Alfred de Musset

This new edition of Musset's masterpiece is intended to clarify this rich and fascinating text for the English-speaking reader. The detailed introduction sets the text in both its literary and cultural context, and also explores the interpretative issues raised by a work which, although one of the greatest plays written in French during the nineteenth century was originally intended to be read rather than staged. The structure and themes of the text are also explored, and the copious notes elucidate the wide range of Musset's cultural and historical references. The edition makes use of recent research into the author without ignoring the ground-breaking work in Musset studies done by scholars from the early decades of the twentieth century.

"Andrea del Sarto" and "Lorenzaccio," Alfred de Musset's completed Renaissance historical tragedies, are two of the most remarkable representatives of their dramatic genre and period. "Lorenzaccio," in particular, has had a powerful influence on twentieth-century French and European drama. These striking new translations by Musset scholar David Sices make them accessible to contemporary English readers and lovers of theater, as well as directors looking for effective dramatic texts to stage.

A collection of this major 19th century French playwright The Moods of Marianne dramatises Coelio's courtship of Marianne through his go-between friend Octave; Fantasio is set in a fictional Munich and concerns the marriage of a young princess to Leopold of Belgium as a sacrifice for international peace following the Napoleonic Wars; Lorenzaccio is a vast fresco of fifteenth-century Florence, mixing freely a depiction of public life, court intrigue, intimate scenes and moments of deep personal introspection; Don't Play with Love concerns an arranged marriage gone awry; and Caprice is about the marriage of Mathilde to Monsieur du Chavigny and is already about to cheat on her.