go at once to that tragedy of Corneille's which, by the general consent
of French critics, is the best work of its author, the "Polyeuctes." The
following is the rhetorical climax of praise in which Gaillard, one of
the most enlightened of Corneille's eulogists, arranges the different
masterpieces of his author: "'The Cid' raised Corneille above his
rivals; the 'Horace' and the 'Cinna' above his models; the 'Polyeuctes'
above himself." This tragedy will, we doubt not, prove to our readers
the most interesting of all the tragedies of Corneille.
"The great Corneille"--to apply the traditionary designation which,
besides attributing to our tragedian his conceded general eminence in
character and genius, serves also to distinguish him by merit from his
younger brother, who wrote very good tragedy--was an illustrious figure
at the Hotel de Rambouillet, that focus of the best literary criticism
in France. Corneille reading a play of his to the _coterie_ of wits
assembled there under the presidency of ladies whose eyes, as in a kind
of tournament of letters, rained influence on authors, and judged the
prize of genius, is the subject of a striking picture by a French
painter. Corneille read "Polyeuctes" at the Hotel Rambouillet, and that
awful court decided against the play. Corneille, like Michael Angelo,
had to a good degree the courage of his own productions: but, in the
face of adverse decision so august on his work, he needed encouragement,
which happily he did not fail to receive, before he would allow his
"Polyeuctes" to be represented. The theatre crowned it with the laurels
of victory. It thus fell to Corneille to triumph successively,
single-handed, over two great adversary courts of critical
appreciation--the Academy of Richelieu and the not less formidable Hotel
de Rambouillet.
The objection raised by the Hotel de Rambouillet against the
"Polyeuctes" was that it made the stage encroach on the prerogative of
the pulpit, and preach instead of simply amusing. And, indeed, never,
perhaps, since the Greek tragedy, was the theatre made so much to serve
the solemn purposes of religion. (We except the miracle and passion
plays and the mysteries of the Middle Ages, as not belonging within the
just bounds of a comparison like that now made.) Corneille's final
influence was to elevate and purify the French theatre. In his early
works, however, he made surprising concessions to the lewd taste in the
drama that he found prevailing when he began to write. With whatever
amount of genuine religious scruple affecting his conscience--on that
point we need not judge the poet--Corneille used, before putting them
on the stage, to take his plays to the "Church"--that is, to the
priestly hierarchy who constituted the "Church"--that they might be
authoritatively judged as to their possible influence on the cause of
Christian truth.
In the "Polyeuctes" the motive is religion. Polyeuctes is historic or
traditional saint of the Roman Catholic church. His conversion from
paganism is the theme of the play. Polyeuctes has a friend Nearchus who
is already a Christian convert, and who labors earnestly to make
Polyeuctes a proselyte to the faith. Polyeuctes has previously married a
noble Roman lady, daughter of Felix, governor of Armenia, in which
province the action of the story occurs. (The persecuting Emperor Decius
is on the throne of the Roman world.) Paulina married Polyeuctes against
her own choice, for she loved Roman Severus better. Her father had put
his will upon her, and Paulina had filially obeyed in marrying
Polyeuctes. Such are the relations of the different persons of the
drama. It will be seen that there is ample room for the play of elevated
and tragic passions. Paulina, in fact, is the lofty, the impossible,
ideal of wifely and daughterly truth and devotion. Pagan though she is,
she is pathetically constant, both to the husband that was forced upon
her, and to the father that did the forcing; while still she loves, and
cannot but love, the man whom, in spite of her love for him, she, with
an act like prolonged suicide, stoically separates from her torn and
bleeding heart.
But Severus on his part emulates the nobleness of the woman whom he
vainly loves. Learning the true state of the case, he rises to the
height of his opportunity for magnanimous behavior, and bids the married
pair be happy in a long life together.
A change in the situation occurs, a change due to the changed mood of
the father, Felix. Felix learns that Severus is high in imperial favor,
and he wishes now that Severus, instead of Polyeuctes, were his
son-in-law. A decree of the emperor makes it possible that this
preferable alternative may yet be realized. For the emperor has decreed
that Christians must be persecuted to the death, and Polyeuctes has been
baptized a Christian--though of this Felix will not hear till later.
A solemn sacrifice to the gods is to be celebrated in honor of imperial
victories lately won. Felix sends to summon Polyeuctes, his son-in-law.
To Felix's horror, Polyeuctes, with his friend Nearchus, coming to the
temple, proceeds in a frenzy of enthusiasm to break and dishonor the
images of the gods, proclaiming himself a Christian. In obedience to the
imperial decree, Nearchus is hurried to execution, in the sight of his
friend, while Polyeuctes is thrown into prison to repent and recant.
"Now is my chance," muses Felix. "I dare not disobey the emperor to
spare Polyeuctes. Besides, with Polyeuctes once out of the way, Severus
and Paulina may be husband and wife."
Polyeuctes in prison hears that his Paulina is coming to see him. With a
kind of altruistic nobleness which seems contagious in this play,
Polyeuctes resolves that Severus shall come too, and he will resign his
wife, soon to be a widow, to the care of his own rival, her Roman lover.
First, Polyeuctes and Paulina are alone together--Polyeuctes having,
before she arrived, fortified his soul for the conflict with her tears,
by singing in his solitude a song of high resolve and of anticipative
triumph over his temptation.
The scene between Paulina, exerting all her power to detach Polyeuctes
from what she believes to be his folly, and Polyeuctes, on the other
hand, rapt to the pitch of martyrdom, exerting all his power to resist
his wife, and even to convert her--this scene, we say, is full of noble
height and pathos, as pathos and height were possible in the verse which
Corneille had to write. Neither struggler in this tragic strife moves
the other. Paulina is withdrawing when Severus enters. She addresses her
lover severely, but Polyeuctes intervenes to defend him. In a short
scene, Polyeuctes, by a sort of last will and testament, bequeaths his
wife to his rival, and retires with his guard. Now, Severus and Paulina
are alone together. If there was a trace of the false heroic in
Polyeuctes's resignation of his wife to Severus, the effect of that is
finely counteracted by the scene which immediately follows between
Paulina and Severus. Severus begins doubtfully, staggering, as it were,
to firm posture, while he speaks to Paulina. He expresses amazement at
the conduct of Polyeuctes. Christians certainly deport themselves
strangely, he says. He at length finds himself using the following
lover-like language:
As for me, had my destiny become a little earlier propitious and
honored my devotion by marriage with you, I should have adored only
the splendor of your eyes; of them I should have made my kings; of
them I should have made my gods; sooner would I have been reduced to
dust, sooner would I have been reduced to ashes, than--
But here Paulina interrupts, and Severus is not permitted to finish his
protestation. Her reply is esteemed, and justly esteemed, one of the
noblest things in French tragedy--a French critic would be likely to
say, the very noblest in tragedy. She says:
Let us break off there; I fear listening too long; I fear lest this
warmth which feels your first fires, force on some sequel unworthy of
us both. [Voltaire, who edited Corneille with a feeling of freedom
toward a national idol comparable to the sturdy independence that
animated Johnson in annotating Shakespeare, says of "This warmth which
feels your first fires and which forces on a sequel:" "That is badly
written, agreed; but the sentiment gets the better of the expression,
and what follows is of a beauty of which there had been no example.
The Greeks were frigid declaimers in comparison with this passage of
Corneille."] Severus, learn to know Paulina all in all.
My Polyeuctes touches on his last hour; he has but a moment to live;
you are the cause of this, though innocently so. I know not if your
heart, yielding to your desires, may have dared build any hope on his
destruction; but know that there is no death so cruel that to it with
firm brow I would not bend my steps, that there are in hell no horrors
that I would not endure, rather than soil a glory so pure, rather than
espouse, after his sad fate, a man that was in any wise the cause of
his death; and if you suppose me of a heart so little sound, the love
which I had for you would all turn to hate. You are generous; be so
even to the end. My father is in a state to yield every thing to you;
he fears you; and I further hazard this saying, that, if he destroys
my husband, it is to you that he sacrifices him. Save this unhappy
man, use your influence in his favor, exert yourself to become his
support. I know that this is much that I ask; but the greater the
effort, the greater the glory from it. To preserve a rival of whom you
are jealous, that is a trait of virtue which appertains only to you.
And if your renown is not motive sufficient, it is much that a woman
once so well beloved, and the love of whom perhaps is still capable of
touching you, will owe to your great heart the dearest possession that
she owns; remember, in short, that you are Severus. Adieu. Decide with
yourself alone what you ought to do; if you are not such as I dare to
hope that you are, then, in order that I may continue to esteem you, I
wish not to know it.
Voltaire, as editor and commentator of Corneille, is freezingly cold. It
is difficult not to feel that at heart he was unfriendly to the great
tragedist's fame. His notes often are remorselessly grammatical. "This
is not French"; "This is not the right word"; "According to the
construction, this should mean so and so--according to the sense it must
mean so and so"; "This is hardly intelligible"; "It is a pity that such
or such a fault should mar these fine verses"; "An expression for comedy
rather than tragedy"--are the kind of remarks with which Voltaire chills
the enthusiasm of the reader. It is useless, however, to deny that the
criticisms thus made are, many of them, just. Corneille does not belong
to the class of the "faultily faultless" writers.
Severus proves equal to Paulina's noble hopes of him. With a great
effort of self-sacrifice, he resolves to intercede for Polyeuctes. This
is shown in an interview between Severus and his faithful attendant
Fabian. Fabian warns him that he appeals for Polyeuctes at his own
peril. Severus loftily replies (and here follows one of the most lauded
passages in the play:)
That advice might be good for some common soul. Though he [the Emperor
Decius] holds in his hands my life and my fortune, I am yet Severus;
and all that mighty power is powerless over my glory, and powerless
over my duty. Here honor compels me, and I will satisfy it; whether
fate afterward show itself propitious or adverse, perishing glorious I
shall perish content.
I will tell thee further, but under confidence, the sect of Christians
is not what it is thought to be. They are hated, why I know not; and I
see Decius unjust only in this regard. From curiosity I have sought
to become acquainted with them. They are regarded as sorcerers taught
from hell; and, in this supposition, the punishment of death is
visited on secret mysteries which we do not understand. But Eleusinian
Ceres and the Good Goddess have their secrets, like those at Rome and
in Greece; still we freely tolerate everywhere, their God alone
excepted, every kind of god; all the monsters of Egypt have their
temples in Rome; our fathers, at their will, made a god of a man; and,
their blood in our veins preserving their errors, we fill heaven with
all our emperors; but, to speak without disguise of deifications so
numerous, the effect is very doubtful of such metamorphoses.
Christians have but one God, absolute master of all, whose mere will
does whatever he resolves; but, if I may venture to say what seems to
me true, our gods very often agree ill together; and, though their
wrath crush me before your eyes, we have a good many of them for them
to be true gods. Finally, among the Christians, morals are pure, vices
are hated, virtues flourish; they offer prayers on behalf of us who
persecute them; and, during all the time since we have tormented them,
have they ever been seen mutinous? Have they ever been seen
rebellious? Have our princes ever had more faithful soldiers? Fierce
in war, they submit themselves to our executioners; and, lions in
combat, they die like lambs. I pity them too much not to defend them.
Come, let us find Felix; let us commune with his son-in-law; and let
us thus, with one single action, gratify at once Paulina, and my
glory, and my compassion.
Such is the high heroic style in which pagan Severus resolves and
speaks. And thus the fourth act ends.
Felix makes a sad contrast with the high-heartedness which the other
characters, most of them, display. He is base enough to suspect that
Severus is base enough to be false and treacherous in his act of
intercession for Polyeuctes. He imagines he detects a plot against
himself to undermine him with the emperor. Voltaire criticises Corneille
for giving this sordid character to Felix. He thinks the tragedist might
better have let Felix be actuated by zeal for the pagan gods. The mean
selfishness that animates the governor, Voltaire regards as below the
right tragic pitch. It is the poet himself, no doubt, with that high
Roman fashion of his, who, unconsciously to the critic, taught him to
make the criticism.
Felix summons Polyeuctes to an interview, and adjures to be a prudent
man. Felix at length says, "Adore the gods or die." "I am a Christian,"
simply replies the martyr. "Impious! Adore them, I bid you, or renounce
life." (Here again Voltaire offers one of his refrigerant criticisms:
"_Renounce life_ does not advance upon the meaning of _die_; when one
repeats the thought, the expression should be strengthened.") Paulina
meantime has entered to expostulate with Polyeuctes and with her father.
Polyeuctes bids her, "Live with Severus." He says he has revolved the
subject, and he is convinced that another love is the sole remedy for
her woe. He proceeds in the calmest manner to point out the advantages
of the course recommended. Voltaire remarks--justly we are bound to
say--that these maxims are here somewhat revolting; the martyr should
have had other things to say. On Felix's final word, "Soldiers, execute
the order that I have given," Paulina exclaims, "Whither are you taking
him?" "To death," says Felix. "To glory," says Polyeuctes. "Admirable
dialogue, and always applauded," is Voltaire's note on this.
The tragedy does not end with the martyrdom of Polyeuctes. Paulina
becomes a Christian, but remains pagan enough to call her father
"barbarous," in acrimoniously bidding him finish his work by putting his
daughter also to death. Severus reproaches Felix for his cruelty, and
threatens him with his own enmity. Felix undergoes instantaneous
conversion--a miracle of grace which, under the circumstances provided
by Corneille, we may excuse Voltaire for laughing at. Paulina is
delighted; and Severus asks, "Who would not be touched by a spectacle so
tender?"
The tragedy thus comes near ending happily enough to be called a comedy.
Such as the foregoing exhibits him is the father of French tragedy,
Corneille, where at his best; where at his worst, he is something so
different that you would hardly admit him to be the same man. For never
was genius more unequal in different manifestations of itself, than
Corneille in his different works. Moliere is reported to have said that
Corneille had a familiar, or a fairy, that came to him at times, and
enabled him to write sublimely; but that, when the poet was left to
himself, he could write as poorly as another man.
Corneille produced some thirty-three dramatic pieces in all, but of
these not more than six or seven retain their place on the French stage.
Corneille and Bossuet together constitute a kind of rank by themselves
among the _Dii Majores_ of the French literary Olympus.
XI.
RACINE.
1639-1699.
Jean Racine was Pierre Corneille reduced to rule. The younger was to the
elder somewhat as Sophocles or Euripides was to AEschylus, as Virgil was
to Lucretius, as Pope was to Dryden. Nature was more in Corneille, art
was more in Racine. Corneille was a pathfinder in literature. He led the
way even for Moliere still more for Racine. But Racine was as much
before Corneille in perfection of art as Corneille was before Racine in
audacity of genius. Racine, accordingly, is much more even and uniform
than Corneille. Smoothness, polish, ease, grace, sweetness--these, and
monotony in these, are the mark of Racine. But if there is, in the
latter poet, less to admire, there is also less to forgive. His taste
and his judgment were surer than the taste and the judgment of
Corneille. He enjoyed, moreover, an inestimable advantage in the
life-long friendship of the great critic of his time, Boileau. Boileau
was a literary conscience to Racine. He kept Racine constantly spurred
to his best endeavors in art. Racine was congratulating himself to his
friends on the ease with which he produced his verse. "Let me teach you
to produce easy verse with difficulty," was the critic's admirable
reply. Racine was a docile pupil. He became as painstaking an artist in
verse as Boileau would have him.
It will always be a matter of individual taste, and of changing fashion
in criticism, to decide which of the two is, on the whole, to be
preferred to the other. Racine eclipsed Corneille in vogue during the
lifetime of the latter. Corneille's old age was, perhaps, seriously
saddened by the consciousness, which he could not but have, of being
retired from the place of ascendency once accorded to him over all. His
case repeated the fortune of AEschylus in relation to Sophocles. The
eighteenth century, taught by Voltaire, established the precedence of
Racine. But the nineteenth century has restored the crown to the brow of
Corneille. To such mutations is subject the fame of an author.
Jean Racine was early left an orphan. His grandparents put him, after
preparatory training at another establishment, to school at Port Royal,
where during three years he had the best opportunities of education that
the kingdom afforded. His friends wanted to make a clergyman of him; but
the preferences of the boy prevailed, and he addicted himself to
literature. The Greek tragedists became familiar to him in his youth,
and their example in literary art exercised a sovereign influence over
Racine's development as author. It pained the good Port-Royalists to see
their late gifted pupil, now out of their hands, inclined to write
plays. Nicole printed a remonstrance against the theater, in which
Racine discovered something that he took to slant anonymously at
himself. He wrote a spirited reply, of which no notice was taken by the
Port-Royalists. Somebody, however, on their behalf, rejoined to Racine,
whereupon the young author wrote a second letter to the Port-Royalists,
which he showed to his friend Boileau. "This may do credit to your head,
but it will do none to your heart," was that faithful mentor's comment,
in returning the document. Racine suppressed his second letter, and did
his best to recall the first. But he went on in his course of writing
for the stage.
Racine's second tragedy, the "Alexander the Great," the youthful author
took to the great Corneille, to get his judgment on it. Corneille was
thirty-three years the senior of Racine, and he was at this time the
undisputed master of French tragedy. "You have undoubted talent for
poetry--for tragedy, not; try your hand in some other poetical line,"
was Corneille's sentence on the unrecognized young rival, who was so
soon to supplant him in popular favor.
It was a pretty, girlish fancy of the brilliant Princess Henriette (that
same daughter of English Charles I., Bossuet's funeral oration on whom,
presently to be spoken of, is so celebrated) to engage the two great
tragedists, Corneille and Racine, both at once, in labor, without their
mutual knowledge, upon the same subject--a subject which she herself,
drawing it from the history of Tacitus, conceived to be eminently fit
for tragical treatment. Corneille produced his "Berenice" and Racine his
"Titus and Berenice." The princess died before the two plays which she
had inspired were produced; but, when they were produced, Racine's work
won the palm. The rivalry created a bitterness between the two authors,
of which, naturally, the defeated one tasted the more deeply. An
ill-considered pleasantry, too, of Racine's, in making out of one of
Corneille's tragic lines in his "Cid," a comic line for "The Suitors,"
hurt the old man's pride. That pride suffered a worse hurt still. The
chief Parisian theater, completely occupied with the works of his
victorious rival, rejected tragedies offered by Corneille.
Still, Racine did not have things all his own way. Some good critics
considered the rage for this younger dramatist a mere passing whim of
fashion. These--Madame de Sevigne was of them--stood by their "old
admiration," and were true to Corneille.
A memorable mortification and chagrin for our poet was now prepared by
his enemies--he seems never to have lacked enemies--with lavish and
elaborate malice. Racine had produced a play from Euripides, the
"Phaedra," on which he had unstintingly bestowed his best genius and his
best art. It was contrived that another poet, one Pradon, should, at the
self-same moment, have a play represented on the self-same subject. At a
cost of many thousands of dollars, the best seats at Racine's theater
were all bought by his enemies, and left solidly vacant. The best seats
at Pradon's theater were all bought by the same interested parties, and
duly occupied with industrious and zealous applauders. This occurred at
six successive representations. The result was the immediate apparent
triumph of Pradon over the humiliated Racine. Boileau in vain bade his
friend be of good cheer, and await the assured reversal of the verdict.
Racine was deeply wounded.
This discomposing experience of the poet's, joined with conscientious
misgivings on his part as to the propriety of his course in writing for
the stage, led him now, at the early age of thirty-eight, to renounce
tragedy altogether. His son Louis, from whose life of Racine we have
chiefly drawn our material for the present sketch, conceives this change
in his father as a profound and genuine religious conversion. Writers
whose spirit inclines them not to relish a condemnation such as seems
thus to be reflected on the theater take a less charitable view of the
change. They account for it as a reaction of mortified pride. Some of
them go so far as groundlessly to impute sheer hypocrisy to Racine.
A long interval of silence, on Racine's part, had elapsed, when Madame
de Maintenon, the wife of Louis XIV., asked the unemployed poet to
prepare a sacred play for the use of the high-born girls educated under
her care at St. Cyr. Racine consented, and produced his "Esther." This
achieved a prodigious success; for the court took it up, and an exercise
written for a girls' school became the admiration of a kingdom. A second
similar play followed, the "Athaliah"--the last, and, by general
agreement, the most perfect work of its author. We thus reach that
tragedy of Racine's which both its fame and its character dictate to us
as the one by eminence to be used here in exhibition of the quality of
this Virgil among tragedists.