ve
invented;[105] and of the mongrel growths of sentimental comedy and of
domestic drama or _drame_, he rather suggested than exemplified the
conditions.

Racine.

The tragic art of Racine supplements rather than surpasses that of his
older contemporary. His works reflect the serene and settled formality
of an age in which the sun of monarchy shone with an effulgence no
clouds seemed capable of obscuring, and in which the life of a nation
seemed reducible to the surroundings of a court. The tone of the poetic
literature of such an age is not necessarily unreal, because the range
of its ideas is limited, and because its forms seem to exist by an
immutable authority. That Racine should permanently hold the position
which belongs to him in French dramatic literature is due to the fact
that to him it was given to present these forms--the forms approved by
his age--in what may reasonably be called perfection; and, from the
point of view of workmanship, Sophocles could not have achieved more.
What his plays contain is another question. They suit themselves so well
to the successive phases in the life of Louis XIV., that Madame de
Sevigne described Racine as having in his later years loved God as he
had formerly loved his mistresses; and this sally at all events
indicates the range of passions which inspired his tragic muse. His
heroes are all of one type--that of a gracious gloriousness; his
heroines vary in their fortunes, but they are all the "trophies of
love,"[106] with the exception of the scriptural figures, which stand
apart from the rest.[107] T. Corneille, Campistron, Joseph Duche
(1668-1704), Antoin de Lafosse (c. 1653-1708) and Quinault were mere
followers of one or both of the great masters of tragedy, though the
last named achieved a reputation of his own in the bastard species of
the opera.

Characteristics of French classical tragedy.

The type of French tragedy thus established, like everything else which
formed part of the "age of Louis XIV.," proclaimed itself as the
definitively settled model of its kind, and was accepted as such by a
submissive world. Proud of its self-imposed fetters, French tragedy
dictatorially denied the liberty of which it had deprived itself to the
art of which it claimed to furnish the highest examples. Yet, though
calling itself classical, it had not caught the essential spirit of the
tragedy of the Greeks. The elevation of tone which characterizes the
serious drama o