Mérimée's first published work appeared under a double disguise: as a volume of plays by the supposed Spanish actress Clara Gazul, translated by the equally fictitious Joseph L'Estrange. Spain and Spanish literature had become fashionable in Paris in the 1820s, and from 1821 a series of translations of foreign plays, including six Spanish volumes, were published by Ladvocat. Mérimée read other works in Spanish, and published four articles on the Spanish theatre in Le Globe in 1824. He shared Romantic impatience (articulated notably by his friend Stendhal in his pamphlets Racine et Shakespeare [1823, 1825]) at the constraints of French Classical theatre: the unities of time and space, the strict separation of tragedy …
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Citation: Cogman, Peter. "Théâtre de Clara Gazul, comédienne espagnole". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 November 2003 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=9442, accessed 21 November 2024.]
