se donnait la comédie

20:19 Aug 9, 2021 

I think that he was indeed in love with himself, and also full of himself.

20:06 Aug 9, 2021 

I think, he was self-flattering, self-loving or self-promoting

Added these trms to my answer subsequently.

13:51 Aug 9, 2021 

I just looked for a synonym of "se donner la coméedie", and the one that was given was for "donner la comédie" was "se donner en spectacle" Could it be that the author was actually just thinking of the latter term when she wrote "SE donnait la comédie"?

13:12 Aug 9, 2021 

I think I’ve made my point more than once, which refers to the term aside from the wider historical context. I don’t recognise the hair you want to split, so I will leave it here. The Asker doubtless already knows what she will choose.

13:06 Aug 9, 2021 

"... though the history of this episode tells us quite definitely that these top Nazis were seeking to demonstrate to anyone who might be watching..." I agree with you on this point of history, of course. But is it what this particular text is telling us? Is the author really telling us this (hi)story here? " I don't thinks so. I get the impression the author is talking not about history, but about the way he or she thought G's mind worked (which is part of history, obviously); if they chose to write "Goering se donnait la comédie", did they really mean G was "seeking to demonstrate to anyone" [your words]? Now if you tell me that "self-dramatising" means just that, then that's fine with me.

10:48 Aug 9, 2021 

I have added a reference post but on returning here, see that ph-b has also pointed to CNRTL. It is an extremely good quality source for a number of expressions. Even for modern texts, you are very often able to get to the roots of meaning and find a way through to a helpful meaning. Comments to the post welcome. Hope it helps.

09:35 Aug 9, 2021 

Maybe sthg with self-adulatory, after all Goering was driven by it, the constant necessity to promote his accomplishments, he was known to be a vain person, and also mocked for his massive ego. Imo, it also conveys the idea with the following sentence "Il jouissait de se voir", a form of excessive expression for himself.

08:24 Aug 9, 2021 

What you describe is, in fact, self-dramatising. The point being to insert oneself into an imagined story. There may or may not be an audience, though the history of this episode tells us quite definitely that these top Nazis were seeking to demonstrate to anyone who might be watching their imperial-like qualities and to showcase the accoutrements they considered attached to the role in all that they did; Goering the worst of the lot in terms of looting for personal effect.

08:03 Aug 9, 2021 

'playing a role'?

06:02 Aug 9, 2021 

"Comédie : B.− Au fig., fam. et souvent péj.
Au sing. (avec l'art. déf.), vieilli. Se donner la comédie de qqc. Se livrer au jeu de quelque chose. Donnez-vous la comédie, quelque jour, de parler de vous-même à des gens de simple connaissance (Balzac, Le Lys dans la vallée,1836, p. 162)." (https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/comédie) I get the impression that by taking stolen works of art to Germany in this manner, G was finally achieving something he had been dreaming of and that he was sort of "enacting for himself" (se) a scene he had (often?) rehearsed in his mind - cf. tout ce processus avait été rêvé avant d’être réalisé, not to mention il jouissait de se voir… ! I don't think that any audience - apart from himself - is meant here and the translation should reflect this.

04:47 Aug 9, 2021 

I think that, more than anything else, one should bear in mind that the Nazis who were at the highest levels of their hierarchical dung heap were beset by various forms of megalomaniacal psychopathology.

02:19 Aug 9, 2021 

"was creating his own show" / "was creating a show for his own enjoyment" ?

"putting on a show for his own enjoyment"?

That could take into the equation the reflexive pronoun, i.e. Göring being his own audience.

02:05 Aug 9, 2021 

That is an expression that often describes singers and actors. Self-important and big egos, somewhere along the lines of what Robin entered (although Mr. G was on an out-and-out ego trip!). Delusions of grandeur, definitely!

22:53 Aug 8, 2021 

". . . le protocole impérial avec lequel le Reichsmarschall les attachait à son char . . .

Like a lot of actors do.

22:35 Aug 8, 2021 

ph-b will keep us right :)

21:13 Aug 8, 2021 

. . . since the author felt that achieving and forever accumulating personal glory was something G must have fantasized about (see my entered text), based on his idiosyncratic attitudes and behaviors.

https://mobile-dictionary.reverso.net/en/english-definition/...

18:14 Aug 8, 2021 

That's interesting, because G's full-of-himself attitude is really nothing, other than the rest of the Nazi low-lifes, that normal people would want to be forced to look at. The author certainly didn't want to be.

18:08 Aug 8, 2021 

Unless I'm mistaken, the answers so far forget about the reflexive pronoun and only translate donner la comédie. The use of se indicates that the infamous G. was his own audience, as it were.