Welcome to Representing France and the French

How was France represented in early modern England?

To answer this question, our team of researchers has looked at theatre - because drama embraces cultural phenomena almost naturally as an art form - and has compiled a database of over 4000 allusions to France in some 200 hundred plays of the period.

This is an ongoing project - we are planning to cover even more plays in the very near future - , but the material already examined and carefully annotated by our team is proving both surprising and far more complex than what could be imagined. Beyond the clichéd allusions to France (England’s age old enemy) much of the material actually opens up exciting research perspectives in different and yet related fields: linguistics, reception theories, intertextuality and cultural studies.

On this website you can read more about the team’s research objectives and about the results produced so far by the project, but above all you can search the database, access the material and judge for yourself. Feel free to use the database for your own research; we also welcome feedback on the entire project. If our research interests meet yours you might also want to consider contributing to the project.

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Latest News

This section keeps you updated on the project's main events and on our latest publications.

- We are pleased to announce the publication of two recent books by one of our team members, Professor Richard Hillman: French Reflections in the Shakespearean Tragic: Three Case Studies (2012), and The Shakespearean Comic and Tragicomic: French Inflections (2020), both published with Manchester University Press.

 
- New team member: we are very pleased to welcome Paisley Mann, a graduate student from the University of Victoria in Canada.

- Ben Jonson's entire dramatic works are now available for online research. This is thanks to the work of Professor Florence March.

Acknowledgements and general information

Funding institutions

This project is funded and supported by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and by the Institute for Research on the Renaissance, the Neoclassical age and the Enlightenment (IRCL), at Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry, France.

Coordination

Steering committee

Prof. Emeritus Luc Borot, Dr Nick Myers, Ms Christelle Ripoll.
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Website

Website design, maintenance and editorial matter by Jean-Christophe Mayer (in accordance with CNRS guidelines).

Database

The initial database was designed by Luc Borot. The current online version is the work of Médiatisse and remains the property of the Institute for Research on the Renaissance, the Neoclassical age and the Enlightenment (IRCL).

 © IRCL . All rights reserved.