of publication: my wife and children, who have suffered
that their home serve so often as an "office"; Miss Joan
Manson, Miss Deborah Goldberg, Mrs. Nancy Williams,
and Mrs. Josette Egli, who rendered invaluable secretarial
services; countless colleagues on whom I have all too often
imposed my throes of composition. Finally, there are those
whose influence has been more remote, but nonetheless
significant -- family, former teachers, and friends of many
years' standing who have shaped me as a man and as a
scholar. It is to the memory of one of these that this book
is dedicated. May he rest in the assurance that he, like all
those cited here, has helped to shape only what is worthy
of his high standards in the pages that follow.

With slight variations, portions of this book have
already appeared in the following: "Pierre Corneille's
L'Illusion comique: The Play as Magic", PMLA, LXXI
( 1956), 1127-1140; Play within a Play: The Dramatist's
Conception of His Art -- Shakespeare to Anouilh. New
Haven, Yale University Press. 1958; "The Dénouement
of Le Cid", French Studies, XIV ( 1960, 141-148); "The
Unreconstructed Heroes of Molière", Tulane Drama
Review, IV ( March 1960), 14-37.

I wish to thank the editors of these publications for
permission to use this material in this book.

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