Product Description

A wildly funny and modern translation by one of Britain's top humorists which loses none of Beaumarchais' satirical edge. Figaro, Beaumarchais' most famous character, was a key-factor in inciting the French people to revolt against their lazy aristocracy and the extravagant and selfish French monarchy. In The Barber of Seville (1775) he is a rebellious and scheming servant, caught up in a farcical plot in which lovers test each other. In The Marriage of Figaro (1784), Beaumarchais' anti-aristocratic sympathies come to the fore and Figaro whips the audience up into an indignant frenzy. Beaumarchais was, after all, the son of a humble watch-maker - although, as the late John Wells points out in his introduction, this also means that Beaumarchais' farcical plots and sub-plots work like clockwork. However, the mood of A Mother's Guilt (1792), the last play in the trilogy, is much darker. After the Revolution, Beaumarchais is uncertain what the future will bring. A trade dispute brought Be aumarchais to the notice of the court, and his good looks and eloquence quickly procured him advancement. He made the most of the opportunities available to him and soon acquired considerable wealth and social success. His Figaro plays reflect the dynamism of his life - and are perhaps most familiar to people today through Mozart's and Rossini's operatic adaptations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2605378 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Library Journal
Following Graham Anderson's 1993 translation, this new modern English translation of Beaumarchais's Figaro trilogy by British satirist Wells, edited by Leigh (French, Cambridge Univ.), was first published in London in 1997. Beaumarchais, the prominent 18th-century French playwright, is known for the bourgeois comic trilogy The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, and A Mother's Guilt, in which Figaro, the jack-of-all-trades, was portrayed as "a man of the people" from youth through old age. Beneath the wit and sparkling gaiety, Figaro was Beaumarchais's spokesman for freedom and morality, offering social and political criticism of pre-Revolutionary France. This edition is unprecedented in background and research materials. The appendixes include Beaumarchais's own defense to the censors and critics for all three plays. Highly recommended for both academic and research libraries with or without Anderson's translation.AMing-ming Shen Kuo, Ball State Univ. Lib., Muncie, IN
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
John Wells was born in 1936 and sadly died in January last year. He was an important member of that small but influential group centred around Private Eye magazine and Beyond the Fringe, which included Peter Cook, Richard Ingrams,John Bird, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller. He was clever, erudite, entertaining, funny, outrageous and abrasive - not to mention a keen linguist with adeep love of music. He taught French and German at Eton, before going on to co-edit Private Eye, so when Jonathan Miller asked him to translate Beaumarchais' Figaro Plays for a radio production, he was able to fuse a number of hispassions in a single project. It is these texts, revised just before his death, which are published here. It was to be his last book, a fitting tribute to the man and his legacy.Editor Biography John Leigh is a fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, and a specialist in eighteenth-century French literatur