FRENCH DRAMA. France. in the revival of the classical drama, accepted the 'unities' as the first essentials in the drama. This was in great part. owing to the logical temper of the national genius. Previous to Jodelle, or. indeed, to Corneille. hardly Any progres. had been made in regular dramatic composition. A number of writers had produced sot ties, farces, in which in numerous instances the romantic or anti-clas sical tendencies of human nature had manifested themselves: but neither in the representations of the Confr&es ft e la Passion nor more secular performances like those of the Enfants sans Soucy was there any great advance in proper dramatic achievement. Jodelle. at the Court of Henri II.. was the first to exhibit a regular five-net tragedy. He composed other pieces of sonic merit. but nothing of any great importance to the drama was done in the half-century that succeeded. Corneille appeared in the reign of Louis XIII. during the time that the star of Richelieu was the 0.4'1111(ga : he had to humor the Court by humoring the Academy, and to please the Academy he was required to observe the rules of Aristotle. Ile had pro (limed several plays of a severe elegance and dignity of style. when inspiration came to his more romantic tendencies in the Spanish story of the rid. All Paris rang with the praises of his 'trn7i-comedy,' hut the Aeridemy held aloof, till the matter became an historie eontro•ersy, and Corneille hail lo betake himself again to the classic limitations. The got what he longed for, however, a scat among the members of that institution which had helped repress the spontaneous outflow of his genius. It was more than came to his contemporary, the great comedian Aloliere, who in,i.ted to the last upon playing hi, part as well a, penning his pieces, an abuse which the dignified academician, could by no mean. tolerate. Vet it may be questioned whether in all the essentials of pure comedy Molie•e', is not the very foremost name in the history of the stage. lie, like Shakespeare, bor rowed much from the Italians, and much also from the Spaniards and the Latins, but made his theatre the true expression of the French genius for witty characterization. Comedy, beside,, more than tragedy, maintained a relation with the spontaneous forms of the drama which pre ceded the Renaissance. The favorite tragic poet
of the Court of Louis XIV. was Racine. Ilk powers lay decidedly in the region of the serious and the exalted, so that he had no temptation. like Corneille, to pass the bound, of the aca demic proprieties. In tenderness and elegance all French writers yield to him; in his .ithutic, his last and best drama, interpreted by the actors Baron and Madame Champmesle, he gave to the Parisian public a composition such as in breadth, elegance, and severe grandeur it could now-here find apart from the Greek theatre. Passing by Boursault and the other lesser writers \vim saw the decline of Racine and Mo Here, and such artists on the stage as Adrienne Lecouvreur, Lekain, and :Mlle. Clairon, we come to the brilliant and erratic Voltaire. He as tonished Europe with the force and power of his romantic tragedies, in a style of composition which, since the Cid, had been excluded from the theatre. The intolerant iconoclasm of his warfare with superstition was perhaps too dis tinctly revealed in his dramas, hut his genius and spirit have earned for him a place beside the great tragic names of Corneille and Racine. Among the writers of the period that followed were Lemercier and Chenier. whose tragedy of Charles IN.. played by Talma, led to the division of the Comedie Franeaise, while among the other famous actors at the national theatre were Mlle. Dumesnil, 'Motive], and his daugh ter, Mlle. Mars.
In the nineteenth century. the drama of France has been more productive than that of any other nation. Notable among the writers of the century are Alfred de Vigny, Scribe. and Legouve, who collaborated in a large number of successful pieces, Dumas pore, and Victor Hugo —leaders of the 'romantic movement.' the battle over which converged about Ilugn's Hernani in 1830—Alfred de Musset, Emile Angier, Dumas fits, Victorien Sardou, and more recently Ed mond Rostand. who has very successfully re vived the poetical play. No sketch of the Freneh drama can overlook the services of an institution like the Franeaise (q.v.) in maintaining the literary qualities of the stage and eneouraging its support by the lead ing writers of the nation, while artists like Mlle. Rachel, Sarah Bernhardt, and Constant Coquelin have often been better known than the authors whose lines they spoke.