SOURCE: Huneker, James. “Henry Becque.” In Iconoclasts: A Book of Dramatists, pp. 163-81. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922.

In the following essay, Huneker examines Becque's style through overviews of The Vultures, The Prodigal Son, and The Woman of Paris.

Emile Zola once wrote in his sweeping dictatorial manner, “Le théâtre sera naturaliste ou il ne sera pas”; but as Henry Becque said in his mordant style, Zola always convinced one in his pronunciamentos; it was only when he attempted to put his theories into action that they completely broke down. Alas! realism in the theatre after all the gong-sounding of café æstheticians, after the desperate campaigns of the one clairvoyant manager in the movement, Antoine, is as dead as the romanticism of Hernani. After the flamboyant, the drab—and now they are both relegated to the limbo of the tried-and-found-wanting.

When Zola sat down to pen his...