Buchanan, helléniste et dramaturge, interprète d’Euripide (Medea et Alcestis)

Abstract

The Latin translations of Euripides’ Medea and Alcestis are usually considered to be didactic works, as a result of Buchanan’s claims that his translation of the first play was done as a means of improving his own knowledge of Greek whilst producing plays for his college students. Nevertheless, in the 1540s, choosing to translate a Greek poet constituted an original project, which justifies investigating these texts. A particular interest is taken in the theatrical genre to which they belong. This paper first aims to demonstrate how these two translations function as a tragic, poetic and political laboratory for Buchanan. It then analyses his conceptions and methods of translation in Medea and Alcestis, intending to reveal the issues raised regarding tragic poetics and representation, as well as providing a better understanding of the focus placed on the spectators’ emotions and reactions. Buchanan wrote as a translator, but also as a playwright who prepared the ground for the constitution of a modern tragic model, with special emphasis on theatricality. Alcestis and Medea seem to support theoretical issues that would have been difficult to formulate in the discourses of that time.