neille and Racine. French
tragedy is a very different affair from either modern tragedy in English
or ancient tragedy in Greek. It comes nearer being Roman epic, such as
Lucan wrote Roman epic, dramatized.

Drama is everywhere and always, and this from the nature of things, a
highly conventional literary form. But the convention under which
French tragedy should be judged differs, on the one hand, from that
which existed for Greek tragedy, and, on the other hand, from that
existing for the English. The atmosphere of real life present in English
tragedy is absent in French. The quasi-supernatural religious awe that
reigned over Greek tragedy, French tragedy does not affect. You miss
also in French tragedy the severe simplicity, the self-restraint, the
statuesque repose, belonging to the Greek model. Loftiness, grandeur, a
loftiness somewhat strained, a grandeur tending to be tumid, an heroic
tone sustained at sacrifice of ease and nature--such is the element in
which French tragedy lives and flourishes. You must grant your French
tragedists this their conventional privilege, or you will not enjoy
them. You must grant them this, or you cannot understand them. Resolve
that you will like grandiloquence, requiring only that the
grandiloquence be good, and on this condition we can promise that you
will be pleased with Corneille and Racine. In fact, our readers, we are
sure, will find the grandiloquence of these two tragedy-writers so very
good that a little will suffice them.

Voltaire in his time impressed himself strongly enough on his countrymen
to get accepted by his own generation as an equal third in tragedy with
Corneille and Racine. There was then a French triumvirate of tragedists
to be paralleled with the triumvirate of the Greeks. Corneille was
AEschylus; Racine was Sophocles; and, of course, Euripides had his
counterpart in Voltaire. Voltaire has since descended from the tragic
throne, and that neat symmetry of trine comparison is spoiled. There is,
however, some trace of justice in making Corneille as related to Racine
resemble AEschylus as related to Sophocles. Corneille was first, more
rugged, loftier; Racine was second, more polished, more severe in taste.
Racine had, too, in contrast with Corneille, more of the Euripidean
sweetness. In fact, La Bruyere's celebrated comparison of the two
Frenchmen--made, of course, before Voltaire--yoked them, Corneille with
Sophocles, Racine with Euripides.

It was perhaps