SOURCE: Goodrich, Norma L. “Le Moulin de Pologne: Modern Novel and Elizabethan Tragedy.” Revue de Littérature Comparée 41 (1967): 88-97.

In the following essay, Goodrich states that in Le Moulin de Pologne, Giono was heavily influenced by several Shakespearean tragedies.

In 1952, Jean Giono published Le Moulin de Pologne¹, described on its title page as “roman”, which he perhaps, as he composed it, visualized less as fiction than as drama, and most specifically as an English or Elizabethan tragedy. Despite the precision given on the title page, we are informed in the text that the work is not a “roman”, but a “drame”, more properly a “faux drame”², since it can only be read as prose fiction. Nevertheless, the life portrayed in this work is “tragique”, the people represented are “acteurs” or “personnages,” and the fabulous eighteenth-century estate called the Mill of Poland is a “théâtre”³. In addition...