ccordance with the genius of his
dialect, fortunately for him, untrammelled by traditions, and, what is
significant, he does it acceptably. He is the master. His fellow-poets
proclaim and acclaim his supremacy. No one who has penetrated to any
degree into the genius of the Romance languages can fail to agree that
in this point exists a master of one of its forms.

CHAPTER III

THE TEAGEDY, LA REINO JANO

The peculiar qualities and limitations of Mistral are possibly nowhere
better evidenced than in this play. Full of charming passages,
frequently eloquent, here and there very poetic, it is scarcely
dramatic, and certainly not a tragedy either of the French or the
Shakespearian type. The most striking lines, the most eloquent tirades,
arise less from the exigences of the drama than from the constant desire
of the poet to give expression to his love of Provence. The attention of
the reader is diverted at every turn from the adventures of the persons
in the play to the glories and the beauties of the lovely land in which
our poet was born. The matter of a play is certainly contained in the
subject, but the energy of the author has not been spent upon the
invention of strong situations, upon the clash of wills, upon the
psychology of his characters, upon the interplay of passions, but rather
upon strengthening in the hearts of his Provencal hearers the love of
the good Queen Joanna, whose life has some of the romance of that of
Mary, Queen of Scots, and upon letting them hear from her lips and from
the lips of her courtiers the praises of Provence.

Mistral enumerates eight dramatic works treating the life of his
heroine. They are a tragedy in five acts and a verse by Magnon (Paris,
1656), called _Jeanne Ire, reine de Naples_; a tragedy in five acts and
in verse by Laharpe, produced in 1781, entitled, _Jeanne de Naples_; an
opera-comique in three acts, the book by De Leuven and Brunswick, the
music by Monpon and Bordese, produced in 1840; an Italian tragedy, _La
Regina Griovanna_, by the Marquis of Casanova, written about 1840; an
Italian opera, the libretto by Ghislanzoni, who is known as the
librettist of _Aida_, the music by Petrella (Milan, 1875); a play in
verse by Brunetti, called _Griovanna I di Napoli_ (Naples, 1881); a
Hungarian play by Rakosi, _Johanna es Endre_, and lastly the trilogy of
Walter Savage Landor, _Andrea of Hungary_, _Griovanna of Naples_, and
_Fra Rupert_ (London, 1853). Mistral's play i