ABSTRACT
Garnier’s last tragedy, Les Juives, was published in 1582. For the period 1580-1610, more than seventy tragedies by other writers have survived in print, while the titles of some thirty others, which were not printed, are known. This prolific and varied production of tragedy was on a low literary level. It was the work of provincial schoolteachers and priests, local lawyers and officials, and in some cases possibly of small-time professional actors or the hack-poets who worked for them. Right up to Racine and beyond, the contemplative or analytic ‘lyric’ passage is found, though much more conspicuously in some of his predecessors. For writers whose talent lay predominantly in that direction, the logical course was to write for opera, once opera was established. In the nature of things, the situation has to be defined for the audience, but this is done as early as possible with nothing withheld to leave an opening for surprise or suspense.
