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TRAGICOMEDY

Henry Carrington Lancaster

SOURCE: "Subsequent History of the Tragi-Comedy," in The French Tragi-Comedy: Its Origin and Development from 1552 to 1628, 1907. Reprinted by Gordian Press, Inc., 1966, pp. 148–54.

[In the following excerpt, Lancaster explains the decline of French tragicomedy in the late seventeenth century.]

Toward 1650, … the number of tragi-comedies that appeared each year was decreasing and by 1660 had become very small, if one may judge by those of which the names have been preserved. With the Psyché of Corneille, Molière, and Quinault (1671) and the Parfaits Amis of Chappuzeau (1672) the genre practically ceases to exist, although sporadic examples of the use of its name recur during the following centuries. The causes of this decay are not far to seek.

In the first place the popular taste had reacted from the spirit of the early seventeenth century, which had found...

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