In the history of literatures, as in the history of the races that produce them, it is axiomatic that often there comes from without some invigorating influence which, on being assimilated, may assume a significance perhaps all out of proportion to its original importance. Such was the effect of the figurón, in the Spanish comedia de figurón, upon the development of a type of uncouth and cowardly lover rôle in seventeenth-century French comedy, such as that of Sganarelle in Molière's Le Manage forcé. Now that we are enabled to study in its proper perspective French dramatic literature of the grand siècle, thanks to Professor Lancaster's monumental work on the subject, it becomes increasingly possible as well as pertinent for those interested in comparative literature to supplement and to underline certain facts already clearly brought out in Mr. Lancaster's six-volume study. In this paper I wish to present some observations on the literary antecedents of the figurón in Spanish drama and an interpretation of the significance of the figurón, together with a few comments upon French treatment of this type as transplanted by Paul Scarron and Thomas Corneille.
