SOURCE: Abraham, Claude. “Tristan and Hebbel: Mariane and Mariamne.” South Atlantic Bulletin 33, no. 3 (May 1968): 1-4.

In the following essay, Abraham finds parallels between Hebbel's Herod and Mariamne and Tristan L'Hermite's La Mariane.

The story of Herod and Mariamne has been dramatized again and again. Marcus Landau counted some thirty versions,¹ and Maurice Valency added, “without any difficulty, thirteen others.”² Yet, only two versions—one by a Frenchman of the Baroque period, the other by a German realist—have survived. While these plays seem to have little but the topic in common, it is our purpose here to show that underneath the obvious differences lurk basic similarities, and that it is undoubtedly because of these similarities that the works of Tristan L'Hermite and of Hebbel have survived.

Tristan's La Mariane was first performed early in 1636 and published in 1637. Its immediate success rivaled that of Corneille's Le Cid. It appeared...