concealment with the same characteristics. It still attempts to be a
milieu of pure art and disinterested literature. But it is almost
impossible, in France, for artists to-day to divest themselves of
political preoccupations. They are divided, often fiercely, over
this problem: "Should French thought to-day preserve or abandon its
war attitude? Should it remain defiant towards the foreigner and
subordinate everything to the continuance of the intellectual struggle
against Germanism?" The editors of the _Nouvelle Revue Française_,
who are divided on that question, endeavour in their review itself to
elucidate it by discussions amongst themselves.
* * * * *
The _Revue Critique des Idées et des Livres_ has also just reappeared.
It was the organ of a younger generation than that of the _Nouvelle
Revue Française_, and that is why the majority of its old conductors
no longer respond to the call. More than twenty of them, and notably
Pierre Gilbert, who was the heart and soul of them, were killed in
action. As its name indicates, this review is above all concerned with
criticism. You find in it few poems and no novels. The young men who
united around it aimed at restoring to French literature a classic
discipline, and fighting all the remains of romanticism from democracy
to symbolism. That is why the review published special numbers
dedicated to Richelieu, to Stendhal, to Mistral, and on the occasion
of Rousseau's centenary a special number of another kind, remarkably
violent, devoting to execration the Genevese whom they held to be the
father of French romanticism and the Æolus of all the storms.
The _Revue Critique des Idées et des Livres_ was profoundly influenced
by Charles Maurras. It was the literary organ of the ardent, patriotic
generation aroused in France by his influence and that of Maurice
Barrès. Nevertheless, some months before the war it broke away from
_L'Action Française_; or rather it was that paper, the organ of M.
Maurras, which declared itself unable any longer to commend without
reserve the tendencies of the _Revue Critique_. This cleavage arose out
of some articles in the _Revue Critique_ which praised the philosophy
of M. Bergson. Now _L'Action Française_ had opened war long before on
Bergsonism for reasons which were not philosophic. That is why the
_Revue Critique_, although still benevolently watched by M. Maurras,
was considered by him as a lapse from orthodoxy.
In its resurrected form it has kept its classical tendencies, its
taste for pure criticism, the intellectual discipline which made it
subordinate everything to the national point of view. But on the other
hand it shows an inclination to broaden, to become more elastic, to
take a less rigid and combative attitude than of old. Although most
of its editors are friends of M. Maurras and _L'Action Française_, it
preserves its intellectual autonomy intact and is no longer attached
to a political party. Its rôle seems to be to revive the old tradition
of French classicism. It maintains especially those discussions on the
problems of the day and the eternal problems, those intelligent and
passionate debates which have always given so much animation to young
French reviews.
* * * * *
A new review, the work of which will often be in accord with that
of the _Revue Critique des Idées et des Livres_, is announced for
the month of March, and that announcement has already aroused much
interest. This is the _Revue Universelle_, the organ of the "Parti de
l'Intelligence." This party, which might well have found a less naïve
title, is a nationalist group which proposes to keep the intellect of
France in the channels of national tradition and civic vigilance. It
includes almost all the monarchists of the _Action Française_, but also
a certain number of patriotic writers who are not royalists, including
Camille Mauclair, Daniel Halévy, Edmond Jaloux, Henri Ghéon, and Henri
Massis. It has been founded in opposition to the "Clarté" group of
Romain Rolland, Henri Barbusse, Georges Duhamel, and Pierre Hamp, which
unites intellectuals with socialist and pacifist leanings. It is, in
the world of letters, a resurrection of the old leagues of the "Patrie
Française" and the "Droits de l'Homme," which flourished at the time
of the Dreyfus affair. But up to the present the majority of French
writers have not enrolled themselves in either body.
The title of the _Revue Universelle_ is based on the desire of the
"Parti de l'Intelligence" to make it an organ for propagating French
intellectual influence abroad, for ensuring the dissemination and
establishing the primacy of the classic culture which is bound up
with the French genius. The _Revue Universelle_ will attempt to give
to French nationalism, which has hitherto confined its propaganda
to France, an influence over the world. It is patently a difficult
enterprise and one essentially a little paradoxical. But it will
certainly be very interesting and will deserve to be closely watched
abroad. The _Revue Universelle_ will be directed by the clearest
and strongest head amongst contemporary French students of foreign
politics, M. Jacques Bainville. The names of the chief members of the
"Parti de l'Intelligence" assure from the start a staff of the first
order. The "Clarté" group has not yet announced its intention of
founding a similar organ.
In the spring there will appear a review in French which will fill a
place at present empty: the _Revue de Genève_, whose editor will be
M. Robert de Traz. This will be a review essentially European, which
will aim at giving an exact picture of intellectual Europe to-day, and
will examine objectively æsthetic, political, religious and moral,
national and international tendencies. Its founders believe that an
authoritative position is assured.
* * * * *
Most of these reviews are or will be reviews of ideas. In contrast to
what was the case twenty years ago the reviews which are devoted to new
and bold artistic manifestations remain on a lower level. Before the
war the _Phalange_ was a very live and picturesque review around which
were grouped a number of the old-time Symbolists and newer writers,
from Francis Viélé-Griffin to Guillaume Apollinaire. Almost all the
young made their débuts in the _Phalange_. It is regrettable that its
director, M. Jean Royère, has decided not to revive it after the war.
The literature which is attached to Futurist and Cubist art has for
organ the review _Littérature_, rather slender but curious. During the
war there began to appear a very sumptuous Cubist review of literature
and art, _L'Elan_, which was very interesting but did not survive its
fourth number.
* * * * *
It does not come within my present scope to refer to the old reviews,
which are well enough known to English readers. But I must mention
that in the last year a new one has been added to these, the _Minerve
Française_, classical and traditional in tenets and of an excellent
literary standard. Finally, as for the weekly papers, half way between
the dailies and the reviews properly so called, they are not so
important in France as in England. _L'Opinion_ and _L'Europe Nouvelle_
are at present the most alive; those and the _Revue Hebdomadaire_,
which is in another category.
In fine, the young French reviews to-day are preoccupied with ideas
first and art second. It is difficult for them, even when they are
willing, to avoid a definite orientation towards politics and the
problems of politics. They are the natural voices of a generation which
is prevented by actual events from indulging in detached speculations.
But that period of transition will pass and will no doubt soon
help forward a movement in France for the recovery of the precious
privileges of spiritual liberty.
ALBERT THIBAUDET
BIBLIOGRAPHIES OF MODERN AUTHORS
MAURICE HEWLETT
_Verse_
A MASQUE OF DEAD FLORENTINES. Dent. 1895.
SONGS AND MEDITATIONS. Constable. 1896.
ARTEMISION, IDYLLS AND SONGS. Elkin Mathews. 1909.
THE AGONISTS--A TRILOGY OF GOD AND MAN--MINOS, KING OF CRETE, ARIADNE
IN NAXOS, THE DEATH OF HIPPOLYTUS. Macmillan. 1911.
HELEN REDEEMED AND OTHER POEMS. Macmillan. 1913.
SINGSONGS OF THE WAR. Poetry Bookshop. 1914.
THE SONG OF THE PLOW: BEING THE ENGLISH CHRONICLE. Heinemann. 1916.
GAI SABER: TALES AND SONGS. A Collection of Poems. Elkin Mathews. 1916.
THE LOVING STORY OF PERIDORE AND PERIVALE. A Poem. Collins. 1917.
THE VILLAGE WIFE'S LAMENT. A Poem. Secker. 1918.
_Prose_
EARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY. Being Impressions and Translations. Dent.
1895.
THE FOREST LOVERS. A Romance. Macmillan. 1898.
PAN AND THE YOUNG SHEPHERD. A Pastoral. Lane. 1898.
LITTLE NOVELS OF ITALY. Chapman & Hall. 1899.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY. Macmillan. 1900.
NEW CANTERBURY TALES. Constable. 1901.
THE QUEEN'S QUAIR, OR THE SIX YEARS' TRAGEDY. Macmillan. 1904.
THE ROAD IN TUSCANY. Macmillan. 1904.
QUATTROCENTISTERIA: HOW SANDRO BOTTICELLI SAW SIMONETTA IN THE SPRING.
Mosher, Portland, Maine. 1904.
[Taken from _Earthwork out of Tuscany_.]
FOND ADVENTURES. Tales of the Youth of the World. Macmillan. 1905.
THE FOOL ERRANT. Heinemann. 1905.
THE STOOPING LADY. Macmillan. 1907.
THE SPANISH JADE. Cassell. 1908.
HALFWAY HOUSE. A Comedy of Degrees. Chapman & Hall. 1908.
OPEN COUNTRY. A Comedy with a Sting. Macmillan. 1909.
LETTERS TO SANCHIA UPON THINGS AS THEY ARE. Macmillan. 1910.
[Reprinted from _Open Country_.]
REST HARROW. A Comedy of Resolution. Macmillan. 1910.
BRAZENHEAD THE GREAT. Smith, Elder. 1911.
THE SONG OF RENNY. Macmillan. 1911.
MRS. LANCELOT. A Comedy of Assumptions. Macmillan. 1912.
LOVE OF PROSERPINE. Macmillan. 1913.
BENDISH: A STUDY IN PRODIGALITY. Macmillan. 1913.
THE LITTLE ILIAD. A Novel. Heinemann. 1915.
A LOVERS' TALE. Ward, Lock. 1915.
LOVE AND LUCY. Macmillan. 1916.
FREY AND HIS WIFE. Ward, Lock. 1916.
THORGILS OF TREADHOLT. Ward, Lock. 1917.
GUDRID THE FAIR. Constable. 1918.
THE OUTLAW. Constable. 1919.
He has also written introductions to Bidder's _In the Shadow of the
Crown_ (1899); to _Cynthia_ (1918); to _Twelfth Night_ (Vol. 2,
Renaissance Edition of Shakespeare); to Stendhal's _The Chartreuse of
Parma_; and to Wilfred Thorley's _Confessional and other Poems_.
MAX BEERBOHM
THE HAPPY HYPOCRITE. A Fairy Tale for tired men. Bodley Booklets. 1897.
[In 1918 Mr. Lane published a new edition with coloured drawings by
GEORGE SHERINGHAM.]
THE WORKS OF MAX BEERBOHM. Lane. 1898.
MORE. (Essays.) Lane. 1899.
THE POET'S CORNER. (Caricatures.) Heinemann. 1904.
YET AGAIN. (Essays.) Chapman & Hall. 1909.
ZULEIKA DOBSON, OR AN OXFORD LOVE STORY. Heinemann. 1911.
A XMAS GARLAND. (Parodies.) Heinemann. 1912.
FIFTY CARICATURES. Plates. Heinemann. 1913.
THE SECOND CHILDHOOD OF JOHN BULL. (Cartoons.) Swift. 1912.
CATALOGUE OF AN EXHIBITION OF CARTOONS BY M.B. (Leicester Galleries.)
1913.
SEVEN MEN. Heinemann. 1919.
DRAMA
MARRIAGE À LA MODE
It was impossible to know from the reception of _Marriage à la Mode_
at the Phœnix Society's production last month whether the numerous
complaints of the behaviour of the audience when _The Duchess of
Malfi_ was performed had had effect or not, for Dryden's comedy puts
no strain of any sort on the audience. It is a sign both of Dryden's
greatness and of his weakness. For that "superhuman craftsmanship"
of which Professor Saintsbury speaks is the privilege of a writer
whose imagination does not outrun his powers. There is nothing in his
mind that he finds difficult to express. And the difference in merit
between one Dryden play and another is not a difference of degree in
technical accomplishment--of success in expression--as it is with
greater poets, but a difference in the value of the subject-matter.
When Dryden gets hold of a good dramatic idea he writes a good play,
when his material is deficient in interest his play is inferior. There
are no violent ups and downs in any one play, whereas a poet of more
passion and imagination does more mixed work. Some of Shakespeare's
finest scenes and passages are in his least satisfactory plays, and
though Shakespeare's natural genius for language was immeasurably
greater than Dryden's so that it was impossible for him to write at any
length without writing here and there wonderfully, yet he had, almost
necessarily, less absolute command of it. Dryden's was an intellectual
mastery that practically never failed him either in prose or verse.
He is not considered to have had any natural gift for comedy. Hazlitt
says: "Dryden's comedies have all the point that there is in ribaldry,
and all the humour that there is in extravagance. I am sorry that I
can say nothing better of them. He was not at home in this kind of
writing, of which he was himself conscious. His play was _horse-play_.
His wit (what there is of it) is ingenious and scholar-like, rather
than natural and dramatic," and more recent critics have suggested that
Dryden was unfitted for the new comedy that became universal after the
Restoration--the comedy that held a mirror up to Society rather than to
Nature--since Dryden "was not much a man of society."
It seems to me that this last criticism is largely true, but if he is
not witty in the sense that Congreve and Sheridan are witty, he is
often quite as amusing, and I cannot altogether agree with Hazlitt's
pronouncement that his wit was "ingenious and scholar-like rather than
natural and dramatic." Nothing could be more natural, for example,
than the Epilogue to _Marriage à la Mode_, spoken by Rhodophil, which
convulsed the house at the Lyric Theatre, and I doubt if it would be
possible to find among all the Restoration Comedies an Epilogue so
"dramatic"--revealing such insight into the feelings aroused by the
play in the audience, and making such effective use of that knowledge.
When Rhodophil says:
There are more Rhodophils in this theatre,
More Palamedes, and some few wives, I fear:
But yet too far our poet would not run;
Though 'twas well offered, there was nothing done.
He would not quite the women's frailty bare,
But stript them to the waist, and left them there:
And the men's faults are less severely shown,
For he considers that himself is one--
Some stabbing wits, to bloody satire bent,
Would treat both sexes with less compliment;
Would lay the scene at home; of husbands tell,
For wenches taking up their wives i' the Mall;
And a brisk bout, which each of them did want
Made by mistake of mistress and gallant.
Our modest author thought it was enough
To cut you off a sample of the stuff:
He spared my shame, which you, I'm sure, would not.
For you were all for driving on the plot:
You sighed when I came in to break the sport,
And set your teeth when each design fell short.
The audience at the Phœnix Society rose with uproarious laughter to
each hit, it was so palpable. Again I find all the comedy scenes, the
scenes between Palamede, Doralice, Rhodophil, and Melantha wholly
admirable and exhilarating to a degree. I would almost gladly give
up the whole of Congreve and Sheridan for this poetical, extravagant
and romantic humour. The name of poet still clung to dramatic wits
in the time of Congreve, and Congreve had perhaps some slight excuse
for calling himself a poet, but when the eighteenth century had
really arrived, when the abominable Sheridan came we had got into a
prose age indeed. And yet I have no wish to call Sheridan--and still
less Congreve--abominable, except by comparison with Dryden. We also
have to acknowledge that the cultivation of verbal wit, of repartee,
of elaborate social rococo, was the expression of the poetic fire
instinctively preserving itself in an age so spiritually unfavourable
to romance that it had to make itself externally romantic. Having lost
imagination it fell back on decoration. A whole elaborate social ritual
was built up to provide stimulants to the imprisoned senses. When in
_The Way of the World_ Mrs. Millamant says to Mirabell:
Good Mirabell, don't let us be familiar or fond, nor kiss before
folks, like my Lady Fadler and Sir Francis: nor go to Hyde Park
together the first Sunday in a new chariot, to provoke eyes and
whispers, and then never to be seen there together again; as if we
were proud of one another the first week, and ashamed of one another
ever after. Let us never visit together nor go to a play together;
but let us be very strange and well-bred: let us be as strange as if
we had been married a great while, and as well-bred as if we were not
married at all.
It is a _cri-de-cœur_. It is of the very essence of poetry in a narrow
and worldly age. It is such passages in Congreve that justify Hazlitt
in declaring--by comparison--that Dryden's wit was scholar-like rather
than natural, for there is not a passage in Dryden's comedies so real,
in the sense of being so local an expression of that passion for
beauty which haunts the human heart and which in a society of the kind
in which Mrs. Millamant moved will find such odd embodiment and be
to ordinary eyes so completely disguised. In such a passage Congreve
proves his right to be called a poet. What poetry there is in the
society with which he is dealing he has expressed; for that appeal of
the fine lady to Mirabell was a clutching at straws, a last despairing
attempt at the preservation of some particle of beauty, of romance in
the sordid life in which the married woman of fashion was about to be
engulfed.
The poetry of this scene reaches back to the beautiful scene in
_Marriage à la Mode_ between Palmyra and Leonidas, though, as I have
said, Dryden is more romantic, and so neither Palmyra nor Leonidas
are of any age, they are merely the youth of all time. But surely no
one can read the following passage without being moved to admiration
of its beautiful ease, its romantic simplicity as contrasted with the
romantic luxuriousness of the Elizabethans:
LEON.: How precious are the hours of love in courts!
In cottages, when love has all the day,
Full, and at ease, he throws it half away.
Time gives himself, and is not valued, there;
But sells at mighty rates, each minute, here:
There, he is lazy, unemployed, and slow;
Here he's more swift; and yet has more to do.
So many of his hours in public move,
That few are left for privacy and love.
PALM.: The sun, methinks, shines faint and dimly, here;
Light is not half so long, nor half so clear:
But oh! when every day was yours or mine,
How early up! what haste he made to shine!
LEON.: Such golden days a prince must hope to see,
Whose every subject is more blessed than he.
PALM.: Do you remember when their tasks were done,
How all the youth did to our cottage run?
While winter-winds were whistling loud without,
Our cheerful hearth was circled round about:
With strokes in ashes, maids their lovers drew;
And still you fell to me, and I to you.
LEON.: When love did of my heart possession take,
I was so young my soul was scarce awake:
I cannot tell when first I thought you fair;
But sucked in love, insensibly as air.
PALM.: I know too well when first my love began,
When at our wake you for the chaplet ran:
Then I was made the Lady of the May,
And, with the garland, at its goal did stay:
Still as you ran, I kept you full in view;
I hoped, and wished, and ran, methought, for you.
As you came near, I hastily did rise,
And stretched my arm outright, that held the prize.
The custom was to kiss whom I should crown;
You kneeled, and in my lap your head laid down:
I blushed, and blushed, and did the kiss delay;
At last my subjects forced me to obey:
But, when I gave the crown, and then the kiss,
I scarce had breath to say, Take that--and this.
The whole of this beautiful scene was delightful on the stage, and by
Palmyra (Miss Rita Thom), in particular, the verse was exquisitely
spoken. One had that experience, rare indeed in the modern theatre, of
subconsciously feeling that the whole audience was hanging on the words.
Again, what could be finer in its way than the scene--greatly
helped by the stage-production at the Lyric Theatre, and by Mr.
Norman Wilkinson's setting giving it an appropriate atmosphere of
masquerade--where Doralice and Melantha are in boys' habits? Here
Melantha's French affectation is used with the greatest skill to bring
about a scene which is the very essence of romantic swagger. There are
few scenes, if any, in Congreve or Sheridan that equal in wit this
repartee between the pretended boys, Doralice and Melantha, egged on
by Palamede and Rhodophil, leading up to Melantha's final extravagance:
I'll sacrifice my life for French poetry,
and the audience rocked with laughter at Miss Athene Seyler (Melantha)
and Miss Cathleen Nesbitt (Doralice), who were superb in their
representation of the parts.
Whenever these old comedies are revived there is always bound to
spring up from somewhere a demand that they should be bowdlerized.
Really the misplaced squeamishness of some men and women is something
to marvel at! I have seen nearly every revue, musical comedy, and
play that has been produced in London during the last two years, and
I declare unhesitatingly that there is something radically wrong
with the mentality of the people who can go habitually to the London
theatres and music-halls and yet find that there is anything "filthy"
about Dryden. Certainly there is no innuendo in Dryden, he is frankly
outspoken. But filthy! Shade of Charles Lamb! What is to be done with
such people? Not once during the whole performance of _Marriage à la
Mode_ was there an occasion when the most sensitive of young girls
could have felt even momentarily uncomfortable. Such was far from being
the case with a play that had quite a long run at a London theatre not
long ago, to which, as far as I know, no one objected!