GARNIER, ROBERT

born c. 1545, La Fert Bernard, Fr. died Sept. 20, 1590, Le Mans outstanding French tragic dramatist of his time. While a law student at Toulouse, Garnier won two prizes in the jeux floraux, or floral games (an annual poetry contest held by the Acadmi des Jeux Floraux). He published his first collection of lyrical pieces, now lost, Plaintes Amoureuses de Robert Garnier, in 1565. After practice at the Parisian bar he became conseiller du roi in his native district and later lieutenant-gnral criminel. In his early plays Garnier was a follower of the Senecan school. His pieces in this style are Porcie (1568), Hippolyte (1573), and Cornlie (1574). His next group of tragediesMarc-Antoine (1578), La Troade (1579), Antigone (1580)shows an advance in technique beyond the plays of tienne Jodelle, Jacques Grvin, and his own early plays, since the rhetoric is accompanied by some action. In 1582 and 1583 he produced his two masterpieces, Bradamante and Les Juives. In Bradamante, the first important French tragicomedy, which alone of his plays has no chorus, he turned from Senecan models and sought his subject in Ariosto. The romantic story becomes an effective drama in Garnier's hands. Although the lovers, Bradamante and Roger, never meet on the stage, the conflict in the mind of Roger supplies a genuine dramatic interest. Les Juives is the story of the barbarous vengeance of Nebuchadnezzar on King Zedekiah and his children. This tragedy, almost entirely elegiac in conception, is given unity by the personality of the prophet. Garnier was a Catholic and a patriot: he used his tragedies to convey moral and religious arguments to his contemporaries, who were then suffering in the Wars of Religion. His fine verse reflects the influence of his friend Pierre de Ronsard. His plays, which contain many affecting emotional scenes, were performed to the end of the 16th century.