Adrienne Lecouvreur

ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR


Oxford French Series By AMERICAN SCHOLARS General Editor: RAYMOND WEEKS, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF ROMANCE PHILOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
BY SCRIBE AND LEGOUVÉ EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY THEODORE ELY HAMILTON, Ph.D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 West 32nd Street LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE & BOMBAY HUMPHREY MILFORD 1917 All rights reserved Copyright, 1917 by Oxford University Press AMERICAN BRANCH
Scribe and Legouvé
Augustin Eugène Scribe was born at Paris, December 24th, 1791. He studied law but manifested early in life a strong inclination toward the drama. The first of his plays to be favored with the full approval of the public was Une nuit de la garde nationale , written in 1816, in collaboration with Delestre-Poirson. Thereafter, his success was great and continued. He produced plays in rapid succession for two and even three theaters at the same time. Many of them were written jointly with some collaborator. In 1816 appeared also Le nouveau Pourceaugnac and Le solliciteur , highly praised by Schlegel.
In 1820 Scribe was engaged to write exclusively for a new theater established by his friend Poison, under the patronage of the Duchesse de Berri. In less than ten years (1821-30) he produced over one hundred plays. Among the best of these are: Le mariage enfantin , Le colonel , La loge du portier , Le baiser au porteur , La reine de seize ans , La marraine , Le diplomate , Le plus beau jour de la vie , and Le mariage de raison .
For the Théâtre-Français he supplied the following plays: Valérie (1822), Le mariage d’argent (1827), Bertrand et Raton (1833), Une passion secrète (1834), La camaraderie (1837), Le verre d’eau (1840), Adrienne Lecouvreur (1849), Les contes de la reine de Navarre and La bataille de dames (1851), Mon étoile (1853), Feu Lionel and Les doigts de fée (1858). Several of these are still widely known.