|
Were early modern English playwrights Francophiles? (concluded)
Characters and their nationality
Let's adopt a slightly different angle and look at characters. It may be interesting to see if characters reflect France differently depending on whether they are French or English.
A first step is to determine how many of the characters who allude to France are actually French and how many are English:
- if we consider all the entries in the database, it appears that 45 % of the characters who allude to France are English and that 33% turn out to be French. The English thus speak more about France then the French themselves in the plays which have been studied so far.
- in Marlowe's plays, the figures are the complete opposite (this is no doubt because of the subject matter of some of these plays, particularly Marlowe's Massacre at Paris): 89% of the characters who speak of France are French, 5% only are English.
- as far as Middleton is concerned, we almost go back to average figures with 41% of English characters alluding to France. Nonetheless, we find only 10% of French characters speaking of their native country, which is well below the general figure of 33%.
What do these characters say about France ?
We need to find out more about what the characters say about France and what the tone of these remarks is. If we compare the tonalities of all the characters in the database and add all the negatives tones up (from hostile to gnomic), we get a figure of 50.2%. If we do the same with the positive tonalities (from epic to friendly), we end up with almost the same figure, slightly more even: 53.1%. As for neutral remarks, these reach a 25.8% high.
If we turn to our case study dramatists, we find for Marlowe 58.7% of negative tones and 67% of positive tones and 23.3 % of neutral. The balance is almost perfect even if positive tonalities dominate a little more. As for Middleton, we find 59.6% of negative tones and only 8.3 % of positive, but a large 38.7 % of neutral tonalities.
What do French characters say about France?
Let's look at French characters and try to determine what English dramatists make them say about France:
French characters: comparative graph of their tonalities (figures in %)
|
- if we examine all the authors currently in the database (cf. red line of above graph), we notice that 48.9% of the allusions made by French characters are negative, but that 72.3 % are positive and 20.7 % are neutral. Generally speaking then, French characters are made to say good things about their native country, as the red line shows on the graph. It is relatively low on the left, but then rises to the right. Judging by the graph French characters do not seem prone to flatter themselves either.
- Marlowe (see yellow line) follows this trend with 59.5 % of negative allusions, 21.5 % of neutral et 70.6 % of positive comments. The yellow and the red lines on the graph run almost constantly parallel.
- Middleton is again a very special case, as is apparent on the graph (cf. the two towering peaks): French characters make 56.5% of negative remarks about their country, 39.1 % of neutral and only 4.3 % of positive comments. It appears that the French tend to be mocking towards their native land, or that their allusions remain neutral.
What do English characters say about France ?
To round up our study, let's look at English characters and try to determine what English playwrights make them say about France:
English characters: comparative graph of their tonalities (figures in %)
|
In terms of figures, we find that negative and positive tones achieve an almost perfect balance in most cases (all authors) and in Marlowe's case:
- all authors: 55.4 % of positiveness, 55.1 % of negativeness and 29.2 % of neutral.
- Marlowe: a perfect balance between negative and positive: 56.7% in both cases and 32.4 % of neutral.
It appears then that in most instances and in the case of Marlowe's plays, English characters are not particularly biased against France. Their remarks even up, as the two peaks on either side of the above graph show clearly.
- Middleton: his English characters produce 55.1 % of negative allusions to France against only 6.3% of positive comments. There are slightly less harsh in their remarks than Middleton's French characters, which is a paradox. The generally negative tone of the remarks about France is a Middletonian feature, however - whether the characters be French or English. Lastly, it is noteworthy also that the English characters are a little more neutral than their French counterparts: 43.8 % of neutral comments for the English and 39.1 % for the French.
To conclude
Despite the fact that this remains work in progress, a number of points can be cautiously highlighted: first that these results are contrasted and there are a number of surprising features - the neutrality of many allusions in particular, the fact that some tonalities are almost evenly balanced, but also the fact that there are some strong variations from one author to the other despite the common features.
It is important to bear in mind also that France seems for the moment to be prominently represented by characters (either historical or fictional), then by French words, then by allusions to France's history, to the country as a nation, to its geography and localities. All of these are important signs of France's cultural impact in early modern England, but these features also reflect dramatists' specific interests for France.This cannot be a definitive conclusion, as we have pointed out at the outset of this study. As more plays are integrated in the database, further tests will need to be carried out to see how these figures have evolved and whether these still partial results are confirmed or not.
Author of study: Jean-Christophe Mayer, copyright IRCL, 2005, revised version 2025.
|
