5 - Drama, 1660-1740

Summary

In general, during this period of the drama, critical theory moved from a formal analysis of dramatic structure based on what critics thought to be rationalist principles to an affective theory in which the feelingful response of the audience was the crucial test of a play. In short, it changed from the prescriptive theories of François Hédelin, Abbé D'Aubignac, to those of the Abbé Du Bos with their rejection of mechanical principles of taste. The practical question of audience response to a medium such as the drama, however, was crucial. What the court or the city audience liked often had to be rationalized into a theoretical position. Few critics went so far as George Farquhar, who dismissed Aristotle as an amateur without any practical grasp of the real structure of a play, but so practical a matter as how many days a play was performed might exert a not so subtle pressure on current dramatic theory.

Somewhat more complicated but still significant were the ways in which national power and contemporary fashions fascinated audience and critic alike. The period here under consideration saw the hegemony of French taste and French literature throughout Europe. Spain, which had dominated Europe militarily during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, still had some influence over European taste; but just as the battle of the ambassadors in 1661 settled once and for all the relative status of these two nations, so French dramatic theory and practice was to triumph over the less regular forms of the Spanish theatre.