I might give it as the simplest and most correct definition of poetry,
that it is the art of bringing the imagination into play by means of
words. How it brings this to pass I have shown in the first volume, § 51.
A special confirmation of what is said there is afforded by the following
passage in a letter of Wieland’s to Merck, which has since then been
published: “I have spent two days and a half upon a single stanza, in
which the whole thing ultimately depended upon a single word which I
wanted and could not find. I revolved and turned about the thing and my
brain in all directions, because naturally, where a picture was in
question, I desired to bring the same definite vision, which floated
before my own mind into the mind of my reader also, and for this all often
depends, _ut nosti_, upon a single touch or suggestion or reflex” (_Briefe
an Merck_, edited by Wagner, 1835, p. 193). From the fact that the
imagination of the reader is the material in which poetry exhibits its
pictures, it has the advantage that the fuller development of these
pictures and their finer touches, take place in the imagination of every
one just as is most suitable to his individuality, his sphere of
knowledge, and his humour, and therefore move him in the most lively
manner; instead of which plastic and pictorial art cannot so adapt itself,
but here _one_ picture, _one_ form, must satisfy all. And yet this will
always bear in some respect the stamp of the individuality of the artist
or of his model, as a subjective or accidental and inefficient addition;
although always less so the more objective, _i.e._, the more of a genius,
the artist is. This, to some extent, explains why works of poetry exercise
a much stronger, deeper, and more universal effect than pictures and
statues; the latter, for the most part, leave the common people quite
cold; and, in general, the plastic arts are those which have the weakest
effect. A remarkable proof of this is afforded by the frequent discovery
and disclosure of pictures by great masters in private houses and all
kinds of localities, where they have been hanging for many generations,
not buried and concealed, but merely unheeded, thus without any effect. In
my time (1823) there was even discovered in Florence a Madonna of
Raphael’s, which had hung for a long series of years on the wall of the
servants’ hall of a palace (in the _Quartiere di S. Spirito_); and this
happens among Italians, the nation which is gifted beyond all others with
the sense of the beautiful. It shows how little direct and immediate
effect the works of plastic and pictorial art have, and that it requires
more culture and knowledge to prize them than the works of all other arts.
How unfailingly, on the contrary, a beautiful melody that touches the
heart makes its journey round the world, and an excellent poem wanders
from people to people. That the great and rich devote their powerful
support just to the plastic and pictorial arts, and expend considerable
sums upon _their_ works only; nay, at the present day, an idolatry, in the
proper sense of the term, gives the value of a large estate for a picture
of a celebrated old master—this depends principally upon the rarity of the
masterpieces, the possession of which therefore gratifies pride; and then
also upon the fact that the enjoyment of them demands very little time and
effort, and is ready at any moment, for a moment; while poetry and even
music make incomparably harder conditions. Corresponding to this, the
plastic and pictorial arts may be dispensed with; whole nations—for
example, the Mohammedan peoples—are without them, but no people is without
music and poetry.
But the intention with which the poet sets our imagination in motion is to
reveal to us the Ideas, _i.e._, to show us by an example what life and
what the world is. The first condition of this is that he himself has
known it; according as his knowledge has been profound or superficial so
will his poem be. Therefore, as there are innumerable degrees of
profoundness and clearness in the comprehension of the nature of things,
so are there of poets. Each of these, however, must regard himself as
excellent so far as he has correctly represented what he knew, and his
picture answers to _his_ original: he must make himself equal with the
best, for even in the best picture he does not recognise more than in his
own, that is, as much as he sees in nature itself; for his glance cannot
now penetrate deeper. But the best himself recognises himself as such in
the fact that he sees how superficial was the view of the others, how much
lay beyond it which they were not able to repeat, because they did not see
it, and how much further his own glance and picture reaches. If he
understood the superficial poets as little as they do him, then he would
necessarily despair; for just because it requires an extraordinary man to
do him justice, but the inferior poets can just as little esteem him as he
can them, he also has long to live upon his own approval before that of
the world follows it. Meanwhile he is deprived even of his own approval,
for he is expected to be very modest. It is, however, as impossible that
he who has merit, and knows what it costs, should himself be blind to it,
as that a man who is six feet high should not observe that he rises above
others. If from the base of the tower to the summit is 300 feet, then
certainly it is just as much from the summit to the base. Horace,
Lucretius, Ovid, and almost all the ancients have spoken proudly of
themselves, and also Dante, Shakspeare, Bacon of Verulam, and many more.
That one can be a great man without observing anything of it is an
absurdity of which only hopeless incapacity can persuade itself, in order
that it may regard the feeling of its own insignificance as modesty. An
Englishman has wittily and correctly observed that merit and modesty have
nothing in common except the initial letter.(22) I have always a suspicion
about modest celebrities that they may very well be right; and Corneille
says directly—
“La fausse humilité ne met plus en crédit:
Je sçais ce que je vaux, et crois ce qu’on m’en dit.”
Finally, Goethe has frankly said, “Only good‐for‐nothings are modest.” But
the assertion would be still more certain that those who so eagerly demand
modesty from others, urge modesty, unceasingly cry, “Only be modest, for
God’s sake, only be modest!” are positively good‐for‐nothings, _i.e._,
persons entirely without merit, manufactures of nature, ordinary members
of the great mass of humanity. For he who himself has merit also concedes
merit—understands himself truly and really. But he who himself lacks all
excellence and merit wishes there was no such thing: the sight of it in
others stretches him upon the rack; pale, green, and yellow envy consumes
his heart: he would like to annihilate and destroy all those who are
personally favoured; but if unfortunately he must let them live, it must
only be under the condition that they conceal, entirely deny, nay, abjure
their advantages. This, then, is the root of the frequent eulogising of
modesty. And if the deliverers of these eulogies have the opportunity of
suppressing merit as it arises, or at least of hindering it from showing
itself or being known, who can doubt that they will do it? For this is the
practice of their theory.
Now, although the poet, like every artist, always brings before us only
the particular, the individual, what he has known, and wishes by his work
to make us know, is the (Platonic) Idea, the whole species; therefore in
his images, as it were, the type of human characters and situations will
be impressed. The narrative and also the dramatic poet takes the whole
particular from life, and describes it accurately in its individuality,
but yet reveals in this way the whole of human existence; for although he
seems to have to do with the particular, in truth he is concerned with
that which is everywhere and at all times. Hence it arises that sentences,
especially of the dramatic poets, even without being general apophthegms,
find frequent application in actual life. Poetry is related to philosophy
as experience is related to empirical science. Experience makes us
acquainted with the phenomenon in the particular and by means of examples,
science embraces the whole of phenomena by means of general conceptions.
So poetry seeks to make us acquainted with the (Platonic) Ideas through
the particular and by means of examples. Philosophy aims at teaching, as a
whole and in general, the inner nature of things which expresses itself in
these. One sees even here that poetry bears more the character of youth,
philosophy that of old age. In fact, the gift of poetry really only
flourishes in youth; and also the susceptibility for poetry is often
passionate in youth: the youth delights in verses as such, and is often
contented with small ware. This inclination gradually diminishes with
years, and in old age one prefers prose. By that poetical tendency of
youth the sense of the real is then easily spoiled. For poetry differs
from reality by the fact that in it life flows past us, interesting and
yet painless; while in reality, on the contrary, so long as it is painless
it is uninteresting, and as soon as it becomes interesting, it does not
remain without pain. The youth who has been initiated into poetry earlier
than into reality now desires from the latter what only the former can
achieve; this is a principal source of the discomfort which oppresses the
most gifted youths.
Metre and rhyme are a fetter, but also a veil which the poet throws round
him, and under which he is permitted to speak as he otherwise dared not
do; and that is what gives us pleasure. He is only half responsible for
all that he says; metre and rhyme must answer for the other half. Metre,
or measure, as mere rhythm, has its existence only in time, which is a
pure perception _a priori_, thus, to use Kant’s language, belongs merely
to _pure sensibility_; rhyme, on the other hand, is an affair of
sensation, in the organ of hearing, thus of _empirical sensibility_.
Therefore rhythm is a much nobler and more worthy expedient than rhyme,
which the ancients accordingly despised, and which found its origin in
those imperfect languages which arose from the corruption of earlier ones
and in barbarous times. The poorness of French poetry depends principally
upon the fact that it is confined to rhyme alone without metre, and it is
increased by the fact that in order to conceal its want of means it has
increased the difficulty of rhyming by a number of pedantic laws, such as,
for example, that only syllables which are written the same way rhyme, as
if it were for the eye and not for the ear that the hiatus is forbidden;
that a number of words must not occur; and many such, to all of which the
new school of French poetry seeks to put an end. In no language, however,
at least on me, does the rhyme make such a pleasing and powerful
impression as in Latin; the rhymed Latin poems of the Middle Ages have a
peculiar charm. This must be explained from the fact that the Latin
language is incomparably more perfect, more beautiful and noble, than any
modern language, and now moves so gracefully in the ornaments and spangles
which really belong to the latter, and which it itself originally
despised.
To serious consideration it might almost appear as high treason against
our reason that even the slightest violence should be done to a thought or
its correct and pure expression, with the childish intention that after
some syllables the same sound of word should be heard, or even that these
syllables themselves should present a kind of rhythmical beat. But without
such violence very few verses would be made; for it must be attributed to
this that in foreign languages verses are much more difficult to
understand than prose. If we could see into the secret workshops of the
poets, we would find that the thought is sought for the rhyme ten times
oftener than the rhyme for the thought; and even when the latter is the
case, it is not easily accomplished without pliability on the part of the
thought. But the art of verse bids defiance to these considerations, and,
moreover, has all ages and peoples upon its side, so great is the power
which metre and rhyme exercise upon the feeling, and so effective the
mysterious _lenocinium_ which belongs to them. I would explain this from
the fact that a happily rhymed verse, by its indescribably emphatic
effect, raises the feeling as if the thought expressed in it lay already
predestined, nay, performed in the language, and the poet has only had to
find it out. Even trivial thoughts receive from rhythm and rhyme a touch
of importance; cut a figure in this attire, as among girls plain faces
attract the eye by finery. Nay, even distorted and false thoughts gain
through versification an appearance of truth. On the other hand, even
famous passages from famous poets shrink together and become insignificant
when they are reproduced accurately in prose. If only the true is
beautiful, and the dearest ornament of truth is nakedness, then a thought
which appears true and beautiful in prose will have more true worth than
one which affects us in the same way in verse. Now it is very striking,
and well worth investigating, that such trifling, nay, apparently
childish, means as metre and rhyme produce so powerful an effect. I
explain it to myself in the following manner: That which is given directly
to the sense of hearing, thus the mere sound of the words, receives from
rhythm and rhyme a certain completeness and significance in itself for it
thereby becomes a kind of music; therefore it seems now to exist for its
own sake, and no longer as a mere means, mere signs of something
signified, the sense of the words. To please the ear with its sound seems
to be its whole end, and therefore with this everything seems to be
attained and all claims satisfied. But that it further contains a meaning,
expresses a thought, presents itself now as an unexpected addition, like
words to music—as an unexpected present which agreeably surprises us—and
therefore, since we made no demands of this kind, very easily satisfies
us; and if indeed this thought is such that, in itself, thus said in
prose, it would also be significant, then we are enchanted. I can
remember, in my early childhood, that I had delighted myself for a long
time with the agreeable sound of verse before I made the discovery that it
all also contained meaning and thoughts. Accordingly there is also, in all
languages, a mere doggerel poetry almost entirely devoid of meaning.
Davis, the Sinologist, in the preface to his translation of the “_Laou‐
sang‐urh_,” or “_An Heir in Old Age_” (_London, 1817_), observes that the
Chinese dramas partly consist of verses which are sung, and adds: “The
meaning of them is often obscure, and, according to the statements of the
Chinese themselves, the end of these verses is especially to flatter the
ear, and the sense is neglected, and even entirely sacrificed to the
harmony.” Who is not reminded here of the choruses of many Greek tragedies
which are often so hard to make out?
The sign by which one most immediately recognises the genuine poet, both
of the higher and lower species, is the unforced nature of his rhymes.
They have appeared of themselves as if by divine arrangement; his thoughts
come to him already in rhyme. The homely, prosaic man on the contrary,
seeks the rhyme for the thought; the bungler seeks the thought for the
rhyme. Very often one can find out from a couple of rhymed verses which of
the two had the thought and which had the rhyme as its father. The art
consists in concealing the latter, so that such lines may not appear
almost as mere stuffed out _boutsrimés_.
According to my feeling (proofs cannot here be given) rhyme is from its
nature binary: its effect is limited to one single recurrence of the same
sound, and is not strengthened by more frequent repetition. Thus whenever
a final syllable has received the one of the same sound its effect is
exhausted; the third recurrence of the note acts merely as a second rhyme
which accidentally hits upon the same sound, but without heightening the
effect; it links itself on to the existing rhyme, yet without combining
with it to produce a stronger impression. For the first note does not
sound through the second on to the third: therefore this is an æsthetic
pleonasm, a double courage which is of no use. Least of all, therefore, do
such accumulations of rhymes merit the heavy sacrifices which they cost in
the octave rhyme, the terza rima, and the sonnet, and which are the cause
of the mental torture under which we sometimes read such productions, for
poetical pleasure is impossible under the condition of racking our brains.
That the great poetical mind sometimes overcomes even these forms, and
moves in them with ease and grace, does not extend to a recommendation of
the forms themselves, for in themselves they are as ineffectual as they
are difficult. And even in good poets, when they make use of these forms,
we frequently see the conflict between the rhyme and the thought, in which
now one and now the other gains the victory; thus either the thought is
stunted for the sake of the rhyme, or the rhyme has to be satisfied with a
weak _à peu près_. Since this is so, I do not regard it as an evidence of
ignorance, but as a proof of good taste, that Shakspeare in his sonnets
has given different rhymes to each quatraine. At any rate, their acoustic
effect is not in the least diminished by it, and the thought obtains its
rights far more than it could have done if it had had to be laced up in
the customary Spanish boots.
It is a disadvantage for the poetry of a language if it has many words
which cannot be used in prose, and, on the other hand, dare not use
certain words of prose. The former is mostly the case in Latin and Italian
poetry, and the latter in French, where it has recently been very aptly
called, “_La bégeulerie de la langue française_;” both are to be found
less in English, and least in German. For such words belonging exclusively
to poetry remain foreign to our heart, do not speak to us directly, and
therefore leave us cold. They are a conventional language of poetry, and
as it were mere painted sensations instead of real ones: they exclude
genuine feeling.
The distinction, so often discussed in our own day, between _classic_ and
_romantic_ poetry seems to me ultimately to depend upon the fact that the
former knows no other motives than those which are purely human, actual,
and natural; the latter, on the other hand, also treats artificial
conventional, and imaginary motives as efficient. To such belong the
motives which spring from the Christian mythus, also from the chivalrous
over‐strained fantastical law of honour, further from the absurd and
ludicrous Germano‐Christian veneration of women, and lastly from doting
and mooning hyperphysical amorousness. But even in the best poets of the
romantic class, _e.g._, in Calderon, we can see to what ridiculous
distortions of human relations and human nature these motives lead. Not to
speak of the Autos, I merely refer to such pieces as “_No siempre el peor
es cierto_” (The worst is not always certain), and “_El postrero duelo en
España_” (The last duel in Spain), and similar comedies _en capa y
espada_: with the elements mentioned there is here further associated the
scholastic subtility so often appearing in the conversation which at that
time belonged to the mental culture of the higher classes. How decidedly
advantageous, on the contrary, is the position of the poetry of the
ancients, which always remains true to nature; and the result is that
classical poetry has an unconditional, romantic poetry only a conditional,
truth and correctness; analogous to Greek and Gothic architecture. Yet, on
the other hand, we must remark here that all dramatic or narrative poems
which transfer their scene to ancient Greece or Rome lose by this from the
fact that our knowledge of antiquity, especially in what concerns the
details of life, is insufficient, fragmentary, and not drawn from
perception. This obliges the poet to avoid much and to content himself
with generalities, whereby he becomes abstract, and his work loses that
concreteness and individualisation which is throughout essential to
poetry. It is this which gives all such works the peculiar appearance of
emptiness and tediousness. Only Shakspeare’s works of this kind are free
from it; because without hesitation he has presented, under the names of
Greeks and Romans, Englishmen of his own time.
It has been objected to many masterpieces of lyrical poetry, especially
some Odes of Horace (see, for example, the second of the third book) and
several of Goethe’s songs (for example, “The Shepherd’s Lament”), that
they lack proper connection and are full of gaps in the thought. But here
the logical connection is intentionally neglected, in order that the unity
of the fundamental sensation and mood may take its place, which comes out
more clearly just by the fact that it passes like a thread through the
separate pearls, and brings about the quick changes of the objects of
contemplation, in the same way as in music the transition from one key to
another is brought about by the chord of the seventh, through which the
still sounding fundamental note becomes the dominant of the new key. Most
distinctly, even exaggeratedly, the quality here described is found in the
Canzone of Petrarch which begins, “_Mai non vo’ più cantar, com’ io
soleva_.”
Accordingly, as in the lyrical poem the subjective element predominates,
so in the drama, on the contrary, the objective element is alone and
exclusively present. Between the two epic poetry in all its forms and
modifications, from the narrative romance to the epos proper, has a broad
middle path. For although in the main it is objective, yet it contains a
subjective element, appearing now more and now less, which finds its
expression in the tone, in the form of the delivery, and also in scattered
reflections. We do not so entirely lose sight of the poet as in the drama.
The end of the drama in general is to show us in an example what is the
nature and existence of man. The sad or the bright side of these can be
turned to us in it, or their transitions into each other. But the
expression, “nature and existence of man,” already contains the germ of
the controversy whether the nature, _i.e._, the character, or the
existence, _i.e._, the fate, the adventures, the action, is the principal
thing. Moreover, the two have grown so firmly together that although they
can certainly be separated in conception, they cannot be separated in the
representation of them. For only the circumstances, the fate, the events,
make the character manifest its nature, and only from the character does
the action arise from which the events proceed. Certainly, in the
representation, the one or the other may be made more prominent; and in
this respect the piece which centres in the characters and the piece which
centres in the plot are the two extremes.
The common end of the drama and the epic, to exhibit, in significant
characters placed in significant situations, the extraordinary actions
brought about by both, will be most completely attained by the poet if he
first introduces the characters to us in a state of peace, in which merely
their general colour becomes visible, and allows a motive to enter which
produces an action, out of which a new and stronger motive arises, which
again calls forth a more significant action, which, in its turn, begets
new and even stronger motives, whereby, then, in the time suitable to the
form of the poem, the most passionate excitement takes the place of the
original peace, and in this now the important actions occur in which the
qualities of the characters which have hitherto slumbered are brought
clearly to light, together with the course of the world.
Great poets transform themselves into each of the persons to be
represented, and speak out of each of them like ventriloquists; now out of
the hero, and immediately afterwards out of the young and innocent maiden,
with equal truth and naturalness: so Shakspeare and Goethe. Poets of the
second rank transform the principal person to be represented into
themselves. This is what Byron does; and then the other persons often
remain lifeless, as is the case even with the principal persons in the
works of mediocre poets.
Our pleasure in tragedy belongs, not to the sense of the beautiful, but to
that of the sublime; nay, it is the highest grade of this feeling. For, as
at the sight of the sublime in nature we turn away from the interests of
the will, in order to be purely perceptive, so in the tragic catastrophe
we turn away even from the will to live. In tragedy the terrible side of
life is presented to us, the wail of humanity, the reign of chance and
error, the fall of the just, the triumph of the wicked; thus the aspect of
the world which directly strives against our will is brought before our
eyes. At this sight we feel ourselves challenged to turn away our will
from life, no longer to will it or love it. But just in this way we become
conscious that then there still remains something over to us, which we
absolutely cannot know positively, but only negatively, as that which does
not will life. As the chord of the seventh demands the fundamental chord;
as the colour red demands green, and even produces it in the eye; so every
tragedy demands an entirely different kind of existence, another world,
the knowledge of which can only be given us indirectly just as here by
such a demand. In the moment of the tragic catastrophe the conviction
becomes more distinct to us than ever that life is a bad dream from which
we have to awake. So far the effect of the tragedy is analogous to that of
the dynamical sublime, for like this it lifts us above the will and its
interests, and puts us in such a mood that we find pleasure in the sight
of what tends directly against it. What gives to all tragedy, in whatever
form it may appear, the peculiar tendency towards the sublime is the
awakening of the knowledge that the world, life, can afford us no true
pleasure, and consequently is not worthy of our attachment. In this
consists the tragic spirit: it therefore leads to resignation.
I admit that in ancient tragedy this spirit of resignation seldom appears
and is expressed directly. Œdipus Colonus certainly dies resigned and
willing; yet he is comforted by the revenge on his country. Iphigenia at
Aulis is very willing to die; yet it is the thought of the welfare of
Greece that comforts her, and occasions the change of her mind, on account
of which she willingly accepts the death which at first she sought to
avoid by any means. Cassandra, in the Agamemnon of the great Æschylus,
dies willingly, αρκειτω βιος (1306); but she also is comforted by the
thought of revenge. Hercules, in the Trachiniæ, submits to necessity, and
dies composed, but not resigned. So also the Hippolytus of Euripides, in
whose case it surprises us that Artemis, who appears to comfort him,
promises him temples and fame, but never points him to an existence beyond
life, and leaves him in death, as all gods forsake the dying:—in
Christianity they come to him; and so also in Brahmanism and Buddhism,
although in the latter the gods are really exotic. Thus Hippolytus, like
almost all the tragic heroes of the ancients, shows submission to
inevitable fate and the inflexible will of the gods, but no surrender of
the will to live itself. As the Stoic equanimity is fundamentally
distinguished from Christian resignation by the fact that it teaches only
patient endurance and composed expectation of unalterably necessary evil,
while Christianity teaches renunciation, surrender of the will; so also
the tragic heroes of the ancients show resolute subjection under the
unavoidable blows of fate, while Christian tragedy, on the contrary, shows
the surrender of the whole will to live, joyful forsaking of the world in
the consciousness of its worthlessness and vanity. But I am also entirely
of opinion that modern tragedy stands higher than that of the ancients.
Shakspeare is much greater than Sophocles; in comparison with Goethe’s
Iphigenia one might find that of Euripides almost crude and vulgar. The
Bacchæ of Euripides is a revolting composition in favour of the heathen
priests. Many ancient pieces have no tragic tendency at all, like the
Alcestis and Iphigenia in Tauris of Euripides; some have disagreeable, or
even disgusting motives, like the Antigone and Philocteles. Almost all
show the human race under the fearful rule of chance and error, but not
the resignation which is occasioned by it, and delivers from it. All
because the ancients had not yet attained to the summit and goal of
tragedy, or indeed of the view of life itself.
Although, then, the ancients displayed little of the spirit of
resignation, the turning away of the will from life, in their tragic
heroes themselves, as their frame of mind, yet the peculiar tendency and
effect of tragedy remains the awakening of that spirit in the beholder,
the calling up of that frame of mind, even though only temporarily. The
horrors upon the stage hold up to him the bitterness and worthlessness of
life, thus the vanity of all its struggle. The effect of this impression
must be that he becomes conscious, if only in obscure feeling, that it is
better to tear his heart free from life, to turn his will from it, to love
not the world nor life; whereby then in his deepest soul, the
consciousness is aroused that for another kind of willing there must also
be another existence. For if this were not so, then the tendency of
tragedy would not be this rising above all the ends and good things of
life, this turning away from it and its seductions, and the turning
towards another kind of existence, which already lies in this, although an
existence which is for us quite inconceivable. How would it, then, in
general, be possible that the exhibition of the most terrible side of
life, brought before our eyes in the most glaring light, could act upon us
beneficently, and afford us a lofty satisfaction? Fear and sympathy, in
the excitement of which Aristotle places the ultimate end of tragedy,
certainly do not in themselves belong to the agreeable sensations:
therefore they cannot be the end, but only the means. Thus the summons to
turn away the will from life remains the true tendency of tragedy, the
ultimate end of the intentional exhibition of the suffering of humanity,
and is so accordingly even where this resigned exaltation of the mind is
not shown in the hero himself, but is merely excited in the spectator by
the sight of great, unmerited, nay, even merited suffering. Many of the
moderns also are, like the ancients, satisfied with throwing the spectator
into the mood which has been described, by the objective representation of
human misfortune as a whole; while others exhibit this through the change
of the frame of mind of the hero himself, effected by suffering. The
former give, as it were, only the premisses, and leave the conclusion to
the spectator; while the latter give the conclusion, or the moral of the
fable, also, as the change of the frame of mind of the hero, and even also
as reflection, in the mouth of the chorus, as, for example, Schiller in
“The Bride of Messina:” “Life is not the highest good.” Let me remark here
that the genuine tragic effect of the catastrophe, thus the resignation
and exaltation of the mind of the hero which is brought about by it,
seldom appears so purely motived and so distinctly expressed as in the
opera of “Norma,” where it comes in in the duet, “_Qual cor tradisti, qual
cor perdesti_,” in which the change of the will is distinctly indicated by
the quietness which is suddenly introduced into the music. In general,
this piece—regarded apart altogether from its excellent music, and also
from the diction which can only be that of a libretto, and considered only
according to its motives and its inner economy—is a highly perfect
tragedy, a true pattern of tragic disposition of the motives, tragic
progress of the action, and tragic development, together with the effect
of these upon the frame of mind of the hero, raising it above the world,
and which is then also communicated to the spectator; indeed the effect
attained here is the less delusive and the more indicative of the true
nature of tragedy that no Christians, nor even Christian ideas, appear in
it.
The neglect of the unity of time and place with which the moderns are so
often reproached is only a fault when it goes so far that it destroys the
unity of the action; for then there only remains the unity of the
principal character, as, for example, in Shakspeare’s “Henry VIII.” But
even the unity of the action does not need to go so far that the same
thing is spoken of throughout, as in the French tragedies which in general
observe this so strictly that the course of the drama is like a
geometrical line without breadth. There it is constantly a case of “Only
get on! _Pensez à votre affaire!_” and the thing is expedited and hurried
on in a thoroughly business fashion, and no one detains himself with
irrelevances which do not belong to it, or looks to the right or the left.
The Shakspearian tragedy, on the other hand, is like a line which has also
breadth: it takes time, _exspatiatur_: speeches and even whole scenes
occur which do not advance the action, indeed do not properly concern it,
by which, however, we get to know the characters or their circumstances
more fully, and then understand the action also more thoroughly. This
certainly remains the principal thing, yet not so exclusively that we
forget that in the last instance what is aimed at is the representation of
human nature and existence generally.
The dramatic or epic poet ought to know that he is fate, and should
therefore be inexorable, as it is; also that he is the mirror of the human
race, and should therefore represent very many bad and sometimes
profligate characters, and also many fools, buffoons, and eccentric
persons; then also, now and again, a reasonable, a prudent, an honest, or
a good man, and only as the rarest exception a truly magnanimous man. In
the whole of Homer there is in my opinion no really magnanimous character
presented, although many good and honest. In the whole of Shakspeare there
may be perhaps a couple of noble, though by no means transcendently noble,
characters to be found; perhaps Cordelia, Coriolanus—hardly more; on the
other hand, his works swarm with the species indicated above. But
Iffland’s and Kotzebue’s pieces have many magnanimous characters; while
Goldoni has done as I recommended above, whereby he shows that he stands
higher. On the other hand, Schiller’s “Minna von Barnhelm” labours under
too much and too universal magnanimity; but so much magnanimity as the one
Marquis Posa displays is not to be found in the whole of Goethe’s works
together. There is, however, a small German piece called “Duty for Duty’s
Sake” (a title which sounds as if it had been taken from the Critique of
Practical Reason), which has only three characters, and yet all the three
are of most transcendent magnanimity.
The Greeks have taken for their heroes only royal persons; and so also for
the most part have the moderns. Certainly not because the rank gives more
worth to him who is acting or suffering; and since the whole thing is just
to set human passions in play, the relative value of the objects by which
this happens is indifferent, and peasant huts achieve as much as kingdoms.
Moreover, civic tragedy is by no means to be unconditionally rejected.
Persons of great power and consideration are yet the best adapted for
tragedy on this account, that the misfortune in which we ought to
recognise the fate of humanity must have a sufficient magnitude to appear
terrible to the spectator, whoever he may be. Euripides himself says,
“φευ, φευ, τα μεγαλα, μεγαλα και πασχει κακα” (_Stob. Flor._, vol. ii. p.
299). Now the circumstances which plunge a citizen family into want and
despair are in the eyes of the great or rich, for the most part, very
insignificant, and capable of being removed by human assistance, nay,
sometimes even by a trifle: such spectators, therefore, cannot be
tragically affected by them. On the other hand, the misfortunes of the
great and powerful are unconditionally terrible, and also accessible to no
help from without; for kings must help themselves by their own power, or
fall. To this we have to add that the fall is greatest from a height.
Accordingly persons of the rank of citizens lack height to fall from.
If now we have found the tendency and ultimate intention of tragedy to be
a turning to resignation, to the denial of the will to live, we shall
easily recognise in its opposite, comedy, the incitement to the continued
assertion of the will. It is true the comedy, like every representation of
human life, without exception, must bring before our eyes suffering and
adversity; but it presents it to us as passing, resolving itself into joy,
in general mingled with success, victory, and hopes, which in the end
preponderate; moreover, it brings out the inexhaustible material for
laughter of which life, and even its adversities themselves are filled,
and which under all circumstances ought to keep us in a good humour. Thus
it declares, in the result, that life as a whole is thoroughly good, and
especially is always amusing. Certainly it must hasten to drop the curtain
at the moment of joy, so that we may not see what comes after; while the
tragedy, as a rule, so ends that nothing can come after. And moreover, if
once we contemplate this burlesque side of life somewhat seriously, as it
shows itself in the naïve utterances and gestures which trifling
embarrassment, personal fear, momentary anger, secret envy, and many
similar emotions force upon the forms of the real life that mirrors itself
here, forms which deviate considerably from the type of beauty, then from
this side also, thus in an unexpected manner, the reflective spectator may
become convinced that the existence and action of such beings cannot
itself be an end; that, on the contrary, they can only have attained to
existence by an error, and that what so exhibits itself is something which
had better not be.