The state of passion in itself, independently of the good or bad
influence of its object on our morality, has something in it that charms
us. We aspire to transport ourselves into that state, even if it costs
us some sacrifices. You will find this instinct at the bottom of all our
most habitual pleasures. As to the nature itself of the affection,
whether it be one of aversion or desire, agreeable or painful, this is
what we take little into consideration. Experience teaches us that
painful affections are those which have the most attraction for us, and
thus that the pleasure we take in an affection is precisely in an
inverse ratio to its nature. It is a phenomenon common to all men, that
sad, frightful things, even the horrible, exercise over us an
irresistible seduction, and that in presence of a scene of desolation
and of terror we feel at once repelled and attracted by two equal
forces. Suppose the case be an assassination. Then every one crowds
round the narrator and shows a marked attention. Any ghost story,
however embellished by romantic circumstances, is greedily devoured by
us, and the more readily in proportion as the story is calculated to
make our hair stand on end.
This disposition is developed in a more lively manner when the objects
themselves are placed before our eyes. A tempest that would swallow up
an entire fleet would be, seen from shore, a spectacle as attractive to
our imagination as it would be shocking to our heart. It would be
difficult to believe with Lucretius that this natural pleasure results
from a comparison between our own safety and the danger of which we are
witnesses. See what a crowd accompanies a criminal to the scene of his
punishment! This phenomenon cannot be explained either by the pleasure
of satisfying our love of justice, nor the ignoble joy of vengeance.
Perhaps the unhappy man may find excuses in the hearts of those present;
perhaps the sincerest pity takes an interest in his reprieve: this does
not prevent a lively curiosity in the spectators to watch his
expressions of pain with eye and ear. If an exception seems to exist
here in the case of a well-bred man, endowed with a delicate sense, this
does not imply that he is a complete stranger to this instinct; but in
his case the painful strength of compassion carries the day over this
instinct, or it is kept under by the laws of decency. The man of nature,
who is not chained down by any feeling of human delicacy, abandons
himself without any sense of shame to this powerful instinct. This
attraction must, therefore, have its spring of action in an original
disposition, and it must be explained by a psychological law common to
the whole species.
But if it seems to us that these brutal instincts of nature are
incompatible with the dignity of man, and if we hesitate, for this
reason, to establish on this fact a law common to the whole species, yet
no experiences are required to prove, with the completest evidence, that
the pleasure we take in painful emotions is real, and that it is
general. The painful struggle of a heart drawn asunder between its
inclinations or contrary duties, a struggle which is a cause of misery
to him who experiences it, delights the person who is a mere spectator.
We follow with always heightening pleasure the progress of a passion to
the abyss into which it hurries its unhappy victim. The same delicate
feeling that makes us turn our eyes aside from the sight of physical
suffering, or even from the physical expression of a purely moral pain,
makes us experience a pleasure heightened in sweetness, in the sympathy
for a purely moral pain. The interest with which we stop to look at the
painting of these kinds of objects is a general phenomenon.
Of course this can only be understood of sympathetic affections, or
those felt as a secondary effect after their _first impression_; for
commonly _direct_ and _personal_ affections immediately call into life
in us the instinct of our own happiness, they take up all our thoughts,
and seize hold of us too powerfully to allow any room for the feeling of
pleasure that accompanies them, when the affection is freed from all
personal relation. Thus, in the mind that is really a prey to painful
passion, the feeling of pain commands all others notwithstanding all the
charm that the painting of its moral state may offer to the hearers and
the spectators. And yet the painful affection is not deprived of all
pleasure, even for him who experiences it directly; only this pleasure
differs in degree according to the nature of each person’s mind. The
sports of chance would not have half so much attraction for us were
there not a kind of enjoyment in anxiety, in doubt, and in fear; danger
would not be encountered from mere foolhardiness; and the very sympathy
which interests us in the trouble of another would not be to us that
pleasure which is never more lively than at the very moment when the
illusion is strongest, and when we substitute ourselves most entirely in
the place of the person who suffers. But this does not imply that
disagreeable affections cause pleasure of themselves, nor do I think any
one will uphold this view; it suffices that these states of the mind are
the conditions that alone make possible for us certain kinds of
pleasure. Thus the hearts particularly sensitive to this kind of
pleasure, and most greedy of them, will be more easily led to share
these disagreeable affections, which are the condition of the former;
and even in the most violent storms of passion they will always preserve
some remains of their freedom.
The displeasure we feel in disagreeable affections comes from the
relation of our sensuous faculty or of our moral faculty with their
object. In like manner, the pleasure we experience in agreeable
affections proceeds from the very same source. The degree of liberty
that may prevail in the affections depends on the proportion between the
moral nature and the sensuous nature of a man. Now it is well known that
in the moral order there is nothing arbitrary for us, that, on the
contrary, the sensuous instinct is subject to the laws of reason and
consequently depends more or less on our will. Hence it is evident that
we can keep our liberty full and entire in all those affections that are
concerned with the instinct of self-love, and that we are the masters to
determine the degree which they ought to attain. This degree will be
less in proportion as the moral sense in a man will prevail over the
instinct of happiness, and as by obeying the universal laws of reason he
will have freed himself from the selfish requirements of his
individuality, his Ego. A man of this kind must therefore, in a state of
passion, feel much less vividly the relation of an object with his own
instinct of happiness, and consequently he will be much less sensible of
the displeasure that arises from this relation. On the other hand, he
will be perpetually more attentive to the relation of this same object
with his moral nature, and for this very reason he will be more sensible
to the pleasure which the relation of the object with morality often
mingles with the most painful affections. A mind thus constituted is
better fitted than all others to enjoy the pleasure attaching to
compassion, and even to regard a personal affection as an object of
simple compassion. Hence the inestimable value of a moral philosophy,
which, by raising our eyes constantly towards general laws, weakens in
us the feeling of our individuality, teaches us to plunge our paltry
personality in something great, and enables us thus to act to ourselves
as to strangers. This sublime state of the mind is the lot of strong
philosophic minds, which by working assiduously on themselves have
learned to bridle the egotistical instinct. Even the most cruel loss
does not drive them beyond a certain degree of sadness, with which an
appreciable sum of pleasure can always be reconciled. These souls, which
are alone capable of separating themselves from themselves, alone enjoy
the privilege of sympathizing with themselves and of receiving of their
own sufferings only a reflex, softened by sympathy.
The indications contained in what precedes will suffice to direct our
attention to the sources of the pleasure that the affection in itself
causes, more particularly the sad affection. We have seen that this
pleasure is more energetic in moral souls, and it acts with greater
freedom in proportion as the soul is more independent of the egotistical
instinct. This pleasure is, moreover, more vivid and stronger in sad
affections, when self-love is painfully disquieted, than in gay
affections, which imply a satisfaction of self-love. Accordingly this
pleasure increases when the egotistical instinct is wounded, and
diminishes when that instinct is flattered. Now we only know of two
sources of pleasure—the satisfaction of the instinct of happiness, and
the accomplishment of the moral laws. Therefore, when it is shown that a
particular pleasure does not emanate from the former source, it must of
necessity issue from the second. It is therefore from our moral nature
that issues the charm of the painful affections shared by sympathy, and
the pleasure that we sometimes feel even where the painful affection
directly affects ourselves.
Many attempts have been made to account for the pleasure of pity, but
most of these solutions had little chance of meeting the problem,
because the principle of this phenomenon was sought for rather in the
accompanying circumstances than in the nature of the affection itself.
To many persons the pleasure of pity is simply the pleasure taken by the
mind in exercising its own sensibility. To others it is the pleasure of
occupying their forces energetically, of exercising the social faculty
vividly—in short, of satisfying the instinct of restlessness. Others
again make it derived from the discovery of morally fine features of
character, placed in a clear light by the struggle against adversity or
against the passions. But there is still the difficulty to explain why
it should be exactly the very feeling of pain,—_suffering_ properly so
called,—that in objects of pity attracts us with the greatest force,
while, according to those elucidations, a less degree of suffering ought
evidently to be more favorable to those causes to which the source of
the emotion is traced. Various matters may, no doubt, increase the
pleasure of the emotion without occasioning it. Of this nature are: the
vividness and force of the ideas awakened in our imagination, the moral
excellence of the suffering persons, the reference to himself of the
person feeling pity. I admit that the suffering of a weak soul, and the
pain of a wicked character, do not procure us this enjoyment. But this
is because they do not excite our pity to the same degree as the hero
who suffers, or the virtuous man who struggles. Thus we are constantly
brought back to the first question: why is it precisely the degree of
suffering that determines the degree of sympathetic pleasure which we
take in an emotion? and one answer only is possible; it is because the
attack made on our sensibility is precisely the condition necessary to
set in motion that quality of mind of which the activity produces the
pleasure we feel in sympathetic affections.
Now this faculty is no other than the reason; and because the free
exercise of reason, as an absolutely independent activity, deserves _par
excellence_ the name of activity; as, moreover, the heart of man only
feels itself perfectly free and independent in its moral acts, it
follows that the charm of tragic emotions is really dependent on the
fact that this instinct of activity finds its gratification in them.
But, even admitting this, it is neither the great number nor the
vivacity of the ideas that are awakened then in our imagination, nor in
general the exercise of the social faculty, but a certain kind of ideas
and a certain activity of the social faculty brought into play by
reason, which is the foundation of this pleasure.
Thus the sympathetic affections in general are for us a source of
pleasure because they give satisfaction to our instinct of activity, and
the sad affections produce this effect with more vividness because they
give more satisfaction to this instinct. The mind only reveals all its
activity when it is in full possession of its liberty, when it has a
perfect consciousness of its rational nature, because it is only then
that it displays a force superior to all resistance.
Hence the state of mind which allows most effectually the manifestation
of this force, and awakens most successfully its activity, is that state
which is most suitable to a rational being, and which best satisfies our
instincts of activity: whence it follows that a greater amount of
pleasure must be attached necessarily to this state. Now it is the
tragic states that place our soul in this state, and the pleasure found
in them is necessarily higher than the charm produced by gay affections,
in the same degree that moral power in us is superior to the power of
the senses.
Points that are only subordinate and partial in a system of final causes
may be considered by art independently of that relation with the rest,
and may be converted into principal objects. It is right that in the
designs of nature pleasure should only be a mediate end, or a means; but
for art it is the highest end. It is therefore essentially important for
art not to neglect this high enjoyment attaching to the tragic emotion.
Now, _tragic_ art, taking this term in its widest acceptation, is that
among the fine arts which proposes as its principal object the pleasure
of pity.
Art attains its end by the _imitation of nature_, by satisfying the
conditions which make pleasure possible in reality, and by combining,
according to a plan traced by the intelligence, the scattered elements
furnished by nature, so as to attain as a principal end to that which,
for nature, was only an accessory end. Thus tragic art ought to imitate
nature in those kinds of actions that are specially adapted to awaken
pity.
It follows that, in order to determine generally the system to be
followed by tragic art, it is necessary before all things to know on
what conditions in real life the pleasure of the emotion is commonly
produced in the surest and the strongest manner; but it is necessary at
the same time to pay attention to the circumstances that restrict or
absolutely extinguish this pleasure.
After what we have established in our essay “On the Cause of the
Pleasure we derive from Tragic Objects,” it is known that in every
tragic emotion there is an idea of incongruity, which, though the
emotion may be attended with charm, must always lead on to the
conception of a higher consistency. Now it is the relation that these
two opposite conceptions mutually bear which determines in an emotion if
the prevailing impression shall be pleasurable or the reverse. If the
conception of incongruity be more vivid than that of the contrary, or if
the end sacrificed is more important than the end gained, the prevailing
impression will always be displeasure, whether this be understood
_objectively_ of the human race in general, or only _subjectively_ of
certain individuals.
If the cause that has produced a misfortune gives us too much
displeasure, our compassion for the victim is diminished thereby. The
heart cannot feel simultaneously, in a high degree, two absolutely
contrary affections. Indignation against the person who is the primary
cause of the suffering becomes the prevailing affection, and all other
feeling has to yield to it. Thus our interest is always enfeebled when
the unhappy man whom it would be desirable to pity had cast himself into
ruin by a personal and an inexcusable fault; or if, being able to save
himself, he did not do so, either through feebleness of mind or
pusillanimity. The interest we take in unhappy King Lear, ill-treated by
two ungrateful daughters, is sensibly lessened by the circumstance that
this aged man, in his second childhood, so weakly gave up his crown, and
divided his love among his daughters with so little discernment. In the
tragedy of Kronegk, “Olinda and Sophronia,” the most terrible suffering
to which we see these martyrs to their faith exposed only excites our
pity feebly, and all their heroism only stirs our admiration moderately,
because madness alone can suggest the act by which Olinda has placed
himself and all his people on the brink of the precipice.
Our pity is equally lessened when the primary cause of a misfortune,
whose innocent victim ought to inspire us with compassion, fills our
mind with horror. When the tragic poet cannot clear himself of his plot
without introducing a wretch, and when he is reduced to derive the
greatness of suffering from the greatness of wickedness, the supreme
beauty of his work must always be seriously injured. Iago and Lady
Macbeth in Shakspeare, Cleopatra in the tragedy of “Rodogune,” or Franz
Moor in “The Robbers,” are so many proofs in support of this assertion.
A poet who understands his real interest will not bring about the
catastrophe through a malicious will which proposes misfortune as its
end; nor, and still less, by want of understanding: but rather through
the imperious force of circumstances. If this catastrophe does not come
from moral sources, but from outward things, which have no volition and
are not subject to any will, the pity we experience is more pure, or at
all events it is not weakened by any idea of moral incongruity. But then
the spectator cannot be spared the disagreeable feeling of an
incongruity in the order of nature, which can alone save in such a case
moral propriety. Pity is far more excited when it has for its object
both him who suffers and him who is the primary cause of the suffering.
This can only happen when the latter has neither elicited our contempt
nor our hatred, but when he has been brought against his inclination to
become the cause of this misfortune. It is a singular beauty of the
German play of “Iphigenia” that the King of Tauris, the only obstacle
who thwarts the wishes of Orestes and of his sister, never loses our
esteem, and that we love him to the end.
There is something superior even to this kind of emotion; this is the
case when the cause of the misfortune not only is in no way repugnant to
morality, but only becomes possible through morality, and when the
reciprocal suffering comes simply from the idea that a fellow-creature
has been made to suffer. This is the situation of Chimene and Rodrigue
in “The Cid” of Pierre Corneille, which is undeniably in point of
intrigue the masterpiece of the tragic stage. Honor and filial love arm
the hand of Rodrigue against the father of her whom he loves, and his
valor gives him the victory. Honor and filial love rouse up against him,
in the person of Chimene, the daughter of his victim, an accuser and a
formidable persecutor. Both act in opposition to their inclination, and
they tremble with anguish at the thought of the misfortune of the object
against which they arm themselves, in proportion as zeal inspires them
for their duty to inflict this misfortune. Accordingly both conciliate
our esteem in the highest sense, as they accomplish a moral duty at the
cost of inclination; both inflame our pity in the highest degree,
because they suffer spontaneously for a motive that renders them in the
highest degree to be respected. It results from this that our pity is in
this case so little modified by any opposite feeling that it burns
rather with a double flame; only the impossibility of reconciling the
idea of misfortune with the idea of a morality so deserving of happiness
might still disturb our sympathetic pleasure, and spread a shade of
sadness over it. It is besides a great point, no doubt, that the
discontent given us by this contradiction does not bear upon our moral
being, but is turned _aside_ to a harmless place, to necessity only; but
this blind subjection to destiny is always afflicting and humiliating
for free beings, who determine themselves. This is the cause that always
leaves something to be wished for even in the best Greek pieces. In all
these pieces, at the bottom of the plot it is always fatality that is
appealed to, and in this there is a knot that cannot be unravelled by
our reason, which wishes to solve everything.
But even this knot is untied, and with it vanishes every shade of
displeasure, at the highest and last step to which man perfected by
morality rises, and at the highest point, which is attained by the art
which moves the feelings. This happens when the very discontent with
destiny becomes effaced, and is resolved in a presentiment or rather a
clear consciousness of a teleological concatenation of things, of a
sublime order, of a beneficent will. Then, to the pleasure occasioned in
us by moral consistency is joined the invigorating idea of the most
perfect suitability in the great whole of nature. In this case the thing
that seemed to militate against this order, and that caused us pain, in
a particular case, is only a spur that stimulates our reason to seek in
general laws for the justification of this particular case, and to solve
the problem of this separate discord in the centre of the general
harmony. Greek art never rose to this supreme serenity of tragic
emotion, because neither the national religion, nor even the philosophy
of the Greeks, lighted their step on this advanced road. It was reserved
for modern art, which enjoys the privilege of finding a purer matter in
a purer philosophy, to satisfy also this exalted want, and thus to
display all the moral dignity of art.
If we moderns must resign ourselves never to reproduce Greek art because
the philosophic genius of our age, and modern civilization in general
are not favorable to poetry, these influences are at all events less
hurtful to tragic art, which is based rather on the moral element.
Perhaps it is in the case of this art only that our civilization repairs
the injury that it has caused to art in general.
In the same manner as the tragic emotion is weakened by the admixture of
conflicting ideas and feelings, and the charm attaching to it is thus
diminished, so this emotion can also, on the contrary, by approaching
the excess of direct and personal affection, become exaggerated to the
point where pain carries the day over pleasure. It has been remarked
that displeasure, in the affections, comes from the relation of their
object with our senses, in the same way as the pleasure felt in them
comes from the relation of the affection itself to our moral faculty.
This implies, then, between our senses and our moral faculty a
determined relation, which decides as regards the relation between
pleasure and displeasure in tragic emotions. Nor could this relation be
modified or overthrown without overthrowing at the same time the
feelings of pleasure and displeasure which we find in the emotions, or
even without changing them into their opposites. In the same ratio that
the senses are vividly roused in us, the influence of morality will be
proportionately diminished; and reciprocally, as the sensuous loses,
morality gains ground. Therefore that which in our hearts gives a
preponderance to the sensuous faculty, must of necessity, by placing
restrictions on the moral faculty, diminish the pleasure that we take in
tragic emotions, a pleasure which emanates exclusively from this moral
faculty. In like manner, all that in our heart impresses an impetus on
this latter faculty, must blunt the stimulus of pain even in direct and
personal affections. Now our sensuous nature actually acquires this
preponderance, when the ideas of suffering rise to a degree of vividness
that no longer allows us to distinguish a sympathetic affection from a
personal affection, or our own proper Ego from the subject that
suffers,—reality, in short, from poetry. The sensuous also gains the
upper hand when it finds an aliment in the great number of its objects,
and in that dazzling light which an over-excited imagination diffuses
over it. On the contrary, nothing is more fit to reduce the sensuous to
its proper bounds than to place alongside it super-sensuous ideas, moral
ideas, to which reason, oppressed just before, clings as to a kind of
spiritual props, to right and raise itself above the fogs of the
sensuous to a serener atmosphere. Hence the great charm which general
truths or moral sentences, scattered opportunely over dramatic dialogue,
have for all cultivated nations, and the almost excessive use that the
Greeks made of them. Nothing is more agreeable to a moral soul than to
have the power, after a purely passive state that has lasted too long,
of escaping from the subjection of the senses, and of being recalled to
its spontaneous activity, and restored to the possession of its liberty.
These are the remarks I had to make respecting the causes that restrict
our pity and place an obstacle to our pleasure in tragic emotions. I
have next to show on what conditions pity is solicited and the pleasure
of the emotion excited in the most infallible and energetic manner.
Every feeling of pity implies the idea of suffering, and the degree of
pity is regulated according to the degree more or less of vividness, of
truth, of intensity, and of duration of this idea.
1st. The moral faculty is provoked to reaction in proportion to the
vividness of ideas in the soul, which incites it to activity and
solicits its sensuous faculty. Now the ideas of suffering are conceived
in two different manners, which are not equally favorable to the
vividness of the impression. The sufferings that we witness affect us
incomparably more than those that we have through a description or a
narrative. The former suspend in us the free play of the fancy, and
striking our senses immediately penetrate by the shortest road to our
heart. In the narrative, on the contrary, the particular is first raised
to the general, and it is from this that the knowledge of the special
case is afterwards derived; accordingly, merely by this necessary
operation of the understanding, the impression already loses greatly in
strength. Now a weak impression cannot take complete possession of our
mind, and it will allow other ideas to disturb its action and to
dissipate the attention. Very frequently, moreover, the narrative
account transports us from the moral disposition, in which the acting
person is placed, to the state of mind of the narrator himself, which
breaks up the illusion so necessary for pity. In every case, when the
narrator in person puts himself forward, a certain stoppage takes place
in the action, and, as an unavoidable result, in our sympathetic
affection. This is what happens even when the dramatic poet forgets
himself in the dialogue, and puts in the mouth of his dramatic persons
reflections that could only enter the mind of a disinterested spectator.
It would be difficult to mention a single one of our modern tragedies
quite free from this defect; but the French alone have made a rule of
it. Let us infer, then, that the immediate vivid and sensuous presence
of the object is necessary to give to the ideas impressed on us by
suffering that strength without which the emotion could not rise to a
high degree.
2d. But we can receive the most vivid impressions of the idea of
suffering without, however, being led to a remarkable degree of pity, if
these impressions lack _truth_. It is necessary that we should form of
suffering an _idea_ of such a nature that we are obliged to share and
take part in it. To this end there must be a certain agreement between
this suffering and something that w?e have already in us. In other
words, pity is only possible inasmuch as we can prove or suppose a
resemblance between ourselves and the subject that suffers. Everywhere
where this resemblance makes itself known, pity is necessary; where this
resemblance is lacking, pity is impossible. The more visible and the
greater is the resemblance, the more vivid is our pity; and they
mutually slacken in dependence on each other. In order that we may feel
the affections of another after him, all the _internal_ conditions
demanded by this affection must be found beforehand in us, in order that
the _external_ cause which, by meeting with the internal conditions, has
given birth to the affection, may also produce on us a like effect. It
is necessary that, without doing violence to ourselves, we should be
able to exchange persons with another, and transport our Ego by an
instantaneous substitution in the state of the subject. Now, how is it
possible to feel in us the state of another, if we have not beforehand
recognized ourselves in this other.
This resemblance bears on the totality of the constitution of the mind,
in as far as that is necessary and universal. Now, this character of
necessity and of universality belongs especially to our moral nature.
The faculty of feeling can be determined differently by accidental
causes: our cognitive faculties themselves depend on variable
conditions: the moral faculty only has its principle in itself, and by
that very fact it can best give us a general measure and a certain
criterion of this resemblance. Thus an idea which we find in accord with
our mode of thinking and of feeling, which offers at once a certain
relationship with the train of our own ideas, which is easily grasped by
our heart and our mind, we call a true idea. If this relationship bears
on what is peculiar to our heart, on the _private_ determinations that
modify in us the common fundamentals of humanity, and which may be
withdrawn without altering this general character, this idea is then
simply true _for us_. If it bears on the general and necessary form that
we suppose in the whole species, the truth of this idea ought to be held
to be equal to objective truth. For the Roman, the sentence of the first
Brutus and the suicide of Cato are of subjective truth. The ideas and
the feelings that have inspired the actions of these two men are not an
immediate consequence of human nature in general, but the mediate
consequence of a human nature determined by particular modifications. To
share with them these feelings we must have a Roman soul, or at least be
capable of assuming for a moment a Roman soul. It suffices, on the other
hand, to be a _man in general_, to be vividly touched by the heroic
sacrifice of Leonidas, by the quiet resignation of Aristides, by the
voluntary death of Socrates, and to be moved to tears by the terrible
changes in the fortunes of Darius. We attribute to these kinds of ideas,
in opposition to the preceding ones, an objective truth because they
agree with the _nature_ of all human subjects, which gives them a
character of universality and of necessity as strict as if they were
independent of every subjective condition.
Moreover, although the subjectively true description is based on
accidental determinations, this is no reason for confounding it with an
arbitrary description. After all, the subjectively true emanates also
from the general constitution of the human soul, modified only in
particular directions by special circumstances; and the two kinds of
truth are equally necessary conditions of the human mind. If the
resolution of Cato were in contradiction with the general laws of human
nature, it could not be true, even subjectively. The only difference is
that the ideas of the second kind are enclosed in a narrower sphere of
action; because they imply, besides the general modes of the human mind,
other special determinations. Tragedy can make use of it with a very
intense effect, if it will renounce the extensive effect; still the
unconditionally true, what is purely _human_ in human relations, will be
always the richest matter for the tragic poet, because this ground is
the only one on which tragedy, without ceasing to aspire to strength of
expression can be certain of the _generality_ of this impression.
3d. Besides the vividness and the truth of tragic pictures, there must
also be _completeness_. None of the external data that are necessary to
give to the soul the desired movement ought to be omitted in the
representation. In order that the spectator, however Roman his
sentiments may be, may understand the moral state of Cato—that he may
make his own the high resolution of the republican, this resolution must
have its principle, not only in the mind of the Roman, but also in the
circumstances of the action. His external situation as well as his
internal situation must be before our eyes in all their consequences and
extent: and we must, lastly, have unrolled before us, without omitting a
single link, the whole chain of determinations to which are attached the
high resolution of the Roman as a necessary consequence. It may be said
in general that without this third condition, even the truth of a
painting cannot be recognized; for the similarity of _circumstances_,
which ought to be fully evident, can alone justify our judgment on the
similarity of the _feelings_, since it is only from the competition of
external conditions and of internal conditions that the affective
phenomenon results. To decide if we should have acted like Cato, we must
before all things transport ourselves in thought to the external
situation in which Cato was placed, and then only we are entitled to
place our feelings alongside his, to pronounce if there is or is not
likeness, and to give a verdict on the truth of these feelings.
A complete picture, as I understand it, is only possible by the
concatenation of several separate ideas, and of several separate
feelings, which are connected together as cause and effect, and which,
in their sum total, form one single whole for our cognitive faculty. All
these ideas, in order to affect us closely, must make an immediate
impression on our senses; and, as the narrative form always weakens this
impression, they must be produced by a present action. Thus, in order
that a tragic picture may be complete, a whole series is required of
particular actions, rendered sensuous and connected with the tragic
action as to one whole.
4th. It is necessary, lastly, that the ideas we receive of suffering
should act on us in a durable manner, to excite in us a high degree of
emotion. The affection created in us by the suffering of another is to
us a constrained state, from which we hasten to get free; and the
illusion so necessary for pity easily disappears in this case. It is,
therefore, a necessity to fasten the mind closely to these ideas, and
not to leave it the freedom to get rid too soon of the illusion. The
vividness of sudden ideas and the energy of sudden impressions, which in
rapid succession affect our senses, would not suffice for this end. For
the power of reaction in the mind is manifested in direct proportion to
the force with which the receptive faculty is solicited, and it is
manifested to triumph over this impression. Now, the poet who wishes to
move us ought not to weaken this independent power in us, for it is
exactly in the struggle between it and the suffering of our sensuous
nature that the higher charm of tragic emotions lies. In order that the
heart, in spite of that spontaneous force which reacts against sensuous
affections, may remain attached to the impressions of sufferings, it is,
therefore, necessary that these impressions should be cleverly suspended
at intervals, or even interrupted and intercepted by contrary
impressions, to return again with twofold energy and renew more
frequently the vividness of the first impression. Against the exhaustion
and languor that result from habit, the most effectual remedy is to
propose new objects to the senses; this variety retempers them, and the
gradation of impressions calls forth the innate faculty, and makes it
employ a proportionately stronger resistance. This faculty ought to be
incessantly occupied in maintaining its independence against the attacks
of the senses, but it must not triumph before the end, still less must
it succumb in the struggle. Otherwise, in the former case, suffering,
and, in the latter, moral activity is set aside; while it is the union
of these two that can alone elicit emotion. The great secret of the
tragic art consists precisely in managing this struggle well; it is in
this that it shows itself in the most brilliant light.
For this, a succession of alternate ideas is required; therefore a
suitable combination is wanted of several particular actions
corresponding with these different ideas; actions round which the
principal action and the tragic impression which it is wished to produce
through it unroll themselves like the yarn from the distaff, and end by
enlacing our souls in nets, through which they cannot break. Let me be
permitted to make use of a simile, by saying that the artist ought to
begin by gathering up with parsimonious care all the separate rays that
issue from the object by aid of which he seeks to produce the tragic
effect that he has in view, and these rays, in his hands, become a
lightning flash, setting the hearts of all on fire. The tyro casts
suddenly and vainly all the thunderbolts of horror and fear into the
soul; the artist, on the contrary, advances step by step to his end; he
only strikes with measured strokes, but he penetrates to the depth of
our soul, precisely because he has only stirred it by degrees.
If we now form the proper deductions from the previous investigation,
the following will be the conditions that form bases of the tragic art.
It is necessary, in the first place, that the object of our pity should
belong to our own species—I mean belong in the full sense of the
term—and that the action in which it is sought to interest us be a moral
action; that is, an action comprehended in the field of free will. It is
necessary, in the second place, that suffering, its sources, its
degrees, should be completely communicated by a series of events chained
together. It is necessary, in the third place, that the object of the
passion be rendered present to our senses, not in a mediate way and by
description, but immediately and in action. In tragedy art unites all
these conditions and satisfies them.
According to these principles tragedy might be defined as the poetic
imitation of a coherent series of particular events (forming a complete
action): an imitation which shows us man in a state of suffering, and
which has for its end to excite our pity.
I say first that it is the _imitation_ of an action; and this idea of
imitation already distinguishes tragedy from the other kinds of poetry,
which only narrate or describe. In tragedy particular events are
presented to our imagination or to our senses at the very time of their
accomplishment; they are present, we see them immediately, without the
intervention of a third person. The epos, the romance, simple narrative,
even in their form, withdraw action to a distance, causing the narrator
to come between the acting person and the reader. Now what is distant
and past always weakens, as we know, the impressions and the sympathetic
affection; what is present makes them stronger. All narrative forms make
of the present something past; all dramatic form makes of the past a
present.
Secondly, I say that tragedy is the imitation of a succession of
_events_, of an action. Tragedy has not only to represent by imitation
the feelings and the affections of tragic persons, but also the events
that have produced these feelings, and the occasion on which these
affections are manifested. This distinguishes it from lyric poetry, and
from its different forms, which no doubt offer, like tragedy, the poetic
imitation of certain states of the mind, but not the poetic imitation of
certain actions. An elegy, a song, an ode, can place before our eyes, by
imitation, the moral state in which the poet actually is—whether he
speaks in his own name, or in that of an ideal person—a state determined
by particular circumstances; and up to this point these lyric forms seem
certainly to be incorporated in the idea of tragedy; but they do not
complete that idea, because they are confined to representing our
feelings. There are still more essential differences, if the end of
these lyrical forms and that of tragedy are kept in view.
I say, in the third place, that tragedy is the imitation of a complete
action. A separate event, though it be ever so tragic, does not in
itself constitute a tragedy. To do this, several events are required,
based one on the other, like cause and effect, and suitably connected so
as to form a whole; without which the truth of the feeling represented,
of the character, etc.—that is, their conformity with the nature of our
mind, a conformity which alone determines our sympathy—will not be
recognized. If we do not feel that we ourselves in similar circumstances
should have experienced the same feelings and acted in the same way, our
pity would not be awakened. It is, therefore, important that we should
be able to follow in all its concatenation the action that is
represented to us, that we should see it issue from the mind of the
agent by a natural gradation, under the influence and with the
concurrence of external circumstances. It is thus that we see spring up,
grow, and come to maturity under our eyes, the curiosity of Œdipus and
the jealousy of Iago. It is also the only way to fill up the great gap
that exists between the joy of an innocent soul and the torments of a
guilty conscience, between the proud serenity of the happy man and his
terrible catastrophe; in short, between the state of calm, in which the
reader is at the beginning, and the violent agitation he ought to
experience at the end.
A series of several connected incidents is required to produce in our
souls a succession of different movements which arrest the attention,
which, appealing to all the faculties of our minds, enliven our instinct
of activity when it is exhausted, and which, by delaying the
satisfaction of this instinct, do not kindle it the less. Against the
suffering of sensuous nature the human heart has only recourse to its
moral nature as counterpoise. It is, therefore, necessary, in order to
stimulate this in a more pressing manner, for the tragic poet to prolong
the torments of sense, but he must also give a glimpse to the latter of
the satisfaction of its wants, so as to render the victory of the moral
sense so much the more difficult and glorious. This twofold end can only
be attained by a succession of actions judiciously chosen and combined
to this end.
In the fourth place, I say that tragedy is the poetic _imitation_ of an
action deserving of pity, and, therefore, tragic imitation is opposed to
_historic_ imitation. It would only be a historic imitation if it
proposed a historic end, if its principal object were to _teach_ us that
a thing has taken place, and how it took place. On this hypothesis it
ought to keep rigorously to historic accuracy, for it would only attain
its end by representing faithfully that which really took place. But
tragedy has a _poetic_ end, that is to say, it represents an action to
_move_ us, and to _charm_ our souls by the medium of this emotion. If,
therefore, a matter being given, tragedy treats it conformably with this
poetic end, which is proper to it, it becomes, by that very thing, free
in its imitation. It is a right—nay, more, it is an obligation—for
tragedy to subject historic truth to the laws of poetry; and to treat
its matter in conformity with requirements of this art. But as it cannot
attain its end, which is emotion, except on the condition of a perfect
conformity with the laws of nature, tragedy is, notwithstanding its
freedom in regard to history, strictly subject to the laws of natural
truth, which, in opposition to the truth of history, takes the name of
poetic truth. It may thus be understood how much poetic truth may lose,
in many cases by a strict observance of historic truth, and,
reciprocally, how much it may gain by even a very serious alteration of
truth according to history. As the tragic poet, like poets in general,
is only subject to the laws of poetic truth, the most conscientious
observance of historic truth could never dispense him from his duties as
poet, and could never excuse in him any infraction of poetic truth or
lack of interest. It is, therefore, betraying very narrow ideas on
tragic art, or rather on poetry in general, to drag the tragic poet
before the tribunal of history, and to require _instruction_ of the man
who by his very title is only bound to move and charm you. Even
supposing the poet, by a scrupulous submission to historic truth, had
stripped himself of his privilege of artist, and that he had tacitly
acknowledged in history a jurisdiction over his work, art retains all
her rights to summon him before its bar; and pieces such as “The Death
of Hermann,” “Minona,” “Fust of Stromberg,” if they could not stand the
test on this side, would only be tragedies of mediocre value,
notwithstanding all the minuteness of costume—of national costume—and of
the manners of the time.
Fifthly, tragedy is the imitation of an action that lets us see _man
suffering_. The word _man_ is essential to mark the limits of tragedy.
Only the suffering of a being like ourselves can move our pity. Thus,
evil genii, demons—or even men like them, without morals—and again pure
spirits, without our weaknesses, are unfit for tragedy. The very idea of
suffering implies a man in the full sense of the term. A pure spirit
cannot suffer, and a man approaching one will never awaken a high degree
of sympathy. A purely sensuous being can indeed have terrible suffering;
but without moral sense it is a prey to it, and a suffering with reason
inactive is a disgusting spectacle. The tragedian is right to prefer
mixed characters, and to place the ideal of his hero half way between
utter perversity and entire perfection.
Lastly, tragedy unites all these requisites to excite pity. Many means
the tragic poet takes might serve another object; but he frees himself
from all requirements not relating to this end, and is thereby obliged
to direct himself with a view to this supreme object.
The final aim to which all the laws tend is called the _end_ of any
style of poetry. The means by which it attains this are its _form_. The
end and form are, therefore, closely related. The form is determined by
the end, and when the form is well observed the end is generally
attained. Each kind of poetry having a special end must have a
distinguishing form. What it exclusively produces it does in virtue of
this special nature it possesses. The end of tragedy is _emotion_; its
form is the imitation of an action that leads to suffering. Many kinds
may have the same object as tragedy, of emotion, though it be not their
principal end. Therefore, what distinguishes tragedy is the relation of
its form to its end, the way in which it attains its end by means of its
subject.
If the end of tragedy is to awaken sympathy, and its form is the means
of attaining it, the imitation of an action fit to move must have all
that favors sympathy. Such is the form of tragedy.
The production of a kind of poetry is perfect when the form peculiar to
its kind has been used in the best way. Thus, a perfect tragedy is that
where the form is best used to awaken sympathy. Thus, the best tragedy
is that where the pity excited results more from the treatment of the
poet than the theme. Such is the ideal of a tragedy.
A good number of tragedies, though fine as poems, are bad as dramas,
because they do not seek their end by the best use of tragic form.
Others, because they use the form to attain an end different from
tragedy. Some very popular ones only touch us on account of the subject,
and we are blind enough to make this a merit in the poet. There are
others in which we seem to have quite forgotten the object of the poet,
and, contented with pretty plays of fancy and wit, we issue with our
hearts cold from the theatre. Must art, so holy and venerable, defend
its cause by such champions before such judges? The indulgence of the
public only emboldens mediocrity: it causes genius to blush, and
discourages it.