CHAPTER XII

SHAKESPEARE AND OURSELVES

Shakespeare (and this applies to every individual work) had a history,

but has one no longer. He had a history, which was that of his poetical

sentiment, of its various changing notes, of the various forms in

which it found expression. He had also (we must insist), an individual

history which it is difficult to identify united with that of the

Elizabethan drama, to which he belongs solely as an actor and provider

of theatrical works. The general traits, which, among many differences,

he shares with his contemporaries, predecessors and imitators (even

when these are more substantial than theatrical imitations, conventions

and habits) form part of the history of the Renaissance in general and

of the English Renaissance in particular, but do not of themselves

constitute the history that was properly speaking his own.

But he no longer has this, because what happened afterwards and what

happens in the present, is the history of others, is our history,

no longer his. Indeed, the histories of Shakespeare, which have

been composed, considered in the light of later times--and they are

still being written--have been and are understood, in a first sense,

as the history of the criticism of his works; and it is clear that

in this case, it is the history of us, his critics, the history of

criticism and of philosophy, no longer that of Shakespeare. Or they

are understood as the history of the spiritual needs and movements of

different periods, which now approach and now recede from Shakespeare,

causing either almost complete forgetfulness of his poetry, or causing

it to be felt and loved. In this case too, it is the history, not of

Shakespeare, but of the culture and the mode of feeling of other times

than his. Or they are understood in a third sense, as the history of

the literary and artistic works, in which the so-called influence of

Shakespeare is more or less discernible; and since this influence would

be without interest, if it produced nothing but mere mechanical copies,

and on the contrary has interest only because we see it transformed in

an original manner by new poets and artists, it is the history of the

new poets and artists and no longer that of Shakespeare.

As regards the last statement, it will not be out of place to remark

that the accounts which have been given of the representations of

his plays are altogether foreign to Shakespeare; because theatrical

representations are not, as is believed, "interpretations," but

variations, that is to say "creations of new works of art," by means

of the actors, who always bring to them their own particular manner of

feeling. There is never a _tertium comparationis,_ in the sense of a

presumably authentic and objective interpretation, and here the same

criterion applies as to music and painting suggested by plays, which

are music and painting, and not those plays. Giuseppe Verdi, who for

his part composed an _Othello,_ wrote to the painter Morelli, who had

conceived a painting of Iago (in a letter of 1881, recently published):

"You want a slight figure, with little muscular development, and if I

have understood you rightly, one of the cunning, malignant sort ...

But if were I an actor and wished to represent Iago, I should prefer a

lean, meagre figure, with thin lips, and small eyes close to the nose,

like a monkey's, a high retreating forehead, with a deal of development

at the back of the head; absent and _nonchalant_ in manner, indifferent

to everything, incredulous, sneering, speaking good and evil lightly,

with an air of thinking about something quite different from what he

says ..." They might have entered into a long discussion as to the two

different interpretations, had not Verdi, with his accustomed good

sense, hastened to conclude: "But whether Iago be small or big, whether

Othello be Venetian or Turk, _execute them as you conceive them_: the

result will always be good. But remember _not to think too much about

it._"

The insurmountable difference that exists between the most studiously

poetic theatrical representation and the original poetry of

Shakespeare, is the true reason why, contrary to the general belief in

Shakespeare's eminent "theatricality," Goethe considered that "he was

not a poet of the theatre and did not think of the stage, which is too

narrow for so vast a soul, that the visible world is too narrow for

it." Coleridge too held that the plays were not intended for acting,

but to be read and contemplated as poems, and added sometimes to say

laughingly, that an act of Parliament should be passed to prohibit the

representation of Shakespeare on the stage.

Certainly, Lear and Othello, Macbeth and Hamlet, Cordelia and

Desdemona are part of our souls, and so they will be in the future,

more or less active, like every part of our souls, of our experiences,

of our memories. Sometimes they seem inert and almost obliterated, yet

they live and affect us; at others they revive and reawaken, linking

themselves to our greatest and nearest spiritual interests. This latter

was notably the case in the epoch that extends from the "period of

genius" at the end of romanticism, from the criticism of Kant to the

exhaustion of the Hegelian school. At that time, poets created Werther

and Faust, as though they were the brothers of Hamlet, Charlotte and

Margaret and Hermengarde, as though sisters of the Shakespearean

heroines, and philosophers constructed systems, which seemed to frame

the scattered thoughts of Shakespeare, reducing his differences to

logical terms, and crowning them with the conclusion that he either did

not seek or did not find. At that time persisted even the illusion that

the spirit of Shakespeare had transferred itself from the Elizabethan

world to the new world of Europe, was poetising and philosophising with

the mouths of the new men and directing their sentiments and actions.

Perhaps after that period, love of Shakespeare, if not altogether

extinguished, greatly declined. The colossal mass of work of every sort

devoted to Shakespeare, cannot be brought up against this judgment,

for this mass, in great part due to German, English and American

philologists, proves rather the sedulity of modern philology, than a

profound spiritual impulse. This was more lively, when Shakespeare

was far less investigated, rummaged and hashed up, and was read in

editions far less critically correct. How could he be truly loved and

really felt in an age which buried dialectic and idealism beneath

naturalism and positivism, for the former of which he stood and which

he represented in his own way? In this age, the consciousness of the

distinction between liberty and passion, good and evil, nobility and

vileness, fineness and sensuality, between the lofty and the base

in man, became obscured; everything was conceived as differing in

quantity, but identical in substance, and was placed in a deterministic

relation with the external world. In such an atmosphere artistic

work became blind, diseased, gloomy, instinctive; struggling for

expression amid the torment of sick senses, no longer amid passionate,

moral struggles of the soul; confused writers, half pedantic, half

neurasthenic, were taken for and believed themselves to be, the heirs

of Shakespeare. Even when one reads some of the most highly praised

pages of the critics of the day upon Shakespeare, so abounding in

exquisite refinements, a sort of repugnance comes over one, as though a

warning that this is not the genuine Shakespeare. He was less subtle,

but more profound, less involved, but more complex and more great than

they.

This is not a lamentation directed against the age, which is perhaps

now drawing to a close and perhaps has no desire to do so, and will

continue to develop its own character for a greater or lesser period.

It is simply an observation of fact, which belongs to that history,

which is not the history of William Shakespeare. He continues to live

his own history, in those spirits alone, who are perpetually making

anew that history which was truly his, as they read him with an

ingenuous mind and a heart that shares in his poetry.

PART III

PIERRE CORNEILLE

CHAPTER XIII

CRITICISM OF THE CRITICISM

There is no longer any necessity for a criticism of Corneille's

tragedies in a negative sense, for it is already to be found in

several works. Further, if there exists a poet, who stands outside

the taste and the preoccupations of our day (at least in France), it

is Corneille. The greater number of lovers of poetry and art confess

without reserve that they cannot endure his tragedies, which "have

nothing to say to them." The fortune of Corneille has declined more

and more with the growth of the fame of Shakespeare, which has been

correlative to the formation and the growth of modern aesthetic

and criticism; and if the fame of Shakespeare seemed strange and

repugnant to classicistic elegance, the same fate has befallen the

French dramatist, as the result of Shakespeareanism in relation to the

appreciation of art which has now penetrated everywhere. Corneille

once represented "_la profondeur du jugement_" as opposed to "_les

irrégularités sauvages et capricieuses_" of the Englishman, decorum

against the lack of it, calm diffused light against shadows pierced

at rare intervals with an occasional flash. Lessing had selected for

examination and theme the _Rodogune,_ which he held to be a work, not

of poetical genius, but of an ingenious intellect, because genius loves

simplicity, and Corneille, after the manner of the ingenious, loved

complications. Schiller, when he had read the most highly praised works

of Corneille, expressed his astonishment at the fame which had accrued

to an author of so poor an inventive faculty, so meagre and so dry in

his treatment of character, so lacking in passion, so weak and rigid in

the development of action, and almost altogether deprived of interest.

William Schlegel noted in him, in place of poetry, "tragic epigrams"

and "airs of parade," pomp without grandeur--he found him cold in the

love scenes--his love was not as a rule love, but, in the words of the

hero Sertorius, a well calculated _aimer par politique--_intricate

and Machiavellian and at the same time ingenuous and puerile in

the representation of politics. He defined the greater part of the

tragedies as nothing but treatises on the reason of State in the

form of discussions, conducted rather in the manner of a chess-player

than of a poet. Even the most temperate De Sanctis could not succeed

in enjoying this writer, as is to be gathered from his lectures upon

dramatic literature delivered in 1847. He found that he does not render

the fullness of life, but only the extreme points of the passions

in collision, and that he prefers eloquence to the development of

tragedy, so that he often unconsciously turns tragedy into comedy. The

confrontation of Corneille's _Cid_ with its Spanish original, _Las

mocedades_ of Guillén de Castro, has however prevailed above all others

as the text upon which to base arguments against the French dramaturge.

Shack declared that the work of Corneille was altogether negative, that

he reduced and reëlaborated his original, losing the poetical soul

of the Spanish poet in the process and destroying the alternate and

spontaneous expression of tenderness and of violent passion. He found

that he substituted oratorical adornments and a swollen phraseology

for the pure language of sentiment, coquetry for the struggle of the

affections, to which it is directly opposed, and a boastful charlatan

for the heroic figure of Rodrigo. Klein, passing from severe

criticism into open satire, described the _Cid_ to be a "commentary in

Alexandrines" upon the poem of the _Mocedades,_ comparing the Spanish

Jimena to a fresh drop of dew upon "a flower that has hardly bloomed,"

and the French Chimène on the contrary to a "muddy drop, which presents

a tumultuous battle of infusorians to the light of the sun": the

"infusorians" would represent the antithesis to the "Alexandrine tears"

(_Alexandrinerthränen_), which she pours forth.

But these negative judgments were not restricted altogether and

at first to foreigners and romantics. In the eighteenth century,

Voltaire (who for that matter sometimes lifts his eyes to the

dangerous criterion of Shakespeare in his notes upon Corneille) did

not refrain from criticising his illustrious predecessor for the

frequent _froideur_ observable in his dramatic work, as well as for his

constant habit of speaking himself as the author and not allowing his

personages to speak, for his substitution of reflections for immediate

expressions, and for the artifices, the conventions and the padding, in

which he abounds. Vauvenargues showed himself irreconcilable (Racine

was his ideal). He too blamed the heroes of Corneille for uttering

great things and not inspiring them, for talking, and always talking

too much, with the object of making themselves known--whereas great

men are rather characterised by the things they do not say than those

they do say--and in general for ostentation, which takes the place

of loftiness, and for declamation, which he substitutes for true

eloquence. Gaillard allowed the influence of the generally unfavorable

verdict or the verdict full of retractations and cautions in respect

of its theme, to colour the eulogy which he composed in 1768. It used

to be said of Corneille that he aimed rather at "admiration" than at

"emotion," and that he was in fact "not tragic." This insult (declared

Gaillard) was spoken, but not written down, "because the pen is always

wiser than the tongue." But the accusation of "coldness" had made

itself heard on the lips of Corneille's contemporaries in the second

half of the seventeenth century, particularly when the tragedies of

Racine, with their very different message to the heart, had appeared to

afford a contrast.

The defenders of Corneille have often yielded to the temptation of

accepting Shakespeare's dramas or at least the tragedies of Racine as

a standard of comparison and a reply to criticism. They have attempted

to prove that Corneille should be read, judged and interpreted in the

spirit of those poets. They have claimed to discover in Corneille just

that which their adversaries failed to discover and of which they

denied the existence: this they call truth, reality and life, meaning

thereby, passion and imagination. Thus we find Sainte-Beuve lamenting

that not only foreigners, but France herself, had not remarked and

had not gloried in the possession of Pauline (in _Polyeucte_), one

of the divine poetical figures, which are to be placed in the brief

list containing the Antigones, the Didos, the Francescas da Rimini,

the Desdemonas, the Ophelias. More recently others have elevated the

Cleopatra (of _Rodogune_) to the level of Lady Macbeth, and the Cid, on

account of the youthful freshness of his love-making, to the rank of

_Romeo and Juliet,_ while they have discovered in _Andromède_ nothing

less than that kind of _féerie poétique_ "to which the English owe a

_Midsummer Night's Dream_ and the _Tempest._" They also declare that

the _Horace_ is a tragedy in which reigns a sort of "savage Roman

sanctity," culminating in the youthful Horace, "intransigent and

fanatical, ferociously religious"; while his sister Camilla is "a

creature of nerves and flesh, who has strayed into a family of heroes"

and rises up in revolt against that hard world. For them Camilla is

an "invalid of love," "one possessed by passion," a "neurotic," of

an altogether modern complexion. _Polyeucte_ represents "a drama of

nascent Christianity," and its protagonist, a "mystical rebel," recalls

at once "Saint Paul, Huss, Calvin and Prince Krapotkine," arousing

the same curiosity as a Russian nihilist, such as one used to see

some years ago in the beershops, with bright eyes, pale and fair, the

forehead narrow about the temples and of whom it was whispered that he

had killed some general or prefect of police at Petersburg. Severus

seems to them to be similar in some respects to "a modern exegete,"

who is writing the history of the origin of Christianity. There exists

no play "which penetrates more profoundly into the human soul or opens

a wider perspective of untrodden paths." _Cinna_ represents in the

tragedy of Augustus another neurotic after the modern manner. Augustus,

ambitious and without scruples, has attained to the summit of his

desires and is weary and tired of power. He negates the man who ordered

the proscriptions that is in himself and his generosity is due almost

to satiety for too easy triumphs and vengeances. Attila, in the tragedy

of that name, springs out before us as "a monster of pride, cruel,

emphatic and subtle, conscious of being the instrument of a mysterious

power, an ogre with a mission": this "stupendous" conception is worthy

to stand side by side with the gigantic figures of the _Légende des

Siècles._

These are all fantastic embroideries, metaphors, easel pictures, which

sometimes do honour to the artistic capacity of the eulogists, but

have no connexion whatever with the direct impression of Corneille's

tragedies. Spinoza would have said that they have as much connexion

with them as the dog of zoology with the dog-star. An obvious instance

of this is the strange comparison of the character Polyeucte with

the "Russian nihilist"--but it is little less evident in the other

instances, because it is altogether arbitrary to interpret the Augustus

of the _Cinna_ as though he were a Shakespearean Richard II or Henry IV

and to attribute to him the psychology of what Nietzsche describes as

the "generous man."

Fancy for fancy, as well admit Napoleon's comment. He declared himself

persuaded that Augustus was certainly not changed in a moment into a

_"prince débonnaire,"_ into a poor prince exercising "_une si pauvre

petite vertu_" as clemency, and that if he holds out to Cinna the right

hand of friendship, he only does this to deceive him and in order to

revenge himself more completely and more usefully at the propitious

moment. It is an amusement like another to take up the personages of

a play or of a story and refashion them in our own way by the free

use of the fancy, or to weave a new mode of feeling out of the facts

concerning certain cases and characters. Camilla can thus be quite

well transformed even into a nymphomaniac; but unfortunately criticism

insinuates itself into the folds of fancy and causes the fancier

himself (Lemaître) to note that Camilla sacrifices her love to her duty

_"délibérément,"_ that she certainly resembles a character of Racine,

but "_non certes par la langue,_" and that she would show us what she

really is "_si elle parlait un langage moins rude at moins compact._"

As though the speech and the inflection were an accident and not the

whole of a poetic creation, the beating of its heart! The demoniacal,

the neurotic Camilla, it is true, speaks in this way:

"Il vient, préparons-nous a montrer constamment

Ce que doit une amante à la mort d'un amant."

Here Voltaire's unconquerable good sense could not refrain from

remarking: "'_Préparons-nous_' adds to the defect. We see a woman who

is thinking how she can demonstrate her affliction and may be said to

be rehearsing her lesson of grief."

The same fantastic and anticritical method of comparison has been

adopted with De Castro's play, with the object of obtaining a contrary

result: this comparison, whenever it is conducted with the criterion

of realistic art, or of art full of passion, cannot but result in

a condemnation of Corneille's reëlaboration of the theme. This has

been frankly admitted by more than one French critic (Fauriel for

example), who contrived to loosen somewhat the chains of national

preconceptions and traditional admirations. Indeed it was already

implied in the celebrated judgment of the Academy, which is not the

less just and acute for having been delivered by an academy and written

by a Chapelain. Guillen de Castro's play, which is epical and popular

in tone, celebrates the youthful hero Rodrigo, the future Cid, strong,

faithful and pious, admired by all, and looked upon with love by

princesses. An anecdote is recounted, with the object of celebrating

him, describing how he was obliged to challenge and to slay the father

of the maiden he loved. Bound to the same degree as himself by the laws

of chivalry, she is held to be obliged to provide for the vendetta

required by the death of her father. She performs her duty without

hatred and solely as a legal enemy, an _"ennemie légitime"_ (to employ

a phrase of the same Corneille in the _Horace)._ She does not cease

to love, nor does she feel any shame in loving. Finally, his prowess

and the favour of heaven, which he deserves and which ever accompanies

him, obtain for Rodrigo the legal conquest of his loving beloved,

who is also his enemy for honour's sake. De Castro's play is limpid,

lively, full of happenings. Corneille both simplifies and complicates

it, reducing it to series of casuistical discussions, vivified here and

there with echoes of the passionate original, softened with moments

of abandonment, as in the vigorous scene of the challenge, which is

an echo of the Spanish play, or in the tender sigh of the duet,

"_Rodrigue, qui Veut cru?... Chimène, qui l'eût dit?..._" which is also

in De Castro. After this, it can be asserted that Corneille "has made a

human drama, a drama of universal human appeal, out of an exclusively

Spanish drama"; it will also be declared that "the most beautiful

words of the French language find themselves always at the point of

the pen, when one is writing about the _Cid;_ duty, love, honour, the

family, one's native land," because "everything there is generous,

affectionate, ingenuous, and there never has been breathed a livelier

or a purer air upon the stage, the air of lofty altitudes of the soul."

But this is verbiage. It is also possible to revel in the description

of "the fair cavalier, protected of God and adored by the ladies, who

carries his country about with him wherever he goes, and along with it

everybody's heart; in the beautiful maiden with the long black veil, so

strong and yet so weak, so courageous and so tender; in the grand old

man, so majestic and yet so familiar, the signor so rude and so hoary,

yet with a soul as straight and as pure as a lily, in whom dwells the

ancient code of honour and all the glory of times past; in the king,

so good-natured and ingenuous, yet so clever, like the good king one

finds in fairy stories; in the gentle little infanta, with her precious

soliloquies, so full of gongorism and knightly romances ..."; but as we

have previously observed, this will be merely drawing fancy pictures.

It suffices to read the _Cid,_ to see that it contains nothing of this

and nothing of this is to be found among the tragedies of Corneille.

The vanity of such criticisms, which attempt to alter Corneille by

presenting him as that which he is not and does not wish to be, a

poet of immediate passions, would at once be apparent, were it to be

realised that no such attempts are made in the case of Racine, whose

passionate soul makes its presence at once felt through literary and

theatrical conventions, in the affection which he experiences for the

sweet, for what is tremendous and mysterious with religious emotion,

which palpitates in Andromache, in Phaedra, in Iphigenia and Eriphylis

in Joad and in Attila. But it confutes itself by becoming modified,

sometimes among the very critics whom we have been citing, into the

thesis that Corneille is the poet of the "reason," or of "the rational

will." And we say modified, because the reason or the rational will

is in poetry itself a passion, and he would be correctly described

as a poet of that kind of inspiration, who should accentuate the

rational-volitional moment in the representation of the passions, by

creating types of wise and active men, such as are to be found in the

epic, in many dramatic masterpieces, in high romance and elsewhere. But

not even this exists in Corneille, so much so that the very persons who

maintain the thesis, remark that he isolates a principle and a force,

the reason and the will, and seeks out how the one makes the other

triumph. To this, they declare, we must attribute the "character of

stiffness" proper to the heroes of Corneille, who are necessarily bound

to lack "the seductive flexibility, the languors, the perturbations,

which are to be observed in those moved by sentiment." Now this is not

permissible in art, because art, in portraying a passion, even if it

be that of inflexible rationality and inflexible will and duty, never

"isolates" it, in the fashion of an analyst in a laboratory, or a

physicist, but seizes it in its becoming, and so together with all the

other passions, and together with the "languors" and "disturbances."

Thus Corneille, described as they describe him by isolating the reason

and the will, would be a slayer of life, and so of the will and the

reason themselves. And when he is blamed for having given so small and

so unhappy a place to love, "to the act by which the race perpetuates

itself, to the relations of the sexes and to all the sentiments that

arise from them, and which, by the nature of things form an essential

part of the life of the human race," it is not observed that beneath

this reproof, which is somewhat physiological and lubricious and lacks

seriousness of statement, there is concealed the yet more serious

and more general reproof that Corneille suffocates and suppresses

the quiver of life. La Bruyère was probably among the first to give

currency to the saying, which has been repeated, that Corneille depicts

men not "as they are," but "as they ought to be," and leads to a like

conclusion, though expressed in an euphemistic form; because poetry in

truth knows nothing of being or of having to be, and its existence is a

having to be, its having to be a being.

This critical position, which desires to explain and to justify

Corneille as poet of the reason and of the rational will (although, as

we shall see further on, it contains some truth), is indeed equivocal,

because it seems to assert on the one hand that he possesses a

particular form of passion, and on the other takes it away from him

with its "isolation," its "having to be," and with its assertion that

his personages "surpass nature," with its boasting of his "Romans

being more Roman than Romans," his "Greeks more Greek than Greeks"

and the like, that is to say, by making of him an exaggerator of

types and of abstractions, the opposite of a poet. The passage, then,

is easy from this position to its last thesis or modification, by

means of which Corneille is exalted as an eminent representative of

a special sort of poetry, "rationalistic poetry," which is held to

coincide with poetry that is especially "French." The theory here

implied is to be found both among the French and those who are not

French, among classicists and romantics, sometimes being looked upon

among both as a merit, that is to say, it is recognised by them that

this sort of poetry is legitimate. In the course of his proof that

French rationalistic tragedy excludes the lyrical element and demands

the intrigue of action and the eloquence of the passions, Frederick

Schlegel indicated "the splendid side of French tragedy, where it

evinces lofty and incomparable power, fully responding to the spirit

and character of a nation, in which eloquence occupies a dominant

position, even in private life." A contemporary writer on art,

Gundolf, blames his German conationals for the prejudices in which

they are enmeshed, and for their lack of understanding of the great

rationalistic poetry of France, so logical, so uniform, so ordered and

subordinated, so regular and so easily to be understood. It is the

natural and spontaneous expression of the French character, in the same

way as is the monarchy of Louis XIV, differing thereby from the narrow

convention or imitation, which it became in the hands of Gottsched and

others of Gallic tendencies, in other countries. Sainte-Beuve, alluding

in particular to Corneille, argued that in French tragedy "things are

not seen too realistically or over-coloured, since attention is chiefly

bestowed upon the saying of Descartes:--I think, therefore I am: I

think, therefore I feel;--and everything there happens in or is led

back to the bosom of the interior substance," in the "state of pure

sentiment, of reasoned and dialogued analysis," in a sphere "no longer

of sentiment, but of understanding, clear, extended, without mists and

without clouds." Another student of Corneille opposes the different and

equally admissible system of the French tragedian, "a constructor and

as it were an engineer of action," to that of Shakespeare, portrayer

of the soul and of life. Thus, while all the most famous plays of

Shakespeare are drama, but lyrical drama, "hardly one of the most

beautiful and popular plays of Corneille is essentially lyrical." What

are we to think of "rationalistic" or "intellectualistic," or "logical"

or "non-lyrical" poetry? Nothing but this: that it does not exist. And

of French poetry? The same: that it does not exist; because what is

poetry in France is naturally neither intellectualiste nor essentially

French, but purely and simply poetry, like all other poetry that has

grown in this earthly flower-bed. And if the old-fashioned romanticism,

which sanctifies and gives substance to nationality and demands of art,

of thought and of everything else, that it should first be national, is

reappearing among French writers in the disguise of anti-romanticism

and neo-classicism, this is but a proof the more of the spiritual

dulness and mental confusion of those nationalists, who embrace their

presumed adversary.

The only reality that could be concealed in "rationalistic poetry,"

for which Corneille is praised, as shown above, would be one of the

categories in old-fashioned books of literary instruction, known as

"didactic poetry," which was not too well spoken of, even there.

Corneille is admired from this point of view, among other things,

for his famous political dissertations in the _China_ and in the

_Sertorius,_ where Voltaire considers that he is deserving of great

praise for "having expressed very beautiful thoughts in correct and

harmonious verse." In this connexion are quoted the remarks of the

Maréchal de Grammont about the _Othon,_ that "it should have been the

breviary of kings," or of Louvois, "an audience of ministers of state

would be desirable for the judgment of such a work." It is indeed only

in "didactic poetry," which is versified prose, that we find "thoughts"

that are afterwards "versified." The method employed by another man of

letters would also make of the tragedies of Corneille masked didactic

poetry. He is an unconscious manipulator of thesis, antithesis and

synthesis, in the manner of Hegel, and describes it as "the alliance of

the individual with the species, of the particular with the general,"

which were separate in the medieval "farces" and "moralities," the

former being all compact of individuals and actions, the latter of

ideas, which Corneille was able to unite, being one of those great

masters who proceed from the general to the particular and vivify the

abstractions of thought with the power of the imagination.

The justification of the tragedies of Corneille, as based upon the

foundations of French society and history in the time of Corneille,

is certainly more solid than that which explains them as based upon a

mystical French "character," or "race," or "nation." Do conventions and

etiquette govern and embarrass the development of dialogue and action

in every part of those tragedies? But such was life at court, or life

modelled upon life at court, in those days. Do the characters rather

reason about their sentiments than express them? But such was the

custom of well-bred men of that day. And do they always discuss matters

according to all the rules of rhetoric and with perfect diction? But

to speak well was the boast of men in society and diplomatists at that

time. Do the women mingle love and politics, and rather make love

for political reasons than politics for love? But the ladies of the

Fronde did just this; indeed Cardinal Mazarin, in conversation with the

Spanish ambassador, gave vent to the opinion that in France "an honest

woman would not sleep with her husband, nor a mistress with her lover,

unless they had discussed affairs of State with them during the day."

And so discussions continue and are to be found continuing in Taine

and many others, without explaining anything, because they pass over

the poetry and the problem of the poetry, which is not, as Taine held,

"the expression of the genius of an age" or "the reflection of a given

society" (society reflects and expresses itself in its own actions

and customs), but "poetry, that is to say, one of the free forces of

every people, society and time, which must be interpreted with reasons

contained in itself."[1] It is superfluous to add that the poetry is

lost sight of in the delight of finding the personages and social types

of the French seventeenth century, beyond the verses and the ideal

conceptions of character; for example, we find them declaring their

own affectionate sympathy for "Christian Theodora," for this martyr,

of the dress with the starched collar and the equally proudly starched

sentiments, "for this proud martyr, in the grand style of Louis XIII,"

altogether forgetting the reality of the art of Corneille and the

critical problems suggested by the _Théodora._ This is certainly very

prettily and gracefully said, but it misses the point.

There remains to mention but one last form of defence, which however is

not a justification of the art of Corneille, but a eulogy of him as an

ingenious man, who deserved well of culture and possessed refinement

of manners, particularly as regards theatrical representations. To him

belongs the "great merit" (said Voltaire in concluding his commentary)

of "having found France rustic, gross and ignorant, about the time of

the _Cid,_ and of having changed it 'by teaching it not only tragedy

and comedy, but even the art of thinking." And his rival Racine, in

his praise of Corneille before the Academy at the time of his death,

had recorded "the debt that French poetry and the French stage owed

to him." He had found it disordered, irregular and chaotic, and after

having sought the right road for some time and striven against the

bad taste of his age, "he inspired it with an extraordinary genius

aided by study of the ancients, and exhibited reason (_la raison_)

on the stage, accompanied with all the pomp and all the ornaments, of

which the French language is capable." All the historians of French

literature repeat this, beginning by bowing down before Corneille, the

"founder," or "creator" of the French theatre. Such praise as this

means little or nothing in art, because non-poets, or poets of very

slender talents, even pedants, are capable of exercising this function

of being founders and directors of the culture and the literature of

a people. An instance of this in Italy was Pietro Bembo, "who removed

this pure, sweet speech of ours from its vulgar obscurity, and has

shown us by his example what it ought to be."

He was not a poet, yet was surrounded with the gratitude, and with the

most sincere reverence on the part of poets of genius, among whom was

Ariosto, to whom belong the verses cited above.

That other merit accorded to Corneille, of having accomplished a

revolution, cleared the ground and "raised the French tragic system

upon it," the "classical system," is without poetical value. We shall

leave it to others to define as they please, precisely of what this

work consisted, the introduction of the unities and of the rules of

verisimilitude, the conception and realisation of tragic psychological

tragedy, or the tragedy of character, of which actions and catastrophes

should form, the consequences, the fusing and harmonising in a single

type of sixteenth century tragedy, which starts from "the tragic

incident," with that of the seventeenth century, which ends with it,

and so on. We prefer to remark, with reference to this and to so many

other disputes that have taken place since the time of Calepio and

Lessing onward, and especially during the romantic period, with regard

to the merits and the defects of the "French system," as compared with

the "Greek system" and with the "romantic" or "Shakespearean," that

"systems" either have nothing to do with poetry, or are the abstract

schemes of single poems, and therefore that such disputes are and

always have been, sterile and vain. Here too it should be mentioned

that a "system" may be the work of non-poets or of mediocre poets, as

was the case in Italy with the system of "melodrama," of which (to

employ the figure of De Sanctis), Apostolo Zeno was the "architect"

and Pietro Metastasio the "poet." In England too, the system of the

drama was not fixed by Shakespeare, but by his predecessors, small fry

indeed as compared with him. We would also observe that death or life

may exist in one and the same system, for indeed a system is a prison,

with bolts and bars. Note in this respect, that although the romantics

had boasted the salvation that lay in the Shakespearean system, a new

dramatic genius springing therefrom was vainly awaited. There appeared

only semigeniuses and a crowd of strepitous works, not less cold and

empty than those that had been condemned in the opposing "French

system."

We may therefore conclude that the arguments of the admirers and

apologists of Corneille, which have been passed in review, do not

embrace the problem, but leave the judgments of negative criticism free

to exercise their perilous potency. They find in Corneille intellectual

combinations in place of poetical formations, abstractions in place of

what is concrete, oratory in place of lyrical inspiration and shadow in

place of substance.

[Footnote 1: "Est-ce que la critique moderne n'a pas abandonné l'art

pour l'histoire? La valeur intrinsèque d'un livre n'est rien dans

l'école Sainte-Beuve-Taine. On y prend tout en considération, sauf le

talent." (Flaubert, _Correspondence,_ IV, 81.)]

CHAPTER XIV

THE IDEAL OF CORNEILLE

Nevertheless, when all this has been said and the conclusion drawn,

there remains the general impression of the work, which has in it

something of the grandiose, and brings back to the lips the homage

that the next generations rendered to the author, when they called

him "the great Corneille." It is to be hoped that no one has been

deceived as to the intention of our discourse up to this point, which

has been directed not against Corneille, but against his critics,

nor among them against those who have written many other things both

true and beautiful on the subject; we have but to refer to the acute

Lemaître among the most recent, to the diligent and loving Dorchain,

and to the most solid of all, Lanson. We shall avail ourselves of

them in what follows, but shall oppose their particular theories

and presuppositions, which are misrepresentations of the subject of

their judgments itself. For the negative criticism, which we have

recapitulated, does not win our confidence, but rather shows itself

to be erroneous or (which amounts to the same thing) incomplete,

exaggerated and one-sided, for the very reason that it does not account

for that impression of the grandiose. Conducted as it has been, it

would very well suit a writer who was a rhetorician with an appearance

of warmth, a writer able to make a good show before the public and in

the theatre, while remaining internally unmoved himself, superficial

and frivolous. But Corneille looks upon us and upon those critics with

so serious and severe a countenance, that we lose the courage to treat

him in so unceremonious and so expeditious a manner.

Whence comes that air of severity, which we find not only in his

portraits but in every page of his tragedies, even in those and in

those parts of them, in which he fails to hit the mark, or appears to

be tired, to have lost his way, and to be making efforts?

From this fact alone: that Corneille had an ideal, an ideal in which

he believed, and to which he clung with all the strength of his soul,

of which he never lost sight and which he always tended to realise in

situations, rhythms, and words, seeking and finding his own intimate

satisfaction, the incarnation of his ideal, in those brave and solemn

scenes and sounds.

His contemporaries felt this, and it was for this reason that Racine

wrote that above all, "what was peculiar to Corneille consisted of a

certain force, a certain elevation, which astonishes and carries us

away, and renders even his defects, if there be found some to reprove

him for them, more estimable than the virtues of others"; and La

Bruyère also summed it up in the phrase that "what Corneille possessed

of most eminent was his soul, which was sublime."

The most recent interpreters have found Corneille's ideal to reside

in will for its own sake, the "pure will," superior or anterior to

good and evil, in the energy of the will as such, which does not pay

attention to particular ends. Thus the false conception of him as

animated with the ideal of moral duty or with that of the triumph of

duty over the passions has been eliminated, and agreement has been

reached, not only with the reality of the tragedies, but also with

what Corneille himself laid down in his _Discours_ as to the dramatic

personage. Such a personage may indeed be plunged in all sorts of

crimes, like Cleopatra in the _Rodogune,_ but in the words of the

author, "all his actions are accompanied with so lofty a greatness of

soul that we admire the source whence his actions flow, while we detest

those actions themselves."

On the other hand, the concept of the pure will runs some risk of

being perverted at the hands of those who proceed to interpret it by

identification with that other "will for power" of Nietzsche, who

understood the French poet in this hyperbolical manner and referred

to him with fervent admiration on account of this fancy of his. The

ideal of the will for power has an altogether modern origin, in the

protoromantic and romantic superman, in over-excited and abstract

individualism. It did not exist at the time of Corneille, or in the

heart of the poet, who was very healthy and simple. The figures of

Corneille's tragedies must be looked at through coloured and deforming

glasses, as supplied by fashionable literature, in order to see in them

such attitudes and gestures.

The further definition, which, while it renders the first conception

more exact and more appropriate, at the same time shuts the door on

these new fancies, is this: that Corneille's ideal does not express

the pure will at the moment of violent onrush and actuation, but of

ponderation and reflection, that is to say, as _deliberative will._

This was what Corneille truly loved: the spirit which deliberates

calmly and serenely and having formed its resolution, adheres to it

with unshakeable firmness, as to a position that has been won with

difficulty and with difficulty strengthened. This represented for

him the most lofty form of strength, the highest dignity of man.

_"Laissez-moi mieux consulter mon âme,"_ says one of Corneille's

personages, and all of them think and act in the same way. "_Voyons,_"

says the king of the Gepidi to the king of the Goths in the _Attila,

"--voyons qui se doit vaincre, et s' il faut que mon âme. A votre

ambition immole cette flamme. Ou s'il n'est point plus beau que votre

ambition. Elle-même s'immole a cette passion."_

Augustus hesitates a long while, and gives vent to anguished

lamentations, when he has discovered that Cinna is plotting against

his life, as though to clear his soul and to make it better capable of

the deliberation, which begins at once under the influence of passion,

in the midst of anguish and with anguish. Has he the right to lament

and to become wrathful? Has he not also made rivers of blood to flow?

Does he then resign himself in his turn? Does he forsake himself as

the victim of his own past? Far from it: he has a throne and is bound

to defend it, and therefore will punish the assassin. Yes, but when he

has caused more blood to flow, he will find new and greater hatreds

surrounding him, new and more dangerous plots. It is better, then, to

die? But wherefore die? Why should he not enjoy revenge and triumph

once again? This is the tumult of irresolution, which, while felt as a

hard, a desperate torment, and although it seems to hold the will in

suspense, in reality sets it in motion, insensibly guiding it to its

end. _"O rigoureux combat d'un cœur irrésolu!..."_ The more properly

deliberative process enters his breast with the appearance upon the

scene of Livia, to whose advice he is opposed, for he disputes and

combats it, yet listens and weighs it, seeming finally to remain still

irresolute, yet he has already formed hi:; resolve, he has decided in

his heart to perform an act of political clemency, so thunderous, so

lightning-like in quality, as to bewilder his enemy and to hurl him

vanquished at his feet.

The two brother princes in _Rodogune_ are conversing, while they await

the announcement as to which is the legitimate heir to the throne.

Upon this announcement also depends which shall become the happy

husband of Rodogune, whom they both love with an equal ardour. How will

they face and support the decision of fate? One of the two, uncertain

and anxious about the future, proposes to renounce the throne in favour

of his brother, provided the latter renounces Rodogune; but he is met

with the same proposal by the other. Thus the satisfaction of both,

by means of mutual renunciation, is precluded. But the other course

is also precluded, that of strife and conflict, for their brotherly

affection is firm, and so is the sentiment of moral duty in both. This

also forbids the one sacrificing himself for the other, because neither

would accept the sacrifice. What can be saved from a collision, from

which it seems that, nothing can be saved? One of the two brothers,

after these various and equally vain attempts at finding a solution,

returns upon himself, descends to the bottom of his soul, finds there

a better motive and is the first to formulate the unique resolution:

"_Malgré l'éclat du trône et l'amour d'une femme, Faisons si bien

régner l'amitié sur notre âme, Qu'étouffant dans leur perte un regret

suborneur, Dans le bonheur d'un frère on trouve son bonheur...._" And

the other, who has not been the first to see and to follow this path

asks: "_Le pourriez, vous mon frère?_" The first replies: "_Ah; que

vous me pressez! Je le voudrais du moins, mon frère, et c'est assez; Et

ma raison sur moi gardera tant d'empire, Que je désavoûrai mon cœur,

s'il en soupire."_ The other, firm in his turn replies: "_J'embrasse

comme vous ces nobles sentiments...._"

Loving as he did, in this way, the work of the deliberative will (we

have recorded two only of the situations in his tragedies, and we could

cite hundreds), Corneille did not love love, a thing that withdraws

itself from deliberation, a severe illness, which man discovers in his

body, like fire in his house, without having willed it and without

knowing how it got there. Sometimes the deliberative will is affected

by it and for the moment at least upset, and then we hear the cry of

Attila: "_Quel nouveau coup de foudre! O raison confondue, orgueil

presque étouffé..._." as he struggles against its enchantments: _"cruel

poison de l'âme et doux charme des yeux."_ But as a general rule,

he promptly drives it away from him, coldly and scornfully; or he

subdues it and employs it as a means and an assistance in far graver

matters, such as ambition, politics, the State; or he accepts it for

what it contains of useful and worthy, which as such is the object and

the fruit of deliberation. "_Ce ne sont pas les sens que mon amour

consulte: Il hait des passions l'impétueux tumulte.._.." Certainly,

this attitude is intransigent, ascetic and severe: but what of it?

"_Un peu de dureté sied bien aux grandes âmes._" Certainly love comes

out of it diminished and humiliated: "_D'Amour n'est pas le maître

alors qu'on délibère_;" love deserves its fate and almost deserves

the gibe: "_La seule politique est ce qui nous émeut; On la suit et

l'amour s'y mêle comme il peut: S'il vient on l'applaudit; s'il manque

on s'en console..._." It manages as best it can and becomes less

powerful and wonderfully ductile beneath this pressure, ready to bend

in whatever direction it is commanded to bend by the reason. Sometimes

it remains suspended between two persons, like a balance, which awaits

the addition of a weight in order to lean over: "..._Ce cœur des deux

parts engagé, Se donnant à vous deux ne s'est point partagé, Toujours

prêt d'embrasser son service et le vôtre, Toujours prêt à mourir et

pour l'un et pour l'autre. Pour n'en adorer qu'une, il eût fallu

choisir; Et ce choix eût été au moins quelque désir, Quelque espoir

outrageux d'être mieux reçu d'elle ..._." On another occasion, although

there might be some inclination or desire, rather toward the one than

the other side, it is yet kept secret, beneath the resolve to suffocate

it altogether, should reason ordain that love must flow into a contrary

channel. Not only are Corneille's personages told to their face: _"Il

ne faut plus aimer,"_ an act of renunciation to be asked of a saint,

but they are also bidden thus: "_Il faut aimer ailleurs,_" an act

worthy of a martyr.

He did not love love, not because it is love, but because it is

passion, which carries one away and which, if it be allowed to do so,

will not consent to state the terms of the debate clearly, and engage

in deliberation. His dislike for the inebriation of hatred and of

anger, which blind or confound the vision, and which, as passion, is

also foreign to his ideal, also appears in confirmation of this view.

"_Qui hait brutalement permet tout à sa haine, Il s'emporte où sa

fureur l'entraîne.... Mais qui hait par devoir ne s'aveugle jamais;

c'est sa raison qui hait ..._." His ideal personages sometimes declare,

when face to face with their enemy: "_je te dois estimer, mais je te

dois haïr._" On the other hand, we perceive clearly why Corneille was

led to admire the will, even when without moral illumination, even

indeed when it is actively opposed to or without morality; for it has

the power of not yielding to and of dominating the passions, of not

being violent weakness, but strength, or as it was called during the

Renaissance, "virtú." In that sphere of deliberation there existed a

common ground of mutual understanding between the honest and dishonest

man, between the hero of evil and the hero of good, for each pursued

a course of duty, in his own way and both agreed in withstanding and

despising the madness of the passions.

And we also see why the domain towards which Corneille directed his

gaze and for which he had a special predilection, was bound to be that

of politics, where "virtú," in the sense that it possessed during the

period of the Renaissance, found ample opportunity for free expansion

and for self-realisation. In politics, we find ourselves continuously

in difficult and contradictory situations, where acuteness and long

views are of importance and where it is necessary to make calculations

as to the interests and passions of men, to act energetically upon

what has been decided after nice weighing in the balance, to be

firm as well as prudent. It has been jocosely observed by William

Schlegel that Corneille, the most upright and honest of men, was more

Machiavellian than any Machiavelli in his treatment and representation

of politics, that he boasted of the art of deceiving, and that he

had no notion of true politics, which are less complicated and far

more adroit and adaptable. Lemaître too admits that in this respect

he was _"fort candide."_ But who is not excessive in the things that

he loves? Who is not sometimes too candid regarding them, with that

candour and simplicity which is born of faith and enthusiasm? His very

lack of experience in real politics, his simplicism and exaggeration

in conceiving them, is there to confirm the vigour of his affection

for the ideal of the politician, as supremely expressed by the man who

ponders and deliberates. He always has _la raison d'état_ and _les

maximes d'état_ upon his lips. We feel that these words and phrases

move, edify and arouse in him an ecstasy of admiration.

It was free determination and complete submission to reason, duty,

objective utility, to what was fitting--and not a spirit of courtly

adulation--that led him to look with an equal ecstasy of admiration

upon personages in high positions and upon monarchs, the summit of

the pyramid. He did not therefore admit them because they can do

everything, still less because they can enjoy everything, but on

the contrary, because, owing to their office, their discipline and

tradition, they are accustomed to sacrifice their private affections

and to conduct themselves in obedience to motives superior to the

individual. Kings too have a heart, they too are exposed to the soft

snares of love; but better than all others they know what is becoming

behaviour: "_Je suis reine et dois régner sur moi: Je rang que nous

tenons, jaloux de notre gloire, Souvent dans un tel choix nous défend

de nous croire, Jette sur nos désirs un joug impérieux, Et dédaigne

l'avis et du cœur et des yeux._" And elsewhere: "_Les princes out cela

de leur haute naissance, Leur âme dans leur rang prend des impressions

Qui dessous leur vertu rangent leurs passions; Leur générosité soumet

tout à leur gloire ..._." They love, certainly, as it happens to all

to love, but they do not on that account yield to the attractions of

the senses. "_Je ne le cèle point, j'aime, Carlos, oui, j'aime; Mais

l'amour de l'état plus fort que de moi-même, Cherche, au lieu de

l'objet le plus doux à mes yeux, Le plus digne héros de régner en ces

lieux._" His predilection for history, especially for Roman history,

has the same root, and had long been elaborated as an ideal--even in

the Rome of the Empire, yet more so at the time of the Renaissance and

during the post-Renaissance, and even in the schools of the Jesuits.

It was thus transformed into a history that afforded examples of civic

virtues, such as self-sacrifice, heroism, and greatness of resolve. We

spare the reader the demonstration that this tendency was altogether

different from, and indeed opposed to historical knowledge and to the

so-called "historical sense," because questions of this sort and the

accompanying eulogies accorded to Corneille as a historian, are now to

be looked upon as antiquated.

The historical relations of Corneille's ideal are clearly indicated or

at any rate adumbrated in these references and explanations, as also

its incipience and genesis, which is to be found, as we have stated,

in the theory and practice of the Renaissance, concerning politics and

the office of the sovereign or prince, and for the rest in the ethics

of stoicism, which was so widely diffused in the second half of the

sixteenth century, and not less in France than elsewhere. The image

of Corneille is surrounded in our imagination with all those volumes,

containing baroque frontispieces illustrative of historical scenes,

which at that time saw the light every day in all parts of Europe.

They were the works of the moralists, of the Machiavellians, of the

Taciteans, of the councillors in the art of adroit behaviour at court,

of the Jesuit casuists Botero and Ribadeneyra, Sanchez and Mariana,

Valeriano Castiglione and Matteo Pellegrini, Gracian and Amelot de la

Houssaye, Balzac and Naudée, Scioppio and Justus Lipsius. They might

be described as comprizing a complete and conspicuous section of the

Library of the Manzonian Don Ferrante, the "intellectual" of the

seventeenth century.

Such literature as this and the history of the time itself have been

more than once given as the source of the poetical inspiration proper

to Corneille, and indeed they appear spontaneously in the mind of

anyone acquainted with the particular mode of thought and of manners

that have prevailed during the various epochs of modern society. It

is therefore unpleasant to find critics intent on fishing out other

origins for it, in an obscure determinism of race and religion, almost

as if disgusted with the obvious explanation, which is certainly the

only true one in this case, pointing out for instance in Corneille "an

energy that comes from the north," that is to say from the Germany that

produced Luther and Kant, or from the country that was occupied for a

time by their forefathers the Normans, those Scandinavian pirates who

disembarked under the leadership of Rollo (if this fancy originated

with Lemaître, they all repeat it); or they discover the characteristic

of his poetry in the subtlety and litigious spirit of the Norman, and

in the lawyer and magistrate whose functions he fulfilled.

The customary association of his ideal with the theory of Descartes is

also without much truth. Chronological incompatibility would in any

case preclude derivation or repercussion from this source, the utmost

that could be admitted being that both possessed common elements, since

they were both descended from a common patrimony of culture, namely

the stoical morality already mentioned, and from the cult of wisdom in

general. In Descartes, as later in Spinoza, the tendency was towards

the domination of the passions by means of the intellect or the pure

intelligence, which dissipates them by knowing and thinking them,

while with Corneille the domination was all to be effected by means of

an effort of the will.

The historical element in the ideal of Corneille does not mean that its

value was restricted to the times of the author and should be looked

upon as having disappeared with the disappearance of those customs and

doctrines, because every time expresses human eternal truth in its

forms that are historically determined, laying in each case especial

stress upon particular aspects or moments of the spirit. The idea of

the deliberative will has been removed in our day to the second rank,

indeed it has almost been lost in the background, under the pressure

of other forces and of other more urgent aspects of reality. Yet it

possesses eternal vigour and is perpetually returning to the mind and

soul, through the poets and philosophers and through the complexities

of life itself, which make us feel its beauty and importance. The

history of the manners, of the patriotism, of the moral spirit, of

the military spirit of France, bears witness to this, for one of its

mainstays in the past as in the present has been the tragedies of

Corneille. The heroic, the tragic Charlotte Corday gave reality in her

own person to one of Corneille's characters, so full of will power

and ready for any enterprise: she was one of those _aimables furies,_

nourished like the tyrannicides of the Renaissance on the _Lives_ of

Plutarch, whom her great forefather had set on paper with such delight.

It is inconceivable that such heroines as she, sublime in their

meditated volitional act, should have been audaciously classed and

confounded with those weak and impulsive beings extolled by the

philosophers and artists of the will for power, from Stendhal to

Nietzsche, who freely sought their models among the degenerates of the

criminal prisons.

The whole life of Corneille, the whole of his long activity, was

dominated by the ideal that we have described, with a constancy

and a coherence which leaps to the eye of anyone who examines the

particulars. As a young man, he touched various strings of the lyre,

the tragedy of horrors in the manner of Seneca (_Médée,_) eccentric

comedy in _L'Illusion comique,_ the romantic drama of adventures and

incidents in _Clitandre,_ the comedies of love; but we already find

many signs in these works and especially in the comedies, of the

tendency to fix the will in certain situations, as will for a purpose

and choice. After his novitiate (in which period is to be comprehended

the _Cid,_ which is rather an attempt than a realisation, rather a

beginning than an end) he proceeded in a straight line and with over

increasing resolution and self-consciousness. It is due to a prejudice,

born of extrinsic or certainly but little acute considerations, that

an interval should be placed between the _Cid_ and the later works,

though this was done by Schlegel, by Sainte-Beuve and by many others,

both foreigners and French. They deplored that Corneille should have

abandoned the Spanish mediaeval and knightly style, so in harmony

with his generous, grandiose and imaginative inclinations, so full of

promise for the romantic future, and should have restricted himself to

the Graeco-Roman world and to political tragedy. It is impossible (as

we have shown in passing), to assert the originality and the beauty of

the _Cid,_ when it is compared with and set in opposition to the model

offered to Corneille by Guillen de Castro. Now if there is not to be

found beauty, there is certainly to be found a sort of originality in

the personality of Corneille, who eats into the popular epicity of the

model and substitutes for it the study of deliberative situations. The

harmonious versification of these explains in great part the success

which the play met with in a society accustomed to debate "questions

of love" (as they had been called since the period of the troubadours

at the Renaissance), and those of honour and knighthood, of challenges

and duels. But on the other hand, the reason of its success was also

to be found in what persisted scattered here and there of the ardour

and tenderness of the original play, which moved the spectators and

made them love Chimène: "_Tout Paris pour Chimene a les yeux de

Rodrigue._" Yet these words of tenderness and strong expressions,

though beautiful in themselves, show themselves to be rather foreign

to the new form of the drama, and there is some truth in the strange

remark of Klein: that "there is not enough Cidian electricity, enough

material for electro-dramatic shocks in that atmosphere full of the

exhalations of the _antichambre,_ to produce a slap in the face of

equally pathetic force and consequence" with the _bofetada_ which

Count Lozano applied to the countenance of the decrepit Diego Laynez

in the Spanish drama. And there is truth also in the judgment of the

Academy, that the subject of the _Cid_ is "defective in the essential

part" and "lacking in verisimilitude"; of course not because it was

so with Guillen de Castro, or that a subject, that is to say, mere

material, can be of itself good or bad, verisimilar or the reverse,

poetic or unpoetic, but because it had become defective and discordant

in the hands of Corneille, who elaborated and refined it. Rodrigue,

Jimena the lady Urraca, are simple, spontaneous, almost childlike

souls, in the mould of popular heroes. Chimène and Rodrigue and the

Infanta are reflective and dialectical spirits, and since their novel

psychological attitude does not chime well with the old-fashioned

manner of behaviour, Rodrigue and the father sometimes appear to be

charlatans, Chimène sometimes even a hypocrite, the Infanta insipid and

superfluous. Also, when Corneille returned to the "Spanish style," in

_Don Sanche d'Aragon,_ he charged it with reflections and ponderations

and deliberative resolutions, without aiming at the picturesque, as the

romantics did later, but at dialectic and subtlety. It must however be

admitted that all this represents a superiority, if viewed from another

angle: but this superiority does not reside in the artistic effect

obtained; it is rather mental and cultural and represents a more

complex and advanced humanity.

Thus the _Cid_ is to be looked upon as really a work of transition,

a transition to the _Horace,_ which has seemed to a learned German,

to be substantially the same as the _Cid,_ the _Cid_ reconstructed

after the censures passed upon it by his adversaries and in the

Academy, which Corneille inwardly felt to be, in a certain measure

at any rate, just. But another prejudice creates a gap between what

are called the four principal tragedies, the _Cid,_ the _Horace,_

the _China_ and the _Polyeucte_--"the great Cornelian quadrilateral"

eulogised by Péguy in rambling prose,--and the later tragedies, as

though Corneille had changed his method in these and begun to pursue

another ideal, "political tragedy." Setting aside for the time being

the question of greater or lesser artistic value, it is certain that

he never really changed his method. In the _Horace,_ there is no

suggestion of the ferocious national sanctity of a primitive society,

in the _Cinna,_ there is no trace of the imagined tragedy of satiety

or of the _lassitude,_ which the sanguinary Augustus is supposed to

have experienced. The _Polyeucte_ does not contain a shadow of the

fervour, the delirium, the fanaticism, of a religion in the act of

birth, but as Schlegel well expressed it, "a firm and constant faith

rather than a true religious enthusiasm." In the four tragedies above

mentioned, _le cœur_ is not supreme, any more than _l'esprit_ is

supreme in the later tragedies, but "political tragedy" is present more

or less in all of them, in the intrinsic sense of a representation

of calculations, ponderations and resolutions, and often too in the

more evident sense of State affairs. He pursues these and suchlike

forms of representation, heedless, firm and obstinate, notwithstanding

the disfavour of the public and of the critics, who asked for other

things. They divest themselves of extraneous elements and attain to

the perfection at which they aimed. This may be observed in one of the

very latest, the _Pulchérie._ The author congratulated himself upon its

half-success or shadow of success, declaring that "it is not always

necessary to follow the fashion of the time, in order to be successful

on the stage." Just previously, he was pleased with Saint-Évremond

for his approbation of the secondary place to be assigned to love in

tragedy, "for it is a passion too surcharged with weaknesses to be

dominant in a heroic drama." Voltaire was struck with this constancy

to the original line of development, for he felt bound to remark at

the conclusion of his commentary, not without astonishment and in

opposition to the current opinion, that "he wrote very unequally,

but I do not know that he had an unequal genius, as is maintained by

some; because I always see him intent, alike in his best and in his

inferior works, upon the force and the profundity of the ideas. He is

always more disposed to debate than to move, and he reveals himself

rich in finding expedients to support the most ungrateful of arguments,

though these are but little tragic, since he makes a bad choice of his

subjects from the _Oedipe_ onwards, where he certainly does devise

intrigues, but these are of small account and lack both warmth and

life. In his last works he is trying to delude himself." But Corneille

did not delude himself; rather he knew himself, and he himself the

author was a personage who had deliberated and had made up his mind,

once and for all.

The vigour of this resolution and the compactness of the work which

resulted from it, are not diminished, but are rather stressed by

the fact that Corneille possessed other aptitudes and sources of

inspiration, which he neglected and of which he made little or no

use. Certainly, the poet who versified the delicious _Psyche,_ in

collaboration with Molière, would have been able, had he so desired,

to enter into the graces of those "_doucereux_" and "_enjoués,_" whom

he despised. There are witty, tender and melancholy poems among his

miscellaneous works, and in certain parts of the paraphrase of the

_Imitation_ and other sacred compositions, there is a religious fervour

that is to seek in the _Polyeucte._ His youthful comedies contain a

power of observation of life, replete with passionate sympathy, which

foreshadows the coming social drama. We refer especially to certain

personages and scenes of the _Galerie du Palais,_ of the _Veuve_ and

of the _Suivante;_ to certain studies of marriageable girls, obedient

to the resolve of their parents, and to mothers, who still carry in

their heart how much that submission cost them in the past and do

not wish to abuse the power which they possess over their daughters.

There are also certain tremulous meetings of lovers, who had been

separated and are annoyingly interrupted by the irruption of prosaic

reality in the shape of their relations and friends ("_Ah! mère, sœur,

ami, comme vous m'importunez!_") and certain odious and painful

psychological cases, like that of Amaranthe, the poor girl of good

family, who is made companion of the richer girl, not superior to her

either in attractiveness, or spirit, or grace, or blood. She envies

and intrigues against her, attempts to carry off her lover and being

finally vanquished, hurls bitter words at society and distils venomous

maledictions.

_"Curieux," "étonnant," "étrange," "paradoxal," "déconcertant,"_ are

the epithets that the critics alternately apply to the personage

of Alidor, in the _Place Royale,_ and Corneille himself calls him

"_extravagant_" in the examination of his work that he wrote later.

All too have held that uncompromising lover of his own liberty to be

very "Cornelian" or "pure Cornelian," who although in love, is afraid

of love, because it threatens to deprive him of his internal freedom.

He therefore tries to throw the woman he loves and who adores him,

into the arms of others, by stratagem. Failing in this endeavour, and

being finally abandoned by the lady herself, who decides to enter a

convent, instead of sorrowing or at least being mortified at this, he

rejoices at his good fortune. Indeed, Corneille, despite the tardy

epithet of _"extravagant,"_ which he affixes to this personage,

does not turn him to ridicule in the comedy, nor does he condemn or

criticise him. On the contrary, in the dedicatory epistle, addressed to

an anonymous gentleman, who might be the very character in question,

he approves of the theory, which Alidor illustrates. "I have learned

from you"--he writes--"that the love of an honest man must always be

voluntary; that he must never love in one way what he cannot but love;

that if he should find himself reduced to this extremity, it amounts

to a tyranny and the yoke must be shaken off. Finally, the loved one

must have by so much the more claim to our love, in so far as it is

the result of our choice and of the loved one's merit and does not

derive from blind inclination imposed upon us by a heredity which we

are unable to resist." But the disconcertion and perplexity caused

by the play in question, have their origin in this; that Corneille

had not yet succeeded in repressing and suppressing the spontaneous

emotions, and therefore throws his ideal creation into the midst of a

throng of beings, whose limbs are softer, their blood warmer and more

tumultuous, who love and suffer and despair, like Angélique. This would

render that ideal personage comic, ironical and extravagant, if the

poet did not for his part think and feel it to be altogether serious. A

subtle flaw, therefore, permeates every part of the play, which lacks

fusion and unity of fundamental motive. This is doubtless a grave

defect, but a defect which adds weight to the psychological document

that it contains, proving the absolute power which the ideal of the

deliberative will was acquiring in Corneille.

CHAPTER XV

THE MECHANISM OF THE CORNELIAN TRAGEDY

The ideal of the deliberative will, then, formed the real, living

_passion_ of this man devoid of passions; for no one that lives can

withhold himself from passion: he is only able to change its object by

passing from one to the other. The judgment that holds Corneille to

be an intrinsically prosaic, ratiocinatory and casuistical genius is

therefore to be looked upon as lacking of penetration. Had he been a

casuist, it seems clear that he would have composed casuistical works.

Nor did he lack of requests and encouragement in that direction in the

literature that was admired and sought after in his time. Instead,

however, of acceding to them, he dwelt ever in the world of poetry

and was occupied throughout his life, up to his seventieth year, with

the composition of tragedies. He was not a casuist, although he loved

casuistry: these two things are as different as the love for warlike

representations and accounts of wars and the being actually a soldier,

the perpetual dwelling of the imagination upon matters of business,

commerce and speculation (like Honoré de Balzac for instance), and

being really a man of business. Nor can his gift be described as merely

that of a didactic poet, although he often gives a dissertation in

verse, because he was not inspired with the wish to teach, but rather

to admire and to present the power and the triumphs of the free will

for admiration. Those philologists who have patiently set to work to

reconstruct Corneille's conception of the State into a _Staatsidee_

have not understood this. Corneille's conception of the State, of

absolute monarchy, of the king, of legitimacy, of ministers, of

subjects, and so on, were not by any means in him political doctrine,

but just forms and symbols of an attitude of mind, which he caressed

and idolised.

The enquiry as to the nature and degree and tone of that passion

differs altogether from the fact of Corneille's powerful passionality,

as to which there can be no doubt. The problem, that is to say, is,

whether passion, which is certainly a necessary condition for poetry,

was so shaped and found in him such compensations and restraints as

to yield itself with docility to poetry and to give it a fair field

for expression. It is well known that the sovereign passion, the pain

that renders mute, the love that leads to raving, impede the dream of

the poet, they impede artistic treatment, the cult of perfect form

and the joy in beauty. There is too a form of passion, which has in

it something of the practical: it is more occupied with embodying

its favourite dreams, in order to obtain from them stimulus and

incentive, than with fathoming them poetically and idealising them in

contemplation.

It seems impossible to deny that something of this sort existed in

the case of Corneille, for as we read his works, while we constantly

receive the already mentioned impression of seriousness and severity,

there is another impression that is sometimes mingled with these and

suggests the disquieting presence of men firmly fixed and rooted

in an ideal. When faced with his predilection for deliberation and

resolution, the figure of the Aristophanic Philocleon sometimes returns

to the memory. This Philocleon was a "philoheliast," that is to say

he was the victim of a mania for judging, τοὔ δικάζειν. His son

locked him up, but he climbed out of window, in order to hasten to the

tribunal and satisfy his vital need of administering justice!

The consequences of this excess of practical passionality in the case

of Corneille, of its exclusive domination in him, was that he either

did not love or refused to allow himself to love anything else in the

world, and lost interest in all the rest of life. He did not surpass

it ideally, in which case he would have remained trembling and living

in its presence, although it was combated and suppressed, but he drove

it out or cut it off altogether. He acted as one, who for the love of

the human body, should eliminate from his picture, landscape, sky,

air, the background of the picture, upon and from which the figure

rises and with which it is conj nected, although separated from it

in relief, and should limit himself to the delineation of bodies and

attitudes of bodies. Corneille, having abolished all other forms

of life, found nothing before him but a series of situations for

deliberation, vigorously felt, warmly expressed, sung with full voice,

and illustrated with energetic yet becoming gestures.

What tragedy, what drama, what representation, could emerge from such a

limitation of volitional attitudes? How could the various tonalities

and affections and so the various personages, unite and harmonise

among themselves with all their shades and gradations? The bridge

that should give passage to this full and complete representation was

wanting or had been destroyed. All that was possible was a suite of

deliberative lyrics, of magnificent perorations, of lofty sentiments,

sometimes standing alone, sometimes also taking the form of a duet

or a dialogue, a theory of statues, draped in solemn attitudes, of

enormous figures, rigid and similar as Byzantine mosaics. Here and

there a writer such as Lanson has to some extent had an inkling of this

intrinsic impossibility when, writing about the _Nicomède,_ he remarked

that Corneille "in his pride at having founded a new kind of tragedy,

without pity or terror, and having admiration as its motive, did not

perceive that he was founding it upon a void; because the tragedy will

be the less dramatic, the purer is the will, since it is defeats or

semi-defeats that are dramatic, the slow, difficult victories of the

will, incessant combats." But he held on the other hand that Corneille

had once constructed, in _Nicomède,_ a perfect tragedy, on the single

datum of the pure will, _par un coup de génie_; but this was the

only one that ever could be written, the reason that it could not be

repeated being "that all the works of Corneille are dramatic, precisely

to the extent that the will falls short in them of perfection and in

virtue of the elements that separate it from them." The beauty, he

says, of the _Cid,_ of _Polyeucte_ and of _Cinna_, "consists in what

they contain of passion, cooperating with and striving against the will

of the heroes." But "strokes of genius" are not miracles and they do

not make the impossible possible and the other dramas of Corneille that

we have mentioned do not differ substantially from the _Nicomède,_ for

in them passionate elements are intruded and felt to be out of harmony

(as in the _Cid_), or they are apparent and conventional.

Apparent and conventional: because the lack of the bridge for crossing

over forbade Corneille to construct poetically out of volitional

situations representations of life, to which they did not of themselves

lead. It did not however prevent another kind of construction, which

may be called intellectualistic or practical. He deduced other

situations and other antitheses from the volitional situations and

their antitheses that he had conceived, and thus he formed a sort of

semblance of the representation of life. At the same time he reduced it

to the dimensions of the drama that he was originating mentally, partly

through study of the ancients and above all Seneca, partly from the

Italian writers of tragedy of the sixteenth century, partly from that

of the Spanish writers and of his French predecessors, but not without

consulting, following or modifying the French and Italian casuists and

regulating the whole with his own sense for theatrical effect and for

the forms of it likely to suit the taste of the French public of his

day.

This structure of tragedy, with its antitheses and parallelisms, its

expedients for accelerating and arresting and terminating the action

has been qualified with praise or blame as possessing great "logical"

perfection. Logic, however, which is the life of thought, has nothing

to do with the balancing and counter-balancing of mechanical weights,

whose life lies outside them, in the head and in the hand that has

constructed and set them in motion. It has been also compared to

architecture and to the admirable proportions of the Italian art of the

Renaissance. But here too, we must suspect that the true meaning of

the works thus characterised escapes us, for attention is paid only to

the external appearance of things, in so far as it can be expressed in

mathematical terms. We have said exactly the same thing, without having

recourse to logic or to architecture, when we noted that the structure

of Corneille's tragedies did not derive from within, that is, from his

true poetical inspiration, but rose up beside it, and was due to the

unconscious practical need of making a canvas or a frame upon which to

stretch the series of volitional situations desired by the imagination

of the poet. Thus it was poetically a cold, incoherent, absurd thing,

but practically rational and coherent, like every "mechanism."

This word is not pronounced here for the first time owing to our

irreverence, but is to be found among those who have written about

Corneille and have felt themselves unable to refrain from referring

to his _"mécanique théâtrale"_ and to the "_système fermé_" of his

tragedies, where _"s'opère par un jeu visible de forces, la production

d'un état définitif appelé dénouement."_

When this has been stated, it is easy to see that anyone who examines

this assemblage of thoughts and phrases with the expectation of

finding there a soft, rich, sensuous and passionate representation of

life, full of throbs, bedewed with tears, shot through with troubles

and enjoyments, such as are to be found in Shakespearean drama and

also in Sophoclean tragedy, is disappointed, and thereupon describes

Corneille's art as false, whereas he should perhaps describe his own

expectation as false. But it is strange to find, as counterpoise to

that delusion, the attempt to demonstrate that the apparatus is not

an apparatus, but flesh and blood, that the frame is not a frame

but a picture, like one of Titian's or Rembrandt's, and now setting

comparisons aside, that the pseudo-tragedy and the pseudo-drama

of Corneille is pure drama or tragedy, that his intellectualistic

deductions, his practical devices, are lyrical motives and express the

truth of the human heart. Such, however, is the wrong-headedness of

the criticisms that we have reviewed above. The mode of procedure is

to deny what is evident, for example that Corneille argues through the

mouths of his characters, instead of expressing and setting in action

his own mode of feeling, in such a way as the situations would require,

were they poetically treated. Faguet answers Voltaire's remarks upon

the famous couplet of Rodogune: _"Il est des nœuds secrets, il est des

sympathies..."_ to the effect that "the poet is always himself talking

and that passion does not thus express itself," by saying that people

are accustomed to express themselves in this way, that is to say, in

the form of general ideas, when they are calm, as though the question

could be settled with an appeal to the reality of ordinary life,

whereas on the contrary it is a question of poeticity, that is to say,

of the tragic situation, which by its own nature, excludes _couplets_

in certain cases, however well turned they be.

Yet the very same critics, who are thus guilty of sophistry in their

attempts to defend Corneille, are capable of observing on another

occasion that if not all, at any rate many or several of Corneille's

tragedies are "melodramas," and that the author tended more and more

to melodrama, in the course of his development or decadence, as we

may like to call it. Perhaps in so saying, they are making a careless

use of the word "melodrama," and mean by it a drama of intrigue, of

surprises, of shocks and of recognitions. If on the contrary they

have employed it in its true sense, or if their tongue has been

instinctively more correct than their thought, since "melodrama" means

precisely a melodrama, that does not exist for itself, but for the

music, and is a canvas or frame, they have again declared the extrinsic

character of the Cornelian tragedy.

Another confirmation of this character of the tragedies is to be found

in that suspicion of I comicality, which lurks so frequently in the

background as we read them, and occasionally makes itself clearly

audible in the course of development of their pseudo-tragic action. It

has been asked whether the _Cid_ were a tragedy or a comedy and inquiry

has resulted in no satisfactory answer being arrived at, because

involuntary comicality is present there, akin to what is to be found

in certain of the pompous and emphatic melodramas of Metastasio. It

is true that Don Diego's reply to the king has been cited as sublime,

when he does not wish the new duel to take place at once, in order

that the Cid may have a little rest, after the great battle that he

has won against the Moors, which he has described triumphantly and at

great length: "_Rodrigue a pris haleine en vous la racontant!_" But

are we then to regard as sinful the smile that gradually dawns upon

the lips of those who are not pledged to admire at all costs? And

consider the case of the furious Emilia, who at the end of the _Cinna_

gets rid in the twinkling of an eye, of all the convictions anchored

in her breast, of that hatred that burned her up, much in the same

manner as a stomach-ache disappears upon the use of a sedative, and

declares that she has all of a sudden become the exact opposite of what

she was previously? _"Ma haine va mourir, que j'ai cru immortelle;

elle est morte et ce cœur devient sujet fidèle, Et prenant désormais

cette haine en horreur, L'ardeur de vous servir succède à sa fureur."_

And Curiace, who finds himself in such a situation as to deliver

the following madrigal to his betrothed: "_D'Albe avec mon amour

j'accordais la querelle; je soupirais pour vous, en combattant pour

elle; Et s'il fallait encor que l'on en vint aux coups, Je combattrais

pour elle en soupirant pour vous."?_ But we will not insist upon this

descent into the comic, for it is not always to be avoided, being a

natural effect of the "mechanicity" of the Cornelian drama and is for

the rest in conformity with the theory which explains the comic as

_"l'automatisme installé dans la vie et imitant la vie"_ (Bergson).

Another form of the comic, discoverable in him, must also be insisted

upon; but this is not involuntary and blameworthy, but coherent and

praiseworthy. The form in question is that which led to the comedy

of character and of costume, to psychological and political comedy.

Brunetière even said between jest and earnest: "The _Cid, Horace,

Cinna_ and _Polyeucte,_ give me much trouble. Were it not for these

four, I should say that Corneille is fundamentally and above all a

comic poet, and an excellent comic poet; and this is perfectly true;

but how are we to say it, when the _Cid, Horace, Cinna_ and _Polyeucte_

are there? These four tragedies embarrass me exceedingly!" And he

proceeds to note and illustrate the "family scenes" scattered among

his tragedies, the prosaic and conversational phraseology, which so

displeased Voltaire, and the complete absence in some of them of tragic

quality, even of the external sort, that is, scenes of blood and death,

and the prevalence of the ethical over the pathetic representation,

in the manner of the comedy of Menander and of Terence. Despite all

this, his definition of Corneille as a comic poet will be admired as

acute and ingenious, but will never carry conviction as being true:

none of those tragedies is a comedy, because none is accentuated in

that manner. For the same reason that Corneille could not attain to the

poetical representation of life, because he was not able to pass beyond

the one-sidedness of his ideal, by merging it in the fulness of things,

he was unable to present the comic or ethical side of them, because

he did not pass beyond the spectacle of life and so of his ideal, by

viewing it _sub specie intellectus,_ in its external and internal

limitations. The attempt to do so in the Alidor of the _Place Royale_

had not been successful, and it never was successful, even assuming

that he attempted it. He did not indeed attempt it, and the ethos

that so often took the place of the pathos in the structure of his

tragedies, was itself a natural consequence of their mechanicity. Owing

to this, when they had lost the guidance of the initial poetic motive,

they often fluctuated between emphasis and cold observation, between

eloquence and prose, between stylisation of the characters and certain

realistic determinations.

This hybridism, which has sometimes led to the belittling of Corneille

to the level of a poet of observation and of comicality, has more often

led, from another point of view, to his being increased in stature and

importance, to his being belauded and acclaimed as possessing "romantic

tendencies," or as a "French Shakespeare," although but "a Shakespeare

in trammels." There is really nothing whatever in him of the romantic,

in the conception, that is to say, and in the sentiment of life; and

there is less than nothing in him of Shakespeare, whose work had

its origins in a far wider and certainly a very different sphere

of spiritual interests. But since "romanticism" and "Shakespeare"

perhaps stand here simply for poetry, it must be admitted that he is a

poet, who does not explain himself fully, or explains himself badly,

without the liberty, the sympathy, the abandonment of self necessary

for poetry. He harnesses his inspiration to an apparatus of actions

and reactions, of parallelisms and of conventions, which may be well

described as "trammels," when compared with poetry.

But they are in any case trammels which he sets in his own way,

trammels which he creates and fixes in his soul and are not imposed

upon him by the rules, conventions and usages, which were in vogue

at the time he wrote, as is erroneously maintained, coupled with

lamentations as to the unfavorable period for the writing of poetry,

which fell to his lot. What poet can be trammeled from without? The

poet sets such obstacles aside, or he passes through them, or he goes

round them, or he feigns to bow to them, or he does bow to them, but

only in secondary matters that are almost indifferent. For this reason,

disputes and doctrines as to the three unities, as to the characters

of tragedy, as to the manner of obtaining the catharsis or purgation,

have considerable importance for anyone investigating the history of

aesthetic and critical ideas, of their formation, growth and progress,

by means of struggles that seem to us now to be ridiculous, though

they were once serious; but they have no importance whatever as an

element in the judgment of a poem. Corneille did not rebel against the

so-called rules, because he did not feel any need for rebellion; he

accepted or accustomed himself to them, because, having treated tragedy

mechanically, it suited him, or did him no harm, to take heed of the

mechanical rules, laid down by custom and literary and theatrical

precepts.

For this reason, his method of theatrical composition was not only

susceptible of being tolerated, but even of pleasing and receiving the

praise, the applause and the admiration of the contemporary public,

which did not seek in them the joy of poetic rapture, but a different

and more or less refined pleasure, answering to its spiritual needs and

aspirations. It could later and can now prove insupportable, because

the delight of a certain period in dexterity, expedients and clever

devices, in the fine phrases of the courtier, in certain actions that

were the fashion, in the gallantries of pastoral and heroic romance,

in epigrams, antitheses and madrigals, are no longer our delights.

Passionate or realistic art, as it is called, flourishes everywhere,

in place of the old scholastic, academic and court models. But for us,

everything that concerns Corneille's composition and the technique of

his work is indifferent, since we are viewing the problem from the

point of view of poetry. We shall not therefore busy ourselves with

discriminating those parts of it that are well from those that are

ill put together, nor his clever from his unsuccessful expedients,

his well-constructed "scenes" from those that suffer from padding,

his "acts" that run smoothly from those that drag, the more from the

less happy "endings," as is the habit of those critics, who nourish a

superstitious admiration for what Flaubert would have called _"l'arcane

théâtral."_ We care nothing for the canvas, but only for what of

embroidery in the shape of poetry there is upon it.

CHAPTER XVI

THE POETRY OF CORNEILLE

The poetry of Corneille, or what of poetry there is in him, is all to

be found in the lyrical quality of the volitional situations, in those

debates, remarks, solemn professions of faith, energetic assertions of

the will, in that superb admiration for one's own personal, unshakable

firmness. Here it is that we must seek it, not in the development of

the dramatic action or in the character of the individual personages.

For it is only an affection for life, that is to say, penetration of

it in all its manifestations, which is capable of generating those

beings, so warm with passion, who insinuate themselves into us and take

possession of our imagination, who grow in it and eventually become so

familiar to us that we seem to have really met them: the creations of

Dante, of Shakespeare, or of Goethe. Certainly, Corneille's lyricism,

which seems to be exclusive and one-sided, would not be lyricism and

poetry, if it were really always exclusive and one-sided and although

it cannot give us drama in the sense we have described, owing to its

driving away the other passions, yet it does not succeed in doing so

in such a complete and radical manner that we fail to perceive their

fermentation, however remote, in those severe and vigorous assertions

of the will. The loftiness itself of the rhythm indicates the high

standard of the vital effort, which it represents and expresses. To

continue the illustration above initiated, Corneille's situations may

be drawings rather than pictures, or pictures in design rather than

in colour; but these pictures also possess their own qualities as

pictures, they too are works of love and must not be confounded with

drawings directed to intellectual ends, with illustration of real

things, or concepts with prosaic designs.

And indeed everyone has always sought and seeks the flower of the

spirit of Corneille, the beauty of his work, in single situations, or

"places." The commentators who busy themselves with the exposition and

the dégustation of his works have but slight material for analysis of

the sort that is employed by them in the case of other poets, whose

fundamental poetic motive furnishes a basis for the rethinking of

the characters and of their actions. Here on the contrary they feel

themselves set free from an obstruction, when they pass to the single

passages, and at once declare with Faguet, one of the latest _"Il y a

de beaux vers à citer"_ The actors too, who attempt to interpret his

tragedies in the realistic romantic manner, fail to convince, while

those succeed on the other hand who deliver them in a somewhat formal

style. In thus listening to the intoned declamations of the monologues,

exhortations, invectives, sentiments and _couplets,_ one feels oneself

transplanted into a superior sphere, exactly as happens with singing

and music.

Corneille's characters are not to be laid hold of in their full and

corporate being. It is but rarely that they allow us a glimpse of their

human countenance, or permit us to catch some cry of scorn, and then

rapidly withdraw themselves into the abstract so completely that we

do not succeed in taking hold of even a fold of their fleeting robes,

although a long-enduring echo of their lightning-like speech remains in

the soul. The old father of the Horatii strengthens his sons in their

conflict between family affection and their imperious duty to their

country, with the maxim: _"Faites votre devoir et laissez faire aux

Dieux."_ The youthful Curiace murmurs with tears in his voice, to the

youthful Horace, his friend and brother-in-law _"Je vous connais encore

et c'est ce qui: me tue,"_ but Horace is as inflexible as a syllogism,

having arrived at the conclusion that the posts assigned to them in the

feud between Rome and Alba have made enemies of them, and therefore

that they must not know one another in future. Curiace, when at last

he has become bitterly resigned to their irremediable separation and

hostility, exclaims: _"Telle est nôtre misère_ ..."--Emilia, another

being with nerves like steel springs, reveals her proud soul in a

single phrase; when Maximus suggests flight to her, she exclaims as

she faces him, in a cry that is like a blow: _"Tu oses m'aimer et tu

n' oses mourir!"_ She is perhaps more deeply wounded here in her pride

as a woman, who fails to receive the tribute of heroism, which she

expects, than in her moral sentiment. The noble Suréna holds it an

easy thing, a thing of small moment, to give his life for his lady: he

wishes "_toujours aimer, toujours souffrir, toujours mourir!_"; and

Antiochus, in _Rodogune,_ when he discovers that he is surrounded with

ambushes, decides to die and in doing so directs his thought to the

sad shade of his brother, who has been slain in a like manner: "_Cher

frère, c'est pour moi le chemin du trépas_..."; and Titus feels himself

penetrated with the melancholy of the fleeting hour, the sense of human

fragility:

Oui, Flavian, c'est affaire à mourir.

La vie est pen de chose; et tôt ou tard qu'importe

Qu'un traître me l'arrache, ou que l'âge l'emporte?

Nous mourrons a toute heure; et dans le plus doux sort

Chaque instant de la vie est un pas vers la mort.

Words expressive of death are always those whose accent is clearest

and whose resonance is the most profound with Corneille. It is perhaps

as well to leave the _Moi_ of Medea and the _Qu'il mourrait_ of the

old Horace to the admirative raptures of the rhetoricians; but let us

repeat to ourselves those words of the sister of Heraclius (in the

_Heraclius_), mortified by fate, ever at the point of death and ever

ready to die:

Mais à d'autres pensers il me faut recourir:

Il n'est plus temps d'aimer alors qu'il faut mourir....

$/

And again:

Crois-tu que sur la foi de tes fausses promesses

Mon âme ose descendre à de telles bassesses?

Prends mon sang pour le sien; mais, s'il y faut mon cœur,

Périsse Héraclius avec sa triste sœur!

And when she stays the hand of the menacing tyrant suddenly and with a

word:

... Ne menace point, je suis prête a mourir.

Or, finally, those sweetest words of all, spoken by Eurydice in the

_Suréna_:

Non, je ne pleure pas, madame, mais je meurs.

These dying words form as it were the extreme points of the resolute

will, of the will, fierce _usque ad mortem._ But the others, in which

the volitional situations are fixed and developed and determination to

pursue a certain course is asserted, are, as we have said, the proper

and normal expression of the poetry of Corneille, which can be fully

enjoyed, provided that we do not insist upon asking whether they are

appropriate in the mouths of the personages, who should act and not

analyse and define themselves, or whether they are or are not necessary

for the development of the drama. Their poetry consists of just that

analysis, that passionate self-definition, that arranging of the folds

of their own decorous robes, that sculpturing of their own statues.

Let us examine a few examples of it, taking them from the least known

and the least praised tragedies of Corneille, for it is perhaps time

to have done with the so-called decadence or exhaustion of Corneille,

with his second-childhood (according to which, some would maintain that

he returned to his boyish, pre-Cidian period in his maturity), and

with the excessive and to no small extent affected and conventional

exaltation of the famous square block of stone representing the four

faces of honour (the _Cid_), of patriotism _(Horace),_ of generosity

_(Cinna)_ and of sanctity _(Polyeucte)._ There is often in those four

most popular tragedies a certain pomposity, an emphasis, an apparatus,

a rhetorical colouring, which Corneille gradually did away with in

himself, in order to make himself ever more nude, with the austere

nudity of the spirit. It was perhaps not only constancy and coherence

of logical development, but progress of art on the road to its own

perfection, which counselled him to abandon too pathetic subjects. In

any case, unless we wish to turn the traditional judgment upside down,

we must insist that those four tragedies, like those that followed

them, are not to be read by the lover of poetry otherwise than in an

anthological manner, that is to say, selecting the fine passages where

they are to be found, and these occur in no less number and in beauty

at least equal in the other tragedies also, some of which are more and

some less theatrically effective.

Pulchérie is the last and one of the most marvellous Cornelian

condensations of force in deliberation. She thus manifests her mode of

feeling to the youthful Léon whom she loves:

Je vous aime, Léon, et n'en fais point mystère:

Des feux tels que les miens n'out rien qu'il faille taire.

Je vous aime, et non point de cette folle ardeur

Que les yeux éblouis font maîtresse du cœur;

Non d'un amour conçu par les sens en tumulte,

A qui l'âme applaudit sans qu'elle se consulte,

Et qui, ne concevant que d'aveugles désires,

Languit dans les faveurs et meurt dans les plaisirs:

Ma passion pour vous généreuse et solide,

A la vertu pour âme et la raison pour guide,

La gloire pour objet et veut, sous votre loi,

Mettre en ce jour illustre et l'univers et moi.

Here we have clearly the lyricism of a soul which has achieved complete

possession of itself, of a soul overflowing with affections, but

knowing which among them are superior and which inferior, and has

learned how to administer and how to rule itself, steering the ship

with a steady and experienced hand through treacherous seas, and

feeling its own nobility to lie in just what others would call coldness

and lack of humanity. Note the expressions _"folle ardeur"_ and _"sens

en tumulte"_ and the contempt, not to say the disgust, with which they

are uttered and the hell that is pointed out as lying in that soul

which allows itself to be carried away _"sans qu' elle se consulte."_

Note too the vision of the sad effeminacy of those affections, so blind

and so egotistic, which consume and corrupt themselves in themselves,

and how he enhances it by contrast with her own rational passion, so

_"généreuse et solide,"_ with those solemn words of _"vertu,"_ of

_"raison,"_ of _"gloire,"_ and the final apotheosis, which lays at the

feet of the man she loves and loves worthily, her person and the whole

world.

And Pulchérie, when she has been elected empress, again takes counsel

with herself and recognises that this love of hers for Léon is still

inferior, not yet sufficiently pure, and decides to slay it, in order

that it may live again as something different, as something purely

rational:

Léon seul est ma joie, il est mon seul désir;

Je n'en puis choisir d'autre, et je n'ose le choisir:

Depuis trois ans unie à cette chère idée,

J'en ai l'âme à toute heure en tous lieux obsédée;

Rien n'en détachera mon cœur que le trépas,

Encore après ma mort n'en répondrai-je pas,

Et si dans le tombeau le ciel permet qu'on aime,

Dans le fond du tombeau je l'aimerai de même.

Trône qui m'éblouis, titres qui me flattez,

Pourriez-vous me valoir ce que vous me coûtez?

Et de tout votre orgueil la pompe la plus haute

A-t-elle un bien égal à celui qu'elle m'ôte?

She thus concedes to human frailty the relief of a lament, such a

lament as can issue from her lips, full of strength and charged with

resolution in passion, but at the same time noble, measured and

dignified. After this, she follows the direction of her will with

inexorable firmness. Léon shall not be her spouse, because her choice

must be and seem to be dictated by the sole good of the State, and fall

upon a man whom she will not love with love, but who will be for Rome

an emperor to be feared and respected. A conflict had been engaged

between one part of herself and another, between the whole and a part,

and she has again subjected the part to the whole and has assigned to

it its duty, that of obedience.

Je suis impératrice et j'étais Pulchérie.

De ce trône, ennemi de mes plus doux souhaits,

Je regarde l'amour comme un de mes sujets;

Je veux que le respect qu'il doit à ma couronne

Repousse l'attentat qu'il fait sur ma personne;

Je veux qu'il m'obéisse, au lieu de me trahir;

Je veux qu'il donne à tous l'exemple d'obéir;

Et, jalouse déjà de mon pouvoir suprême,

Pour l'affermir sur tous, je le prends sur moi-même.

Thus love is subjected to the mind, or as it used to be expressed in

the language of the time, which was of Stoic origin, to the "hegemonic

potency." She would desire to raise her youthful beloved to the

lofty level of her intent, by removing him from the sphere of weak

lamentations and assuring his union with herself in a mystic marriage

of superior wills. What contempt is hers for sentimentalism, which

wishes to insinuate itself where it is not wanted, for "tears," for

"the shame of tears"!

La plus ferme couronne est bientôt ébranlée

Quand un effort d'amour semble l'avoir volée;

Et pour garder un rang si cher à nos désirs

Il faut un plus grand art que celui des soupirs.

Ne vous abaissez pas à la honte des larmes;

Contre un devoir si fort ce sont de faibles armes;

Et si de tels secours vous couronnaient ailleurs,

J'aurais pitié d'un sceptre acheté par des pleurs.

When we read such verses as these, our breast expands, as it does

when we are in the company of men whose gravity of word and deed

induce gravity, whose superiority over the crowd makes you forget

the existence of the crowd, transporting you to a sphere where

the non-accomplishment of duty would appear, not only vile, but

incomprehensible. On another occasion our admiration is about to

shroud itself in pity, but soon shines forth again and displays itself

triumphant, as in the young princess Hiedion of the _Attila,_ who is

accorded to the abhorred king of the Huns by a treaty of peace--were

she to refuse the union, immeasurable calamities would fall upon her

family and people. She too observes a sorrowful attitude but hers is an

erect and combative sorrow:

Si je n'étais pas, seigneur, ce que je suis,

J'en prendrais quelque droit à finir mes ennuis:

Mais l'esclavage fier d'une haute naissance,

Où toute autre peut tout, me tient dans l'impuissance;

Et, victime d'état, je dois sans reculer

Attendre aveuglement qu'on daigne m'immoler.

The heart trembles and restrains itself at the same moment before

that _"esclavage fier,"_ that proud and sarcastic _"qu'on daigne

m'immoler"_ the victim has already scrutinised the situation in

which she finds herself, the duty which is incumbent upon her, the

prospect of vengeance which opens itself before her and her race, and

has already conceived her terrible design. In like manner with Queen

Rodolinde in the _Pertharite,_ when she is solicited and implored

by the usurper Grimoalde, who wished to espouse her and promises

to declare himself tutor to her son and to make him heir to the

throne,--suspecting that in this way he will deprive her of the honour

of marriage faith and may then put her son to deatii--she decides upon

a horrible course of action, proposing to him that he should put her

son to death on the spot:

Puisqu'il faut qu'il périsse, il vaut mieux tôt que tard;

Que sa mort soit un crime, et non pas un hazard;

Que cette ombre innocente à toute heure m'anime,

Me demande à toute heure une grande victime;

Que ce jeune monarque, immolé de ta main,

Te rende abominable à tout le genre humain;

Qu'il t'excite par tout des haines immortelles;

Que de tous tes sujets il fasse des rebelles.

Je t'épouserai lors, et m'y viens d'obliger,

Pour mieux servir ma haine et pour mieux me venger,

Pour moins perdre des vœux contre ta barbarie,

Pour être à tous moments maîtresse de ta vie,

Pour avoir l'accès libre à pousser ma fureur,

Et mieux choisir la place où te percer le cœur.

Voilà mon désespoir, voilà ses justes causes:

A ces conditions, prends ma main, si tu l'oses.

Her husband Pertharite, who had been believed to be dead, is alive:

he returns and is made prisoner by Grimoalde, and Rodolinde, fearing

ruin, decides to avenge him or to perish with him. But he sees the

situation in which he finds himself with his consort in a different

light objectively: he sees it as a conquered king, who bows his head

to the decision of destiny, recognises the right of the conqueror and

holds ever aloft in his soul the idea of regal majesty. So he asserts

it with firmness and serenity, going beyond all personal feelings, in

order that he may consider only what appertains both to the rights and

duties of a king:

Quand ces devoirs communs out d'importunes lois,

La majesté du trône en dispense les rois;

Leur gloire est au-dessus des règles ordinaires,

Et cet honneur n'est beau que pour les cœurs vulgaires.

Sitôt qu'un roi vaincu tombe aux mains du vainqueur,

Il a trop mérité la dernière rigueur.

Ma mort pour Grimoald ne peut avoir de crime:

Le soin de s'affermir lui rend tout légitime.

Quand j'aurai dans ses fers cessé de respirer,

Donnez-lui votre main sans rien considérer;

Epargnez les efforts d'une impuissante haine,

Et permettez au Ciel de vous faire encor reine.

The courageous and sagacious Nicomède speaks kingly words of a

different sort, well calculated to arouse him and make him lift up his

head, to the vacillating father, who wishes to content both Rome and

the queen, establish agreement between love and nature, be father and

husband:

--Seigneur, voulez-vous bien vous en fier à moi?

Ne soyez l'un ni l'autre.--Et que dois-je être?--Roi.

Reprenez hautement ce noble caractère.

Un véritable roi n'est ni mari ni père;

Il regarde son trône, et rien de plus. Régnez;

Rome vous craindra plus que vous ne la craignez.

Malgré cette puissance et si vaste et si grande,

Vous pouvez déjà voir comme elle m'appréhende,

Combien en me perdant elle espère gagner,

Parce qu'elle prévoit que je saurai régner.

Let us listen also for a moment to the Christian Theodora, who has been

granted the time to choose between offering incense to the gods and

being abandoned to the soldiery in the public brothel:

Quelles sont vos rigueurs, si vous les nommez grâce!

Et que choix voulez-vous qu'une chrétienne fasse,

Réduite à balancer son esprit agité

Entre l'idolâtrie et l'impudicité?

Le choix est inutile où les maux sont extrêmes.

Reprenez votre grâce, et choisissez vous-mêmes:

Quiconque peut choisir consent à l'un des deux,

Et le consentement est seul lâche et honteux.

Dieu, tout juste et tout bon, qui lit dans nos pensées,

N'impute point de crime aux actions forcées;

Soit que vous contraigniez pour vos dieux impuissans

Mon corps à l'infamie ou ma main à l'encens,

Je saurai conserver d'une âme résolue

À l'époux sans macule une épouse impollue.

She really does _balance_ herself mentally at the parting of the ways

placed before her, analyses it and formulates her determination,

rejecting as cowardly both the choice of the sacrilege and of the

shameful punishment and casting it in the teeth of her unworthy

oppressors. It is the only answer that befits the Christian virgin,

firm in her determination of saving her constancy in the faith and

modesty, which resides not only in the will, but also in desire itself.

The expression of her intention has just such a tone and adopts just

the formulae of a theologian speaking by her mouth--_"le consentment,"

"l'époux sans macule," "l'épouse impollue."_

In _Theseus_ of the _Oedipe_ the poet himself protests against a

conception that menaces the foundation of his spirit itself, because it

offends the idea of free choice and makes unsteady the consciousness

that man has of being able to determine upon a line of conduct

according to reason. He is protesting against the ancient idea of fate,

or rather against its revival in modern form, as the Jansenist doctrine

of grace:

Quoi! la nécessité des vertus et des vices

D'un astre impérieux doit suivre les caprices,

Et Delphes, malgré nous, conduit nos actions

Au plus bizarre effet de ses prédictions?

L'âme est donc toute esclave: une loi souveraine

Vers le bien ou le mal incessamment l'entraîne;

Et nous ne recevons ni crainte ni désir

De cette liberté qui n'a rien à choisir,

Attachés sans relâche à cet ordre sublime,

Vertueux sans mérite et vicieux sans crime.

Qu'on massacre les rois, qu'on brise les autels,

C'est la faute des dieux et non pas des mortels:

De toute la vertu sur la terre épandue

Tout le prix à ces dieux, toute la gloire est due:

Ils agissent en nous quand nous pensons agir;

Alors qu'on délibère, on ne fait qu'obéir;

Et notre volonté n'aime, hait, cherche, évite,

Que suivant que d'en haut leur bras la précipite!

D'un tel aveuglement daignez me dispenser.

Le Ciel, juste à punir, juste à récompenser,

Peur rendre aux actions leur perte ou leur salare,

Doit nous offrir son aide et puis nous laisser faire....

What indignation, what a revolt of the whole being against the thought

that _"quand on délibère, on ne fait qu' obéir"_! How he defends the

liberty, not only of the _"virtus,"_ but also of the _"vices,"_ the

liberty _"de nous laisser faire!"_ This eloquence of the will and of

liberty, this singing declamation, is the true lyricism of Corneille,

intimate and substantial, and not the so-called "lyrical pieces," which

he inserted into his tragedies here and there. These are lyrical in the

formal and restricted scholastic sense of the term, but they are often

as affected as the monologue of Rodrigue, which is accompanied by a

refrain. Others have demonstrated in an accurately analytical manner

that he lacks lyricism or poetry of style; that the construction of his

phrase is logical, with its "because," its "but," its "then," that he

over-abounds in maxims and altogether ignores metaphor, the picturesque

and musicality. But the same writer who has maintained this, has also

declared that his poetry is to be found, if not in the coloured image

and in the musical sound, then certainly "in the rhythm, in the wide

or rapid vibration of the strophe, which extends or transports the

thought" (Lanson): that is to say, in making this admission, he has

confuted his previous mean and narrow theory concerning poetry and

lyricism. The other judgment is to the effect that Corneille is not a

poet by style, but by the conception and meaning of his works--that

he is a latent poet or one who dressed up his thought in prose. But

it is unthinkable that there should exist latent poets, who do not

manifest themselves in poetic form. The truth of the matter is that

where Corneille felt as a poet, he expressed himself as a poet,

without many-coloured metaphors, without musical trills and softnesses

of expression, but with many maxims, many conjunctive particles,

declaratory and expressive of opposition. He employed the latter

rather than the former, because he had need of the latter and not of

the former. His rhythm too, which has been so much praised and owing

to which his alexandrine rings out so differently from the mechanical

alexandrines of his imitators, the rhetoricians, is nothing but his

spirit itself, noble and solemn, debating and deliberating, resolute,

unafraid and firm in its rational determinations.

Corneille's keenest adversaries have always been compelled to recognise

in him a residuum, which withstood their destructive criticism.

Vauvenargues said that "he sometimes expressed himself with great

energy and no one has more loftly traits, no one has left behind him

the idea of a dialogue so closely compacted and so vehement, or has

depicted with equal felicity the power and the inflexibility of the

soul, which come to it from virtue. There are astonishing flashes

that come forth even from the disputes and upon which I commented

unfavourably, there are battles that really elevate the heart, and

finally, although he frequently removes himself from nature, it must

be confessed that he depicts her with great directness and vigour in

many places, and only there is he to be admired." Jacobi, in an essay

which is an indictment, was however, compelled to excogitate or to

beg for the reason of such fame; he found himself obliged to praise

the many vivacious scenes, the depth of discourse, the loftiness of

expression, to be found scattered here and there in those tragedies.

Although Schiller did not care for him at all, he made an exception for

"the part that is properly speaking heroic," which was "felicitously

treated," although he added that "even this vein, which is not rich in

itself, was treated monotonously." Schlegel was struck with certain

passages and with the style which is often powerful and concise and De

Sanctis observed that Corneille was in his own field, when he portrayed

greatness of soul, not in its gradations and struggles, but "as nature

and habit, in the security of possession." A German philologist, after

he has run down the tragedies of the "quadrilateral," judges Corneille

to be "a jurist and a cold man of intellect, although full of nobility

and dignity of soul, but without clearness as to his own aptitudes, and

without original creative power." This writer declares that "nowhere

in his works do we feel the breath of genius that laughs at all

restraints," but he goes on to make exception for the splendour of his

"language." It seems somewhat difficult to make an exception for the

language, precisely when discussing the question of poetical genius!

NOTE. I draw attention to it in this note, because I have never seen it

mentioned: it is to be found in the _Charactere der vornehmsten Dichter

aller Nationen.... von einer Gesellschaft von Gelehrten_ (Leipzig,

1796), Vol. V, part I, pp. 38-138.

We certainly find monotony present in the figures that he sets before

us, repetitions of thoughts and of schemes, analogies in the matter

of process. A _concordantia corneliana,_ explicatory of this side of

his genius could be constructed and perhaps the sole reason that this

has not been done is because it would be too easy. Steinweg, whom we

have quoted above, has provided a good instance of this. But even the

monotony of Corneille must not be looked upon altogether as a proof of

poverty, or a defect, but rather as an intrinsic characteristic of his

austere inspiration, which was susceptible of assuming but few forms.

I cannot better close this discussion of Corneille than with the

citation of a youthful page of Sainte-Beuve, which contains nothing

but a fanciful comparison, but this comparison has much more to say to

us, who have now completed the critical examination of his works, than

Sainte-Beuve was himself able to say in his various critical writings

relative to the poet, for he there shows himself to be at one moment

inclined to be uncertain and to oscillate, at another inclined to yield

to traditional judgments and conventional enthusiasms. This affords

another proof, if such be necessary, that it is one thing to receive

the sensible impression aroused by a poem and another to understand

and to explain it. "Corneille"--wrote Sainte-Beuve,--"a pure genius,

yet an incomplete one, gives me, with his qualities and his defects,

the impression of those great trees, so naked, so gnarled, so sad and

so monotonous as regards their trunk, and adorned with branches and

dark green leaves only at their summits. They are strong, powerful,

gigantic, having but little foliage; an abundant sap nourishes them;

but you must not expect from them shelter, shade or flowers. They put

forth their leaves late, lose them early and live a long while half

dismantled. Even when their bald heads have abandoned their leaves to

the winds of autumn, their vital nature still throws out here and there

stray boughs and green shoots. When they are about to die, their groans

and creakings are like that trunk, laden with arms, to which Lucan

compared the great Pompey."

INDEX (not retained for this text version)

End of Project Gutenberg's Ariosto, Shakespeare, Corneille, by Benedetto Croce