SOURCE: "Racine and the Tragedy of Sentiment," in World Drama: From Aeschylus to Anouilh, George G. Harrap & Company Ltd., 1949, pp. 299-315.

Called "one of the masters of dramatic research," Nicoli is best known as a theater historian whose works have proven invaluable to students and educators. Nicoli's World Drama: From Aeschylus to Anouilh (1949) is considered one of his most important works; theater critic John Gassner has stated that it was "unquestionably the most thorough [study of its kind in the English language [and] our best reference book on the world's dramatic literature." Another of his ambitious theater studies is the six-volume A History of English Drama, 1660-1900 (1952-59), which has been highly praised for its perceptive commentaries on drama from the Restoration to the close of the nineteenth century. In the following excerpt from his World Drama, Nicoll places Corneille's work in the context of French literary history...