French Drama

France has boasted that when the cla ic drama was banished from every other stage in Europe, it found a home in Paris; and yet her drama, like those of other nations, was, during the 16th and a great part of the 17th century, borrowed from Spain. As the English owe the excellence of their stage to Shakespeare, so France is equally indebted to Corneille. It was at this period that the cla ical fetters of the three unities were imposed upon French dramatic poets. "The unities of action, time, and place must be observed." Corneille adds, "Per sonne n'en doute." The French are not only proud of their pretensions to cla icality and their regard for the unities, but are enabled to boast with justice that they have discarded tragicomedy-that is, such pieces as comprehend two distinct plots, one of a serious, the other of a humorous sort, each totally unconnected with the other. Corneille and Racine were, according to Sir Walter Scott, the Homer and the Virgil of the French drama. Even Voltaire himself was content to imitate these two great models, although he endeavored to make a Turk talk like a Turk and a savage like a savage, instead of in the brilliant metaphor and skilled sentiment of the buskined heroes of his predece ors. Molière, the founder of French comedy, followed the path marked out by Menander and has closely copied some pieces from the Latin stage. Few satirists have attacked vice and folly so succe fully; and it should be remembered when considering his marvelous power, that while the English stage was fostered by a people, the French stage was merely the appanage of a court. Thus the sphere of the satirist was limited to the palace and its immediate surroundings. Schlegel observes: "The object of French comedy is not life, but society that perpetual negotiation between conflicting vanities which never ends in a sincere treaty of peace; the embroidered dre , the hat under the arm, and the sword by the side, e entially belong to them; and the whole of the characterization is limited to the folly of the men and the coquetry of the women." This comedy of manners rather than of nature was overturned by the Figaro of Beau march a is a production in which incident, intrigue, characters in high and low life, lively dialogue, and political satire were so craftily intermingled, the whole being flavored with a strong tone of licentiousne , that it was received by the Paris i an public with an almost frantic enthusiasm.