Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/694

 G58 FRANCE [LITERATURE. by the faults of the Spanish school, its declamatory rodo montade, its conceits, -and its occasionally preposterous action. Jean de Schelandre (d. 1635) has left us a remark able work in Tyr et Sidon. Theophile de Viau in Pyrame et Thisbe and in Pasiphae produced a singular mixture of the classicism of Gamier and the extravagancies of Hardy. Scudery in L Amour Tyrannique and other plays achieved a considerable success. The Marianne of Tristan (1601- 1G55) and the Sophonisbe of Mairet (1604-1688) are the chief pieces of their authors. Mairet resembles Marston in something more than his choice of subject. Another dramatic writer of some eminence is Du Ryer (1605-1648). But the fertility of France at this moment in dramatic authors was immense; nearly 100 are enumerated in the Oorneille. first quarter of the century. The early plays of Corneille (1606-1684) showed all the faults of his contemporaries combined with merits to which none of them except Rotrou, and Rotrou himself only in part, could lay claim. His first play was Melite, a comedy, and in Clitandre, a tragedy, he soon produced what may perhaps be not inconveniently taken as the typical piece of the school of Hardy. A full account of Corneille may be found elsewhere. It is suf ficient to say here that his importance in French literature is quite as great in the way of influence and example as in the way of intellectual excellence. The Cid and the Men- teur are respectively the first examples of French tragedy and comedy which can be called modern. But this influ ence and example did not at first find many imitators. Corneille was a member of Richelieu s band of five poets. Of the other four Rotrou alone deserves the title; the remain ing three, Boisrobert, Colletet, and Lestoile, are as dramatists worthy of no notice, nor were they soon followed by others more worthy. Yet before many years had passed the exam ples which Corneille had set in tragedy and in comedy were followed up by unquestionably the greatest comic writer, and by one who long held the position of the greatest tragic writer of France. Beginning with mere farces of the Italian type, and passing from these to comedies still of an Italian character, it was in Les Predeuses Ridicules, acted in 1659, Moliore. that Moliere (1622-1673), in the words of a spectator, hit at last on &quot;la bonne comedie.&quot; The next fifteen years comprise the whole of his best known work, the finest ex pression beyond doubt of a certain class of comedy that any Racine, literature has produced. The tragic masterpieces of Racine (1639-1699) were not far from coinciding with the comic masterpieces of Moliere, for with the exception of the re markable aftergrowth of Esther and Athalie, they were produced chiefly between 1667 and 1677. Both Racine and Moliere fall into the class of writers who require separate mention. Here we can only remark that both to a certain extent committed, and, which is still more to our purpose, set the example of a fault which distinguished much subse quent French dramatic literature. This was the too great individualizing of one point in a character, and the making the man or woman nothing but a blunderer, a lover, a cox comb, a tyrant, and the like. The very titles of French plays show this influence, they are &quot; Le Grondeur,&quot; &quot; Le Joueur,&quot; &c. The complexity of human character is ignored. This fault distinguishes both Moliere and Racine from writers of the very highest order; and in especial it distinguishes the comedy of Moliere and the tragedy of Racine from the comedy and tragedy of Shakespeare. In all probability this and other defects of the French drama, which are not wholly apparent in the work of Moliere and Corneille, are shown in their most favourable light in those of Racine, and appear in all their deformity in the succes sors of the latter, arise from the rigid adoption of the Aristotelian theory of the drama with its unities and other restrictions, especially as transmitted by Horace through Boileau. This adoption was very much due to the influence of the French Academy, which was founded in 1629, and The which continued the tradition of Malherbe in attempting Aca constantly to school and correct, as the phrase went, the somewhat disorderly instincts of the early French stage. It is difficult to say whether the subordination of all other classes of composition to the drama which has ever since been characteristic of French literature was or was not due to the predilection of Richelieu, the main protector, if not exactly the founder of the Academy, for the theatre. Among the immediate successors and later contemporaries of the three great dramatists we do not find any who deserve high rank as tragedians, though there are some whose comedies are more than respectable. It is at least significant that the restrictions imposed by the academic theory on the comic drama were far less severe than those which tragedy had to undergo. The latter was practically confined in respect of sources of attraction to the dexterous manipulation of the unities ; the interest of a plot attenuated as much as possible, and intended to produce, instead of pity a mild sympathy, and instead of terror a mild alarm (for the purists decided against Corneille that &quot;admiration was not a tragic passion &quot;); and lastly the composition of long tirades of smooth but monotonous verses arranged in couplets tipped with delicately careful rhymes. Only Thomas Corneille (1625-1706), the inheritor of an elder tradition and of a great name, deserves to be excepted from the condemnation to be passed on the lesser tragedians of this period. He was unfortunate in possessing his brother s name, and in being, like him, too voluminous in his com positions&quot;; but Camma, Ariane, Le Ccmte d Essex, are not tragedies to be despised. On the other hand the names of Campistron (1656-1737) and Pradon (1632-1698) only serve to point injurious comparisons; Duche (1660-1704) and La Fosse (1653-1708) are of still less importance, and Quinault s tragedies are chiefly remarkable because he had the good sense to give up writing them and to take to opera. The general excellence of French comedy, on the other hand, was sufficiently vindicated. Besides the splendid sum of Moliere s work, the two great tragedians had each, in Le Menteur and Les Plaideurs, set a capital example to their successors, which was fairly followed. Brueys (1640-1723) and Palaprat (1650-1721) brought out once more the ever new Advocat Patelin, Quinault and Campistron wrote fair comedies. Dancourt (1661-1726), Dufresny (1684-1721), Boursault (1638-1701), were all comic writers of consider able merit. But the chief comic dramatist of the latter period of the 17th century was Regnard (1655-1709), whose Joueur and Leijataire are comedies almost of the first rank. 17^/i Century Fiction. In the department of literature which comes between poetry and prose, that of romance writing, the 17th century, excepting one remarkable de velopment, was not very fertile, It devoted itself to so many new or changed forms of literature that it had no time to anticipate the modern novel. Yet at the beginning He of the century one very curious form of romance writing ro t:es was diligently cultivated, and its popularity, for the time im mense, perhaps prevented the introduction of any stronger style, to which at the same time the poetical trifles of the literary coteries, the memoirs of the Fronde, and the dramas of the epoch of Louis XIV. were unfavourable. It is perhaps curious that, as the first quarter of the 17th century was pre-eminently the epoch of Spanish influence in France, the distinctive satire of Cervantes should have been less imitated than the models which Cervantes satirized. How ever this may be, the romances of 1600 to 1650 form a class of literature vast, isolated, and, perhaps of all such classes of literature, most utterly obsolete and extinct. Taste, affectation, or antiquarian diligence have, at one time or another, restored to a just, and sometimes a more than just,