THE THEORY OF THE DRAMA
ARISTOTLE'S definition of tragedy is the basis of the Renaissance theory
of tragedy. That definition is as follows: "Tragedy is an imitation of
an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in
language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several
kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action,
not of narration; through pity and fear effecting the proper _katharsis_
or purgation of these emotions."[109]
To expand this definition, tragedy, in common with all other forms of
poetry, is the imitation of an action; but the action of tragedy is
distinguished from that of comedy in being grave and serious. The action
is complete, in so far as it possesses perfect unity; and in length it
must be of the proper magnitude. By embellished language, Aristotle
means language into which rhythm, harmony, and song enter; and by the
remark that the several kinds are to be found in separate parts of the
play, he means that some parts of tragedy are rendered through the
medium of verse alone, while others receive the aid of song. Moreover,
tragedy is distinguished from epic poetry by being in the form of
action instead of that of narration. The last portion of Aristotle's
definition describes the peculiar function of tragic performance.
I. _The Subject of Tragedy_
Tragedy is the imitation of a _serious_ action, that is, an action both
grave and great, or, as the sixteenth century translated the word,
illustrious. Now, what constitutes a serious action, and what actions
are not suited to the dignified character of tragedy? Daniello (1536)
distinguishes tragedy from comedy in that the comic poets "deal with the
most familiar and domestic, not to say base and vile operations; the
tragic poets, with the deaths of high kings and the ruins of great
empires."[110] Whichever of these matters the poet selects should be
treated without admixture of any other form; if he resolves to treat of
grave matters, mere loveliness should be excluded; if of themes of
loveliness, he should exclude all grave themes. Here, at the very
beginning of dramatic discussion, the strict separation of themes or
_genres_ is advocated in as formal a manner as ever during the period of
classicism; and this was never deviated from, at least in theory, by any
of the writers of the sixteenth century. Moreover, according to
Daniello, the dignified character of tragedy demands that all unseemly,
cruel, impossible, or ignoble incidents should be excluded from the
stage; while even comedy should not attempt to represent any lascivious
act.[111] This was merely a deduction from Senecan tragedy and the
general practice of the classics.
There is, in Daniello's theory of tragedy, no single Aristotelian
element, and it was not until about a decade later that Aristotle's
theory of tragedy played any considerable part in the literary criticism
of the sixteenth century. In 1543, however, the _Poetics_ had already
become a part of university study, for Giraldi Cintio, in his _Discorso
sulle Comedie e sulle Tragedie_, written in that year, says that it was
a regular academic exercise to compare some Greek tragedy, such as the
_Oedipus_ of Sophocles, with a tragedy of Seneca on the same subject,
using the _Poetics_ of Aristotle as a dramatic text-book.[112] Giraldi
distinguishes tragedy from comedy on somewhat the same grounds as
Daniello. "Tragedy and comedy," he says, "agree in that they are both
imitations of an action, but they differ in that the former imitates the
illustrious and royal, the latter the popular and civil. Hence Aristotle
says that comedy imitates the worse sort of actions, not that they are
vicious and criminal, but that, as regards nobility, they are worse when
compared with royal actions." Giraldi's position is made clear by his
further statement that the actions of tragedy are called illustrious,
not because they are virtuous or vicious, but merely because they are
the actions of people of the highest rank.[113]
This conception of the serious action of tragedy, which makes its
dignity the result of the rank of those who are its actors, and thus
regards rank as the real distinguishing mark between comedy and tragedy,
was not only common throughout the Renaissance, but even throughout the
whole period of classicism, and had an extraordinary effect on the
modern drama, especially in France. Thus Dacier (1692) says that it is
not necessary that the action be illustrious and important in itself:
"On the contrary, it may be very ordinary or common; but it must be so
by the quality of the persons who act.... The greatness of these eminent
men renders the action great, and their reputation makes it credible and
possible."[114]
Again, Robortelli (1548) maintains that tragedy deals only with the
greater sort of men (_praestantiores_), because the fall of men of such
rank into misery and disgrace produces greater commiseration (which is,
as will be seen, one of the functions of tragedy) than the fall of men
of merely ordinary rank. Another commentator on the _Poetics_, Maggi
(1550), gives a slightly different explanation of Aristotle's meaning.
Maggi asserts that Aristotle,[115] in saying that comedy deals with the
worse and tragedy with the better sort of men, means to distinguish
between those whose rank is lower or higher than that of ordinary men;
comedy dealing with slaves, tradesmen, maidservants, buffoons, and other
low people, tragedy with kings and heroes.[116] This explanation is
defended on grounds similar to those given by Robortelli, that is, the
change from felicity to infelicity is greater and more noticeable in the
greatest men.[117]
This conception of the rank of the characters as the distinguishing mark
between tragedy and comedy is, it need not be said, entirely
un-Aristotelian. "Aristotle does undoubtedly hold," says Professor
Butcher, "that actors in tragedy ought to be illustrious by birth and
position. The narrow and trivial life of obscure persons cannot give
scope for a great and significant action, one of tragic consequence. But
nowhere does he make outward rank the distinguishing feature of tragic
as opposed to comic representation. Moral nobility is what he demands;
and this--on the French stage, or at least with French critics--is
transformed into an inflated dignity, a courtly etiquette and decorum,
which seemed proper to high rank. The instance is one of many in which
literary critics have wholly confounded the teaching of Aristotle."[118]
This distinction, then, though common up to the end of the eighteenth
century, is not to be found in Aristotle; but the fact is, that a
similar distinction can be traced, throughout the Middle Ages,
throughout classical antiquity, back almost to the time of Aristotle
himself.
The grammarian, Diomedes, has preserved the definition of tragedy
formulated by Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor as head of the
Peripatetic school. According to this definition, tragedy is "a change
in the fortune of a hero."[119] A Greek definition of comedy preserved
by Diomedes, and ascribed to Theophrastus also,[120] speaks of comedy as
dealing with private and civil fortunes, without the element of danger.
This seems to have been the accepted Roman notion of comedy. In the
treatise of Euanthius-Donatus, comedy is said to deal with the common
fortunes of men, to begin turbulently, but to end tranquilly and
happily; tragedy, on the other hand, has only mighty personages, and
ends terribly; its subject is often historical, while that of comedy is
always invented by the poet.[121] The third book of Diomedes's _Ars
Grammatica_, based on Suetonius's tractate _De Poetis_ (written in the
second century A.D.), distinguishes tragedy from comedy in that only
heroes, great leaders, and kings are introduced in tragedy, while in
comedy the characters are humble and private persons; in the former,
lamentations, exiles, bloodshed predominate, in the latter, love affairs
and seductions.[122] Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, says
very much the same thing: "Comic poets treat of the acts of private men,
while tragic poets treat of public matters and the histories of kings;
tragic themes are based on sorrowful affairs, comic themes on joyful
ones."[123] In another place he speaks of tragedy as dealing with the
ancient deeds and misdeeds of infamous kings, and of comedy as dealing
with the actions of private men, and with the defilement of maidens and
the love affairs of strumpets.[124] In the _Catholicon_ of Johannes
Januensis de Balbis (1286) tragedy and comedy are distinguished on
similar grounds: tragedy deals only with kings and princes, comedy with
private citizens; the style of the former is elevated, that of the
latter humble; comedy begins sorrowfully and ends joyfully, tragedy
begins joyfully and ends miserably and terribly.[125] For Dante, any
poem written in an elevated and sublime style, beginning happily and
ending in misery and terror, is a tragedy; his own great vision, written
as it is in the vernacular, and beginning in hell and ending gloriously
in paradise, he calls a comedy.[126]
It appears, therefore, that during the post-classic period and
throughout the Middle Ages, comedy and tragedy were distinguished on any
or all of the following grounds:--
i. The characters in tragedy are kings, princes, or great leaders; those
in comedy, humble persons and private citizens.
ii. Tragedy deals with great and terrible actions; comedy with familiar
and domestic actions.
iii. Tragedy begins happily and ends terribly; comedy begins rather
turbulently and ends joyfully.
iv. The style and diction of tragedy are elevated and sublime; while
those of comedy are humble and colloquial.
v. The subjects of tragedy are generally historical; those of comedy are
always invented by the poet.
vi. Comedy deals largely with love and seduction; tragedy with exile and
bloodshed.
This, then, was the tradition that shaped the un-Aristotelian conception
of the distinctions between comedy and tragedy, which persisted
throughout and even beyond the Renaissance. Giraldi Cintio has followed
most of these traditional distinctions, but he is in closer accord with
Aristotle[127] when he asserts that the tragic as well as the comic plot
may be purely imaginary and invented by the poet.[128] He explains the
traditional conception that the tragic fable should be historical, on
the ground that as tragedy deals with the deeds of kings and illustrious
men, it would not be probable that remarkable actions of such great
personages should be left unrecorded in history, whereas the private
events treated in comedy could hardly be known to all. Giraldi, however,
asserts that it does not matter whether the tragic poet invents his
story or not, so long as it follows the law of probability. The poet
should choose an action that is probable and dignified, that does not
need the intervention of a god in the unravelling of the plot, that does
not occupy much more than the space of a day, and that can be
represented on the stage in three or four hours.[129] In respect to the
denouement of tragedy, it may be happy or unhappy, but in either case it
must arouse pity and terror; and as for the classic notion that no
deaths should be represented on the stage, Giraldi declares that those
which are not excessively painful may be represented, for they are
represented not for the sake of commiseration but of justice. The
argument here centres about Aristotle's phrase [Greek: en to phanero
thanatoi],[130] but the common practice of classicism was based on
Horace's express prohibition:--
"Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet."[131]
Giraldi gives it as a universal rule of the drama that nothing should be
represented on the stage which could not with propriety be done in one's
own house.[132]
Scaliger's treatment of the dramatic forms is particularly interesting
because of its great influence on the neo-classical drama. He defines
tragedy as an imitation of an illustrious event, ending unhappily,
written in a grave and weighty style, and in verse.[133] Here he has
discarded, or at least disregarded, the Aristotelian definition of
tragedy, in favor of the traditional conception which had come down
through the Middle Ages. Real tragedy, according to Scaliger, is
entirely serious; and although there are a few happy endings in ancient
tragedy, the unhappy ending is most proper to the spirit of tragedy
itself. _Mortes aut exilia_--these are the fit accompaniments of the
tragic catastrophe.[134] The action begins tranquilly, but ends
horribly; the characters are kings and princes, from cities, castles,
and camps; the language is grave, polished, and entirely opposed to
colloquial speech; the aspect of things is troubled, with terrors,
menaces, exiles, and deaths on every hand. Taking as his model Seneca,
whom he rates above all the Greeks in majesty,[135] he gives as the
typical themes of tragedy "the mandates of kings, slaughters, despairs,
executions, exiles, loss of parents, parricides, incests,
conflagrations, battles, loss of sight, tears, shrieks, lamentations,
burials, epitaphs, and funeral songs."[136] Tragedy is further
distinguished from comedy on the ground that the latter derives its
argument and its chief characters from history, inventing merely the
minor characters; while comedy invents its arguments and all its
characters, and gives them names of their own. Scaliger distinguishes
men, for the purposes of dramatic poetry, according to character and
rank;[137] but it would seem that he regarded rank alone as the
distinguishing mark between tragedy and comedy. Thus tragedy is made to
differ from comedy in three things: in the rank of the characters, in
the quality of the actions, and in their different endings; and as a
result of these differences, in style also.
The definition of tragedy given by Minturno, in his treatise _De Poeta_
(1559), is merely a paraphrase of Aristotle's. He conceives of tragedy
as describing _casus heroum cuius sibi quisque fortunae fuerit faber_,
and it thus acts as a warning to men against pride of rank, insolence,
avarice, lust, and similar passions.[138] It is grave and illustrious
because its characters are illustrious; and no variety of persons or
events should be introduced that are not in keeping with the calamitous
ending. The language throughout must be grave and severe; and Minturno
has expressed his censure in such matters by the phrase, _poema amatorio
mollique sermone effoeminat_,[139] a censure which would doubtless apply
to a large portion of classic French tragedy.
In Castelvetro (1570) we find a far more complete theory of the drama
than had been attempted by any of his predecessors. His work is by no
means a model of what a commentary on Aristotle's _Poetics_ should be.
In the next century, Dacier, whose subservience to Aristotle was even
greater than that of any of the Italians, accuses Castelvetro of lacking
every quality necessary to a good interpreter of Aristotle. "He knew
nothing," says Dacier, "of the theatre, or of character, or of the
passions; he understood neither the reasons nor the method of Aristotle;
and he sought rather to contradict Aristotle than to explain him."[140]
The fact is that Castelvetro, despite considerable veneration for
Aristotle's authority, often shows remarkable independence of thought;
and so far from resting content, in his commentary, with the mere
explanation of the details of the _Poetics_, he has attempted to deduce
from it a more or less complete theory of poetic art. Accordingly,
though diverging from many of the details, and still more from the
spirit of the _Poetics_, he has, as it were, built up a dramatic system
of his own, founded upon certain modifications and misconceptions of the
Aristotelian canons. The fundamental idea of this system is quite
modern; and it is especially interesting because it indicates that by
this time the drama had become more than a mere academic exercise, and
was actually regarded as intended primarily for representation on the
stage. Castelvetro examines the physical conditions of stage
representation, and on this bases the requirements of dramatic
literature. The fact that the drama is intended for the stage, that it
is to be acted, is at the bottom of his theory of tragedy, and it was to
this notion, as will be seen later, that we are to attribute the origin
of the unities of time and place.
But Castelvetro's method brings with it its own _reductio ad absurdum_.
For after all, stage representation, while essential to the production
of dramatic literature, can never circumscribe the poetic power or
establish its conditions. The conditions of stage representation change,
and must change, with the varying conditions of dramatic literature and
the inventive faculty of poets, for truly great art makes, or at least
fixes, its own conditions. Besides, it is with what is permanent and
universal that the artist--the dramatic artist as well as the rest--is
concerned; and it is the poetic, and not the dramaturgic, element that
is permanent and universal. "The power of tragedy, we may be sure," says
Aristotle, "is felt even apart from representation and actors;"[141] and
again: "The plot [of a tragedy] ought to be so constructed that even
without the aid of the eye any one who is told the incidents will thrill
with horror and pity at the turn of events."[142]
But what, according to Castelvetro, are the conditions of stage
representation? The theatre is a public place, in which a play is
presented before a motley crowd,--_la moltitudine rozza_,--upon a
circumscribed platform or stage, within a limited space of time. To this
idea the whole of Castelvetro's dramatic system is conformed. In the
first place, since the audience may be great in number, the theatre must
be large, and yet the audience must be able to hear the play;
accordingly, verse is added, not merely as a delightful accompaniment,
but also in order that the actors may raise their voices without
inconvenience and without loss of dignity.[143] In the second place, the
audience is not a select gathering of choice spirits, but a motley crowd
of people, drawn to the theatre for the purpose of pleasure or
recreation; accordingly, abstruse themes, and in fact all technical
discussions, must be eschewed by the playwright, who is thus limited, as
we should say to-day, to the elemental passions and interests of
man.[144] In the third place, the actors are required to move about on a
raised and narrow platform; and this is the reason why deaths or deeds
of violence, and many other things which cannot be acted on such a
platform with convenience and dignity, should not be represented in the
drama.[145] Furthermore, as will be seen later, it is on this conception
of the circumscribed platform and the physical necessities of the
audience and the actors, that Castelvetro bases his theory of the
unities of time and place.
In distinguishing the different _genres_, Castelvetro openly differs
with Aristotle. In the _Poetics_, Aristotle distinguishes men according
as they are better than we are, or worse, or the same as we are; and
from this difference the various species of poetry, tragic, comic, and
epic, are derived. Castelvetro thinks this mode of distinction not only
untrue, but even inconsistent with what Aristotle says later of tragedy.
Goodness and badness are to be taken account of, according to
Castelvetro, not to distinguish one form of poetry from another, but
merely in the special case of tragedy, in so far as a moderate virtue,
as Aristotle says, is best able to produce terror and pity. Poetry, as
indeed Aristotle himself acknowledges, is not an imitation of character,
or of goodness and badness, but of men acting; and the different kinds
of poetry are distinguished, not by the goodness and badness, or the
character, of the persons selected for imitation, but by their rank or
condition alone. The great and all-pervading difference between royal
and private persons is what distinguishes tragedy and epic poetry on the
one hand from comedy and similar forms of poetry on the other. It is
rank, then, and not intellect, character, action,--for these vary in men
according to their condition,--that differentiates one poetic form from
another; and the distinguishing mark of rank on the stage, and in
literature generally, is the bearing of the characters, royal persons
acting with propriety, and meaner persons with impropriety.[146]
Castelvetro has here escaped one pitfall, only to fall into another; for
while goodness and badness cannot, from any aesthetic standpoint, be made
to distinguish the characters of tragedy from those of comedy,--leaving
out of consideration here the question whether this was or was not the
actual opinion of Aristotle,--it is no less improper to make mere
outward rank or condition the distinguishing feature. Whether it be
regarded as an interpretation of Aristotle or as a poetic theory by
itself, Castelvetro's contention is, in either case, equally untenable.
II. _The Function of Tragedy_
No passage in Aristotle's _Poetics_ has been subjected to more
discussion, and certainly no passage has been more misunderstood, than
that in which, at the close of his definition of tragedy, he states its
peculiar function to be that of effecting through pity and fear the
proper purgation ([Greek: katharsis]) of these emotions. The more
probable of the explanations of this passage are, as Twining says,[147]
reducible to two. The first of these gives to Aristotle's _katharsis_ an
ethical meaning, attributing the effect of the tragedy to its moral
lesson and example. This interpretation was a literary tradition of
centuries, and may be found in such diverse writers as Corneille and
Lessing, Racine and Dryden, Dacier and Rapin. According to the second
interpretation, the purgation of the emotions produced by tragedy is an
emotional relief gained by the excitement of these emotions. Plato had
insisted that the drama excites passions, such as pity and fear, which
debase men's spirits; Aristotle in this passage answers that by the very
exaltation of these emotions they are given a pleasurable outlet, and
beyond this there is effected a purification of the emotions so
relieved. That is, the emotions are clarified and purified by being
passed through the medium of art, and by being, as Professor Butcher
points out, ennobled by objects worthy of an ideal emotion.[148] This
explanation gives no direct moral purpose or influence to the
_katharsis_, for tragedy acts on the feelings and not on the will. While
the ethical conception, of course, predominates in Italian criticism, as
it does throughout Europe up to the very end of the eighteenth century,
a number of Renaissance critics, among them Minturno and Speroni, even
if they failed to elaborate the further aesthetic meaning of Aristotle's
definition, at least perceived that Aristotle ascribed to tragedy an
emotional and not an ethical purpose. It is unnecessary to give a
detailed statement of the opinions of the various Italian critics on
this point; but it is essential that the interpretations of the more
important writers should be alluded to, since otherwise the Renaissance
conception of the function of the drama could not be understood.
Giraldi Cintio points out that the aim of comedy and of tragedy is
identical, viz. to conduce to virtue; but they reach this result in
different ways; for comedy attains its end by means of pleasure and
comic jests, while tragedy, whether it ends happily or unhappily, purges
the mind of vice through the medium of misery and terror, and thus
attains its moral end.[149] Elsewhere,[150] he affirms that the tragic
poet condemns vicious actions, and by combining them with the terrible
and the miserable makes us fear and hate them. In other words, men who
are bad are placed in such pitiable and terrible positions that we fear
to imitate their vices; and it is not a purgation of pity and fear, as
Aristotle says, but an eradication of all vice and vicious desire that
is effected by the tragic _katharsis_. Trissino, in the fifth section of
his _Poetica_ (1563), cites Aristotle's definition of tragedy; but makes
no attempt to elucidate the doctrine of _katharsis_. His conception of
the function of the drama is much the same as Giraldi's. It is the
office of the tragic poet, through the medium of imitation, to praise
and admire the good, while that of the comic poet is to mock and
vituperate the bad; for tragedy, as Aristotle says, deals with the
better sort of actions, and comedy with the worse.[151]
Robortelli (1548), however, ascribes a more aesthetic function to
tragedy. By the representation of sad and atrocious deeds, tragedy
produces terror and commiseration in the spectator's mind. The exercise
of terror and commiseration purges the mind of these very passions; for
the spectator, seeing things performed which are very similar to the
actual facts of life, becomes accustomed to sorrow and pity, and these
emotions are gradually diminished.[152] Moreover, by seeing the
sufferings of others, men sorrow less at their own, recognizing such
things as common to human nature. Robortelli's conception of the
function of tragedy is, therefore, not an ethical one; the effect of
tragedy is understood primarily as diminishing pity and fear in our
minds by accustoming us to the sight of deeds that produce these
emotions. A similar interpretation of the _katharsis_ is given by
Vettori (1560) and Castelvetro (1570).[153] The latter compares the
process of purgation with the emotions which are excited by a
pestilence. At first the infected populace is crazed by excitement, but
gradually becomes accustomed to the sight of the disease, and the
emotions of the people are thus tempered and allayed.
A somewhat different conception of _katharsis_ is that of Maggi.
According to him, we are to understand by purgation the liberation
through pity and fear of passions similar to these, but not pity and
fear themselves; for Maggi cannot understand how tragedy, which induces
pity and fear in the hearer, should at the same time remove these
perturbations.[154] Moreover, pity and fear are useful emotions, while
such passions as avarice, lust, anger, are certainly not. In another
place, Maggi, relying on citations from Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander
of Aphrodisias, explains the pleasure we receive from tragedy, by
pointing out that we feel sorrow by reason of the human heart within us,
which is carried out of itself by the sight of misery; while we feel
pleasure because it is human and natural to feel pity. Pleasure and pain
are thus fundamentally the same.[155] Varchi[156] is at one with Maggi
in interpreting the _katharsis_ as a purgation, not of pity and fear
themselves, but of emotions similar to them.
For Scaliger (1561) the aim of tragedy, like that of all poetry, is a
purely ethical one. It is not enough to move the spectators to
admiration and dismay, as some critics say AEschylus does; it is also the
poet's function to teach, to move, and to delight. The poet teaches
character through actions, in order that we should embrace and imitate
the good, and abstain from the bad. The joy of evil men is turned in
tragedy to bitterness, and the sorrow of good men to joy.[157] Scaliger
is here following the extreme view of poetic justice which we have found
expressed in so many of the Renaissance writers. In the last century,
Dr. Johnson, in censuring Shakespeare for the tragic fate meted out to
Cordelia and other blameless characters, showed himself an inheritor of
this Renaissance tradition, just as we shall see that Lessing was in
other matters. For Scaliger the moral aim of the drama is attained both
indirectly, by the representation of wickedness ultimately punished and
virtue ultimately rewarded, and more directly by the enunciation of
moral precepts throughout the play. With the Senecan model before him,
such precepts (_sententiae_) became the very props of tragedy,--_sunt
enim quasi columnae aut pilae quaedam universae fabricae illius_,--and so
they remained in modern classical tragedy. Minturno points out that
these _sententiae_ are to be used most in tragedy and least in epic
poetry.[158]
Minturno also follows Scaliger in conceiving that the purpose of tragedy
is to teach, to delight, and to move. It teaches by setting before us an
example of the life and manners of superior men, who by reason of human
error have fallen into extreme unhappiness. It delights us by the beauty
of its verse, its diction, its song, and the like. Lastly, it moves us
to wonder, by terrifying us and exciting our pity, thus purging our
minds of such matters. This process of purgation is likened by Minturno
to the method of a physician: "As a physician eradicates, by means of
poisonous medicine, the perfervid poison of disease which affects the
body, so tragedy purges the mind of its impetuous perturbations by the
force of these emotions beautifully expressed in verse."[159]
According to this interpretation of the _katharsis_, tragedy is a mode
of homoeopathic treatment, effecting the cure of one emotion by means of
a similar one; and we find Milton, in the preface to _Samson Agonistes_,
explaining the _katharsis_ in much the same manner:--
"Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the
gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems;
therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and
fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like
passions; that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure
with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those
passions well imitated. Nor is nature wanting in her own
effects to make good his assertion; for so in physic, things of
melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour
against sour, salt to remove salt humours."
This passage has been regarded by Twining, Bernays, and other modern
scholars as a remarkable indication of Milton's scholarship and critical
insight;[160] but after all, it need hardly be said, he was merely
following the interpretation of the Italian commentators on the
_Poetics_. Their writings he had studied and knew thoroughly, had
imbibed all the critical ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and in the
very preface from which we have just quoted, filled as it is with ideas
that may be traced back to Italian sources, he acknowledges following
"the ancients and Italians," as of great "authority and fame." Like
Milton, Minturno conceived of tragedy as having an ethical aim; but both
Milton and Minturno clearly perceived that by _katharsis_ Aristotle had
reference not to a moral, but to an emotional, effect.
One of the most interesting discussions on the meaning of the
_katharsis_ is to be found in a letter of Sperone Speroni[161] written
in 1565. His explanation of the passage itself is quite an impossible
one, if only on philological grounds; but his argument is very
interesting and very modern. He points out that pity and fear may be
conceived of as keeping the spirit of men in bondage, and hence it is
proper that we should be purged of these emotions. But he insists that
Aristotle cannot refer to the complete eradication of pity and fear--a
conception which is Stoic rather than Peripatetic, for Aristotle does
not require us to free ourselves from emotions, but to regulate them,
since in themselves they are not bad.
III. _The Characters of Tragedy_
Aristotle's conception of the ideal tragic hero is based on the
assumption that the function of tragedy is to produce the _katharsis_,
or purgation, of pity and fear,--"pity being felt for a person who, if
not wholly innocent, meets with suffering beyond his deserts; fear
being awakened when the sufferer is a man of like nature with
ourselves."[162] From this it follows that if tragedy represents the
fall of an entirely good man from prosperity to adversity, neither pity
nor fear is produced, and the result merely shocks and repels us. If an
entirely bad man is represented as undergoing a change from distress to
prosperity, not only do we feel no pity and no fear, but even the sense
of justice is left unsatisfied. If, on the contrary, such a man entirely
bad falls from prosperity into adversity and distress, the moral sense
is indeed satisfied, but without the tragic emotions of pity and fear.
The ideal hero is therefore morally between the two extremes, neither
eminently good nor entirely bad, though leaning to the side of goodness;
and the misfortune which falls upon him is the result of some great flaw
of character or fatal error of conduct.[163]
This conception of the tragic hero was the subject of considerable
discussion in the Renaissance; in fact, the first instance in Italian
criticism of the application of Aristotelian ideas to the theory of
tragedy is perhaps to be found in the reference of Daniello (1536) to
the tragic hero's fate. Daniello, however, understood Aristotle's
meaning very incompletely, for he points out that tragedy, in order to
imitate most perfectly the miserable and the terrible, should not
introduce just and virtuous men fallen into vice and injustice through
the adversity of fortune, for this is more wicked than it is miserable
and terrible, nor should evil men, on the contrary, be introduced as
changed by prosperity into good and just men.[164] Here Daniello
conceives of tragedy as representing the change of a man from vice to
virtue, or from virtue to vice, through the medium of prosperity or
misfortune. This is a curious misconception of Aristotle's meaning.
Aristotle refers, not to the ethical effect of tragedy, but to the
effect of the emotions of pity and terror upon the mind of the
spectator, although of course he does not wish the catastrophe to shock
the moral sense or the sense of justice.
Giraldi Cintio, some years after Daniello, follows Aristotle more
closely in the conception of the tragic hero; and he affirms, moreover,
that tragedy may end happily or unhappily so long as it inspires pity
and terror. Now, Aristotle has expressly stated his disapprobation of
the happy ending of tragedy, for in speaking of tragedies with a double
thread and a double catastrophe, that is, tragedies in which the good
are ultimately rewarded and the bad punished, he shows that such a
conclusion is decidedly against the general tragic effect.[165]
Scaliger's conception of the moral function of the tragic poet as
rewarding virtue and punishing vice is therefore inconsistent with the
Aristotelian conception; for, as Scaliger insists that every tragedy
should end unhappily, it follows that only the good must survive and
only the bad suffer. Another critic of this time, Capriano (1555),
points out that the fatal ending of tragedy is due to the inability of
certain illustrious men to conduct themselves with prudence; and this is
more in keeping with Aristotle's true meaning.[166]
It has been seen that Aristotle regarded a perfectly good man as not
fitted to be the ideal hero of tragedy. Minturno, however, asserts that
tragedy is grave and illustrious because its characters are illustrious,
and that therefore he can see no reason, despite Aristotle, why the
lives of perfect men or Christian saints should not be represented on
the stage, and why even the life of Christ would not be a fit subject
for tragedy.[167] This is, indeed, Corneille's opinion, and in the
_examen_ of his _Polyeucte_ he cites Minturno in justification of his
own case. As regards the other characters of tragedy, Minturno states a
curious distinction between characters fit for tragedy and those fit for
comedy.[168] In the first place, he points out that no young girls, with
the exception of female slaves, should appear in comedy, for the reason
that the women of the people do not appear in public until marriage, and
would be sullied by the company of the low characters of comedy, whereas
the maidens of tragedy are princesses, accustomed to meet and converse
with noblemen from girlhood. Secondly, married women are always
represented in comedy as faithful, in tragedy as unfaithful to their
husbands, for the reason that comedy concludes with friendship and
tranquillity, and unfaithful relations could never end happily, while
the love depicted in tragedy serves to bring about the tragic ruin of
great houses. Thirdly, in comedy old men are often represented as in
love, but never in tragedy, for an amorous old man is conducive to
laughter, which comedy aims at producing, but which would be wholly out
of keeping with the gravity required in tragedy. These distinctions are
of course deduced from the practice of the Latin drama--the tragedies of
Seneca on the one hand, and the comedies of Plautus and Terence on the
other.
In a certain passage of Aristotle's _Poetics_ there is a formulation of
the requirements of character-drawing in the drama.[169] In this passage
Aristotle says that the characters must be good; that they must be drawn
with propriety, that is, in keeping with the type to which they belong;
that they must be true to life, something quite distinct either from
goodness or propriety; and that the characters must be self-consistent.
This passage gave rise to a curious conception of character in the
Renaissance and throughout the period of classicism. According to this,
the conception of _decorum_, it was insisted that every old man should
have such and such characteristics, every young man certain others, and
so on for the soldier, the merchant, the Florentine or Parisian, and the
like. This fixed and formal mode of regarding character was connected
with the distinction of rank as the fundamental difference between the
characters of tragedy and comedy, and it was really founded on a
passage in Horace's _Ars Poetica_,--
"AEtatis cujusque notandi sunt tibi mores,"[170]
and on the rhetorical descriptions of the various characteristics of men
in the second book of Aristotle's _Rhetoric_.
The explanation of the Renaissance conception of _decorum_ may start
from either of two points of view. In the first place, it is to be noted
that Horace, and after him the critics of the Renaissance, set about to
transpose to the domain of poetry the tentative distinctions of
character formulated by Aristotle, in the _Rhetoric_, simply for the
purposes of rhetorical exposition. These distinctions, it must be
repeated, were rhetorical and not aesthetic, and they are therefore not
alluded to by Aristotle in the _Poetics_. The result of the attempt to
transpose them to the domain of poetry led to a hardening and
crystallization of character in the classic drama. But the aesthetic
misconception implied by such an attempt is only too obvious. In such a
system poetry is held accountable, not to the ideal truth of human life,
but to certain arbitrary, or at best merely empirical, formulae of
rhetorical theory. The Renaissance was in this merely doing for
character what was being done for all the other elements of art. Every
such element, when once discriminated and definitely formulated, became
fixed as a necessary and inviolable substitute for the reality which had
thus been analyzed.
But we may look at the principle of _decorum_ from another point of
view. A much deeper question--the question of social distinctions--is
here involved. The observance of _decorum_ necessitated the maintenance
of the social distinctions which formed the basis of Renaissance life
and of Renaissance literature. It was this same tendency which caused
the tragedy of classicism to exclude all but characters of the highest
rank. Speaking of narrative poetry, Muzio (1551), while allowing kings
to mingle with the masses, considers it absolutely improper for one of
the people, even for a moment, to assume the sceptre.[171] Accordingly,
men as distinguished by the accidents of rank, profession, country, and
not as distinguished by that only which art should take cognizance of,
character, became the subjects of the literature of classicism; and in
so far as this is true, that literature loses something of the
profundity and the universality of the highest art.
This element of _decorum_ is to be found in all the critics of the
Renaissance from the time of Vida[172] and Daniello.[173] So essential
became the observance of _decorum_ that Muzio and Capriano both
considered it the most serious charge to be made against Homer, that he
was not always observant of it. Capriano, comparing Virgil with Homer,
asserts that the Latin poet surpasses the Greek in eloquence, in
dignity, in grandeur of style, but beyond everything in _decorum_.[174]
The seeming vulgarity of some of Homer's similes, and even of the
actions of some of his characters, appeared to the Renaissance a most
serious blemish; and it was this that led Scaliger to rate Homer not
only below Virgil, but even below Musaeus. In Minturno and Scaliger we
find every detail of character minutely analyzed. The poet is told how
young men and old men should act, should talk, and should dress; and no
deviations from these fixed formulae were allowed under any
circumstances. As a result of this, even when the poet liberated himself
from these conceptions, and aimed at depicting character in its true
sense, we find character, but never the development of character,
portrayed in the neo-classic drama. The character was fixed from the
beginning of the play to the end; and it is here that we may find the
origin of Ben Jonson's conception of "humours." In one of Salviati's
lectures, _Del Trattato della Poetica_,[175] Salviati defines a humour
as "a peculiar quality of nature according to which every one is
inclined to some special thing more than to any other." This would apply
very distinctly to the sense in which the Elizabethans used the word.
Thus Jonson himself, in the Induction of _Every Man out of his Humour_,
after expounding the medical notion of a humour, says:--
"It may, by metaphor, apply itself
Unto the general disposition:
As when some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour."
The origin of the term "humour," in Jonson's sense, has never been
carefully studied. Jonson's editors speak of it as peculiar to the
English language, and as first used in this sense about Jonson's period.
It is not our purpose to go further into this question; but Salviati's
definition is close enough to Jonson's to indicate that the origin of
this term, as of all other critical terms and critical ideas throughout
sixteenth-century Europe, must be looked for in the aesthetic literature
of Italy.[176]
IV. _The Dramatic Unities_
In his definition of tragedy Aristotle says that the play must be
complete or perfect, that is, it must have unity. By unity of plot he
does not mean merely the unity given by a single hero, for, as he says,
"infinitely various are the incidents in one man's life which cannot be
reduced to unity; and so, too, there are many actions of one man out of
which we cannot make one action. Hence the error, as it appears, of all
poets who have composed a Heracleid, a Theseid, or other poems of the
kind. They imagine that as Heracles was one man, the story of Heracles
ought also to be a unity."[177] This is Aristotle's statement of the
unity of action. But what is the origin of the two other unities,--the
unities of time and place? There is in the _Poetics_ but a single
reference to the time-limit of the tragic action and none whatsoever to
the so-called unity of place. Aristotle says that the action of tragedy
and that of epic poetry differ in length, "for tragedy endeavors, so far
as possible, to confine itself to a single revolution of the sun, or but
slightly to exceed this limit; whereas the epic action has no limits of
time."[178] This passage is the incidental statement of an historical
fact; it is merely a tentative deduction from the usual practice of
Greek tragedy, and Aristotle never conceived of it as an inviolable law
of the drama. Of the three unities which play so prominent a part in
modern classical drama, the unity of action was the main, and, in fact,
the only unity which Aristotle knew or insisted on. But from his
incidental reference to the general time-limits of Greek tragedy, the
Renaissance formulated the unity of time, and deduced from it also the
unity of place, to which there is absolutely no reference either in
Aristotle or in any other ancient writer whatever. It is to the Italians
of the Renaissance, and not to the French critics of the seventeenth
century, that the world owes the formulation of the three unities. The
attention of scholars was first called to this fact about twenty years
ago, by the brochure of a Swiss scholar, H. Breitinger, on the unities
of Aristotle before Corneille's _Cid_; but the gradual development and
formulation of the three unities have never been systematically worked
out. We shall endeavor here to trace their history during the sixteenth
century, and to explain the processes by which they developed.
The first reference in modern literature to the doctrine of the unity of
time is to be found in Giraldi Cintio's _Discorso sulle Comedie e sulle
Tragedie_. He says that comedy and tragedy agree, among other things, in
the limitation of the action to one day or but little more;[179] and he
has thus for the first time converted Aristotle's statement of an
historical fact into a dramatic law. Moreover, he has changed
Aristotle's phrase, that tragedy limits itself "to a single revolution
of the sun," into the more definite expression of "a single day." He
points out that Euripides, in the _Heraclidae_, on account of the long
distance between the places in the action, had been unable to limit the
action to one day. Now, as Aristotle must have known many of the best
Greek dramas which are now lost, it was probably in keeping with the
practice of such dramas that their actions were not strictly confined
within the limits of one day. Aristotle, therefore, intentionally
allowed the drama a slightly longer space of time than a single day. The
unity of time, accordingly, becomes a part of the theory of the drama
between 1540 and 1545, but it was not until almost exactly a century
later that it became an invariable rule of the dramatic literature of
France and of the world.
In Robortelli (1548) we find Aristotle's phrase, "a single revolution
of the sun," restricted to the artificial day of twelve hours; for as
tragedy can contain only one single and continuous action, and as people
are accustomed to sleep in the night, it follows that the tragic action
cannot be continued beyond one artificial day. This holds good of comedy
as well as tragedy, for the length of the fable in each is the
same.[180] Segni (1549) differs from Robortelli, however, in regarding a
single revolution of the sun as referring not to the artificial day of
twelve hours, but to the natural day of twenty-four hours, because
various matters treated in tragedy, and even in comedy, are such as are
more likely to happen in the night (adulteries, murders, and the like);
and if it be said that night is naturally the time for repose, Segni
answers that unjust people act contrary to the laws of nature.[181] It
was about this time, then, that there commenced the historic controversy
as to what Aristotle meant by limiting tragedy to one day; and
three-quarters of a century later, in 1623, Beni could cite thirteen
different opinions of scholars on this question.
Trissino, in his _Poetica_ (1563), paraphrases as follows the passage in
Aristotle which refers to the unity of time: "They also differ in
length, for tragedy terminates in one day, that is, one period of the
sun, or but little more, while there is no time determined for epic
poetry, as indeed was the custom with tragedy and comedy at their
beginning, and is even to-day among ignorant poets."[182] Here for the
first time, as a French critic remarks, the observance of the unity of
time is made a distinction between the learned and the ignorant
poet.[183] It is evident that Trissino conceives of the unity of time as
an artistic principle which has helped to save dramatic poetry from the
formlessness and chaotic condition of the mediaeval drama. So that the
unity of time became not only a dramatic law, but one the observation of
which distinguished the dramatic artist from the mere ignorant compiler
of popular plays.
There is in none of the writers we have mentioned so far any reference
to the unity of place, for the simple reason that there is no allusion
to such a requirement for the drama in Aristotle's _Poetics_. Maggi's
discussion of the unity of time, in his commentary on the _Poetics_
(1550), is of particular interest as preparing the way for the third
unity. Maggi attempts to explain logically the reason for the unity of
time.[184] Why should tragedy be limited as to time, and not epic
poetry? According to him, this difference is to be explained by the fact
that the drama is represented on the stage before our eyes, and if we
should see the actions of a whole month performed in about the time it
takes to perform the play, that is, two or three hours, the performance
would be absolutely incredible. For example, says Maggi, if in a tragedy
we should send a messenger to Egypt, and he would return in an hour,
would not the spectator regard this as ridiculous? In the epic, on the
contrary, we do not see the actions performed, and so do not feel the
need of limiting them to any particular time. Now, it is to be noted
here that this limitation of time is based on the idea of
representation. The duration of the action of the drama itself must
fairly coincide with the duration of its representation on the stage.
This is the principle which led to the acceptance of the unity of place,
and upon which it is based. Limit the time of the action to the time of
representation, and it follows that the place of the action must be
limited to the place of representation. Such a limitation is of course a
piece of realism wholly out of keeping with the true dramatic illusion;
but it was almost exclusively in the drama that classicism tended toward
a minuter realism than could be justified by the Aristotelian canons. In
Maggi the beginnings of the unity of place are evident, inasmuch as he
finds that the requirements of the representation do not permit a
messenger or any character in the drama to be sent very far from the
place where the action is being performed. The closer action and
representation coincide, the clearer becomes the necessity of a
limitation in place as well as in time; and it was on this principle
that Scaliger and Castelvetro, somewhat later, formulated the three
unities.
There is, indeed, in Scaliger (1561) no direct statement of the unity of
time; but the reference to it is nevertheless unmistakable. First of
all, Scaliger requires that the events be so arranged and disposed that
they approach nearest to actual truth (_ut quam proxime accedant ad
veritatem_).[185] This is equivalent to saying that the duration of the
action, its place, its mode of procedure, must correspond more or less
exactly with the representation itself. The dramatic poet must aim,
beyond all things, at reproducing the actual conditions of life. The
_verisimile_, the _vraisemblable_, in the etymological sense of these
words, must be the final criterion of dramatic composition. It is not
sufficient that the spectator should be satisfied with the action as
typical of similar actions in life. An absolutely perfect illusion must
prevail; the spectator must be moved by the actions of the play exactly
as if they were those of real life.
This notion of the _verisimile_, and of its effect of perfect illusion
on the spectator's mind, prevailed throughout the period of classicism,
and was vigorously defended by no less a critic than Voltaire himself.
Accordingly, as Maggi first pointed out, if the playwright, in the few
hours it takes to represent the whole play, requires one of his
characters to perform an action that cannot be done in less than a
month, this impression of actual truth and perfect illusion will not be
left on the spectator's mind. "Therefore," says Scaliger, "those battles
and assaults which take place about Thebes in the space of two hours do
not please me; no sensible poet should make any one move from Delphi to
Thebes, or from Thebes to Athens, in a moment's time. Agamemnon is
buried by AEschylus after being killed, and Lichas is hurled into the sea
by Hercules; but this cannot be represented without violence to truth.
Accordingly, the poet should choose the briefest possible argument, and
should enliven it by means of episodes and details.... Since the whole
play is represented on the stage in six or eight hours, it is not in
accordance with the exact appearance of truth (_haud verisimile est_)
that within that brief space of time a tempest should arise and a
shipwreck occur, out of sight of land."
The observance of the unity of time could not be demanded in clearer or
more forcible terms than this. But it is a mistake to construe this
passage into a statement of the unity of place.[186] When Scaliger says
that the poet should not move any one of the characters from Delphi to
Thebes, or from Thebes to Athens, in a moment's time, he is referring to
the exigencies, not of place, but of time. In this, as in many other
things, he is merely following Maggi, who, as we have seen, says that it
is ridiculous for a dramatist to have a messenger go to Egypt with a
message and return in an hour. The characters, according to Scaliger,
should not move from Delphi to Thebes in a moment, not because the
action need necessarily occur in one single place, but because the
characters cannot with any appearance of truth go a great distance in a
short space of time. This is an approach to the unity of place, and had
Scaliger followed his contention to its logical conclusion, he must
certainly have formulated the three unities. But by requiring the action
to be disposed with the greatest possible approach to the actual truth,
or, in other words, by insisting that the action must coincide with the
representation, Scaliger helped more than any of his predecessors to the
final recognition of the unity of place.
In Minturno[187] and in Vettori[188] we find a tendency to restrict the
duration of the epic as well as the tragic action. It has been seen that
Aristotle distinctly says that while the action of tragedy generally
endeavors to confine itself within a period of about one day, that of
epic poetry has no determined time. Minturno, however, alludes to the
unity of time in the following words: "Whoever examines well the works
of the most esteemed ancient writers, will find that the action
represented on the stage is terminated in one day, or does not pass
beyond the space of two days; while the epic has a longer period of
time, except that its action cannot exceed one year in duration."[189]
This limitation Minturno deduces from the practice of Homer and
Virgil.[190] The action of the _Iliad_ begins in the tenth year of the
Trojan war, and lasts one year; the action of the _AEneid_ begins in the
seventh year after the departure of AEneas from Troy, and also lasts one
year.
Castelvetro, however, was the first theorist to formulate the unity of
place, and thus to give the three unities their final form. We have
seen that Castelvetro's theory of the drama was based entirely upon the
notion of stage representation. All the essentials of dramatic
literature are thus fixed by the exigencies of the stage. The stage is a
circumscribed space, and the play must be performed upon it within a
period of time limited by the physical necessities of the spectators. It
is from these two facts that Castelvetro deduces the unities of time and
place. While asserting that Aristotle held it as _cosa fermissima e
verissima_ that the tragic action cannot exceed the length of an
artificial day of twelve hours, he does not think that Aristotle himself
understood the real reason of this limitation.[191] In the seventh
chapter of the _Poetics_ Aristotle says that the length of the plot is
limited by the possibility of its being carried in the memory of the
spectator conveniently at one time. But this, it is urged, would
restrict the epic as well as the tragic fable to one day. The difference
between epic and dramatic poetry in this respect is to be found in the
essential difference between the conditions of narrative and scenic
poetry.[192] Narrative poetry can in a short time narrate things that
happen in many days or months or even years; but scenic poetry, which
spends as many hours in representing things as it actually takes to do
them in life, does quite otherwise. In epic poetry words can present to
our intellect things distant in space and time; but in dramatic poetry
the whole action occurs before our eyes, and is accordingly limited to
what we can actually see with our own senses, that is, to that brief
duration of time and to that small amount of space in which the actors
are occupied in acting, and not any other time or place. But as the
restricted place is the stage, so the restricted time is that in which
the spectators can at their ease remain sitting through a continuous
performance; and this time, on account of the physical necessities of
the spectators, such as eating, drinking, and sleeping, cannot well go
beyond the duration of one revolution of the sun. So that not only is
the unity of time an essential dramatic requirement, but it is in fact
impossible for the dramatist to do otherwise even should he desire to do
so--a conclusion which is of course the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the
whole argument.
In another place Castelvetro more briefly formulates the law of the
unities in the definitive form in which it was to remain throughout the
period of classicism: "La mutatione tragica non puo tirar con esso seco
se non una giornata e un luogo."[193] The unities of time and place are
for Castelvetro so very important that the unity of action, which is for
Aristotle the only essential of the drama, is entirely subordinated to
them. In fact, Castelvetro specifically says that the unity of action is
not essential to the drama, but is merely made expedient by the
requirements of time and place. "In comedy and tragedy," he says, "there
is usually one action, not because the fable is unfitted to contain more
than one action, but because the restricted space in which the action
is represented, and the limited time, twelve hours at the very most, do
not permit of a multitude of actions."[194] In a similar manner
Castelvetro applies the law of the unities to epic poetry. Although the
epic action can be accomplished in many places and at diverse times, yet
as it is more commendable and pleasurable to have a single action, so it
is better for the action to confine itself to a short time and to but
few places. In other words, the more the epic attempts to restrict
itself to the unities of place and time, the better, according to
Castelvetro, it will be.[195] Moreover, Castelvetro was not merely the
first one to formulate the unities in their definitive form, but he was
also the first to insist upon them as inviolable laws of the drama; and
he refers to them over and over again in the pages of his commentary on
the _Poetics_.[196]
This then is the origin of the unities. Our discussion must have made it
clear how little they deserve the traditional title of Aristotelian
unities, or as a recent critic with equal inaccuracy calls them, the
Scaligerian unities (_unites scaligeriennes_).[197] Nor were they, as we
have seen, first formulated in France, though this was the opinion of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thus Dryden says that "the
unity of place, however it might be practised by the ancients, was
never one of their rules: we neither find it in Aristotle, Horace, or
any who have written of it, till in our age the French poets first made
it a precept of the stage."[198] It may be said, therefore, that just as
the unity of action is _par excellence_ the Aristotelian unity, so the
unities of time and place are beyond a doubt the Italian unities. They
enter the critical literature of Europe from the time of Castelvetro,
and may almost be said to be the last contributions of Italy to literary
criticism. Two years after their formulation by Castelvetro they were
introduced into France, and a dozen years after this formulation, into
England. It was not until 1636, however, that they became fixed in
modern dramatic literature, as a result of the _Cid_ controversy. This
is approximately a hundred years after the first mention of the unity of
time in Italian criticism.
V. _Comedy_
The treatment of comedy in the literary criticism of this period is
entirely confined to a discussion and elaboration of the little that
Aristotle says on the subject of comedy in the _Poetics_. Aristotle, it
will be remembered, had distinguished tragedy from comedy in that the
former deals with the nobler, the latter with the baser, sort of
actions. Comedy is an imitation of characters of a lower type than those
of tragedy,--characters of a lower type indeed, but not in the full
sense of the word bad. "The ludicrous is merely a subdivision of the
ugly. It may be defined as a defect or ugliness which is not painful or
destructive. Thus, for example, the comic mask is ugly and distorted,
but does not cause pain."[199] From these few hints the Italian
theorists constructed a body of comic doctrine. There is, however, in
the critical literature of this period no attempt to explain the theory
of the indigenous Italian comedy, the _commedia dell' arte_. The
classical comedies of Plautus and Terence were the models, and
Aristotle's _Poetics_ the guide, of all the discussions on comedy during
the Renaissance. The distinction between the characters of comedy and
tragedy has already been explained in sufficient detail. All that
remains to be done in treating of comedy is to indicate as briefly as
possible such definitions of it as were formulated by the Renaissance,
and the special function which the Renaissance understood comedy to
possess.
According to Trissino (1563), the comic poet deals only with base
things, and for the single purpose of chastising them. As tragedy
attains its moral end through the medium of pity and fear, comedy does
so by means of the chastisement and vituperation of things that are base
and evil.[200] The comic poet, however, is not to deal with all sorts of
vices, but only such as give rise to ridicule, that is, the jocose
actions of humble and unknown persons. Laughter proceeds from a certain
delight or pleasure arising from the sight of objects of ugliness.
We do not laugh at a beautiful woman, a gorgeous jewel, or beautiful
music; but a distortion or deformity, such as a silly speech, an ugly
face, or a clumsy movement, makes us laugh. We do not laugh at the
benefits of others; the finder of a purse, for example, arouses not
laughter but envy. But we do laugh at some one who has fallen into the
mud, because, as Lucretius says, it is sweet to find in others some evil
not to be found in ourselves. Yet great evils, so far from causing us to
laugh, arouse pity and fear, because we are apprehensive lest such
things should happen to us. Hence we may conclude that a slight evil
which is neither sad nor destructive, and which we perceive in others
but do not believe to be in ourselves, is the primary cause of the
ludicrous.[201] In Maggi's treatise, _De Ridiculis_, appended to his
commentary on the _Poetics_, the Aristotelian conception of the
ridiculous is accepted, with the addition of the element of _admiratio_.
Maggi insists on the idea of suddenness or novelty; for we do not laugh
at painless ugliness if it be very familiar or long continued.[202]
According to Robortelli (1548), comedy, like all other forms of poetry,
imitates the manners and actions of men, and aims at producing laughter
and light-heartedness. But what produces laughter? The evil and obscene
merely disgust good men; the sad and miserable cause pity and fear. The
basis of laughter is therefore to be found in what is only slightly mean
or ugly (_subturpiculum_). The object of comedy, according to the
consensus of Renaissance opinion, is therefore to produce laughter for
the purpose of rendering the minor vices ridiculous. Muzio (1551) indeed
complains, as both Sidney and Ben Jonson do later, that the comic
writers of his day were more intent on producing laughter than on
depicting character or manners:--
"Intenta al riso
Piu ch' a i costumi."
But Minturno points out that comedy is not to be contemned because it
excites laughter; for by comic hilarity the spectators are kept from
becoming buffoons themselves, and by the ridiculous light in which
amours are placed, are made to avoid such things in future. Comedy is
the best corrective of men's morals; it is indeed what Cicero calls it,
_imitatio vitae, speculum consuetudinis, imago veritatis_. This phrase,
ascribed by Donatus to Cicero, runs through all the dramatic discussions
of the Renaissance,[203] and finds its echo in a famous passage in
_Hamlet_. Cervantes cites the phrase in _Don Quixote_;[204] and Il
Lasca, in the prologue to _L'Arzigoglio_, berates the comic writers of
his day after this fashion: "They take no account of the absurdities,
the contradictions, the inequalities, and the discrepancies of their
pieces; for they do not seem to know that comedy should be truth's
image, the ensample of manners, and the mirror of life."
This is exactly what Shakespeare is contending for when he makes Hamlet
caution the players not to "o'erstep the modesty of nature; for anything
so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first
and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature; to show
virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body
of the time his form and pressure."[205]
The high importance which Scaliger (1561) gives to comedy, and in fact
to satiric and didactic poetry in general, is one of many indications of
the incipient formation of neo-classical ideals during the Renaissance.
He regards as absurd the statement which he conceives Horace to have
made, that comedy is not really poetry; on the contrary, it is the true
form of poetry, and the first and highest of all, for its matter is
entirely invented by the poet.[206] He defines comedy as a dramatic poem
filled with intrigue (_negotiosum_), written in popular style, and
ending happily.[207] The characters in comedy are chiefly old men,
slaves, courtesans, all in humble station or from small villages. The
action begins rather turbulently, but ends happily, and the style is
neither high nor low. The typical themes of comedy are "sports,
banquets, nuptials, drunken carousals, the crafty wiles of slaves, and
the deception of old men."[208]
The theory of comedy in sixteenth-century Italy was entirely classical,
and the practice of the time agrees with its theory. There are indeed to
be heard occasional notes of dissatisfaction and revolt, especially in
the prologues of popular plays. Il Lasca, in the prologue to the
_Strega_, defiantly protests against the inviolable authority of
Aristotle and Horace, and in the prologue to his _Gelosia_ reserves the
right to copy the manner of his own time, and not those of Plautus and
Terence. Cecchi, Aretino, Gelli, and other comic writers give expression
to similar sentiments.[209] But on the whole these protests availed
nothing. The authors of comedy, and more especially the literary
critics, were guided by classical practice and classical theory.
Dramatic forms like the improvised _commedia dell' arte_ had marked
influence on the practice of European comedy in general, especially in
France, but left no traces of their influence on the literary criticism
of the Italian Renaissance.
FOOT-NOTES:
[109] _Poet._ vi. 2.
[110] Daniello, p. 34.
[111] _Cf._ Horace, _Ars Poet._ 182 _sq._
[112] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 6.
[113] _Ibid._ ii. 30.
[114] Cited by Butcher, p. 220.
[115] _Poet._ iv. 7.
[116] Maggi, p. 64.
[117] Maggi, p. 154.
[118] Butcher, p. 220 _sq._
[119] Butcher, p. 219, n. 1.--Mueller, ii. 394, attempts to harmonize the
definition of Theophrastus with that of Aristotle.
[120] Egger, _Hist. de la Critique_, p. 344, n. 2.
[121] Cloetta, i. 29. _Cf._ Antiphanes, cited by Egger, p. 72.
[122] Cloetta, p. 30.
[123] _Etymol._ viii. 7, 6.
[124] _Etymol._ xviii. 45 and 46.
[125] Cloetta, p. 28, and p. 31 _sq._
[126] _Epist._ xi. 10. _Cf._ Gelli's Lectures on the Divine Comedy, ed.
Negroni, 1887, i. 37 _sq._
[127] _Poet._ ix. 5-9.
[128] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 14.
[129] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 20.
[130] _Poet._ xi. 6.
[131] _Ars Poet._ 182-188.
[132] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 119.
[133] Scaliger, _Poet._ i. 6.
[134] Scaliger, i. 11; iii. 96.
[135] _Ibid._ vi. 6.
[136] _Ibid._ iii. 96.
[137] _Ibid._ i. 13.
[138] _De Poeta_, p. 43 _sq._
[139] _Ibid._ p. 173. _Cf._ Milton's phrase, "vain and amatorious poem."
[140] Dacier, 1692, p. xvii.
[141] _Poet._ vi. 19.
[142] _Poet._ xiv. 1.
[143] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 30.
[144] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 22, 23.
[145] _Ibid._ p. 57.
[146] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 35, 36.
[147] Twining, ii. 3.
[148] Butcher, ch. vi.
[149] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 12.
[150] _Ibid._ i. 66 _sq._
[151] Trissino, ii. 93 _sq._
[152] Robortelli, p. 52 _sq._
[153] Vettori, p. 56 _sq._, and Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 117 _sq._
[154] Maggi, p. 97 _sq._
[155] _Cf._ Shelley, _Defence of Poetry_, p. 35, "Tragedy delights by
affording a shadow of that pleasure which exists in pain," etc.
[156] _Lezzioni_, p. 660.
[157] Scaliger, _Poet._ vii. i. 3; iii. 96.
[158] _Arte Poetica_, p. 287.
[159] _Arte Poetica_, p. 77.
[160] Butcher, pp. 229, 230.
[161] _Opere_, v. 178.
[162] Butcher, p. 280 _sq._
[163] _Poet._ xiii. 2, 3.
[164] Daniello, p. 38.
[165] _Poet._ xiii. 7.
[166] _Della Vera Poetica_, cap. iii.
[167] _De Poeta_, p. 182 _sq._
[168] _Arte Poetica_, p. 118 _sq._; also in Scaliger and Giraldi Cintio.
[169] _Poet._ xv. 1-5.
[170] _Ars Poet._ 154 _sq._
[171] Muzio, p. 80.
[172] Pope, i. 165.
[173] _Poetica_, p. 36 _sq._
[174] Capriano, _op. cit._, cap. v.
[175] Cod. Magliabechiano, vii. 7, 715.
[176] Another expression of Jonson's, "small Latin and less Greek," may
perhaps be traced to Minturno's "poco del Latino e pochissimo del
Greco," _Arte Poetica_, p. 158.
[177] _Poet._ viii. 1-4.
[178] _Poet._ v. 4.
[179] Giraldi Cintio, ii. 10 _sq._
[180] Robortelli, pp. 50, 275, and appendix, p. 45. _Cf._ Luisino's
Commentary on Horace's _Ars Poetica_, 1554, p. 40.
[181] B. Segni, p. 170 v.
[182] Trissino, ii. 95.
[183] Brunetiere, i. 69.
[184] Maggi, p. 94.
[185] Scaliger, iii. 96. So Robortelli, p. 53, speaks of tragedy as
representing things _quae multum accedunt ad veritatem ipsam_.
[186] _E.g._ Lintilhac, _De Scal. Poet._ p. 32.
[187] _De Poeta_, pp. 185, 281.
[188] Vettori, p. 250.
[189] _Arte Poet._ pp. 71, 117.
[190] _Ibid._ p. 12.
[191] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 157, 170.
[192] _Ibid._ pp. 57, 109.
[193] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 534. _Cf._ Boileau, _Art Poet._ iii.
45.
[194] Castelvetro, _Poetica_, p. 179.
[195] _Ibid._ pp. 534, 535.
[196] Other allusions to the unities, besides those already mentioned,
will be found in Castelvetro, _Poetica_, pp. 163-165, 168-171, 191, 397,
501, 527, 531-536, 692, 697, etc.
[197] Lintilhac, in the _Nouvelle Revue_, lxiv. 541.
[198] _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_, p. 31.
[199] _Poet._ v. 1. _Cf._ _Rhet._ iii. 18.
[200] Trissino, ii. 120. _Cf._ Butcher, p. 203 _sq._
[201] Trissino, ii. 127-130. Trissino seems to follow Cicero, _De Orat._
ii. 58 _sq._ It is to these Italian discussions of the ludicrous that
the theory of laughter formulated by Hobbes, and after him by Addison,
owes its origin. For Renaissance discussions of wit and humor before the
introduction of Aristotle's _Poetics_, _cf._ the third and fourth books
of Pontano's _De Sermone_, and the second book of Castiglione's
_Cortigiano_.
[202] Maggi, p. 307. _Cf._ Hobbes, _Human Nature_, 1650, ix. 13.
[203] _Cf._ B. Tasso, ii. 515; Robortelli, p. 2; etc.
[204] _Don Quix._ iv. 21.
[205] _Hamlet_, iii. 2.
[206] Scaliger, _Poet._ i. 2. Castiglione, in the second book of the
_Cortigiano_, says that the comic writer, more than any other, expresses
the true image of human life.
[207] _Poet._ i. 5.
[208] _Poet._ iii. 96.
[209] Symonds, _Ren. in Italy_, v. 124 _sq._, 533 _sq._