Note I — VICTOR HUGO[I]

Victor Hugo (see Vol. V, p. 122) occupies an anomalous position among the great dramatists of the world. He is really a poet with a splendid lyrical inspiration; but he combines this in his plays with an acquired but effective talent for stage-craft. "Hernani" is the most famous play in the European literature of the nineteenth century. This is partly due to the fact that it was the first great romantic drama given on the French stage. When it was produced, on February 25, 1830, there was a fierce battle in the theatre between the followers of the new movement and the adherents of the classic school of French playwriting. Little of the play itself was heard on the first night. The voices of the players were drowned in a storm of denunciations from the classicists, and counter-cheers from the romanticists. The admirers of Victor Hugo won. "Hernani" is certainly the most romantic of romantic dramas. The plot is striking, and full of swift and astonishing changes, but the characters are not always true to life. Nevertheless, "Hernani" is a fine, interesting, poetic melodrama, with a rather weak last act. The gloomy scene with which it closes lacks the inevitability of true tragedy. Had the play ended happily it would undoubtedly have retained its popularity.