illustrations given are not exhaustive. It is hoped, however, that it may serve as a basis for a more detailed study of the subject. My obligations to both French and English critics are great, and are acknowledged in the footnotes to the chapters. My grateful thanks are due to the Rev. A. J. Carlyle, D.Litt., to H. E. Berthon, M.A., and to Mrs. Rathbone, for their kind help and criticism in preparing these papers for publication. ST. HUGH'S COLLEGE, ELEANOR F. JOURDAIN. NOTE The frontispiece is reproduced by permission of the Administration of the Bibliothèque Nationale. The page-references to Corneille, Molière and Racine are to the editions in Les grands écrivains de la France (Hachette et Cie). CHAPTER I THE DRAMA OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS IN our study of a special literature, such as that of the seventeenth century in France, we should attempt to look below certain mechanical classifications in speech, which are somewhat misleading, and examine the real meanings of the words 'comedy', 'tragedy', as they appeared to seventeenth-century minds. The terms' comedy' and 'tragedy' did not mean to France what they had meant on the Athenian stage, nor even what they had meant in Elizabethan England. In France, as in Spain, the term comédie had a very general meaning, and stood for many types of drama represented on a stage, though by the seventeenth century the genres began to be further differentiated. We find Molière distinguishing Mélicerte as a comédiepastorale - héroïque, and Don Garcie de Navarre as a comédie-héroïque; while his other plays are still called comédies, and Corneille and Racine have marked out their tragedies by giving them the definite name. But the name comédie as applied to Corneille's La Veuve, Racine's Les Plaideurs, and Molière's Tartufe and Misanthrope covered a good many genres. Thus Corneille, in his Discours du poème dramatique, tells us that Aristotle's definition of C comedy does not satisfy him. He appeals from low comedy to a new ideal of heroic comedy where the characters and 1 In Spain the term comedia was used in contradistinction to the autos sacramentales, i.e. mystery plays not meant for representation on a stage. 2 Poetics, v. 1. 7 situation may be dignified and removed from those of farce and caricature. 'On n'avait jamais vu jusque-là que la comédie fît rire sans personnages ridicules, tels que les valets bouffons, les parasites, les capitans, les docteurs,' &c.1 Again, he appeals from the Greek idea of the reconciliation of enemies, which, according to Aristotle, should conclude a comedy,2 to that of a readjustment of relations, which he claims should characterize the end of a comedy drawn from modern life. 'Pour la comédie, Aristote ne lui impose point d'autre devoir pour conclusion que de rendre amis ceux qui étoient ennemis; ce qu'il faut entendre un peu plus généralement que les termes ne semblent porter et l'étendre à la réconciliation de toute sorte de mauvaise intelligence 3 The term 'tragedy' had been applied in the sixteenth century to a different type of tragic drama from that which marked the seventeenth century. In sixteenth-century tragedy the position of the crisis was not at the end, and a history of the results of the conflict occupied the latter part of the play. In the seventeenth century the play ended with the crisis, but both types of drama were known as tragedies, while a play containing a great deal of narrative and action, and presenting many aspects of a story, not strictly bound together in relation to a central conflict, was known in the early days of the seventeenth century as a tragi-comedy.4 The broad distinction between tragedy and comedy was perhaps this. In the thought of the seventeenth century 1 Examen de Mélite, p. 138. 2 Poetics, xiii. 8. 3 Discours du poème dramatique, p. 27. 4 See the plays of Alexandre Hardy, 1560-1630 (about), which were intended to appeal to the people, and not written for a learned or literary audience as were Corneille's. See also the work of Jean de Schelandre and Rotrou. tragedy dealt with ideal conditions, which might be foreign or ancient, and much symbolism was used in its expression on the stage. Comedy, on the other hand, was intended to be a picture of real life;1 and it is interesting to see the transition of thought from one to the other. For instance, the ideas of personal and political liberty, of honour and duty, are seen in their ideal aspects in the tragedies of Corneille. In the comedies we see the same ideas struggling for expression in faulty natures and in everyday surroundings. We may illustrate this point by referring to Corneille's treatment of the characters of women in his plays. It has been noticed that his tragic heroines are moved not only by the passion of love, but by other passions, political and personal, as for instance those of ambition and revenge. The women on the Cornelian stage are shown working together with men and sometimes in conflict with them, but never moved only by personal emotional considerations. So the woman, like the man, in the tragedy of Corneille may incarnate the notion of free will, of honour, of duty. Émilie in Cinna, for example (as Balzac saw), stood for the idea of liberty. C'est une lâcheté que de remettre à d'autres 1 In the earlier work of Corneille we can see how he gave a realistic setting to his comedies by bringing his characters to Paris, and letting them meet in La Place Royale or in the Galerie du Palais. In La Veuve he carried out a deliberate intention of making the action true to life and the time represented. 'La comédie n'est qu'un portrait de nos actions et de nos discours, et la perfection des portraits consiste en la ressemblance. Sur cette maxime je tâche de ne mettre en la bouche de mes acteurs que ce que diroient vraisemblablement en leur place ceux qu'ils représentent, et de les faire discourir en honnêtes gens, et non pas en auteurs... Le plus beau de leurs entretiens est en équivoques et en propositions dont ils se laissent les conséquences à tirer' ('Au lecteur,' p. 377). See also Seigall, Corneille and the Spanish Drama. In Le Menteur, Cliton and Dorante talk about the Paris which is the scene of the play. |