SOURCE: “The Evolution of a Dramatic Text: The Case of Le Mariage de Figaro,” in Voices in the Air: French Dramatists and the Resources of Language, edited by John Dunkley and Bill Kirton, University of Glasgow French and German Publications, 1992, pp. 102-17.

In the following essay, Howarth addresses Beaumarchais's creative process by comparing versions of The Marriage of Figaro.

It is a critical commonplace to describe Le Mariage de Figaro as a brilliant synthesis of all that is best in the comic writing of its century. Comédie d'intrigue, comédie larmoyante, satire, social and political polemic: each of these is represented in Beaumarchais's masterpiece by its own peculiar literary style, and it is the swift transition from one style to another, and the successful achievement of diversity in unity, that constitute one of the most distinctive features of this fascinating play.

However, for the scholar who, not...