SOURCE: “The Stage of Henri Becque.” Nation 98, no. 2552 (28 May 1914): 644.

In the following essay, the critic argues that Becque's writing skills were inferior to those of his rivals.

There was a time, thirty or forty years ago, when the name of Henri Becque occupied a very prominent place in the list of contemporary French playwrights, but his works seem hopelessly old-fashioned now, and it is not easy to divine the special reason which induced Mr. Edwin Björkman to include these pieces in his Modern Drama series. Still more difficult is it to acquiesce in the judgment of the translator, Mr. Freeman Tilden, who, in his preface, acclaims Becque as an epoch-making revolutionary, the discoverer of the drama of the commonplace, and a pioneer for Ibsen. Admirers of the famous Norwegian will not be pleased by the insinuation. Unquestionably, Becque, going to the masses for his subjects, was an...