The course of French drama in the eighteenth century, the developments in theory and practice which it presents, can be appreciated only when considered in relation to the theatre of the age which preceded it. The most obvious of the traits of the seventeenth-century classical drama reflects the general characteristic of the time, a blind and unquestioning respect for tradition and authority. Add to this the instinctive tendency of the French mind to rationalism and abstraction, to order and regularity. These factors largely account for the rigorously defined rules which establish a clear line of demarcation between tragedy and comedy, placing definite limits on the form and material of both. They dictate that tragedy must employ subject matter drawn from antiquity classical or Biblical, and that the unities of time, place, and action must be strictly observed. The setting must be historical and authentic, within these limitations; though actually it serves merely to provide a concrete framework for the presentation of general human problems. The writer of tragedy is not interested in the particularizing details which distinguish men, periods of history, and civilizations. He has no historical perspective to enable him to do so, and consequently interprets all history in terms of his own age. He is interested rather in the eternal verities of human nature, in the universal traits which characterize all men, whether past or present. He finds that kings and princes most readily and satisfactorily provide the general types with which he is concerned. He employs a noble and refined versified language, declaimed in a stately fashion, to express the great passions of his aristocratic characters. The fact must not be overlooked that French literature in the seventeenth century develops under the guidance and protection of the aristocratic society of the court and of the salons, that this society lends the tone to literature and that literature is written for it. Corneille and Racine furnish the most important examples of tragedy written with an effort to comply with these conventions.

While the strict literary code of seventeenth-century France gave to tragedy the exclusive right to noble characters, to the portrayal of the play of passions, and to tears, it assigned to comedy the lower orders of society, the vices, and laughter. Molière, the great master of comedy of the century, likewise offers universal types, but instead of presenting the struggle of human nature and its passions, he portrays human nature as a prey to its vices. Although his plays give the impression that they may take a tragic turn, they always remain comic; for his aim was to instruct his audience while amusing it. A little more latitude in observing the rules of form is permitted in comedy than in tragedy.

With Corneille the age of heroes passes, and tragedy loses much of its vigor. A new, highly refined, disciplined and artificial society develops around the court, which requires a new form of tragedy. Quinault begins to supply this

demand by introducing insipid gallantry and romanesque elements into his tragedies. Then Racine appears to halt the new development for a moment; the influence of the spirit of contemporary society is discernible in his plays, but he is too great an artist to permit gallantry to become his sole preoccupation. After Racine classical tragedy begins to die of a lingering illness, with many complications, which lasts for more than a century.

Racine's immediate successors, Campistron, Lagrange-Chancel, Longpierre, and others, lacking the genius and artistry of the master, are unable to attain his unity of penetrating psychological truth and a noble antique setting. They strive to imitate his methods and his elegance of style, and combine with these a very superficial portrayal of psychological reality. They attempt to make up for their psychological deficiency by a revival of the romanesque type of tragedy of the first half of the century. Incidents and coups de théâtre, recognitions, clever repartee, and hollow declamation become the principal components of serious drama. At the same time there is some little evidence that a modern spirit is beginning to creep in and weaken the absolutism of the classical régime. In 1678 Thomas Corneille in his Comte d'Essex ventures to replace ancient by modern history. Bayer, Boursault, Ferrier, La Fosse make similar efforts. But the time is not yet ripe for such an innovation and the classical formulæ are unsuited for portraying the particularizing details which seem necessary to lend an air of reality to modern historical drama.

Such, briefly, is the condition to which classical tragedy has descended at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Crébillon continues to follow the course marked out for it by the successors of Racine. He seems to have been somewhat aware of the fact that the old tragedy had lost its appeal, and therefore seeks to employ means of his own to reinvigorate it. Accepting without question the traditional forms of classical tragedy, he attempts to infuse new elements into this framework; highly complicated plots turning on the stock romanesque disguises, recognitions, and so on, with an element of horror_frequently added, replace a realistic study of human nature. From Crébillon on the romanesque is often employed in eighteenth-century French tragedy. It eventually tends to develop more emphasis on particular details, more spectacular effects, in short a new type of realism, which gradually prepares for the death of classical tragedy.

The greatest figure in eighteenth-century French tragedy is Voltaire; in fact, it has been said that he is eighteenth-century tragedy. From 1732, when Zaïre was produced, he dominated the French stage. Most of the tragedies worthy of notice during this period come from his pen, and they pretty well indicate the trend which this form of drama takes in the course of the century. Voltaire, like Crébillon, seems to have realized that tragedy required certain transformations if it was to appeal to his generation. At the outset of his dramatic career he declared for the formulæ of classical tragedy and remained faithful to them throughout his life. Whatever innovations he was to make had to be within these self-imposed limitations. His acquaintance with English tragedy, in particular with the plays of Shakespeare, formed during his stay in England, 1726-29, seems to have suggested to him certain possibilities for 1 Romanesque, in the French sense, means the use of such elements as disguises, mistaken identities, abductions, etc., commonly found in the novels of the seventeenth century.

the rejuvenation of French tragedy. At the same time he was undoubtedly influenced by the trend of French opera and comedy towards the spectacular and of tragedy towards the romanesque. While it is frequently difficult to trace the source of the new influences affecting his dramatic methods, we have more than one statement from his own pen that some of them came from across the Channel. Within three years after his return from England he produced three plays, Brutus (1730), Eriphyle (1732), Zaïre (1732), which contain reminiscences of Shakespeare. He came to feel, under English inspiration, that French tragedy was suffering from too much loquacity and not enough action. He saw also that a little emphasis on the spectacular might attract the interest of the public. Hence there becomes noticeable in his plays a certain effort to speed up Xthe action and to strike the eye as well as the ear of the spectator. The development of this second element, the spectacular, is of special importance, Voltaire had at first been hindered in his attempt at realistic stage effects by the practice of allowing spectators upon the stage. For years he protested against this practice, and it was to a considerable extent his efforts which led to its abolition upon the stage of the Comédie-Française in 1759. In Tancrède (1760) he took advantage of the new freedom upon the stage to produce an "air de la chevalerie" such as had never before been achieved, nor even attempted, in French tragedy. He made a moderate use of costumes and settings of the period of his play and introduced a crowd upon the stage. In this tragedy he went just as far in the direction of the spectacular as his dramatic practices permitted. The development of this tendency towards the spectacular is one of the characteristics of the eighteenth-century theatre in France, and in the years before the Revolution it becomes one of the most noticeable features of the stage. Voltaire contributed no small part towards the growth of what was eventually to develop, under additional influences, into what is known as local color, thereby introducing particularizing details of background which helped to bring about the final downfall of classical tragedy.

In other directions also Voltaire effected modifications in the classical régime. He denied that love was an essential element in tragedy and insisted that it be employed only where it belonged. To illustrate his point he wrote three plays, Oreste la Mort de César, and Mérope, in which this love element is lacking. In the second place Voltaire greatly extended the limits of the possibilities in the way of subject matter available for tragedy. He not only employed the conventional material drawn from classical antiquity, but he made use of modern French history and laid scenes in the Orient, Africa, and America. His use of French history is especially interesting. In Zaïre (1732) he introduced French characters upon the tragic stage for the first time in some thirty years. He confessed that he owed the idea of this innovation to the inspiration of English historical plays. The approval which greeted the appearance of several French characters in Zaïre led him to produce Adélaïde du Guesclin two years later in which all of the characters were drawn from French bistory. In Tancrède (1760) he once more presented a similar set of characters. This latter play with its combination of French historical characters and effective setting did not a little to stimulate the use of national historical material upon the stage in the years that followed.

Finally, with Voltaire serious drama takes on a social mission and eventually

becomes the mouthpiece of "philosophie." This term is applied to the attitude in thought represented by a comparatively small but very capable and determined group of forward-looking French thinkers, who lend the intellectual tone to the century. They demand a revaluation of the traditionally accepted facts in the light of reason and in accordance with the methods of natural science. An awakening of interest in other European civilizations, that of England especially, developed a cosmopolitan attitude of mind and enabled Frenchmen for the first time to obtain a comparatively objective view of political and social conditions in their own country. These conditions were found by comparison to be far from ideal, and a group of social and political reformers gradually developed, the representatives of which were known as "philosophes." Voltaire was one of the leaders of this group. Criticism of French social, religious, and political institutions begins to creep into French literature in the first quarter of the century, but it is not until after the middle of the century that a well-defined and to some extent organized propaganda movement in this direction develops. Already in Alzire (1735) Voltaire shows traces of the new critical spirit, and it clearly becomes the chief motive of Mahomet (1742). From now on Voltaire can write nothing without introducing some criticism of contemporary conditions. So we are not surprised to find a strong element of propaganda in les Scythes (1767), les Guèbres (1769), and les Lois de Minos (1773). Other writers of tragedy too, such as Lemierre in his Guillaume Tell (1766) and la Veuve du Malabar (1770), and Leblanc de Guillet in his les Druides (1772) presented a disguised form of propaganda. The strict censorship made it necessary to disguise criticisms, especially those of governmental and religious institutions, by presenting analogous situations in non-French settings, if the author hoped to have his play produced or circulated in France. Tragedy, on account of the inelasticity of its external form and the traditions which tenaciously clung to it, did not prove itself an ideal vehicle for the dissemination of philosophic propaganda, and was not widely used for this purpose. The drame, which developed in the second half of the century, was considered by the "philosophes" to offer more advantages as an organ for influencing public opinion.

The most successful tragedy on the French stage during the entire century was De Belloy's third-rate play, le Siège de Calais (1765). It appeared at a psychological moment when a wave of patriotism was sweeping over France. as a result of the indignation aroused by the reverses suffered in the Seven Years' War. Officially inspired and under the sponsorship of the government, it was skilfully employed in an attempt to restore confidence in the ruling house. Teeming with patriotic feeling and presenting a glorious event in the nation's past, it enjoyed through its timeliness an immense success which spread from France to other European countries. It inspired a host of weak imitations; and for a moment it seemed as if history might restore the waning fortunes of tragedy. But the classical rules once more proved to be an insurmountable handicap and other, more popular, dramatic forms took over national historical material and emphasizing its inherent spectacular qualities, used it with success.

Another effort to contribute something original to French tragedy is credited to Ducis, who in the latter years of the century produced a number of adapta