ATLAS – Ancient Theatre: Literature And Society. New Approaches to the Study of Classical Theatre and its Reception in Early Modern France

This interdisciplinary project investigates how Greek dramatic texts and their translations in Early Modern France relate to the socio-historical and cultural environment which produced them. We aim to shed light on neglected aspects in the study of Greek dramatic texts and bring to light a corpus of unpublished translations of classical plays which constitute the beginnings of French theatre. The team will operate as two interconnected sub-groups, which reflect the different background of the team members: one group will focus on investigating ancient Greek theatre, the other group its reception in the French Renaissance. The team members’ expertise ranges from philology and history of literature to socio-economic history to linguistics. The project aims to: (i) investigate how Greek theatre reflects social and economic changes in classical Athens; (ii) examine the evolution of the language of Attic comedy at a pivotal moment of the history of the Attic dialect; (iii) contribute to the reconstruction and interpretation of Greek theatrical texts; (iv) examine the phenomenon of translation, reworking, and rewriting of the classical theatre in France during the first half of the 15th century; (v) identify the social and cultural links of this phenomenon within the French court and how this revival of the classics related to propaganda; (vi) concentrate on and create a database of a corpus of the first translations/reworkings of classical tragedies in France. The role of theatre, its relationship with society, and how this evolved from antiquity to modern times will provide the common ground for cooperation. This project is multidisciplinary and innovative, as it adopts new strategies for the study of well-known classical texts, investigates largely neglected aspects of the classical reception in Renaissance France, and contributes to dialogue and cooperation between classicists and modernists who work in the field of reception studies.