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Henry Becque is best known as the author of two controversial plays staged in Paris in the 1880s: Les Corbeaux (1882; translated as The Crows, 1912) and La Parisienne (1885; translated as The Woman of Paris, 1913). These works, it is often said, broke with the conventions of the well-made play and paved the way for new developments in French and European drama. They are nevertheless difficult to place in French dramatic tradition. Beginning with Jules Lemaître, some critics have seen the two as links between Molièresque comedy and the development in the late nineteenth century of la comédie rosse, bitter comedy. Others have characterized Becque's plays as the products of keen observation in the realist tradition; still others have seen them as realized examples of Emile Zola's theories concerning naturalism in the theater. While there is some truth to each view, all overlook the extent to which Becque and his work represent anomalies in French theatrical life and literary tradition.
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