Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944)

My edition (a Methuen paperback reprinted in 1967 from a 1955 hardback translation by the poet Christopher Fry) is the English performance edition of the 1950s but the play is very much a product of the remorseless move to war in the mid-1930s.

Giraudoux, originally a career diplomat, the sort of person who is now the back-bone of the modern European Project, is a quintessential high caste liberal.

This play represents his despair at what he saw as the root of war – the way that good show more professionals within the elite are driven forward by public opinion to bad ends despite their best and most honourable endeavours.

The hero is Hector who knows war and has turned against it. Civilised elitism is contrasted with wonderfully witty caricatures of the chattering classes who drive the ideology of warfare.

Giraudoux crushes the pretensions of the media (poets), the intelligentsia (mathematicians) and experts (international lawyers). He coruscates all idealisms, especially the romantic cant of love and war, which are not rooted in the facts of the family, the city and the land.

The weasel behaviour of the visiting international lawyer, Busiris, makes us laugh and cry as we recognise that such men still exist today at the very heights of our Atlantic system, still justifying insane policies from sophist principle.

His hero figures are practical men of business, war and diplomacy (Hector and Ulysses) who, alongside the dignified consorts of these powerful men, strive for peace against ideologues, destiny, greed and an ignorant populace alike. But Giraudoux is also aware of mass pride in the nation.

Twice, interventions from the ‘ordinary’ destroy the chances of peace, as if Giraudoux is reflecting back on past as well as present examples of how public sentiment, no doubt mediated through the media, stopped an intelligent compromise negotiated by rational enemies.

In the end, despite all this blame game, Giraudoux makes his nod towards the blind forces of history. The tone is highly pessimistic. Professionals meet almost in friendship to make peace, only to be driven to war by the desire for plunder or some cultural logic that defies explanation.

Hector is offset by the ‘casus belli’, Helen, a complex character in her simplicity, whose cold detachment about her own situation and the fate of nations is presented as beyond good and evil. She is simply life lived for the moment rather as an investment in the future.

This is undoubtedly a great play. It is also representative of a European elite’s attitude towards the masses that would later be expressed in the late Hegelian philosophising of Kojeve and the construction of the European Union.

No doubt similar figures to Giraudoux watch now in pessimistic despair as the masses once again rise, currently in Greece and Spain, against the ‘logic of the situation’ and position their own emotions against practical reality – as the bureaucrats and men of business see things.

The Trojan pride in the novel is set against Greek energy, perhaps an expression of contemporary ‘Roman’ elitism standing against Germanic barbarism but there is no demonisation of the enemy. The enemy is within.

From this point of view, although ostensibly a decent liberal play about peace (and taken as such by the world since), it is also propaganda for government by elites. This wears less well now after several decades of discovering that our modern Trojan royals seem unable to organise a whelk stall.

But the conceit of the Trojan War works well because we know the end of the play from the beginning. In 1935, Giraudoux saw the end of the game – war – in much the same way. The play is a last ditch attempt perhaps to turn the tide of destiny but it lacks conviction in doing so.

His gloomy prognosis, implicit in the play, was proved right. Diplomacy would fail. Hector’s and Ulysses’ best effort would collapse on ‘incidents’ driven by the political will of the representatives of the masses. Elite conservatism and Roman values never looked so attractive. show less

Gyergyai utószava bennem azt a benyomást keltette, hogy most egy lektűrt fogok olvasni – nos, ha ilyen egy lektűr, akkor nem is tudom, minek kínlódtam én a magasirodalommal évekig. Giraudoux könyve egy párizsi szerelem története: Maléna, a dél-amerikai szépség és Jacques, az elnöki titkár szeretnek egymásba, de valami végzetesen. Ez idáig simán beleférne valamelyik filléres Romana füzetkébe. Minderről azonban Jacques tolmácsolásában értesülünk, aki annyira show more elüt a szokásos romantikus hősöktől, amennyire csak elütni lehetséges. Hogy mást ne mondjak: nem szenved. És hogy mégiscsak mondjak mást: nem csak hogy nem szenved, de úgy vizsgálja a szenvedélyt, mint valami ínyenc borász a ’78-as tölgyfahordós érlelésű Chateau Lafite Mitoménmit, amit ráadásul egy kis eredeti, Jedlik Ányos palackozta szikvízzel buggyantottak fel. „Ah, minő csersavtartalom, és ott egy kis málnás ízhatás, ez a buborék meg egészen monumentális!” (Itt illő közbeszúrni, hogy Maléna viszont időnként szenvedni látszik, de Jacques interpretálásában ez is amolyan súlytalan, hogy azt ne mondjam: játékos szenvedés.) Szóval egy igazi asszociációorgia a könyv, meglepő szóképek és átkötések gombolyagja, csupa létidegen tündéri jelenet, ami végső soron teljesen másodlagossá teszi a cselekményt – szertelen, utánozhatatlan, botrányosan öncélú l'art pour l'art onanizálás. show less

With the Greeks and war approaching, the Trojans have varying attitudes about the cause of it and the plan of action. Paris is ready to fight, as are the elders, Helen doesn't care one way or another, Andromache is terrified and Hector, the warrior, is willing to do anything to avoid it as he doesn't believe Helen is worth the trouble.
A dramedy first performed in 1955 with Michael Redgrave as Hector, the play gives these famous characters some surprisingly different views. Helen is vain and show more hungry for fame, but also introspective at times and very much in control of her life. Paris is shown as thoughtless and irresponsible, Hecuba and Cassandra are jaded and blunt in their assessments, Ajax is a drunk and the wise elders of Troy believe that writing a war song and forcing the troops to practice hurling insults to the enemy will win the war. show less

Hector and the women of Troy attempt to prevent the Trojan War.

The English translation is by Christopher Fry, whose own work mirrors the lyrical whimsy of Giraudoux's.

This piece is clearly a meditation on the impending Second World War and the attempts to make the First World War the war to end all wars. It is bitter-sweet and funny; a great anti-war manifesto.