COMEDY AND TRAGEDY--MOLIERE--RACINE
I
The history of comedy, from Larivey to Moliere, is one of arrested
development, followed by hasty and ill-regulated growth. During the
first twenty-five years of the seventeenth century, comedy can hardly
be said to have existed; whatever tended to beauty or elevation, took
the form of tragi-comedy or pastoral; what was rude and popular became
a farce. From the farce Moliere's early work takes its origin, but
of the repertory of his predecessors little survives. Much, indeed,
in these performances was left to the improvisation of the burlesque
actors. Gros-Guillaume, Gaultier-Garguille, Turlupin, Tabarin,
rejoiced the heart of the populace; but the _farces tabariniques_
can hardly be dignified with the name of literature.
In 1632 the comedy of intrigue was advanced by Mairet in his
_Galanteries du Duc d'Ossone_. The genius of Rotrou, follower though
he was of Plautus, tended towards the tragic; if he is really gay,
it is in _La Soeur_ (1645), a bright tangle of extravagant incidents.
For Rotrou the drama of Italy supplied material; the way to the Spanish
drama was opened by d'Ouville, the only writer of the time devoted
specially to comedy, in _L'Esprit Follet_ (1641); once opened, it
became a common highway. Scarron added to his Spanish originals in
_Jodelet_ and _Don Japhet d'Armenie_ his own burlesque humour. The
comedy of contemporary manners appears with grace and charm in
Corneille's early plays; the comedy of character, in his admirable
_Le Menteur_. Saint-Evremond satirised literary affectations in _La
Comedie des Academistes_; these and other follies of the time are
presented with spirit in Desmaret's remarkable comedy, _Les
Visionnaires_. If we add, for sake of its study of the peasant in
the character of Mathieu Gareau, the farcical _Pedant Joue_ of Cyrano,
we have named the most notable comedies of the years which preceded
_Les Precieuses Ridicules_.
Their general character is extravagance of resources in the plot,
extravagance of conception in the characters. Yet in both intrigue
and characters there is a certain monotony. The same incidents,
romantic and humorous, are variously mingled to produce the
imbroglio; the same typical characters--the braggart, the parasite,
the pedant, the extravagant poet, the amorous old man, the designing
woman, the knavish valet, the garrulous nurse--play their mirthful
parts. If the types are studied from real life rather than adopted
from Italian or Spanish models, they are exaggerated to absurdity.
Corneille alone is distinguished by delicacy of imagination and the
finer touch of a dexterous artist.
JEAN-BAPTISTE POQUELIN, who, when connected with the stage, named
himself MOLIERE, was born in January 1622, in Paris, the son of a
prosperous upholsterer, Jean Poquelin, and Marie Cresse, his wife.
Educated at the College de Clermont, he had among his fellow-pupils
the Prince de Conti, Chapelle, the future poet Hesnault, the future
traveller Bernier. There seems to be no sufficient reason to doubt
that he and some of his friends afterwards received lessons in
philosophy from Gassendi, whose influence must have tended to loosen
him from the traditional doctrines, and to encourage independence
of thought. A translation by Moliere of the great poem of Lucretius
has been lost, but a possible citation from it appears in the second
act of the _Misanthrope_. Legal studies followed those of philosophy.
But Moliere had other ends in view than either those of an advocate
or of the hereditary office of upholsterer to the King. In 1643, at
the age of twenty-one, he decided to throw in his lot with the
theatrical company in which Madeleine Bejart and her brothers were
leading members. The _Illustre Theatre_ was constituted, but Paris
looked askance at the illustrious actors; debt, imprisonment, and
release through friendly aid, formed the net result of Moliere's first
experiment.
The troupe decided at the close of 1645 or in the early days of the
following year to try their fortune in the provinces. It is needless
to follow in detail their movements during twelve years--twelve years
fruitful in experience for one who observed life with keenest eyes,
years of toil, in which the foundations of his art were laid. At Lyons,
probably in 1655, possibly in 1653, a comedy, founded on the Italian
of Nicolo Barbieri, _L'Etourdi_, saw the light, and Moliere revealed
himself as a poet. Young Lelie, the _Etourdi_, is enamoured of the
beautiful Celie, whom the merchant Trufaldin, old and rich, has
purchased from corsairs. Lelie's valet Mascarille, who is the life
of the play, invents stratagem on stratagem to aid the lover, and
is for ever foiled by his master's indiscretions, until the inevitable
happy denouement arrives. The romantic intrigue is conventional; the
charm is in the vivacity and colour of the style. In 1656 _Le Depit
Amoureux_ was given with applause at Beziers; much is derived from
the Italian of Secchi, something perhaps from Terence; the tender
scenes of lovers' quarrels and lovers' reconciliation, contrasting
with the franker comedy of the loves of waiting-maid and valet, still
live, if the rest of the play be little remembered.
The years of apprenticeship were over when, in 1658, Moliere and his
company once more in Paris presented, by command, before the King,
Corneille's _Nicomede_, and, leave being granted, gave his farce in
the Italian style, the _Docteur Amoureux_, before pleased spectators.
The company was now the troupe of Monsieur, the King's brother, with
the Petit-Bourbon as theatre, and there, in November 1659, was enacted
Moliere's first satiric play on contemporary manners, _Les
Precieuses Ridicules_. We do not need the legendary old man crying
from the pit "Courage, Moliere! voila la bonne comedie" to assure
us that the comic stage possessed at length a masterpiece. The
dramatist had himself known the precieuses of the provinces; through
them he might with less danger exhibit the follies of the Hotel de
Rambouillet and the _ruelles_ of the capital. The good bourgeois
Gorgibus is induced by his niece and daughter, two precieuses, to
establish himself in Paris. Their aspirant lovers, unversed in the
affectations of the salon, are slighted and repelled; in revenge they
employ their valets, Mascarille and Jodelet, to play the parts of
men of fashion and of taste. The exposure and confusion of the ladies,
with an indignant rebuke from Gorgibus, close the piece. It was a
farce raised to the dignity of comedy. Moliere's triumph was the
triumph of good sense.
After a success in _Sganarelle_ (1660), a broad comedy of vulgar
jealousy, and a decided check--the only one in his dramatic career--in
the somewhat colourless tragi-comedy _Don Garcie de Navarre_ (1661),
Moliere found a theme, suggested by the Adelphi of Terence, which
was happily suited to his genius. _L'Ecole des Maris_ (1661) contrasts
two methods of education--one suspicious and severe, the other wisely
indulgent. Two brothers, Ariste and Sganarelle, seek the hands of
their wards, the orphan sisters Isabelle and Leonor; the amiable
Ariste, aided by the good sense of a gay soubrette, is rewarded with
happiness; the vexatious Sganarelle is put to confusion. The drama
is a plea, expressing the writer's personal thoughts, for nature and
for freedom. The comedy of manners is here replaced by the comedy
of character. Its success suggested to Fouquet that Moliere might
contribute to the amusement of the King at the fetes of the Chateau
de Vaux; in fifteen days the dramatist had his bright improvisation
_Les Facheux_ ready, a series of character sketches in scenes rather
than a comedy. The King smiled approval, and, it was whispered, hinted
to Moliere that another bore might with advantage be added to the
collection--the sportsman whose talk shall be of sport. At
Fontainebleau he duly appeared before his Majesty, and unkind
spectators recognised a portrait of the Marquis de Soyecourt.
Next February (1662) Moliere, aged forty, was married to the actress
Armande Bejart, whose age was half his own--a disastrous union, which
caused him inexpressible anxiety and unhappiness. In _L'Ecole des
Femmes_ of the same year he is wiser than he had shown himself in
actual life. Arnolphe would train a model wife from childhood by the
method of jealous seclusion and in infantile ignorance; but love,
in the person of young Horace, finds out a way. There is pathos in
the anguish of Arnolphe; yet it is not the order of nature that
middle-aged folks should practise perverting arts upon innocent
affections. The charming Agnes belongs of right to Horace, and the
over-wise, and therefore foolish, Arnolphe must quit the scene with
his despairing cry. Some matter of offence was found by the devout
in Moliere's play; it was the opening of a long campaign; the
_precieuses_, the dainty gentle-folk, the critical disciples of
Aristotle, the rival comedians, were up in arms. Moliere for the
occasion ignored the devout; upon the others he made brilliant
reprisals in _La Critique de l'Ecole des Femmes_ (1663) and
_L'Impromptu de Versailles_ (1663).
Among those who war against nature and human happiness, not the least
dangerous foe is the religious hypocrite. On May 12, 1664, Moliere
presented before the King the first three acts of his great
character-comedy _Tartufe_. Instantly Anne of Austria and the King's
confessor, now Archbishop of Paris, set to work; the public
performance of "The Hypocrite" was inhibited; a savage pamphlet was
directed against its author by the cure of Saint-Barthelemy. Private
representations, however, were given; _Tartufe_, in five acts, was
played in November in presence of the great Conde. In 1665 Moliere's
company was named the servants of the King; two years later a verbal
permission was granted for the public performance of the play. It
appeared under the title of _L'Imposteur_; the victory seemed won,
when again, and without delay, the blow fell; by order of the President,
M. de Lamoignon, the theatre was closed. Moliere bore up courageously.
The King was besieging Lille; Moliere despatched two of his comrades
to the camp, declaring that if the Tartufes of France should carry
all before them he must cease to write. The King was friendly, but
the Archbishop fulminated threats of excommunication against any one
who should even read the play. At length in 1669, when circumstances
were more favourable, Louis XIV. granted the desired permission; in
its proper name Moliere's play obtained complete freedom. Bourdaloue
might still pronounce condemnation; Bossuet might draw terrible
morals from the author's sudden death; an actor, armed with the sword
of the comic spirit, had proved victorious. And yet the theologians
were not wholly wrong; the tendency of Moliere's teaching, like that
of Rabelais and like that of Montaigne, is to detach morals from
religion, to vindicate whatever is natural, to regard good sense and
good feeling as sufficient guides of conduct.
There is an accent of indignation in the play; the follies of men
and women may be subjects of sport; base egoism assuming the garb
of religion deserves a lash that draws the blood. Is it no act of
natural piety to defend the household against the designs of greedy
and sensual imposture; no service to society to quicken the
penetration of those who may be made the dupes of selfish craft? While
Organ and his mother are besotted by the gross pretensions of the
hypocrite, while the young people contend for the honest joy of life,
the voice of philosophic wisdom is heard through the sagacious Cleante,
and that of frank good sense through the waiting-maid, Dorine.
Suddenly a providence, not divine but human, intervenes in the
representative of the monarch and the law, and the criminal at the
moment of triumph is captured in his own snare.
When the affair of _Tartufe_ was in its first tangle, Moliere produced
a kind of dramatic counterpart--_Don Juan, ou le Festin de Pierre_
(1665). In Don Juan--whose valet Sganarelle is the faithful critic
of his master--the dramatist presented one whose cynical incredulity
and scorn of all religion are united with the most complete moral
licence; but hypocrisy is the fashion of the day, and Don Juan in
sheer effrontery will invest himself for an hour in the robe of a
penitent. Atheist and libertine as he is, there is a certain glamour
of reckless courage about the figure of his hero, recreated by Moliere
from a favourite model of Spanish origin. His comedy, while a vigorous
study of character, is touched with the light of romance.
These are masterpieces; but neither _Tartufe_ nor _Don Juan_
expresses so much of the mind of Moliere as does _Le Misanthrope_
(1666). His private griefs, his public warfare, had doubtless a little
hardened and a little embittered his spirit. In many respects it is
a sorry world; and yet we must keep on terms with it. The misanthropist
Alceste is nobly fanatical on behalf of sincerity and rectitude. How
does his sincerity serve the world or serve himself? And he, too,
has his dose of human folly, for is he not enamoured of a heartless
coquette? Philinte is accommodating, and accepts the world for what
it is; and yet, we might ask, is there not a more settled misanthropy
in such cynical acquiescence than there is in the intractable virtue
of Alceste? Alone of Moliere's plays, _Le Misanthrope_ has that
Shakespearean obscurity which leaves it open to various
interpretations. It is idle to try to discover actual originals for
the characters. But we may remember that when Alceste cried to
Celimene, "C'est pour mes peches que je vous aime," the actors who
stood face to face were Moliere and the wife whom he now met only
on the stage.
Moliere's genius could achieve nothing higher than _Tartufe_ and the
_Misanthrope_. His powers suffered no decline, but he did not again
put them to such strenuous uses. In 1668 the brilliant fantasy of
_Amphitryon_, freely derived from Plautus, was succeeded by an
admirable comedy in prose, _Georges Dandin_, in which the folly of
unequal marriage between the substantial farmer and the fine lady
is mocked with bitter gaiety. Before the year closed Moliere,
continuing to write in prose, returned to Plautus, and surpassed him
in _L'Avare_. To be rich and miserly is in itself a form of fatuity;
but Harpagon is not only miserly but amorous, as far as a ruling
passion will admit one of subordinate influence. _Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme_ (1670), a lesson of good sense to those who suffer from
the social ambition to rise above their proper rank, is wholly
original; it mounts in the close from comedy to the extravagance of
farce, and perhaps in the uproarious laughter of the play we may
discover a touch of effort or even of spasm. The operatic _Psyche_
(1671) is memorable as having combined the talents of Moliere,
Corneille, and Quinault, with the added musical gifts of Lulli.
In _Les Femmes Savantes_ (1672) Moliere returned to an early theme,
with variations suited to the times. The Hotel de Rambouillet was
closed; the new tribe of _precieuses_ had learnt the Cartesian
philosophy, affected the sciences, were patronesses of physics,
astronomy, anatomy. Something of the old romantic follies survived,
and mingled strangely with the pretensions to science and the
pedantries of erudition. Trissotin (doubtless a portrait in
caricature from the Abbe Cotin) is the Tartufe of spurious culture;
Vadius (a possible satire of Menage) is a pedant, arrogant and brutal.
Shall the charming Henriette be sacrificed to gratify her mother's
domineering temper and the base designs of an impostor? The forces
are arrayed on either side; the varieties of learned and elegant folly
in woman are finely distinguished; of the opposite party are Chrysale,
the bourgeois father with his rude common-sense; the sage Ariste;
the faithful servant, Martine, whose grammar may be faulty, but whose
wit is sound and clear; and Henriette herself, the adorable, whom
to know is more of a liberal education than to have explored all the
Greek and Latin masters of Vadius and Trissotin. The final issue of
the encounter between good sense, good nature, reason and folly,
pedantry and pride, cannot be uncertain.
_Le Malade Imaginaire_ was written when Moliere was suffering from
illness; but his energy remained indomitable. The comedy continued
that long polemic against the medical faculty which he had sustained
in _L'Amour Medecin_, _Monsieur de Pourceaugnac_, and other plays.
Moliere had little faith in any art which professes to mend nature;
the physicians were the impostors of a learned hygiene. It was the
dramatist's last jest at the profession. While playing the part of
Argan on February 17, 1673, the "Malade Imaginaire" fell dying on
the stage; he forced a laugh, but could not continue his part; at
ten o'clock he was no more. Through the exertions of his widow a
religious funeral was permitted to an actor who had died unfortified
by the rites of the Church.
Many admirable though slighter pieces served as the relief of his
mind between the effort of his chief works. In all, gaiety and good
sense interpenetrate each other. Kindly natured and generous,
Moliere, a great observer, who looked through the deeds of men, was
often taciturn--_le contemplateur_ of Boileau--and seemingly
self-absorbed. Like many persons of artistic temperament, he loved
splendour of life; but he was liberal in his largess to those who
claimed his help. He brought comedy to nature, and made it a study
of human life. His warfare was against all that is unreal and unnatural.
He preached the worth of human happiness, good sense, moderation,
humorous tolerance. He does not indulge in heroics, and yet there
is heroism in his courageous outlook upon things. The disciple of
Moliere cannot idealise the world into a scene of fairyland; he will
conceive man as far from perfect, perhaps as far from perfectible;
but the world is our habitation; let us make it a cheerful one with
the aid of a sane temper and an energetic will. As a writer, Moliere
is not free from faults; but his defects of style are like the
accidents that happen within the bounds of a wide empire. His stature
is not diminished when he is placed among the greatest European
figures. "I read some pieces of Moliere's every year," said Goethe,
"just as from time to time I contemplate the engravings after the
great Italian masters. For we little men are not able to retain the
greatness of such things within ourselves."
To study the contemporaries and immediate successors of Moliere in
comedy--Thomas Corneille, Quinault, Montfleury, Boursault,
Baron--would be to show how his genius dominates that of all his
fellows. The reader may well take this fact for granted.[1]
[Footnote 1: An excellent guide will be found in Victor Fournel's
_Le Theatre au xvii. Siecle, La Comedie_.]
II
With the close of the sanguinary follies of the Fronde, with the
inauguration of the personal government of Louis XIV. and the triumph
of an absolute monarchy, a period of social and political
reorganisation began. The court became the centre for literature;
to please courtiers and great ladies was to secure prosperity and
fame; the arts of peace were magnificently ordered; the conditions
were favourable to ideals of grace and beauty rather than of proud
sublimity; to isolate one's self was impossible; literature became
the pastime of a cultivated society; it might be a trivial pastime,
but in fitting hands it might become a noble pleasure.
The easier part was chosen by PHILIPPE QUINAULT, the more arduous
by Racine. Quinault (1635-88) had given his first comedy as early
as 1653; in tragedies and tragi-comedies which followed, he heaped
up melodramatic incidents, but could not base them upon characters
strongly conceived, or passion truly felt. A frigid sentimentality
replaces passion, and this is expressed with languorous monotony.
Love reigns supreme in his theatre; but love, as interpreted by
Quinault, is a kind of dulcet gallantry. His tragedy _Astrate_ (1663)
was not the less popular because its sentiment was in the conventional
mode. One comedy by Quinault, _La Mere Coquette_, is happy in its
plot and in its easy style. But he did not find his true direction
until he declined--or should we rather say, until he rose?--into the
librettist for the operas of Lulli. His lyric gifts were considerable;
he could manipulate his light and fragile material with extraordinary
skill. The tests of truth and reality were not applied to such verse;
if it was decorative, the listeners were satisfied. The opera
flourished, and literature suffered through its pseudo-poetics. But
the libretti of Quinault and the ballets of Benserade are
representative of the time, and in his mythological or chivalric
inventions Benserade sometimes could attain to the poetry of graceful
fantasy.
Quinault retired from the regular drama almost at the moment when
Racine appeared. Born at La Ferte-Milon in 1639, son of a procureur
and comptroller of salt, JEAN RACINE lost both parents while a child.
His widowed grandmother retired to Port-Royal in 1649. After six
years' schooling at Beauvais the boy passed into the tutelage of the
Jansenists, and among his instructors was the devout and learned
Nicole. Solitude, religion, the abbey woods, Virgil, Sophocles,
Euripides--these were the powers that fostered his genius. Already
he was experimenting in verse. At nineteen he continued his studies
in Paris, where the little abbe Le Vasseur, who knew the _salons_
and haunted the theatre, introduced him to mundane pleasures.
Racine's sensitive, mobile character could easily adapt itself to
the world. His ode on the marriage of the King, _La Nymphe de la Seine_,
corrected by Chapelain (for to bring Tritons into a river was highly
improper), won him a gift of louis d'or. But might not the world
corrupt the young Port-Royalist's innocence? The company of ladies
of the Marais Theatre and that of La Fontaine might not tend to
edification. So thought Racine's aunts; and, with the expectation
that he would take orders, he was exiled to Uzes, where his uncle
was vicar-general, and where the nephew could study the _Summa_ of
theology, but also the Odyssey, the odes of Pindar, Petrarch, and
the pretty damsels who prayed in the cathedral church.
In 1663 he was again in Paris, was present at royal levees, and in
Boileau's chambers renewed his acquaintance with La Fontaine, and
became a companion of Moliere. His vocation was not that of an
ecclesiastic. Two dramatic works of earlier date are lost; his first
piece that appeared before the public, _La Thebaide_, was presented
in 1664 by Moliere's company. It is a tragedy written in discipleship
to Rotrou and to Corneille, and the pupil was rather an imitator of
Corneille's infirmities than of his excellences. _Alexandre_
followed towards the close of the ensuing year--a feeble play, in
which the mannered gallantry of the time was liberally transferred
to the kings of India and their Macedonian conqueror. But amorous
sighs were the mode, and there was a young grand monarch who might
discover himself in the person of the magnanimous hero. The success
was great, though Saint-Evremond pronounced his censures, and
Corneille found ridiculous the trophies erected upon the imagined
ruins of his own. Discontented with the performers at the Palais-Royal,
Racine offered his play to the Hotel de Bourgogne; Moliere's best
actress seceded to the rival house. Racine's ambition may excuse,
but cannot justify an injurious act; a breach between the friends
was inevitable.
Boileau remained now, as ever, loyal--loyal for warning as well as
for encouragement. Nicole, the former guide of Racine's studies, in
his _Visionnaires_, had spoken of dramatic poets as "public
poisoners." The reproach was taken to himself by Racine, and in two
letters, written with some of the spirit of the _Provinciales_, he
turned his wit against his Jansenist friends. Thanks to Boileau's
wise and firm counsel, the second of these remained unpublished.
Madame de Sevigne was the devoted admirer of the great Corneille,
but when she witnessed his young rival's _Andromaque_ she yielded
to its pathos six reluctant tears. On its first appearance in 1667
a triumph almost equal to that of the _Cid_ was secured. Never before
had grace and passion, art and nature, ideality and truth, been so
united in the theatre of France. Racine did not seek for novelty in
the choice of a subject; Euripides had made Andromache familiar to
the Greek stage. The invention of Racine was of a subtler kind than
that which manufactures incidents and constructs a plot. Like Raphael
in the art of painting, he could accept a well-known theme and renew
it by the finest processes of genius. He did not need an extraordinary
action, or personages of giant proportions; the simpler the intrigue,
the better could he concentrate the interest on the states of a soul;
the more truly and deeply human the characters, the more apt were
they for betraying the history of a passion. In its purity of outline,
its harmony of proportions, _Andromaque_ was Greek; in its sentiment,
it gained something from Christian culture; in its manners, there
was a certain reflection of the Versailles of Louis XIV. It was at
once classical and modern, and there was no discordance between
qualities which had been rendered, to borrow a word from Shakespeare,
"harmonious charmingly." With _Andromaque_ French tragedy ceased to
be oratorical, and became essentially poetic.
Adversaries there were, such as success calls forth; the irritable
poet retorted with epigrams of a kind which multiply and perpetuate
enmities. His true reprisal was another work, _Britannicus_,
establishing his fame in another province of tragedy. But before
_Britannicus_ appeared he had turned aside, as if his genius needed
recreation, to produce the comedy, or farce, or buffoonery, or
badinage, or mockery (for it is all these), _Les Plaideurs_. It may
be that his failure in a lawsuit moved Racine to have his jest at
the gentlemen of the Palais; he and his friends of the tavern of the
_Mouton Blanc_--Furetiere among them--may have put their wits
together to devise material for laughter, and discussed how far _The
Wasps_ of Aristophanes could be acclimatised in Paris. At first the
burlesque was meant for an Italian troupe, but Scaramouche left the
town, and something more carefully developed would be expected at
the Hotel de Bourgogne. The play was received with hisses, but Moliere
did not fear to laugh at what was comic, whether he laughed according
to the rules or against them. A month later, at a court performance,
Louis XIV. laughed loudly; the courtiers quickly discovered Racine's
wit, and the laughter was echoed by all loyal citizens. In truth,
there is laughing matter in the play; the professional enthusiasm
of Dandin, the judge, who wears his robe and cap even in bed, the
rage and rapture of litigation in Chicanneau and the Countess, have
in them something of nature beneath the caricature; in the buffoonery
there is a certain extravagant grace.
_Les Plaideurs_, however, was only an interlude between graver
efforts. _Britannicus_ (1669), founded on the Annals of Tacitus,
exhibits with masterly power Nero's adolescence in crime; the young
tiger has grace and strength, but the instinct of blood needs only
to be awakened within him. Agrippine is a superb incarnation of
womanly ambition, a Roman sister of Athalie. The play was at first
coldly received; Corneille and his cabal did not spare their censures.
In a preface Racine struck back, but afterwards repented of his bitter
words and withdrew them. The critics, as he says in a later preface,
disappeared; the piece remained. His conception of tragedy in
contrast with that of Corneille was defined by him in memorable
words--what is natural should be sought rather than what is
extraordinary; the action should be simple, "chargee de peu de
matiere"; it should advance gradually towards the close, sustained
by the interests, sentiments, and passions of the personages.
The sprightly Henrietta of England, Duchess of Orleans, seems to have
conceived the idea of bringing the rivalry between the old dramatic
poet and his young successor to a decisive test. She proposed to each,
without the other's knowledge, a subject for a tragedy--the parting,
for reasons of State policy, of two royal lovers, Titus, Emperor of
Rome, and Berenice, Queen of Palestine. Perhaps Henrietta
mischievously thought of the relations of her friend Marie de Mancini
with Louis XIV. The plays appeared almost simultaneously in November
1670; Corneille's was before long withdrawn; Racine's _Berenice_,
in which the penetrating voice of La Champmesle interpreted the
sorrows of the heroine, obtained a triumph. Yet the elegiac subject
is hardly suited to tragedy; a situation rather than an action is
presented; it needed all the poet's resources to prevent the scenes
from being stationary. In Berenice there is a suavity in grief which
gives a grace to her passion; the play, if not a drama of power, is
the most charming of elegiac tragedies.
_Bajazet_ (1672), a tragedy of the seraglio, although the role of
the hero is feeble, has virile qualities. The fury of Eastern passion,
a love resembling hate, is represented in the Sultana Roxane. In the
Vizier Acomat, deliberate in craft, intrepid in danger, Racine proved,
as he proved by his Nero and his Joad, that he was not always doomed
to fail in his characters of men. The historical events were
comparatively recent; but in the perspective of the theatre, distance
may produce the idealising effect of time. The story was perhaps found
by Racine in _Floridon_, a tale by Segrais. The heroine of
_Mithridate_ (1673), the noble daughter of Ephesus, Monime, queen
and slave, is an ideal of womanly love, chastity, fidelity, sacrifice;
gentle, submissive, and yet capable of lofty courage. The play unites
the passions of romance with a study of large political interests
hardly surpassed by Corneille. The cabal which gathered head against
_Bajazet_ could only whisper its malignities when _Mithridate_
appeared.
_Iphigenie_, which is freely imitated from Euripides, was given at
the fetes of Versailles in the summer of 1674. The French Iphigenia
is enamoured of Achilles, and death means for her not only departure
from the joy of youth and the light of the sun, but the loss of love.
Here, as elsewhere, Racine complicates the moral situation with cross
and counter loves: Eriphile is created to be the jealous rival of
Iphigenie, and to be her substitute in the sacrifice of death. The
ingenious transpositions, which were necessary to adapt a Greek play
to Versailles in the second half of the seventeenth century, called
forth hostile criticisms. Through miserable intrigues a competing
_Iphigenie_, the work of Le Clerc and Coras, was produced in the spring
of 1675; it was born dead, and five days later it was buried.
The hostilities culminated two years later. It is commonly said that
Racine wrote in the conventional and courtly taste of his own day.
In reality his presentation of tragic passions in their terror and
their truth shocked the aristocratic proprieties which were the mode.
He was an innovator, and his audacity at once conquered and repelled.
It was known that Racine was engaged on _Phedre_. The Duchesse de
Bouillon and her brother the Duc de Nevers were arbiters of elegance
in literature, and decreed that it should fail. A rival play on the
same subject was ordered from Pradon; and to insure her victory the
Duchess, at a cost of fifteen thousand livres, as Boileau declares,
engaged the front seats of two theatres for six successive
evenings--the one to be packed with applauding spectators, the other
to exhibit empty benches, diversified with creatures who could hiss.
Nothing could dignify Pradon's play, as nothing could really degrade
that of Racine. But Racine was in the highest degree sensitive, and
such a desperate plot against his fame might well make him pause and
reflect.
_Phedre_, like _Iphigenie_, is a new creation from Euripides. Its
singular beauty has been accurately defined as a mingling of horror
and compassion, of terror and curiosity. It is less a drama than one
great part, and that part consists of a diseased state of the soul,
a morbid conflict of emotions, so that the play becomes overmuch a
study in the pathology of passion. The greatness of the role of the
heroine constitutes the infirmity of the play as a whole; the other
characters seem to exist only for the sake of deploying the inward
struggle of which Phedre is the victim. Love and jealousy rage within
her; remorse follows, for something of Christian sentiment is
conveyed by Racine into his classical fable. Never had his power as
a psychologist in art been so wonderfully exhibited; yet he had
elsewhere attained more completely the ideal of the drama. In the
succession of his profane masterpieces we may say of the last that
it is lesser than the first and greater. _Phedre_ lacks the balance
and proportion of _Andromaque_; but never had Racine exhibited the
tempest and ravage of passion in a woman's soul on so great a scale
or with force so terrible.
The cabal might make him pause; his own play, profoundly moralised
as it was, might cause him to consider. Events of the day, crimes
of passion, adulteries, poisonings, nameless horrors, might agitate
his spirit. Had he not fed the full-blown passions of the time? What
if Nicole's word that playwrights were public poisoners should be
true? Probably various causes operated on the mobile spirit of Racine;
certainly the Christian, of Jansenist education, who had slumbered
within him, now awakened. He resolved to quit the world and adopt
the Carthusian habit. The advice of his confessor was that he should
regulate his life by marriage. Racine yielded, and found his
contentment in a wife who was ignorant of his plays, and in children
whose inclinations and training were religious. The penitent was
happy in his household, happy also in his reconciliation with Nicole
and Arnauld. To Boileau he remained attached. And he did not renounce
the court. Was not the King the anointed vicegerent of God, who could
not be too much honoured? He accepted, with Boileau as fellow-labourer,
the position of the King's historiographer, and endeavoured to fulfil
its duties.
Twelve years after his withdrawal from the theatre, Racine, at the
request of Madame de Maintenon, composed his Biblical tragedy of
_Esther_ (1688-89) for her cherished schoolgirls at Saint-Cyr. The
subject was not unaptly chosen--a prudent and devout Esther now helped
to guide the fortunes of France, and she was surrounded at Saint-Cyr
by her chorus of young daughters of Sion. _Esther_ was rendered by
the pupils, with graceful splendours, before the King, and the delight
was great. The confidante of the Persian Queen indeed forgot her
words; at Racine's hasty complaint the young actress wept, and the
poet, weeping with her, wiped away her tears.
_Esther_ is a melodious play, exquisite in its refined style and
delicate versification; but the characters are faintly drawn. Its
novelty lay in its lyrical movements and in the poetical uses of its
finely-imagined spectacle. Madame de Maintenon or her directors
feared that the excitement and ambitions of another play in costume
might derange the spirits of her girls, and when _Athalie_ was recited
at Versailles, in January 1691, it was little of an event; the play
passed almost unnoticed. A noisy reception, indeed, would have been
no fitting tribute to its solemn beauty. All Racine's religious
feeling, all his domestic tenderness are united in _Athalie_ with
his matured feeling for Greek art. The great protagonist is the Divine
Being; Providence replaces the fate of the ancient drama. A child
(for Racine was still an innovator in the French theatre) was the
centre of the action; the interests were political, or rather national,
in the highest sense; the events were, as formerly, the developments
of inward character; but events and characters were under the
presiding care of God. The tragedy is lyrical, not merely through
the chorus, which expresses common emotions of devout joy and fear,
indignation, praise, and rapture. The chorus is less developed here,
and its chants are less impressive than in _Esther_. There is, however,
a lyrism, personal and modern, in the prophetic inspiration of the
High Priest, and Racine anticipated that his boldness in presenting
this might be censured by his contemporaries. The unity of place,
which had been disregarded in _Esther_, is here preserved; the scene
is the temple at Jerusalem; and by its impressive grandeur, and the
awful associations of the place, the spectacle may be said to take
part in the action of the play. Perhaps it would be no exaggeration
to assert that grandeur and beauty are nowhere else so united in French
dramatic art as in _Athalie_; perhaps it might truly be described
as flawless in majesty and grace.
A light disfavour of the King saddened, and perhaps hastened, the
close of Racine's life. Port-Royal was regarded as a centre of
rebellious heresy; and Racine's piety to his early masters was humble
and devout. He had further offended by drawing up a memorandum on
the sufferings of the French people resulting from the wars. Madame
de Maintenon assured him that the cloud would pass; but the favour
of death, accepted with tranquillity, came before the returning
favour of the poet's master. He died in April 1699, soon after he
had entered his sixtieth year.
The highest distinction of the drama of Racine is its truth to
nature--truth, that is, in its interpretation and rendering of human
passion. Historical accuracy and local colour concerned him as far
as they were needful with his courtly spectators for verisimilitude.
The fluctuations of passion he studies to most advantage in his
characters of women. Love, in all its varieties, from the passion
of Roxane or Phedre to the pure devotion of Berenice, Iphigenie, or
Monime; maternal tenderness or the tenderness of the foster-mother
(Andromaque, Clytemnestre, Josabeth); female ambition (Agrippine,
Athalie)--these are the themes of his exposition. His style has been
justly characterised as a continual creation; its audacity underlies
its suavity; its miracles are accomplished with the simplest means.
His vocabulary is singularly small, yet with such a vocabulary he
can attain the rarest effects. From sustained dignity he can pass
suddenly, when the need arises, to the most direct familiarity. The
music of his verse is seldom rich or sonorous; it is at once a pure
vehicle for the idea and a delicate caress to the senses.