Jean Rotrou is France's neglected classic. Generations of critics have recognized his merits but have done so in a tangential manner. He has been called the "mentor of Corneille" and has been celebrated as the precursor of Racine in classical tragedy and of Moliere in classical comedy. That Routrou can be linked to all three of France's great classical dramatists has been responsible in part for the respectful neglect of the thirty-five of his plays that have survived from a production assumed to be many times as great. Mr. Nelson turns to Rotrou in the dramatist's own setting: the perfervid...