The historian of Literature is little more than a historian of exploded
reputations. What has he to do with Shakespeare, with Dante, with
Sophocles? Has he entered into the springs of the sea? Or has he walked
in the search of the depth? The great fixed luminaries of the firmament
of Letters dazzle his optic glass; and he can hardly hope to do more
than record their presence, and admire their splendours with the eyes of
an ordinary mortal. His business is with the succeeding ages of men, not
with all time; but _Hyperion_ might have been written on the morrow of
Salamis, and the Odes of Pindar dedicated to George the Fourth. The
literary historian must rove in other hunting grounds. He is the
geologist of literature, whose study lies among the buried strata of
forgotten generations, among the fossil remnants of the past. The great
men with whom he must deal are the great men who are no longer
great--mammoths and ichthyosauri kindly preserved to us, among the
siftings of so many epochs, by the impartial benignity of Time. It is
for him to unravel the jokes of Erasmus, and to be at home among the
platitudes of Cicero. It is for him to sit up all night with the
spectral heroes of Byron; it is for him to exchange innumerable
alexandrines with the faded heroines of Voltaire.
The great potentate of the eighteenth century has suffered cruelly
indeed at the hands of posterity. Everyone, it is true, has heard of
him; but who has read him? It is by his name that ye shall know him, and
not by his works. With the exception of his letters, of _Candide_, of
_Akakia_, and of a few other of his shorter pieces, the vast mass of his
productions has been already consigned to oblivion. How many persons now
living have travelled through _La Henriade_ or _La Pucelle_? How many
have so much as glanced at the imposing volumes of _L'Esprit des
Moeurs_? _Zadig_ and _Zaïre, Mérope_ and _Charles XII_. still linger,
perhaps, in the schoolroom; but what has become of _Oreste_, and of
_Mahomet_, and of _Alzire_? _Où sont les neiges d'antan_?
Though Voltaire's reputation now rests mainly on his achievements as a
precursor of the Revolution, to the eighteenth century he was as much a
poet as a reformer. The whole of Europe beheld at Ferney the oracle, not
only of philosophy, but of good taste; for thirty years every scribbler,
every rising genius, and every crowned head, submitted his verses to the
censure of Voltaire; Voltaire's plays were performed before crowded
houses; his epic was pronounced superior to Homer's, Virgil's, and
Milton's; his epigrams were transcribed by every letter-writer, and got
by heart by every wit. Nothing, perhaps, shows more clearly the gulf
which divides us from our ancestors of the eighteenth century, than a
comparison between our thoughts and their thoughts, between our feelings
and their feelings, with regard to one and the same thing--a tragedy by
Voltaire. For us, as we take down the dustiest volume in our bookshelf,
as we open it vaguely at some intolerable tirade, as we make an effort
to labour through the procession of pompous commonplaces which meets our
eyes, as we abandon the task in despair, and hastily return the book to
its forgotten corner--to us it is well-nigh impossible to imagine the
scene of charming brilliance which, five generations since, the same
words must have conjured up. The splendid gaiety, the refined
excitement, the pathos, the wit, the passion--all these things have
vanished as completely from our perceptions as the candles, the powder,
the looking-glasses, and the brocades, among which they moved and had
their being. It may be instructive, or at least entertaining, to examine
one of these forgotten masterpieces a little more closely; and we may do
so with the less hesitation, since we shall only be following in the
footsteps of Voltaire himself. His examination of _Hamlet_ affords a
precedent which is particularly applicable, owing to the fact that the
same interval of time divided him from Shakespeare as that which divides
ourselves from him. One point of difference, indeed, does exist between
the relative positions of the two authors. Voltaire, in his study of
Shakespeare, was dealing with a living, and a growing force; our
interest in the dramas of Voltaire is solely an antiquarian interest. At
the present moment,[5] a literal translation of _King Lear_ is drawing
full houses at the Théâtre Antoine. As a rule it is rash to prophesy;
but, if that rule has any exceptions, this is certainly one of
them--hundred years hence a literal translation of _Zaïre_ will not be
holding the English boards.
It is not our purpose to appreciate the best, or to expose the worst, of
Voltaire's tragedies. Our object is to review some specimen of what
would have been recognised by his contemporaries as representative of
the average flight of his genius. Such a specimen is to be found in
_Alzire, ou Les Américains_, first produced with great success in 1736,
when Voltaire was forty-two years of age and his fame as a dramatist
already well established.
_Act I_.--The scene is laid in Lima, the capital of Peru, some years
after the Spanish conquest of America. When the play opens, Don Gusman,
a Spanish grandee, has just succeeded his father, Don Alvarez, in the
Governorship of Peru. The rule of Don Alvarez had been beneficent and
just; he had spent his life in endeavouring to soften the cruelty of his
countrymen; and his only remaining wish was to see his son carry on the
work which he had begun. Unfortunately, however, Don Gusman's
temperament was the very opposite of his father's; he was tyrannical,
harsh, headstrong, and bigoted.
L'Américain farouche est un monstre sauvage
Qui mord en frémissant le frein de l'esclavage ...
Tout pouvoir, en un mot, périt par l'indulgence,
Et la sévérité produit l'obéissance.
Such were the cruel maxims of his government--maxims which he was only
too ready to put into practice. It was in vain that Don Alvarez reminded
his son that the true Christian returns good for evil, and that, as he
epigrammatically put it, 'Le vrai Dieu, mon fils, est un Dieu qui
pardonne.' To enforce his argument, the good old man told the story of
how his own life had been spared by a virtuous American, who, as he
said, 'au lieu de me frapper, embrassa mes genoux.' But Don Gusman
remained unmoved by such narratives, though he admitted that there was
one consideration which impelled him to adopt a more lenient policy. He
was in love with Alzire, Alzire the young and beautiful daughter of
Montèze, who had ruled in Lima before the coming of the Spaniards. 'Je
l'aime, je l'avoue,' said Gusman to his father, 'et plus que je ne
veux.' With these words, the dominating situation of the play becomes
plain to the spectator. The wicked Spanish Governor is in love with the
virtuous American princess. From such a state of affairs, what
interesting and romantic developments may not follow? Alzire, we are not
surprised to learn, still fondly cherished the memory of a Peruvian
prince, who had been slain in an attempt to rescue his country from the
tyranny of Don Gusman. Yet, for the sake of Montèze, her ambitious and
scheming father, she consented to give her hand to the Governor. She
consented; but, even as she did so, she was still faithful to Zamore.
'Sa foi me fut promise,' she declared to Don Gusman, 'il eut pour moi
des charmes.'
Il m'aima: son trépas me coûte encore des larmes:
Vous, loin d'oser ici condamner ma douleur,
Jugez de ma constance, et connaissez mon coeur.
The ruthless Don did not allow these pathetic considerations to stand in
the way of his wishes, and gave orders that the wedding ceremony should
be immediately performed. But, at the very moment of his apparent
triumph, the way was being prepared for the overthrow of all his hopes.
_Act II_.--It was only natural to expect that a heroine affianced to a
villain should turn out to be in love with a hero. The hero adored by
Alzire had, it is true, perished; but then what could be more natural
than his resurrection? The noble Zamore was not dead; he had escaped
with his life from the torture-chamber of Don Gusman, had returned to
avenge himself, had been immediately apprehended, and was lying
imprisoned in the lowest dungeon of the castle, while his beloved
princess was celebrating her nuptials with his deadly foe.
In this distressing situation, he was visited by the venerable Alvarez,
who had persuaded his son to grant him an order for the prisoner's
release. In the gloom of the dungeon, it was at first difficult to
distinguish the features of Zamore; but the old man at last discovered
that he was addressing the very American who, so many years ago, instead
of hitting him, had embraced his knees. He was overwhelmed by this
extraordinary coincidence. 'Approach. O heaven! O Providence! It is he,
behold the object of my gratitude. ... My benefactor! My son!' But let
us not pry further into so affecting a passage; it is sufficient to
state that Don Alvarez, after promising his protection to Zamore,
hurried off to relate this remarkable occurrence to his son, the
Governor.
Act III.--Meanwhile, Alzire had been married. But she still could not
forget her Peruvian lover. While she was lamenting her fate, and
imploring the forgiveness of the shade of Zamore, she was informed that
a released prisoner begged a private interview. 'Admit him.' He was
admitted. 'Heaven! Such were his features, his gait, his voice: Zamore!'
She falls into the arms of her confidante. 'Je succombe; à peine je
respire.'
ZAMORE: Reconnais ton amant.
ALZIRE: Zamore aux pieds d'Alzire!
Est-ce une illusion?
It was no illusion; and the unfortunate princess was obliged to confess
to her lover that she was already married to Don Gusman. Zamore was at
first unable to grasp the horrible truth, and, while he was still
struggling with his conflicting emotions, the door was flung open, and
Don Gusman, accompanied by his father, entered the room.
A double recognition followed. Zamore was no less horrified to behold in
Don Gusman the son of the venerable Alvarez, than Don Gusman was
infuriated at discovering that the prisoner to whose release he had
consented was no other than Zamore. When the first shock of surprise was
over, the Peruvian hero violently insulted his enemy, and upbraided him
with the tortures he had inflicted. The Governor replied by ordering the
instant execution of the prince. It was in vain that Don Alvarez
reminded his son of Zamore's magnanimity; it was in vain that Alzire
herself offered to sacrifice her life for that of her lover. Zamore was
dragged from the apartment; and Alzire and Don Alvarez were left alone
to bewail the fate of the Peruvian hero. Yet some faint hopes still
lingered in the old man's breast. 'Gusman fut inhumain,' he admitted,
'je le sais, j'en frémis;
Mais il est ton époux, il t'aime, il est mon fils:
Son âme à la pitié se peut ouvrir encore.'
'Hélas!' (replied Alzire), 'que n'êtes-vous le père de Zamore!'
_Act IV_.--Even Don Gusman's heart was, in fact, unable to steel itself
entirely against the prayers and tears of his father and his wife; and
he consented to allow a brief respite to Zamore's execution. Alzire was
not slow to seize this opportunity of doing her lover a good turn; for
she immediately obtained his release by the ingenious stratagem of
bribing the warder of the dungeon. Zamore was free. But alas! Alzire was
not; was she not wedded to the wicked Gusman? Her lover's expostulations
fell on unheeding ears. What mattered it that her marriage vow had been
sworn before an alien God? 'J'ai promis; il suffit; il n'importe à quel
dieu!'
ZAMORE: Ta promesse est un crime; elle est ma perte; adieu.
Périssent tes serments et ton Dieu que j'abhorre!
ALZIRE: Arrête; quels adieux! arrête, cher Zamore!
But the prince tore himself away, with no further farewell upon his lips
than an oath to be revenged upon the Governor. Alzire, perplexed,
deserted, terrified, tortured by remorse, agitated by passion, turned
for comfort to that God, who, she could not but believe, was, in some
mysterious way, the Father of All.
Great God, lead Zamore in safety through the desert places. ... Ah!
can it be true that thou art but the Deity of another universe?
Have the Europeans alone the right to please thee? Art thou after
all the tyrant of one world and the father of another? ... No! The
conquerors and the conquered, miserable mortals as they are, all
are equally the work of thy hands....
Her reverie was interrupted by an appalling sound. She heard shrieks;
she heard a cry of 'Zamore!' And her confidante, rushing in, confusedly
informed her that her lover was in peril of his life.
Ah, chère Emire [she exclaimed], allons le secourir!
EMIRE: Que pouvez-vous, Madame? O Ciel!
ALZIRE: Je puis mourir.
Hardly was the epigram out of her mouth when the door opened, and an
emissary of Don Gusman announced to her that she must consider herself
under arrest. She demanded an explanation in vain, and was immediately
removed to the lowest dungeon.
_Act V_.--It was not long before the unfortunate princess learnt the
reason of her arrest. Zamore, she was informed, had rushed straight from
her apartment into the presence of Don Gusman, and had plunged a dagger
into his enemy's breast. The hero had then turned to Don Alvarez and,
with perfect tranquillity, had offered him the bloodstained poniard.
J'ai fait ce que j'ai dû, j'ai vengé mon injure;
Fais ton devoir, dit-il, et venge la nature.
Before Don Alvarez could reply to this appeal, Zamore had been haled off
by the enraged soldiery before the Council of Grandees. Don Gusman had
been mortally wounded; and the Council proceeded at once to condemn to
death, not only Zamore, but also Alzire, who, they found, had been
guilty of complicity in the murder. It was the unpleasant duty of Don
Alvarez to announce to the prisoners the Council's sentence. He did so
in the following manner:
Good God, what a mixture of tenderness and horror! My own liberator
is the assassin of my son. Zamore!... Yes, it is to thee that I owe
this life which I detest; how dearly didst thou sell me that fatal
gift.... I am a father, but I am also a man; and, in spite of thy
fury, in spite of the voice of that blood which demands vengeance
from my agitated soul, I can still hear the voice of thy
benefactions. And thou, who wast my daughter, thou whom in our
misery I yet call by a name which makes our tears to flow, ah! how
far is it from thy father's wishes to add to the agony which he
already feels the horrible pleasure of vengeance. I must lose, by
an unheard-of catastrophe, at once my liberator, my daughter, and
my son. The Council has sentenced you to death.
Upon one condition, however, and upon one alone, the lives of the
culprits were to be spared--that of Zamore's conversion to Christianity.
What need is there to say that the noble Peruvians did not hesitate for
a moment? 'Death, rather than dishonour!' exclaimed Zamore, while Alzire
added some elegant couplets upon the moral degradation entailed by
hypocritical conversion. Don Alvarez was in complete despair, and was
just beginning to make another speech, when Don Gusman, with the pallor
of death upon his features, was carried into the room. The implacable
Governor was about to utter his last words. Alzire was resigned; Alvarez
was plunged in misery; Zamore was indomitable to the last. But lo! when
the Governor spoke, it was seen at once that an extraordinary change had
come over his mind. He was no longer proud, he was no longer cruel, he
was no longer unforgiving; he was kind, humble, and polite; in short, he
had repented. Everybody was pardoned, and everybody recognised the truth
of Christianity. And their faith was particularly strengthened when Don
Gusman, invoking a final blessing upon Alzire and Zamore, expired in the
arms of Don Alvarez. For thus were the guilty punished, and the virtuous
rewarded. The noble Zamore, who had murdered his enemy in cold blood,
and the gentle Alzire who, after bribing a sentry, had allowed her lover
to do away with her husband, lived happily ever afterwards. That they
were able to do so was owing entirely to the efforts of the wicked Don
Gusman; and the wicked Don Gusman very properly descended to the grave.
Such is the tragedy of _Alzire_, which, it may be well to repeat, was in
its day one of the most applauded of its author's productions. It was
upon the strength of works of this kind that his contemporaries
recognised Voltaire's right to be ranked in a sort of dramatic
triumvirate, side by side with his great predecessors, Corneille and
Racine. With Racine, especially, Voltaire was constantly coupled; and it
is clear that he himself firmly believed that the author of _Alzire_ was
a worthy successor of the author of _Athalie_. At first sight, indeed,
the resemblance between the two dramatists is obvious enough; but a
closer inspection reveals an ocean of differences too vast to be spanned
by any superficial likeness.
A careless reader is apt to dismiss the tragedies of Racine as mere
_tours de force_; and, in one sense, the careless reader is right. For,
as mere displays of technical skill, those works are certainly
unsurpassed in the whole range of literature. But the notion of 'a mere
_tour de force_' carries with it something more than the idea of
technical perfection; for it denotes, not simply a work which is
technically perfect, but a work which is technically perfect and nothing
more. The problem before a writer of a Chant Royal is to overcome
certain technical difficulties of rhyme and rhythm; he performs his
_tour de force_, the difficulties are overcome, and his task is
accomplished. But Racine's problem was very different. The technical
restrictions he laboured under were incredibly great; his vocabulary was
cribbed, his versification was cabined, his whole power of dramatic
movement was scrupulously confined; conventional rules of every
conceivable denomination hurried out to restrain his genius, with the
alacrity of Lilliputians pegging down a Gulliver; wherever he turned he
was met by a hiatus or a pitfall, a blind-alley or a _mot bas_. But his
triumph was not simply the conquest of these refractory creatures; it
was something much more astonishing. It was the creation, in spite of
them, nay, by their very aid, of a glowing, living, soaring, and
enchanting work of art. To have brought about this amazing combination,
to have erected, upon a structure of Alexandrines, of Unities, of Noble
Personages, of stilted diction, of the whole intolerable paraphernalia
of the Classical stage, an edifice of subtle psychology, of exquisite
poetry, of overwhelming passion--that is a _tour de force_ whose
achievement entitles Jean Racine to a place among the very few
consummate artists of the world.
Voltaire, unfortunately, was neither a poet nor a psychologist; and,
when he took up the mantle of Racine, he put it, not upon a human being,
but upon a tailor's block. To change the metaphor, Racine's work
resembled one of those elaborate paper transparencies which delighted
our grandmothers, illuminated from within so as to present a charming
tinted picture with varying degrees of shadow and of light. Voltaire was
able to make the transparency, but he never could light the candle; and
the only result of his efforts was some sticky pieces of paper, cut into
curious shapes, and roughly daubed with colour. To take only one
instance, his diction is the very echo of Racine's. There are the same
pompous phrases, the same inversions, the same stereotyped list of
similes, the same poor bedraggled company of words. It is amusing to
note the exclamations which rise to the lips of Voltaire's characters in
moments of extreme excitement--_Qu'entends-je? Que vois-je? Où suis-je?
Grands Dieux! Ah, c'en est trop, Seigneur! Juste Ciel! Sauve-toi de ces
lieux! Madame, quelle horreur_ ... &c. And it is amazing to discover
that these are the very phrases with which Racine has managed to express
all the violence of human terror, and rage, and love. Voltaire at his
best never rises above the standard of a sixth-form boy writing
hexameters in the style of Virgil; and, at his worst, he certainly falls
within measurable distance of a flogging. He is capable, for instance,
of writing lines as bad as the second of this couplet--
C'est ce même guerrier dont la main tutélaire,
De Gusman, votre époux, sauva, dit-on, le père,
or as
Qui les font pour un temps rentrer tous en eux-mêmes,
or
Vous comprenez, seigneur, que je ne comprends pas.
Voltaire's most striking expressions are too often borrowed from his
predecessors. Alzire's 'Je puis mourir,' for instance, is an obvious
reminiscence of the 'Qu'il mourût!' of le vieil Horace; and the cloven
hoof is shown clearly enough by the 'O ciel!' with which Alzire's
confidante manages to fill out the rest of the line. Many of these
blemishes are, doubtless, the outcome of simple carelessness; for
Voltaire was too busy a man to give over-much time to his plays. 'This
tragedy was the work of six days,' he wrote to d'Alembert, enclosing
_Olympie_. 'You should not have rested on the seventh,' was d'Alembert's
reply. But, on the whole, Voltaire's verses succeed in keeping up to a
high level of mediocrity; they are the verses, in fact, of a very clever
man. It is when his cleverness is out of its depth, that he most
palpably fails. A human being by Voltaire bears the same relation to a
real human being that stage scenery bears to a real landscape; it can
only be looked at from in front. The curtain rises, and his villains and
his heroes, his good old men and his exquisite princesses, display for a
moment their one thin surface to the spectator; the curtain falls, and
they are all put back into their box. The glance which the reader has
taken into the little case labelled _Alzire_ has perhaps given him a
sufficient notion of these queer discarded marionettes.
Voltaire's dramatic efforts were hampered by one further unfortunate
incapacity; he was almost completely devoid of the dramatic sense. It is
only possible to write good plays without the power of
character-drawing, upon one condition--that of possessing the power of
creating dramatic situations. The _Oedipus Tyrannus_ of Sophocles, for
instance, is not a tragedy of character; and its vast crescendo of
horror is produced by a dramatic treatment of situation, not of persons.
One of the principal elements in this stupendous example of the
manipulation of a great dramatic theme has been pointed out by Voltaire
himself. The guilt of Oedipus, he says, becomes known to the audience
very early in the play; and, when the _dénouement_ at last arrives, it
comes as a shock, not to the audience, but to the King. There can be no
doubt that Voltaire has put his finger upon the very centre of those
underlying causes which make the _Oedipus_ perhaps the most awful of
tragedies. To know the hideous truth, to watch its gradual dawn upon one
after another of the characters, to see Oedipus at last alone in
ignorance, to recognise clearly that he too must know, to witness his
struggles, his distraction, his growing terror, and, at the inevitable
moment, the appalling revelation--few things can be more terrible than
this. But Voltaire's comment upon the master-stroke by which such an
effect has been obtained illustrates, in a remarkable way, his own sense
of the dramatic. 'Nouvelle preuve,' he remarks, 'que Sophocle n'avait
pas perfectionné son art.'
More detailed evidence of Voltaire's utter lack of dramatic insight is
to be found, of course, in his criticisms of Shakespeare. Throughout
these, what is particularly striking is the manner in which Voltaire
seems able to get into such intimate contact with his great predecessor,
and yet to remain as absolutely unaffected by him as Shakespeare himself
was by Voltaire. It is unnecessary to dwell further upon so hackneyed a
subject; but one instance may be given of the lengths to which this
dramatic insensibility of Voltaire's was able to go--his adaptation of
_Julius Caesar_ for the French stage. A comparison of the two pieces
should be made by anyone who wishes to realise fully, not only the
degradation of the copy, but the excellence of the original. Particular
attention should be paid to the transmutation of Antony's funeral
oration into French alexandrines. In Voltaire's version, the climax of
the speech is reached in the following passage; it is an excellent
sample of the fatuity of the whole of his concocted rigmarole:--
ANTOINE: Brutus ... où suis-je? O ciel! O crime! O barbarie!'
Chers amis, je succombe; et mes sens interdits ...
Brutus, son assassin!... ce monstre était son fils!
ROMAINS: Ah dieux!
If Voltaire's demerits are obvious enough to our eyes, his merits were
equally clear to his contemporaries, whose vision of them was not
perplexed and retarded by the conventions of another age. The weight of
a reigning convention is like the weight of the atmosphere--it is so
universal that no one feels it; and an eighteenth-century audience came
to a performance of _Alzire_ unconscious of the burden of the Classical
rules. They found instead an animated procession of events, of scenes
just long enough to be amusing and not too long to be dull, of startling
incidents, of happy _mots_. They were dazzled by an easy display of
cheap brilliance, and cheap philosophy, and cheap sentiment, which it
was very difficult to distinguish from the real thing, at such a
distance, and under artificial light. When, in _Mérope_, one saw La
Dumesnil; 'lorsque,' to quote Voltaire himself, 'les yeux égarés, la
voix entrecoupée, levant une main tremblante, elle allait immoler son
propre fils; quand Narbas l'arrêta; quand, laissant tomber son poignard,
on la vit s'évanouir entre les bras de ses femmes, et qu'elle sortit de
cet état de mort avec les transports d'une mère; lorsque, ensuite,
s'élançant aux yeux de Polyphonte, traversant en un clin d'oeil tout le
théâtre, les larmes dans les yeux, la pâleur sur le front, les sanglots
à la bouche, les bras étendus, elle s'écria: "Barbare, il est mon
fils!"'--how, face to face with splendours such as these, could one
question for a moment the purity of the gem from which they sparkled?
Alas! to us, who know not La Dumesnil, to us whose _Mérope_ is nothing
more than a little sediment of print, the precious stone of our
forefathers has turned out to be a simple piece of paste. Its glittering
was the outcome of no inward fire, but of a certain adroitness in the
manufacture; to use our modern phraseology, Voltaire was able to make up
for his lack of genius by a thorough knowledge of 'technique,' and a
great deal of 'go.'
And to such titles of praise let us not dispute his right. His vivacity,
indeed, actually went so far as to make him something of an innovator.
He introduced new and imposing spectacular effects; he ventured to write
tragedies in which no persons of royal blood made their appearance; he
was so bold as to rhyme 'père' with 'terre.' The wild diversity of his
incidents shows a trend towards the romantic, which, doubtless, under
happier influences, would have led him much further along the primrose
path which ended in the bonfire of 1830.
But it was his misfortune to be for ever clogged by a tradition of
decorous restraint; so that the effect of his plays is as anomalous as
would be--let us say--that of a shilling shocker written by Miss Yonge.
His heroines go mad in epigrams, while his villains commit murder in
inversions. Amid the hurly-burly of artificiality, it was all his
cleverness could do to keep its head to the wind; and he was only able
to remain afloat at all by throwing overboard his humour. The Classical
tradition has to answer for many sins; perhaps its most infamous
achievement was that it prevented Molière from being a great tragedian.
But there can be no doubt that its most astonishing one was to have
taken--if only for some scattered moments--the sense of the ridiculous
from Voltaire.