FORT Paul (1872-1960) MANUSCRIT autograph signed "Paul Fort", Guillaume le Conqu…
Description

FORT Paul (1872-1960)

MANUSCRIT autograph signed "Paul Fort", Guillaume le Conquérant. Chronique de France en cinq actes, September 1925-January 1926; one folio volume of 145 pages written on the front, plus autograph cover on red paper, bound in red half-maroquin with corners, spine ribbed, gilt head (Bernasconi). Complete original manuscript of this chronicle and drama. The play was published, act by act, between April and October 1927, in the Mercure de France, under the title Guillaume le Bâtard, ou la Conquête de l'Angleterre, chronique de France en 5 actes; it does not seem to have been performed. The drama features Edward the Confessor, King of England, Harold Count of Wessex "then national king of the English", William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, "King of England in the last act", Pope Alexander II, the Archbishop of Canterbury, etc., not less than 29 characters, not counting warriors, monks, soldiers, etc., plus two invisible characters, "in Heaven". Each act has a title: I Edward the Confessor (in London), II Hildebrand (in Rome), III Sigurd Longuepête (in Bayeux), IV Edith au Cou de Cygne (the dunes of Saint-Valery, at the mouth of the Somme), V Harold (near Hastings). The manuscript presents some erasures and corrections Two L.A.S. to Antoine GIRARD, 1925-1926 (3 pages and a half in-4 or in-8), with a dedicated photograph of his children Hélène and François, paying tribute to the manuscript of this "Shakespearean" play, "the most important work I have ever undertaken", which he wishes to present to the director of the Odéon Firmin Gémier: it is "at the same time as a very thorough psychological study, a tumultuous fresco of this magnificent and powerful era, where, I recognize, drags of the "barbarism", but finally of an ardor, to support its convictions, unsurpassable, a fresco of the English, French, Norman, and even Italian eleventh century, where we see England conquered by French, [....] and "collide" the greatest problems that still agitate us"...

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FORT Paul (1872-1960)

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