Translating the French Revolution
Rewriting Political Experience in Olympe de Gouges’s Theatre
Keywords:
Olympe de Gouges, French Revolution, History as Translation, Revolutionary Theatre, Affective TranslationAbstract
This article examines Olympe de Gouges’s revolutionary theatre (1790–1793) as a site of historical translation, demonstrating how theatrical performance mediates and transforms political experience. Drawing on recent work in historiography (White, Munslow), translation studies (Vidal Claramonte, Zethsen), and performance theory (Fischer-Lichte), the article argues that de Gouges actively translated revolutionary events into dramatic forms that reshaped their meaning for contemporary and future audiences. The analysis of four plays, Les démocrates et les aristocrates (1790), Mirabeau aux Champs-Élysées (1791), La France sauvée (1792), and L’Entrée de Dumouriez à Bruxelles (1793), reveals distinct modes of translation: spatial-social, allegorical-memorial, ideological, and affective-mythopoeic. Each work demonstrates how theatre performs intralingual translation, converting political discourse into accessible dramatic form whilst mediating collective emotions and the construction of revolutionary memory. The article contributes to understanding ‘history as translation’ beyond strictly interlingual frameworks, positioning de Gouges’s dramaturgy as both historiographical intervention and emotional translation of revolutionary experience.Downloads
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