Abstract: If a dramatic intertext is common in eighteenth-century novels, the presence of Shakespeare poses a particular problem, related not only to the slowness and difficulties with he was received, but also to the introduction of an English intertext in a French text. The hybridity of Shakespearean plays, which are often adapted into dramas, however, facilitates their encounter with the novel, beginning in the 1770s when the Elizabethan author supplanted Racine when it came to the pathetic expression of feelings.
