Conclusion

Abstract

Even during the theatrically healthy seventeenth century, when Moliere blithely mixed low farce with the finest comedy of character or manners, and was appreciated for it by the King himself, critics tended to be conservative. Boileau censured him for blemishing high comedy with popular elements. By the nineteenth century, stronghold of the bourgeoisie in every regard, conservatism had gained an even more secure foothold. Although poets had won the right to mingle the tragic with the comic, critics were still certain that at least tragedy and comedy were high forms of drama, whereas farce and melodrama were low ones. The latter, one could clearly see, appealed to the untutored masses, while the upper classes at least made the pretence of subscribing to the Theatre-Frangais. That they may have spent a good deal of their time there eating, drinking, conversing, or sleeping did not alter the fact that they were supporting the superior forms of dramatic art.