Every thing in our days is new. _Roads_, for instance, which, being
formerly 'of the earth earthy,' and therefore perishable, are now iron,
and next door to being immortal; _tragedies_, which are so entirely
new, that neither we nor our fathers, through eighteen hundred and ninety
odd years, gone by, since Caesar did our little island the honor to sit
upon its skirts, have ever seen the like to this 'Antigone;' and, finally,
even more new are _readers_, who, being once an obedient race of men,
most humble and deferential in the presence of a Greek scholar, are now
become intractably mutinous; keep their hats on whilst he is addressing
them; and listen to him or not, as he seems to talk sense or nonsense.
Some there are, however, who look upon all these new things as being
intensely old. Yet, surely the railroads are new? No; not at all. Talus,
the iron man in Spenser, who continually ran round the island of Crete,
administering gentle warning and correction to offenders, by flooring them
with an iron flail, was a very ancient personage in Greek fable; and the
received opinion is, that he must have been a Cretan railroad, called The
Great Circular Coast-Line, that carried my lords the judges on their
circuits of jail-delivery. The 'Antigone,' again, that wears the freshness
of morning dew, and is so fresh and dewy in the beautiful person of Miss
Faucit, had really begun to look faded on the Athenian stage, and even 'of
a certain age,' about the death of Pericles, whose meridian year was the
year 444 before Christ. Lastly, these modern _readers_, that are so
obstinately rebellious to the once Papal authority of Greek, they--No; on
consideration, they _are_ new. Antiquity produced many monsters, but
none like _them_.
The truth is, that this vast multiplication of readers, within the last
twenty-five years, has changed the prevailing character of readers. The
minority has become the overwhelming majority: the quantity has disturbed
the quality. Formerly, out of every five readers, at least four were, in
some degree, classical scholars: or, if _that_ would be saying too
much, if two of the four had 'small Latin and less Greek,' they were
generally connected with those who had more, or at the worst, who had much
reverence for Latin, and more reverence for Greek. If they did not all
share in the services of the temple, all, at least, shared in the
superstition. But, now-a-days, the readers come chiefly from a class of
busy people who care very little for ancestral crazes. Latin they have
heard of, and some of them know it as a good sort of industrious language,
that even, in modern times, has turned out many useful books,
astronomical, medical, philosophical, and (as Mrs. Malaprop observes)
diabolical; but, as to Greek, they think of it as of an ancient mummy: you
spend an infinity of time in unswathing it from its old dusty wrappers,
and, when you have come to the end, what do you find for your pains? A
woman's face, or a baby's, that certainly is not the better for being
three thousand years old; and perhaps a few ears of wheat, stolen from
Pharaoh's granary; which wheat, when sown [1] in Norfolk or Mid-Lothian,
reaped, thrashed, ground, baked, and hunted through all sorts of tortures,
yields a breakfast roll that (as a Scottish baker observed to me) is 'not
just _that_ bad.' Certainly not: not exactly '_that_ bad;' not worse than
the worst of our own; but still, much fitter for Pharaoh's breakfast-table
than for ours.
I, for my own part, stand upon an isthmus, connecting me, at one terminus,
with the rebels against Greek, and, at the other, with those against whom
they are in rebellion. On the one hand, it seems shocking to me, who am
steeped to the lips in antique prejudices, that Greek, in unlimited
quantities, should not secure a limited privilege of talking nonsense. Is
all reverence extinct for old, and ivy-mantled, and worm-eaten things?
Surely, if your own grandmother lectures on morals, which perhaps now and
then she does, she will command that reverence from you, by means of her
grandmotherhood, which by means of her ethics she might _not_. To be
a good Grecian, is now to be a faded potentate; a sort of phantom Mogul,
sitting at Delhi, with an English sepoy bestriding his shoulders. Matched
against the master of _ologies_, in our days, the most accomplished
of Grecians is becoming what the 'master of sentences' had become long
since, in competition with the political economist. Yet, be assured,
reader, that all the 'ologies' hitherto christened oology, ichthyology,
ornithology, conchology, palaeodontology, &c., do not furnish such mines
of labor as does the Greek language when thoroughly searched. The
'Mithridates' of Adelung, improved by the commentaries of Vater and of
subsequent authors, numbers up about four thousand languages and jargons
on our polyglot earth; not including the chuckling of poultry, nor
caterwauling, nor barking, howling, braying, lowing, nor other respectable
and ancient dialects, that perhaps have their elegant and their vulgar
varieties, as well as prouder forms of communication. But my impression
is, that the Greek, taken by itself, this one exquisite language,
considered as a quarry of _intellectual_ labor, has more work in it,
is more truly a _piece de resistance_, than all the remaining three
thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, with caterwauling thrown into the
bargain. So far I side with the Grecian, and think that he ought to be
honored with a little genuflexion. Yet, on the other hand, the finest
sound on this earth, and which rises like an orchestra above all the
uproars of earth, and the Babels of earthly languages, is truth--absolute
truth; and the hatefulest is conscious falsehood. Now, there _is_
falsehood, nay (which seems strange), even sycophancy, in the old
undistinguishing homage to all that is called classical. Yet why should
men be sycophants in cases where they _must_ be disinterested? Sycophancy
grows out of fear, or out of mercenary self-interest. But what can there
exist of either pointing to an old Greek poet? Cannot a man give his free
opinion upon Homer, without fearing to be waylaid by his ghost? But it is
not _that_ which startles him from publishing the secret demur which his
heart prompts, upon hearing false praises of a Greek poet, or praises
which, if not false, are extravagant. What he fears, is the scorn of his
contemporaries. Let once a party have formed itself considerable enough to
protect a man from the charge of presumption in throwing off the yoke of
_servile_ allegiance to all that is called classical,--let it be a party
ever so small numerically, and the rebels will soon be many. What a man
fears is, to affront the whole storm of indignation, real and affected, in
his own solitary person. 'Goth!' 'Vandal!' he hears from every side. Break
that storm by dividing it, and he will face its anger. 'Let me be a Goth,'
he mutters to himself, 'but let me not dishonor myself by affecting an
enthusiasm which my heart rejects!'
Ever since the restoration of letters there has been a cabal, an academic
interest, a factious league amongst universities, and learned bodies, and
individual scholars, for exalting as something superterrestrial, and quite
unapproachable by moderns, the monuments of Greek literature. France, in
the time of Louis XIV., England, in the latter part of that time; in fact,
each country as it grew polished at some cost of strength, carried this
craze to a dangerous excess--dangerous as all things false are dangerous,
and depressing to the aspirations of genius. Boileau, for instance, and
Addison, though neither [2] of them accomplished in scholarship, nor
either of them extensively read in _any_ department of the classic
literature, speak every where of the classics as having notoriously, and
by the general confession of polished nations, carried the functions of
poetry and eloquence to that sort of faultless beauty which probably does
_really_ exist in the Greek sculpture. There are few things perfect
in this world of frailty. Even lightning is sometimes a failure: Niagara
has horrible faults; and Mont Blanc might be improved by a century of
chiselling from judicious artists. Such are the works of blind elements,
which (poor things!) cannot improve by experience. As to man who
_does_, the sculpture of the Greeks in their marbles and sometimes in
their gems, seems the only act of _his_ workmanship which has hit the
bull's eye in the target at which we are all aiming. Not so, with
permission from Messrs. Boileau and Addison, the Greek literature. The
faults in this are often conspicuous; nor are they likely to be hidden for
the coming century, as they have been for the three last. The idolatry
will be shaken: as _idols_, some of the classic models are destined
to totter: and I foresee, without gifts of prophecy, that many laborers
will soon be in this field--many idoloclasts, who will expose the signs of
disease, which zealots had interpreted as power; and of weakness, which is
not the less real because scholars had fancied it health, nor the less
injurious to the total effect because it was inevitable under the
accidents of the Grecian position.
Meantime, I repeat, that to disparage any thing whatever, or to turn the
eye upon blemishes, is no part of my present purpose. Nor could it be:
since the one sole section of the Greek literature, as to which I profess
myself an enthusiast, happens to be the tragic drama; and here, only, I
myself am liable to be challenged as an idolater. As regards the Antigone
in particular, so profoundly do I feel the impassioned beauty of her
situation in connection with her character, that long ago, in a work of my
own (yet unpublished), having occasion (by way of overture introducing one
of the sections) to cite before the reader's eye the chief pomps of the
Grecian theatre, after invoking 'the magnificent witch' Medea, I call up
Antigone to this shadowy stage by the apostrophe, Holy heathen, daughter
of God, before God was known, [3] flower from Paradise after Paradise was
closed; that quitting all things for which flesh languishes, safety and
honor, a palace and a home, didst make thyself a houseless pariah, lest
the poor pariah king, thy outcast father, should want a hand to lead him
in his darkness, or a voice to whisper comfort in his misery; angel, that
badst depart for ever the glories of thy own bridal day, lest he that had
shared thy nursery in childhood, should want the honors of a funeral;
idolatrous, yet Christian Lady, that in the spirit of martyrdom trodst
alone the yawning billows of the grave, flying from earthly hopes, lest
everlasting despair should settle upon the grave of thy brother,' &c. In
fact, though all the groupings, and what I would call permanent attitudes
of the Grecian stage, are majestic, there is none that, to my mind, towers
into such affecting grandeur, as this final revelation, through Antigone
herself, and through her own dreadful death, of the tremendous wo that
destiny had suspended over her house. If therefore my business had been
chiefly with the individual drama, I should have found little room for any
sentiment but that of profound admiration. But my present business is
different: it concerns the Greek drama generally, and the attempt to
revive it; and its object is to elucidate, rather than to praise or to
blame. To explain this better, I will describe two things:--1st, The sort
of audience that I suppose myself to be addressing; and, 2dly, As growing
out of _that_, the particular quality of the explanations which I wish to
make.
1st, As to the audience: in order to excuse the tone (which occasionally I
may be obliged to assume) of one speaking as from a station of knowledge,
to others having no knowledge, I beg it to be understood, that I take that
station deliberately, on no conceit of superiority to my readers, but as a
companion adapting my services to the wants of those who need them. I am
not addressing those already familiar with the Greek drama, but those who
frankly confess, and (according to their conjectural appreciation of it)
who regret their non-familiarity with that drama. It is a thing well known
to publishers, through remarkable results, and is now showing itself on a
scale continually widening, that a new literary public has arisen, very
different from any which existed at the beginning of this century. The
aristocracy of the land have always been, in a moderate degree, literary;
less, however, in connection with the _current_ literature, than with
literature generally--past as well as present. And this is a tendency
naturally favored and strengthened in _them_, by the fine collections
of books, carried forward through successive generations, which are so
often found as a sort of hereditary foundation in the country mansions of
our nobility. But a class of readers, prodigiously more extensive, has
formed itself within the commercial orders of our great cities and
manufacturing districts. These orders range through a large scale. The
highest classes amongst them were always literary. But the interest of
literature has now swept downwards through a vast compass of descents: and
this large body, though the busiest in the nation, yet, by having under
their undisturbed command such leisure time as they have _at all_ under
their command, are eventually able to read more than those even who
seem to have nothing else but leisure. In justice, however, to the
nobility of our land, it should be remembered, that their stations in
society, and their wealth, their territorial duties, and their various
public duties in London, as at court, at public meetings, in parliament,
&c., bring crowded claims upon their time; whilst even sacrifices of time
to the graceful courtesies of life, are in reference to _their_ stations,
a sort of secondary duties. These allowances made, it still remains true
that the busier classes are the main reading classes; whilst from their
immense numbers, they are becoming effectually the body that will more and
more impress upon the moving literature its main impulse and direction.
One other feature of difference there is amongst this commercial class of
readers: amongst the aristocracy all are thoroughly educated, excepting
those who go at an early age into the army; of the commercial body, none
receive an elaborate, and what is meant by a liberal education, except
those standing by their connections in the richest classes. Thus it
happens that, amongst those who have not inherited but achieved their
stations, many men of fine and powerful understandings, accomplished in
manners, and admirably informed, not having had the benefits when young of
a regular classical education, find (upon any accident bringing up such
subjects) a deficiency which they do not find on other subjects. They are
too honorable to undervalue advantages, which they feel to be
considerable, simply because they were denied to themselves. They regret
their loss. And yet it seems hardly worth while, on a simple prospect of
contingencies that may never be realized, to undertake an entirely new
course of study for redressing this loss. But they would be glad to avail
themselves of any useful information not exacting study. These are the
persons, this is the class, to which I address my remarks on the
'Antigone;' and out of _their_ particular situation, suggesting upon all
elevated subjects a corresponding tone of liberal curiosity, will arise
the particular nature and direction of these remarks.
Accordingly, I presume, secondly, that this curiosity will take the
following course:--these persons will naturally wish to know, at starting,
what there is _differentially_ interesting in a Grecian tragedy, as
contrasted with one of Shakspeare's or of Schiller's: in what respect, and
by what agencies, a Greek tragedy affects us, or is meant to affect us,
otherwise than as _they_ do; and how far the Antigone of Sophocles was
judiciously chosen as the particular medium for conveying to British minds
a first impression, and a representative impression, of Greek tragedy. So
far, in relation to the ends proposed, and the means selected. Finally,
these persons will be curious to know the issue of such an experiment. Let
the purposes and the means have been bad or good, what was the actual
success? And not merely success, in the sense of the momentary acceptance
by half a dozen audiences, whom the mere decencies of justice must have
compelled to acknowledge the manager's trouble and expense on their
behalf; but what was the degree of satisfaction felt by students of the
Athenian [4] tragedy, in relation to their long-cherished ideal? Did the
representation succeed in realizing, for a moment, the awful pageant of
the Athenian stage? Did Tragedy, in Milton's immortal expression,
------come sweeping by
In sceptred pall?
Or was the whole, though successful in relation to the thing attempted, a
failure in relation to what ought to have been attempted? Such are the
questions to be answered.
* * * * *
The first elementary idea of a Greek tragedy, is to be sought in a serious
Italian opera. The Greek dialogue is represented by the recitative, and
the tumultuous lyrical parts assigned chiefly, though not exclusively, to
the chorus on the Greek stage, are represented by the impassioned airs,
duos, trios, choruses, &c. on the Italian. And there, at the very outset,
occurs a question which lies at the threshold of a Fine Art,--that is of
_any_ Fine Art: for had the views of Addison upon the Italian opera had
the least foundation in truth, there could have been no room or opening
for any mode of imitation except such as belongs to a _mechanic_ art.
The reason for at all connecting Addison with this case is, that _he_
chiefly was the person occupied in assailing the Italian opera; and this
hostility arose, probably, in his want of sensibility to good (that is, to
Italian) music. But whatever might be his motive for the hostility, the
single argument by which he supported it was this,--that a hero ought not
to sing upon the stage, because no hero known to history ever summoned a
garrison in a song, or changed a battery in a semichorus. In this argument
lies an ignorance of the very first principle concern in _every_ Fine
Art. In all alike, more or less directly, the object is to reproduce in
mind some great effect, through the agency of _idem in alio_. The
_idem_, the same impression, is to be restored; but _in alio_, in a
different material,--by means of some different instrument. For instance,
on the Roman stage there was an art, now entirely lost, of narrating, and,
in part of dramatically representing an impassioned tale, by means of
dancing, of musical accompaniment in the orchestra, and of elaborate
pantomime in the performer. _Saltavit Hypermnestram_, he danced (that is,
he represented by dancing and pantomime the story of) Hypermnestra. Now,
suppose a man to object, that young ladies, when saving their youthful
husbands at midnight from assassination, could not be capable of waltzing
or quadrilling, how wide is this of the whole problem! This is still
seeking for the _mechanic_ imitation, some imitation founded in the very
fact; whereas the object is to seek the imitation in the sameness of the
impression drawn from a different, or even from an impossible fact. If a
man, taking a hint from the Roman 'Saltatio' (_saltavit Andromachen_),
should say that he would 'whistle Waterloo,' that is, by whistling
connected with pantomime, would express the passion and the changes of
Waterloo, it would be monstrous to refuse him his postulate on the
pretence that 'people did not whistle at Waterloo.' Precisely so: neither
are most people made of marble, but of a material as different as can well
be imagined, viz. of elastic flesh, with warm blood coursing along its
tubes; and yet, for all _that_, a sculptor will draw tears from you, by
exhibiting, in pure statuary marble, on a sepulchral monument, two young
children with their little heads on a pillow, sleeping in each other's
arms; whereas, if he had presented them in wax-work, which yet is far more
like to flesh, you would have felt little more pathos in the scene than if
they had been shown baked in gilt gingerbread. He has expressed the
_idem_, the identical thing expressed in the real children; the sleep that
masks death, the rest, the peace, the purity, the innocence; but _in
alio_, in a substance the most different; rigid, non-elastic, and as
unlike to flesh, if tried by touch, or eye, or by experience of life, as
can well be imagined. So of the whistling. It is the very worst objection
in the world to say, that the strife of Waterloo did not reveal itself
through whistling: undoubtedly it did not; but that is the very ground of
the man's art. He will reproduce the fury and the movement as to the only
point which concerns you, viz. the effect, upon your own sympathies,
through a language that seems without any relation to it: he will set
before you what _was_ at Waterloo through that which was _not_ at
Waterloo. Whereas any direct factual imitation, resting upon painted
figures drest up in regimentals, and worked by watchwork through the whole
movements of the battle, would have been no art whatsoever in the sense of
a Fine Art, but a base _mechanic_ mimicry.
This principle of the _idem in alio_, so widely diffused through all
the higher revelations of art, it is peculiarly requisite to bear in mind
when looking at Grecian tragedy, because no form of human composition
employs it in so much complexity. How confounding it would have been to
Addison, if somebody had told him, that, substantially, he had himself
committed the offence (as he fancied it) which he charged so bitterly upon
the Italian opera; and that, if the opera had gone farther upon that road
than himself, the Greek tragedy, which he presumed to be so prodigiously
exalted beyond modern approaches, had gone farther even than the opera.
Addison himself, when writing a tragedy, made this violation (as he would
have said) of nature, made this concession (as _I_ should say) to a
higher nature, that he compelled his characters to talk in metre. It is
true this metre was the common iambic, which (as Aristotle remarks) is the
most natural and spontaneous of all metres; and, for a sufficient reason,
in all languages. Certainly; but Aristotle never meant to say that it was
natural for a gentleman in a passion to talk threescore and ten iambics
_consecutively_: a chance line might escape him once and away; as we
know that Tacitus opened one of his works by a regular dactylic hexameter
in full curl, without ever discovering it to his dying day (a fact which
is clear from his never having corrected it); and this being a very
artificial metre, _a fortiori_ Tacitus might have slipped into a simple
iambic. But that was an accident, whilst Addison had deliberately
and uniformly made his characters talk in verse. According to the common
and false meaning [which was his own meaning] of the word nature, he had
as undeniably violated the principle of the _natural_, by this metrical
dialogue, as the Italian opera by musical dialogue. If it is hard and
trying for men to sing their emotions, not less so it must be to deliver
them in verse.
But, if this were shocking, how much more shocking would it have seemed to
Addison, had he been introduced to parts which really exist in the Grecian
drama? Even Sophocles, who, of the three tragic poets surviving from the
wrecks of the Athenian stage, is reputed the supreme _artist_ [5] if
not the most impassioned poet, with what horror he would have overwhelmed
Addison, when read by the light of those principles which he had himself
so scornfully applied to the opera! In the very monsoon of his raving
misery, from calamities as sudden as they were irredeemable, a king is
introduced, not only conversing, but conversing in metre; not only in
metre, but in the most elaborate of choral metres; not only under the
torture of these lyric difficulties, but also chanting; not only chanting,
but also in all probability dancing. What do you think of _that_, Mr.
Addison?
There is, in fact, a scale of graduated ascents in these artifices for
unrealizing the effects of dramatic situations:
1. We may see, even in novels and prose comedies, a keen attention paid to
the inspiriting and _dressing_ of the dialogue: it is meant to be life-
like, but still it is a little raised, pointed, colored, and idealized.
2. In comedy of a higher and more poetic cast, we find the dialogue
_metrical_.
3. In comedy or in tragedy alike, which is meant to be still further
removed from ordinary life, we find the dialogue fettered not only by
metre, but by _rhyme_. We need not go to Dryden, and others, of our
own middle stage, or to the French stage for this: even in Shakspeare, as
for example, in parts of Romeo and Juliet (and for no capricious purpose),
we may see effects sought from the use of rhyme. There is another
illustration of the idealizing effect to be obtained from a particular
treatment of the dialogue, seen in the Hamlet of Shakspeare. In that drama
there arises a necessity for exhibiting a play within a play. This
interior drama is to be further removed from the spectator than the
principal drama; it is a deep below a deep; and, to produce that effect,
the poet relies chiefly upon the stiffening the dialogue, and removing it
still farther, than the general dialogue of the _including_ or _outside_
drama, from the standard of ordinary life.
4. We find, superadded to these artifices for idealizing the situations,
even music of an intermitting character, sometimes less, sometimes more
impassioned--recitatives, airs, choruses. Here we have reached the Italian
opera.
5. And, finally, besides all these resources of art, we find dancing
introduced; but dancing of a solemn, mystical, and symbolic character.
Here, at last, we have reached the Greek tragedy. Probably the best
exemplification of a Grecian tragedy that ever _will_ be given to a
modern reader is found in the Samson Agonistes of Milton. Now, in the
choral or lyric parts of this fine drama, Samson not only talks, 1st,
metrically ( as he does every where, and in the most level parts of the
scenic business), but, 2d, in very intricate metres, and, 3d, occasionally
in _rhymed_ metres (though the rhymes are too sparingly and too
capriciously scattered by Milton), and, 4th, _singing_ or chanting
these metres (for, as the chorus sang, it was impossible that _he_
could be allowed to talk in his ordinary voice, else he would have put
them out, and ruined the music). Finally, 5th, I am satisfied that Milton
meant him to _dance_. The office of the _chorus_ was imperfectly
defined upon the Greek stage. They are generally understood to be the
_moralizers_ of the scene. But this is liable to exceptions. Some of
them have been known to do very bad things on the stage, and to come
within a trifle of felony: as to misprision of felony, if there _is_
such a crime, a Greek chorus thinks nothing of it. But that is no business
of mine. What I was going to say is, that, as the chorus sometimes
intermingles too much in the action, so the actors sometimes intermingle
in the business of the chorus. Now, when you are at Rome, you must do as
they do at Rome. And that the actor, who mixed with the chorus, was
compelled to sing, is a clear case; for _his_ part in the choral ode
is always in the nature of an echo, or answer, or like an _antiphony_
in cathedral services. But nothing could be more absurd than that one of
these antiphonies should be sung, and another said. That he was also
compelled to dance, I am satisfied. The chorus only _sometimes_
moralized, but it _always_ danced: and any actor, mingling with the
chorus, must dance also. A little incident occurs to my remembrance, from
the Moscow expedition of 1812, which may here be used as an illustration:
One day King Murat, flourishing his plumage as usual, made a gesture of
invitation to some squadrons of cavalry that they should charge the enemy:
upon which the cavalry advanced, but maliciously contrived to envelope the
king of dandies, before he had time to execute his ordinary manoeuvre of
riding off to the left and becoming a spectator of their prowess. The
cavalry resolved that his majesty should for once ride down at their head
to the melee, and taste what fighting was like; and he, finding that the
thing must be, though horribly vexed, made a merit of his necessity, and
afterwards pretended that he liked it very much. Sometimes, in the
darkness, in default of other misanthropic visions, the wickedness of this
cavalry, their _mechancete_, causes me to laugh immoderately. Now I
conceive that any interloper into the Greek chorus must have danced when
_they_ danced, or he would have been swept away by their impetus:
_nolens volens_, he must have rode along with the orchestral charge,
he must have rode on the crest of the choral billows, or he would have
been rode down by their impassioned sweep. Samson, and Oedipus, and
others, must have danced, if they sang; and they certainly _did_ sing, by
notoriously intermingling in the choral business.[6]
'But now,' says the plain English reader, 'what was the object of all
these elaborate devices? And how came it that the English tragedy, which
surely is as good as the Greek,' (and at this point a devil of defiance
whispers to him, like the quarrelsome servant of the Capulets or the
Montagus, 'say _better_,') 'that the English tragedy contented itself
with fewer of these artful resources than the Athenian?' I reply, that the
object of all these things was--to unrealize the scene. The English drama,
by its metrical dress, and by other arts more disguised, unrealized
itself, liberated itself from the oppression of life in its ordinary
standards, up to a certain height. Why it did not rise still higher, and
why the Grecian _did_, I will endeavor to explain. It was not that the
English tragedy was less impassioned; on the contrary, it was far more
so; the Greek being awful rather than impassioned; but the passion of each
is in a different key. It is not again that the Greek drama sought a lower
object than the English: it sought a different object. It is not imparity,
but disparity, that divides the two magnificent theatres.
Suffer me, reader, at this point, to borrow from my-self, and do not
betray me to the authorities that rule in this journal, if you happen to
know [which is not likely] that I am taking an idea from a paper which
years ago I wrote for an eminent literary journal. As I have no copy of
that paper before me, it is impossible that I should save myself any labor
of writing. The words at any rate I must invent afresh: and, as to the
idea, you never _can_ be such a churlish man as, by insisting on a new
one, in effect to insist upon my writing a false one. In the following
paragraph, therefore, I give the substance of a thought suggested by
myself some years ago.
That kind of feeling, which broods over the Grecian tragedy, and to court
which feeling the tragic poets of Greece naturally spread all their
canvas, was more nearly allied to the atmosphere of death than that of
life. This expresses rudely the character of awe and religious horror
investing the Greek theatre. But to my own feeling the different principle
of passion which governs the Grecian conception of tragedy, as compared
with the English, is best conveyed by saying that the Grecian is a
breathing from the world of sculpture, the English a breathing from the
world of painting. What we read in sculpture is not absolutely death, but
still less is it the fulness of life. We read there the abstraction of a
life that reposes, the sublimity of a life that aspires, the solemnity of
a life that is thrown to an infinite distance. This last is the feature of
sculpture which seems most characteristic: the form which presides in the
most commanding groups, 'is not dead but sleepeth:' true, but it is the
sleep of a life sequestrated, solemn, liberated from the bonds of space
and time, and (as to both alike) thrown (I repeat the words) to a
distance which is infinite. It affects us profoundly, but not by
agitation. Now, on the other hand, the breathing life--life kindling,
trembling, palpitating--that life which speaks to us in painting, this is
also the life that speaks to us in English tragedy. Into an English
tragedy even festivals of joy may enter; marriages, and baptisms, or
commemorations of national trophies: which, or any thing _like_ which, is
incompatible with the very being of the Greek. In that tragedy what
uniformity of gloom; in the English what light alternating with depths of
darkness! The Greek, how mournful; the English, how tumultuous! Even the
catastrophes how different! In the Greek we see a breathless waiting for a
doom that cannot be evaded; a waiting, as it were, for the last shock of
an earthquake, or the inexorable rising of a deluge: in the English it is
like a midnight of shipwreck, from which up to the last and till the final
ruin comes, there still survives the sort of hope that clings to human
energies.
Connected with this original awfulness of the Greek tragedy, and possibly
in part its cause, or at least lending strength to its cause, we may next
remark the grand dimensions of the ancient theatres. Every citizen had a
right to accommodation. _There_ at once was a pledge of grandeur. Out
of this original standard grew the magnificence of many a future
amphitheatre, circus, hippodrome. Had the original theatre been merely a
speculation of private interest, then, exactly as demand arose, a
corresponding supply would have provided for it through its ordinary
vulgar channels; and this supply would have taken place through rival
theatres. But the crushing exaction of 'room for _every_ citizen,' put an
end to that process of subdivision. Drury Lane, as I read (or think
that I read) thirty years ago, allowed sitting room for three thousand
eight hundred people. Multiply _that_ by ten; imagine thirty-eight
thousand instead of thirty-eight hundred, and then you have an idea of the
Athenian theatre. [7]
Next, out of that grandeur in the architectural proportions arose, as by
necessity, other grandeurs. You are aware of the _cothurnus_, or buskin,
which raised the actor's heel by two and a half inches; and you think that
this must have caused a deformity in the general figure as incommensurate
to this height. Not at all. The flowing dress of Greece healed all _that_.
But, besides the _cothurnus_, you have heard of the mask. So far as
it was fitted to swell the intonations of the voice, you are of opinion
that this mask would be a happy contrivance; for what, you say, could a
common human voice avail against the vast radiation from the actor's
centre of more than three myriads? If, indeed (like the Homeric Stentor),
an actor spoke in point of loudness, (Greek Text), as much as other fifty,
then he might become audible to the assembled Athenians without aid. But
this being impossible, art must be invoked; and well if the mask, together
with contrivances of another class, could correct it. Yet if it could,
still you think that this mask would bring along with it an overbalancing
evil. For the expression, the fluctuating expression, of the features, the
play of the muscles, the music of the eye and of the lips,--aids to acting
that, in our times, have given immortality to scores, whither would those
have vanished? Reader, it mortifies me that all which I said to you upon
the peculiar and separate grandeur investing the Greek theatre is
forgotten. For, you must consider, that where a theatre is built for
receiving upwards of thirty thousand spectators, the curve described by
what in modern times you would call the tiers of boxes, must be so vast as
to make the ordinary scale of human features almost ridiculous by
disproportion. Seat yourself at this day in the amphitheatre at Verona,
and judge for yourself. In an amphitheatre, the stage, or properly the
arena, occupying, in fact, the place of our modern pit, was much nearer
than in a scenic theatre to the surrounding spectators. Allow for this,
and placing some adult in a station expressing the distance of the
Athenian stage, then judge by his appearance if the delicate pencilling of
Grecian features could have told at the Grecian distance. But even if it
could, then I say that this circumstantiality would have been hostile to
the general tendencies (as already indicated) of the Grecian drama. The
sweeping movement of the Attic tragedy _ought_ not to admit of
interruption from _distinct_ human features; the expression of an
eye, the loveliness of a smile, _ought_ to be lost amongst effects so
colossal. The mask aggrandized the features: even so far it acted
favorably. Then figure to yourself this mask presenting an idealized face
of the noblest Grecian outline, moulded by some skilful artist _Phidiaca
manu_, so as to have the effect of a marble bust; this accorded with
the aspiring _cothurnus_; and the motionless character impressed upon
the features, the marble tranquillity, would (I contend) suit the solemn
processional character of Athenian tragedy, far better than the most
expressive and flexible countenance on its natural scale. 'Yes,' you say,
on considering the character of the Greek drama, 'generally it might; in
forty-nine cases suppose out of fifty: but what shall be done in the
fiftieth, where some dreadful discovery or _anagnorisis_ (_i.e._
recognition of identity) takes place within the compass of a single line
or two; as, for instance, in the Oedipus Tyrannus, at the moment when
Oedipus by a final question of his own, extorts his first fatal discovery,
viz. that he had been himself unconsciously the murderer of Laius?' True,
he has no reason as yet to suspect that Laius was his own father; which
discovery, when made further on, will draw with it another still more
dreadful, viz. that by this parricide he had opened his road to a throne,
and to a marriage with his father's widow, who was also his own natural
mother. He does not yet know the worst: and to have killed an arrogant
prince, would not in those days have seemed a very deep offence: but then
he believes that the pestilence had been sent as a secret vengeance for
this assassination, which is thus invested with a mysterious character of
horror. Just at this point, Jocasta, his mother and his wife, says, [8] on
witnessing the sudden revulsion of feeling in his face, 'I shudder, oh
king, when looking on thy countenance.' Now, in what way could this
passing spasm of horror be reconciled with the unchanging expression in
the marble-looking mask? This, and similar cases to this, must surely be
felt to argue a defect in the scenic apparatus. But I say, no: first,
Because the general indistinctiveness from distance is a benefit that
applies equally to the fugitive changes of the features and to their
permanent expression. You need not regret the loss through _absence_,
of an appearance that would equally, though present, have been lost
through _distance_. Secondly, The Greek actor had always the resource,
under such difficulties, of averting his face a resource sanctioned in
similar cases by the greatest of the Greek painters. Thirdly, The
voluminous draperies of the scenic dresses, and generally of the Greek
costume, made it an easy thing to muffle the features altogether by a
gesture most natural to sudden horror. Fourthly, We must consider
that there were no stage lights: but, on the contrary that the general
light of day was specially mitigated for that particular part of the
theatre; just as various architectural devices were employed to swell the
volume of sound. Finally. I repeat my sincere opinion, that the general
indistinctness of the expression was, on principles of taste, an
advantage, as harmonizing with the stately and sullen monotony of the
Greek tragedy. Grandeur in the attitudes, in the gestures, in the groups,
in the processions--all this was indispensable: but, on so vast a scale as
the mighty cartoons of the Greek stage, an Attic artist as little regarded
the details of physiognomy, as a great architect would regard, on the
frontispiece of a temple, the miniature enrichments that might be suitable
in a drawing-room.
With these views upon the Grecian theatre, and other views that it might
oppress the reader to dwell upon in this place, suddenly in December last
an opportunity dawned--a golden opportunity, gleaming for a moment amongst
thick clouds of impossibility that had gathered through three-and-twenty
centuries--for seeing a Grecian tragedy presented on a British stage, and
with the nearest approach possible to the beauty of those Athenian pomps
which Sophocles, which Phidias, which Pericles created, beautified,
promoted. I protest, when seeing the Edinburgh theatre's _programme_,
that a note dated from the Vatican would not have startled me more, though
sealed with the seal of the fisherman, and requesting the favor of my
company to take coffee with the Pope. Nay, less: for channels there were
through which I might have compassed a presentation to his Holiness; but
the daughter of Oedipus, the holy Antigone, could I have hoped to see her
'in the flesh?' This tragedy in an English version, [9] and with German
music, had first been placed before the eyes and ears of our countrymen at
Convent Garden during the winter of 1844--5. It was said to have
succeeded. And soon after a report sprang up, from nobody knew where, that
Mr. Murray meant to reproduce it in Edinburgh.
What more natural? Connected so nearly with the noblest house of scenic
artists that ever shook the hearts of nations, nobler than ever raised
undying echoes amidst the mighty walls of Athens, of Rome, of Paris, of
London,--himself a man of talents almost unparalleled for versatility,--
why should not Mr. Murray, always so liberal in an age so ungrateful to
_his_ profession, have sacrificed something to this occasion? He,
that sacrifices so much, why not sacrifice to the grandeur of the Antique?
I was then in Edinburgh, or in its neighborhood; and one morning, at a
casual assembly of some literary friends, present Professor Wilson,
Messrs. J. F., C. N., L. C., and others, advocates, scholars, lovers of
classical literature, we proposed two resolutions, of which the first was,
that the news was too good to be true. That passed _nem. con._; and
the second resolution was _nearly_ passing, viz. that a judgment would
certainly fall upon Mr. Murray, had a second report proved true, viz. that
not the Antigone, but a burlesque on the Antigone, was what he meditated
to introduce. This turned out false; [l0] the original report was suddenly
revived eight or ten months after. Immediately on the heels of the promise
the execution followed; and on the last (which I believe was the seventh)
representation of the Antigone, I prepared myself to attend.
It had been generally reported as characteristic of myself, that in
respect to all coaches, steamboats, railroads, wedding-parties, baptisms,
and so forth, there was a fatal necessity of my being a trifle too late.
Some malicious fairy, not invited to my own baptism, was supposed to have
endowed me with this infirmity. It occurred to me that for once in my life
I would show the scandalousness of such a belief by being a trifle too
soon, say, three minutes. And no name more lovely for inaugurating such a
change, no memory with which I could more willingly connect any
reformation, than thine, dear, noble Antigone! Accordingly, because a
certain man (whose name is down in my pocket-book for no good) had told me
that the doors of the theatre opened at half-past six, whereas, in fact,
they opened at seven, there was I, if you please, freezing in the little
colonnade of the theatre precisely as it wanted six-and-a-half minutes to
seven,--six-and-a-half minutes observe too soon. Upon which this son of
absurdity coolly remarked, that, if he had not set me half-an-hour
forward, by my own showing, I should have been twenty-three-and-a-half
minutes too late. What sophistry! But thus it happened (namely, through
the wickedness of this man), that, upon entering the theatre, I found
myself like Alexander Selkirk, in a frightful solitude, or like a single
family of Arabs gathering at sunset about a solitary coffee-pot in the
boundless desert. Was there an echo raised? it was from my own steps. Did
any body cough? it was too evidently myself. I was the audience; I was the
public. And, if any accident happened to the theatre, such as being burned
down, Mr. Murray would certainly lay the blame upon me. My business
meantime, as a critic, was--to find out the most malicious seat,
_i.e._ the seat from which all things would take the most unfavorable
aspect. I could not suit myself in this respect; however bad a situation
might seem, I still fancied some other as promising to be worse. And I was
not sorry when an audience, by mustering in strength through all parts of
the house, began to divide my responsibility as to burning down the
building, and, at the same time, to limit the caprices of my distracted
choice. At last, and precisely at half-past seven, the curtain drew up; a
thing not strictly correct on a Grecian stage. But in theatres, as in
other places, one must forget and forgive. Then the music began, of which
in a moment. The overture slipped out at one ear, as it entered the other,
which, with submission to Mr. Mendelssohn, is a proof that it must be
horribly bad; for, if ever there lived a man that in music can neither
forget nor forgive, that man is myself. Whatever is very good never
perishes from my remembrance,--that is, sounds in my ears by intervals for
ever,--and for whatever is bad, I consign the author, in my wrath, to his
own conscience, and to the tortures of his own discords. The most
villanous things, however, have one merit; they are transitory as the best
things; and _that_ was true of the overture: it perished. Then, suddenly,
--oh, heavens! what a revelation of beauty!--forth stepped, walking in
brightness, the most faultless of Grecian marbles, Miss Helen Faucit as
Antigone. What perfection of Athenian sculpture! the noble figure, the
lovely arms, the fluent drapery! What an unveiling of the ideal
statuesque! Is it Hebe? is it Aurora? is it a goddess that moves before
us? Perfect she is in form; perfect in attitude;
'Beautiful exceedingly,
Like a ladie from a far countrie.'
Here was the redeeming jewel of the performance. It flattered one's
patriotic feelings, to see this noble young countrywoman realizing so
exquisitely, and restoring to our imaginations, the noblest of Grecian
girls. We critics, dispersed through the house, in the very teeth of duty
and conscience, all at one moment unanimously fell in love with Miss
Faucit. We felt in our remorse, and did not pretend to deny, that our duty
was--to be savage. But when was the voice of duty listened to in the first
uproars of passion? One thing I regretted, viz. that from the
indistinctness of my sight for distant faces, I could not accurately
discriminate Miss Faucit's features; but I was told by my next neighbor
that they were as true to the antique as her figure. Miss Faucit's voice
is fine and impassioned, being deep for a female voice; but in this organ
lay also the only blemish of her personation. In her last scene, which is
injudiciously managed by the Greek poet,--too long by much, and perhaps
misconceived in the modern way of understanding it,--her voice grew too
husky to execute the cadences of the intonations: yet, even in this scene,
her fall to the ground, under the burden of her farewell anguish, was in a
high degree sculpturesque through the whole succession of its stages.
Antigone in the written drama, and still more in the personated drama,
draws all thoughts so entirely to herself, as to leave little leisure for
examining the other parts; and, under such circumstances, the first
impulse of a critic's mind is, that he ought to massacre all the rest
indiscriminately; it being clearly his duty to presume every thing bad
which he is not unwillingly forced to confess good, or concerning which he
retains no distinct recollection. But I, after the first glory of
Antigone's _avatar_ had subsided, applied myself to consider the general
'setting' of this Theban jewel. Creon, whom the Greek tragic poets take
delight in describing as a villain, has very little more to do (until
his own turn comes for grieving), than to tell Antigone, by minute-guns,
that die she must. 'Well, uncle, don't say that so often,' is the answer
which, secretly, the audience whispers to Antigone. Our uncle grows
tedious; and one wishes at last that he himself could be 'put up the
spout.' Mr. Glover, from the sepulchral depth of his voice, gave effect to
the odious Creontic menaces; and, in the final lamentations over the dead
body of Haemon, being a man of considerable intellectual power, Mr. Glover
drew the part into a prominence which it is the fault of Sophocles to have
authorized in that situation; for the closing sympathies of the spectator
ought not to be diverted, for a moment, from Antigone.
But the chorus, how did _they_ play their part? Mainly _their_ part must
have always depended on the character of the music: even at Athens, that
must have been very much the case, and at Edinburgh altogether, because
dancing on the Edinburgh stage there was none. How came _that_ about? For
the very word, 'orchestral,' suggests to a Greek ear _dancing_, as the
leading element in the choral functions. Was it because dancing with us is
never used mystically and symbolically never used in our religious
services? Still it would have been possible to invent solemn and intricate
dances, that might have appeared abundantly significant, if expounded by
impassioned music. But that music of Mendelssohn!--like it I cannot. Say
not that Mendelssohn is a great composer. He _is_ so. But here he was
voluntarily abandoning the resources of his own genius, and the support of
his divine art, in quest of a chimera: that is, in quest of a thing called
Greek music, which for _us_ seems far more irrecoverable than the 'Greek
fire.' I myself, from an early date, was a student of this subject. I read
book after book upon it; and each successive book sank me lower into
darkness, until I had so vastly improved in ignorance, that I could myself
have written a quarto upon it, which all the world should not have found
it possible to understand. It should have taken three men to construe one
sentence. I confess, however, to not having yet seen the writings upon
this impracticable theme of Colonel Perronet Thompson. To write
experimental music for choruses that are to support the else meagre
outline of a Greek tragedy, will not do. Let experiments be tried upon
worthless subjects; and if this of Mendelssohn's be Greek music, the
sooner it takes itself off the better. Sophocles will be delivered from an
incubus, and we from an affliction of the auditory nerves.
It strikes me that I see the source of this music. We, that were learning
German some thirty years ago, must remember the noise made at that time
about Mendelssohn, the Platonic philosopher. And why? Was there any thing
particular in 'Der Phaedon,' on the immortality of the soul? Not at all;
it left us quite as mortal as it found us; and it has long since been
found mortal itself. Its venerable remains are still to be met with in
many worm-eaten trunks, pasted on the lids of which I have myself perused
a matter of thirty pages, except for a part that had been too closely
perused by worms. But the key to all the popularity of the Platonic
Mendelssohn, is to be sought in the whimsical nature of German liberality,
which, in those days, forced Jews into paying toll at the gates of cities,
under the title of 'swine,' but caressed their infidel philosophers. Now,
in this category of Jew and infidel, stood the author of 'Phaedon.' He was
certainly liable to toll as a hog; but, on the other hand, he was much
admired as one who despised the Pentateuch. Now _that_ Mendelssohn,
whose learned labors lined our trunks, was the father of _this_
Mendelssohn, whose Greek music afflicts our ears. Naturally, then, it
strikes me, that as 'papa' Mendelssohn attended the synagogue to save
appearances, the filial Mendelssohn would also attend it. I likewise
attended the synagogue now and then at Liverpool, and elsewhere. We all
three have been cruising in the same latitudes; and, trusting to my own
remembrances, I should pronounce that Mendelssohn has stolen his Greek
music from the synagogue. There was, in the first chorus of the
'Antigone,' one sublime ascent (and once repeated) that rang to heaven: it
might have entered into the music of Jubal's lyre, or have glorified the
timbrel of Miriam. All the rest, tried by the deep standard of my own
feeling, that clamors for the impassioned in music, even as the daughter
of the horse-leech says, 'Give, give,' is as much without meaning as most
of the Hebrew chanting that I heard at the Liverpool synagogue. I advise
Mr. Murray, in the event of his ever reviving the 'Antigone,' to make the
chorus sing the Hundredth Psalm, rather than Mendelssohn's music; or,
which would be better still, to import from Lancashire the Handel chorus-
singers.
But then, again, whatever change in the music were made, so as to 'better
the condition' of the poor audience, something should really be done to
'better the condition' of the poor chorus. Think of these worthy men, in
their white and skyblue liveries, kept standing the whole evening; no
seats allowed, no dancing; no tobacco; nothing to console them but
Antigone's beauty; and all this in our climate, latitude fifty-five
degrees, 30th of December, and Fahrenheit groping about, I don't pretend
to know where, but clearly on his road down to the wine cellar. Mr.
Murray, I am perfectly sure, is too liberal to have grudged the expense,
if he could have found any classic precedent for treating the chorus to a
barrel of ale. Ale, he may object, is an unclassical tipple; but perhaps
not. Xenophon, the most Attic of prose writers, mentions pointedly in his
_Anabasis_, that the Ten Thousand, when retreating through snowy
mountains, and in circumstances very like our General Elphinstone's
retreat from Cabul, came upon a considerable stock of bottled ale. To be
sure, the poor ignorant man calls it _barley wine_, [Greek: _oitos
chrithinos_:] but the flavor was found so perfectly classical that not
one man of the ten thousand, not even the Attic bee himself, is reported
to have left any protest against it, or indeed to have left much of the
ale.
But stop: perhaps I am intruding upon other men's space. Speaking,
therefore, now finally to the principal question, How far did this
memorable experiment succeed? I reply, that, in the sense of realizing all
that the joint revivers proposed to realize, it succeeded; and failed only
where these revivers had themselves failed to comprehend the magnificent
tendencies of Greek tragedy, or where the limitations of our theatres,
arising out of our habits and social differences, had made it impossible
to succeed. In London, I believe that there are nearly thirty theatres,
and many more, if every place of amusement (not bearing the technical name
of _theatre_) were included. All these must be united to compose a
building such as that which received the vast audiences, and consequently
the vast spectacles, of some ancient cities. And yet, from a great mistake
in our London and Edinburgh attempts to imitate the stage of the Greek
theatres, little use was made of such advantages as really _were_ at
our disposal. The possible depth of the Edinburgh stage was not laid open.
Instead of a regal hall in Thebes, I protest I took it for the boudoir of
Antigone. It was painted in light colors, an error which was abominable,
though possibly meant by the artist (but quite unnecessarily) as a proper
ground for relieving the sumptuous dresses of the leading performers. The
doors of entrance and exit were most unhappily managed. As to the dresses,
those of Creon, of his queen, and of the two loyal sisters, were good:
chaste, and yet princely. The dress of the chorus was as bad as bad as
could be: a few surplices borrowed from Episcopal chapels, or rather the
ornamented _albes_, &c. from any rich Roman Catholic establishment,
would have been more effective. The _Coryphaeus_ himself seemed, to
my eyes, no better than a railway laborer, fresh from tunnelling or
boring, and wearing a _blouse_ to hide his working dress. These ill-
used men ought to 'strike' for better clothes, in case Antigone should
again revisit the glimpses of an Edinburgh moon; and at the same time they
might mutter a hint about the ale. But the great hindrances to a perfect
restoration of a Greek tragedy, lie in peculiarities of our theatres that
cannot be removed, because bound up with their purposes. I suppose that
Salisbury Plain would seem too vast a theatre: but at least a cathedral
would be required in dimensions, York Minster or Cologne. Lamp-light gives
to us some advantages which the ancients had not. But much art would be
required to train and organize the lights and the masses of superincumbent
gloom, that should be such as to allow no calculation of the dimensions
overhead. Aboriginal night should brood over the scene, and the sweeping
movements of the scenic groups: bodily expression should be given to the
obscure feeling of that dark power which moved in ancient tragedy: and we
should be made to know why it is that, with the one exception of the
_Persae_, founded on the second Persian invasion, [11] in which
Aeschylus, the author, was personally a combatant, and therefore a
_contemporary_, not one of the thirty-four Greek tragedies surviving,
but recedes into the dusky shades of the heroic, or even fabulous times.
A failure, therefore, I think the 'Antigone,' in relation to an object
that for us is unattainable; but a failure worth more than many ordinary
successes. We are all deeply indebted to Mr. Murray's liberality, in two
senses; to his liberal interest in the noblest section of ancient
literature, and to his liberal disregard of expense. To have seen a
Grecian play is a great remembrance. To have seen Miss Helen Faucit's
Antigone, were _that_ all, with her bust, [Greek: _os agalmatos_] [12] and
her uplifted arm 'pleading against unjust tribunals,' is worth--what is it
worth? Worth the money? How mean a thought! To see _Helen_, to see Helen
of Greece, was the chief prayer of Marlow's Dr. Faustus; the chief gift
which he exacted from the fiend. To see Helen of Greece? Dr. Faustus, we
_have_ seen her: Mr. Murray is the Mephistopheles that showed her to us.
It was cheap at the price of a journey to Siberia, and is the next best
thing to having seen Waterloo at sunset on the 18th of June, 1815. [13]