Mehrsprachigkeit in Frank Wedekinds 'Büchse der Pandora': ein (fast) vergessenes Charakteristikum der Lulu-Urfassung ; Multilingualism in Frank Wedekind's 'Pandora's Box': An (Almost) Forgotten Aspect of his First 'Lulu' Version

Abstract

International audience ; Today's theatre audience is rarely aware of the fact that Wedekind's Lulu was first conceived as a multilingual play. Indeed, the first version of his early masterpiece completed in 1894 under the title Die Büchse der Pandora, includes numerous and extensive passages in French and English. One of the reasons why the public as well as the critics and scholars generally ignore this fact is the complex process of censorship and self-censorship that gradually led the author to rework his play, eradicating in the same time it's multilingual dimension. While scholarly literature seldom mentions Wedekind's multilingual writing, this issue acquires a new importance in the context of current debates around world literature and migrant writing and needs to be reassessed. Thus, our paper aims at analyzing both the aesthetic and political implications of Wedekind's literary polyglossia in his historical context, and the reasons for its final disappearance. In this way, Wedekind's early multilingualism appears as a major factor of his radical modernity around 1900.