SOURCE: Conrad, R. T. “The Drama: Boker's Leonor de Guzman.” Graham's Magazine 44, no. 3 (March 1854): 273-85.

In the following essay, Conrad laments the poor state of the dramatic arts in the mid-nineteenth century and praises Boker's contributions towards its improvement, focusing on Boker's play Leonor de Guzman.

The genius of man is influenced, in every field of its exertions, by the circumstances under which it is developed; and the nature of its triumph is determined by the means and manner of its achievement: thus the science of war is modified by the nature of the country in which it is waged, and by the weapons of the combatants, and thus also every branch of literature has borrowed its distinguishing characteristics from the coincidents which attend its production. We do not expect the odes of Horace from the heaths of Ossian, nor the refinements of the drama from the itinerant...