The monograph is devoted to the phenomenon of religious (primarily Catholic) drama in the history of the formation and development of professional theater of the XVI-XVII centuries. This is a huge layer of the history of French and Western European theatrical art, almost not covered by Russian art criticism. Many of the texts included in the monograph have never been translated into Russian and have not been specifically studied. The book attempts to consider the whole variety of genres of religious dramaturgy of the XVI-XVII centuries .. , their problems and poetics, aspects of theatrical interpretation. At the center of the study is the drama and stage art of France: from the mystical theater of the late Middle Ages to the formation of a Renaissance humanistic drama, to the experiments of the Pleiades and further to the “great age”, the era of classicism, when religious tragedy flourished in the work of P. Cornel and J. Racine .