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TRAGEDY

Maurice Baudin

SOURCE: "The People in Seventeenth Century French Tragedy," in Modern Language Notes, Vol. LII, No. 11, November, 1937, pp 475–81.

[In the essay that follows, Baudin discusses the depiction of popular sentiment in seventeenth century French tragedy in relation to the changing political atmosphere of the time.]

[Cardinal] Richelieu and Louis XIV established an order in which the people had no voice; accordingly, in the theater, public opinion, a counterpart to tyranny, was no more than a relic of another age that had become a cliché. Like obsolete tyranny, emancipation may tempt the skill of a du Ryer or a Corneille, but does not engage his convictions. Such, I believe, is the consensus of modern criticism. With due regard to the history of popular assertiveness, the temper of the government, and the persuasion of the dramatists, I submit that the tragedy of the XVIIth century embodies a new notion of...

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1. Introduction
2. Representative Works
3. Overview
4. Tragedy
5. Comedy
6. Tragicomedy
7. Further Reading
8. Copyright