Robert Garnier

Robert Garnier , 1534?-1590, French dramatic poet. He wrote mainly closet dramas in the classical manner of Seneca. Les Juives [the Jewish women] (1583), based on the Bible, is perhaps the best of his tragedies. He is also credited with the first tragicomedy in French, Bradamante (1582).

Garnier, Robert (c.1545–90), French Renaissance dramatist, by profession a lawyer, who with his seven tragedies on classical models prepared the way for the great tragic writers of the next generation. The best is usually considered Les Juives (c.1580), based on the Old Testament story of Nebuchadnezzar's cruelty to Zedekiah after the fall of Jerusalem. All his plays give evidence of wide reading, keen perceptions, and great lyric gifts. Garnier's choruses, a traditional feature which he retained from classical tragedy, are particularly fine; and at its best his writing is forceful, imaginative, and fluent. He was also the author of the first French tragi-comedy, Bradamante (1582), on a theme from Ariosto's Orlando furioso, which was still being acted in the 17th century.