Sanja Perovic’s chapter treats one of the most significant events in French history and an unprecedented period in theatre history. While the Revolution is often overlooked as a ‘dead period’ in French theatre, Perovic describes the scale and ambition of this extraordinary period. Never before had so many newcomers been able to forge successful careers as writers, actors and directors. Artistic innovation peaked, as revolutionary performance was more akin to what today is termed performance art, than to the kind of repertory theatre that preceded or followed it. Covering some of the major events, influential figures and key texts of this extremely fertile period, Perovic shows how theatre addressed the questions key to revolutionary culture: who is the audience? Where is it located? Who speaks on its behalf, and in what (theatrical, artistic) language? She concludes by contrasting two utopian works – Louis Beffroy de Reigny’s Nicodème dans la lune, ou la révolution pacifique (Nicodème Goes to the Moon, or the Peaceful Revolution, 1790) and Sylvain Maréchal’s Le Jugement dernier des rois (The Last Judgement of Kings, 1793) – with Beaumarchais’ La Mère coupable (The Guilty Mother, 1792), an altogether more sombre assessment of the effects of revolution.

What is known as the American Revolution or the American Independence War, was much more than what its name suggests. What started in April 1775 as a revolt turned into a revolution within a year. With the intervention of France in July 1778, it became a transatlantic war, which in June 1779, when Spain entered the conflict, was transformed into a global war. This global conflict, fought in four continents as well as on the high seas, was rooted in the centuries-old confrontation between France, Spain, and Britain for the expansion and control of their empires. France and Spain shared a mutual interest in weakening the British. During the first stages of the conflict, both countries “secretly” supplied the American rebels, but as the war spread, their approaches differed. While France, with no territories in North America, allied with the recently proclaimed independent United States; Spain, with a vast American empire to protect, would only consider France as its official ally. Despite their different interests and tactics, Franco-Spanish joint operations in Europe, the Caribbean, and the South of North America, were decisive for the final British defeat.

Chapter Twelve addresses the circulation and reception of Shakespeare’s plays in the late eighteenth- and early-nineteenth century, showing how the non-classical elements of his drama vitally contributed to Romantic-period literature and culture. Beginning with a comparison of commemorations of the Bard’s bicentenary in various European capitals, the chapter then looks at his early reception in Germany and France. While Voltaire, Goethe, and Herder celebrated him as a natural genius, French critics realigned Shakespeare’s plays according to neoclassical rules. French audiences increasingly sought out melodrama, however, and accepted these ‘irregularities’, which also inspired Beaumarchais’s Figaro plays. The chapter demonstrates the productive convergences between Shakespearean drama and melodrama, pantomime, harlequinades and other popular theatrical forms, in particular as political satire. It then looks at how Tieck and A.W. Schlegel promoted Shakespeare as the supreme playwright and as part of the German opposition to Napoleon, leading to the banning of his plays in Vienna and elsewhere, and to many literary appropriations in Kleist, Goethe, and Schiller. The chapter concludes with a survey of some of Shakespeare’s influences on drama in Italy, Spain, and, again, France.