherited laws as the guides to the life of the individual. And with the development of individual thought, comes the unrest, the vague dissatisfaction, the mal de vivre of individualism.

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THE HOSTAGE A Drama in Three Acts

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1

I

ACT

DRAMATIS PERSONAE THE POPE Pros THE CURATE BADILON

THE KING OF FRANCE VISCOUNT ULYSSES AGENOR GEORGE OF COUFONTAINE .. ND DOli-

j\[ANT BUON Later COUNT TOUSSAINT TURELUBE:

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Marne, later of the Se.net SYGNE OF COUFONT,uNEt SElW...NTS, SOLDIERS, INClDENT.