The Italians--Pastoral Dramas of Tasso and Guarini--Small progress in
Tragedy--Metastasio and Alfieri--Character of both--Comedies of Ariosto,
Aretin, Porta--Improvisatore Masks--Goldoni--Gozzi--Latest state.
Leaving now the productions of Classical Antiquity, we proceed to the
dramatic literature of the moderns. With respect to the order most
convenient for treating our present subject, it may be doubtful whether it
is better to consider, _seriatim_, what each nation has accomplished
in this domain, or to pass continually from one to another, in the train
of their reciprocal but fluctuating influences. Thus, for instance, the
Italian theatre, at its first revival, exercised originally an influence
on the French, to be, however, greatly influenced in its turn by the
latter. So, too, the French, before their stage attained its full
maturity, borrowed still more from the Spaniards than from the Italians;
in later times, Voltaire attempted to enlarge their theatrical circle, on
the model of the English; the attempt, however, was productive of no great
effect, even because everything had already been immutably fixed, in
conformity with their ideas of imitation of the ancients, and their taste
in art. The English and Spanish stages are nearly independent of all the
rest, and also of each other; on those of other countries, however, they
have exercised a great influence, but experienced very little in return.
But, to avoid the perplexity and confusion which would attend such a plan,
it will be advisable to treat the several literatures separately, pointing
out, at the same time, whatever effects foreign influence may have
produced. This course is also rendered necessary, by the circumstance that
among modern nations the principle of imitation of the ancients has in
some prevailed, without check or modification; while in others, the
romantic spirit predominated, or at least an originality altogether
independent of classical models The former is the case with the Italians
and French, and the latter with the English and Spaniards.
I have already indicated, in passing, how even before the eruption of the
northern conquerors had put an end to everything like art, the diffusion
of Christianity led to the abolition of plays, which, both with Greeks and
Romans, had become extremely corrupt. After the long sleep of the dramatic
and theatrical spirit in the middle ages, which, however uninfluenced by
the classical models, began to awake again in the Mysteries and
Moralities, the first attempt to imitate the ancients in the theatre, as
well as in the other arts and departments of poetry, was made by the
Italians. The _Sophonisba_ of Trissino, which belongs to the beginning of
the sixteenth century, is generally named as the first regular tragedy.
This literary curiosity I cannot boast of having read, but from other
sources I know the author to be a spiritless pedant. Those even of the
learned, who are most zealous for the imitation of the ancients, pronounce
it a dull laboured work, without a breath of true poetical spirit; we may
therefore, without further examination, safely appeal to their judgment
upon it. It is singular, that while all ancient forms, even the Chorus,
are scrupulously retained, the province of mythology is abandoned for that
of Roman history.
The pastoral dramas of Tasso and Guarini (which belong to the middle of
the sixteenth century), whose subjects, though for the most part not
tragical, are yet noble, not to say ideal, may be considered to form an
epoch in the history of dramatic poetry. They are furnished with choruses
of the most ravishing beauty, which, however, are but so many lyrical
voices floating in the air; they do not appear as personages, and still
less are they introduced with due regard to probability as constant
witnesses of the represented actions. These compositions were, there is no
doubt, designed for the theatre; and they were represented at Ferrara and
at Turin with great pomp, and we may presume with eminent taste. This
fact, however, serves to give us an idea of the infantine state of the
theatre at that time; although, as a whole, they have each their plot and
catastrophe, the action nevertheless stands still in some scenes. Their
popularity, therefore, would lead us to conclude that the spectators,
little accustomed to theatrical amusements, were consequently not
difficult to please, and patiently followed the progress of a beautiful
poem, even though deficient in dramatic development. The _Pastor Fido_, in
particular, is an inimitable production; original and yet classical;
romantic in the spirit of the love which it portrays; in its form
impressed with the grand but simple stamp of classical antiquity; and
uniting with the sweet triflings of poetry, the high and chaste beauty of
feeling. No poet has succeeded so well as Guarini in combining the
peculiarities of the modern and antique. He displays a profound feeling of
the essence of Ancient Tragedy; for the idea of fate pervades the subject-
matter, and the principal characters may be said to be ideal: he has also
introduced caricatures, and on that account called the composition a
Tragi-Comedy; but it is not from the vulgarity of their manners that they
are caricatures, as from their over-lofty sentiments, just as in Ancient
Tragedy the subordinate personages ever are invested with more or less of
the general dignity.
The great importance of this work, however, belongs rather to the History
of Poetry in general; on Dramatic Poetry it had no effect, as in truth it
was not calculated to produce any.
I then return to what may properly be called the Tragedy of the Italians.
After the _Sophonisba_, and a few pieces of the same period, which
Calsabigi calls the first tragic lispings of Italy, a number of works of
the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries are cited; but of
these none made, or at any rate maintained any considerable reputation.
Although all these writers, in intention at least, laboured, to follow the
rules of Aristotle, their tragical abortions are thus described by
Calsabigi, a critic entirely devoted to the French system:--"Distorted,
complicated, improbable plots, ill-understood scenic regulations, useless
personages, double plots, inconsistent characters, gigantic or childish
thoughts, feeble verses, affected phrases, the poetry neither harmonious
nor natural; all this decked out with ill-timed descriptions and similes,
or idle philosophical and political disquisitions; in every scene some
silly amour, with all the trite insipidity of common-place sentimentality;
of true tragic energy, of the struggle of conflicting passions, of
overpowering theatrical catastrophes, not the slightest trace." Amongst
the lumber of this forgotten literature we cannot stop to rummage, and we
shall therefore proceed immediately to the consideration of the
_Merope_ of Maffei, which appeared in the beginning of the eighteenth
century. Its success in Italy, on its first publication, was great; and in
other countries, owing to the competition of Voltaire, it also obtained an
extraordinary reputation. The object of both Maffei and Voltaire was, from
Hyginus' account of its contents, to restore in some measure a lost piece
of Euripides, which the ancients highly commended. Voltaire, pretending to
eulogize, has given a rival's criticism of Maffei's _Merope_; there
is also a lengthened criticism on it in the _Dramaturgie_ of Lessing,
as clever as it is impartial. He pronounces it, notwithstanding its purity
and simplicity of taste, the work of a learned antiquary, rather than of a
mind naturally adapted for, and practised in the dramatic art. We must
therefore judge accordingly of the previous state of the drama in the
country where such a work could arrive at so great an estimation.
After Maffei came Metastasio and Alfieri; the first before the middle, and
the other in the latter half of the eighteenth century. I here include the
musical dramas of Metastasio, because they aim in general at a serious and
pathetic effect, because they lay claim to ideality of conception, and
because in their external form there is a partial observance of what is
considered as belonging to the regularity of a tragedy. Both these poets,
though totally differing in their aim, were nevertheless influenced in
common by the productions of the French stage. Both, it is true, declared
themselves too decidedly against the authority of this school to be
considered properly as belonging to it; they assure us that, in order to
preserve their own originality, they purposely avoided reading the French
models. But this very precaution appears somewhat suspicious: whoever
feels himself perfectly firm and secure in his own independence, may
without hesitation study the works of his predecessors; he will thus be
able to derive from them many an improvement in his art, and yet stamp on
his own productions a peculiar character. But there is nothing on this
head that I can urge in support of these poets: if it be really true that
they never, or at least not before the completion of their works, perused
the works of French tragedians, some invisible influence must have
diffused itself through the atmosphere, which, without their being
conscious of it, determined them. This is at once conceivable from the
great estimation which, since the time of Louis XIV, French Tragedy has
enjoyed, not only with the learned, but also with the great world
throughout Europe; from the new-modelling of several foreign theatres to
the fashion of the French; from the prevailing spirit of criticism, with
which negative correctness was everything, and in which France gave the
tone to the literature of other countries. The affinity is in both
undeniable, but, from the intermixture of the musical element in
Metastasio, it is less striking than in Alfieri. I trace it in the total
absence of the romantic spirit; in a certain fanciless insipidity of
composition; in the manner of handling mythological and historical
materials, which is neither properly mythological nor historical; lastly,
in the aim to produce a tragic purity, which degenerates into monotony.
The unities of both place and time have been uniformly observed by
Alfieri; the latter only could be respected by Metastasio, as change of
scene is necessary to the opera poet. Alfieri affords in general no food
for the eyes. In his plots he aimed at the antique simplicity, while
Metastasio, in his rich intrigues, followed Spanish models, and in
particular borrowed largely from Calderon. [Footnote: This is expressly
asserted by the learned Spaniard Arteaga, in his Italian work on the
_History of the Opera_.] Yet the harmonious ideality of the ancients
was as foreign to the one, as the other was destitute of the charm of the
romantic poets, which arises from the indissoluble mixture of elements
apparently incongruous.
Even before Metastasio, Apostolo Zeno had, as it is called, purified the
opera, a phrase which, in the sense of modern critics, often means
emptying a thing of all its substance and vigour. He formed it on the
model of Tragedy, and more especially of French Tragedy; and a too
faithful, or rather too slavish approximation to this model, is the very
cause why he left so little room for musical development, on which account
his pieces were immediately driven from the stage of the opera by those of
his more expert successor. It is in general an artistic mistake for one
species to attempt, at evident disadvantage, that which another more
perfectly accomplishes, and in the attempt, to sacrifice its own peculiar
excellencies. It originates in a chilling idea of regularity, once for all
established for every kind alike, instead of ascertaining the spirit and
peculiar laws of each distinct species.
Metastasio quickly threw Zeno into the shade, since, with the same object
in view, he displayed greater flexibility in accommodating himself to the
requisitions of the musician. The merits which have gained for him the
reputation of a classic among the Italians of the present day, and which,
in some degree, have made him with them what Racine is with the French,
are generally the perfect purity, clearness, elegance, and sweetness of
his language, and, in particular, the soft melody and the extreme
loveliness of his songs. Perhaps no poet ever possessed in a greater
degree the talent of briefly bringing together all the essential features
of a pathetic situation; the songs with which the characters make their
exit, are almost always the purest concentrated musical extract of their
state of mind. But, at the same time, we must own that all his
delineations of passion are general: his pathos is purified, not only from
all characteristic, as well as from all contemplative matter; and,
consequently, the poetic representation, unencumbered thereby, proceeds
with a light and easy motion, leaving to the musician the care of a richer
and fuller development. Metastasio is musical throughout; but, to follow
up the simile, we may observe, that of poetical music, melody is the only
part that he possesses, being deficient in harmonious compass, and in the
mysterious effects of counterpoint. Or, to express myself in different
terms, he is musical, but in no respect picturesque. His melodies are
light and pleasant, but they are constantly repeated with little or no
variation: when we have read a few of his pieces, we know them all; and
the composition as a whole is always without significance. His heroes,
like those of Corneille, are gallant; his heroines tender, like those of
Racine; but this has been too severely censured by many, without a due
consideration of the requirements of the Opera. To me he appears
censurable only for the selection of subjects, whose very seriousness
could not without great incongruity be united with such triflings. Had
Metastasio not adopted great historical names--had he borrowed his
subject-matter more frequently from mythology, or from still more fanciful
fictions--had he made always the same happy choice as that in his
_Achilles in Scyros_, where, from the nature of the story, the Heroic
is interwoven with the Idyllic, we might then have pardoned him if he
invariably depicts his personages as in love. Then should we, if only we
ourselves understood what ought to be expected from an opera, willingly
have permitted him to indulge in feats of fancy still more venturesome. By
his tragical pretensions he has injured himself: his powers were
inadequate to support them, and the seductive movingness at which he aimed
was irreconcileable with overpowering energy. I have heard a celebrated
Italian poet assert that his countrymen were moved to tears by Metastasio.
We cannot get over such a national testimony as this, except by throwing
it back on the nation itself as a symptom of its own moral temperament. It
appears to me undeniable, that a certain melting softness in the
sentiments, and the expression of them, rendered Metastasio the delight of
his contemporaries. He has lines which, from their dignity and vigorous
compression, are perfectly suited to Tragedy, and yet we perceive in them
an indescribable something, which seems to show that they were designed
for the flexible throat of a soprano singer.
The astonishing success of Metastasio throughout all Europe, and
especially at courts, must also in a great measure be attributed to his
being a court poet, not merely by profession, but also by the style in
which he composed, and which was in every respect that of the tragedians
of the era of Louis XIV. A brilliant surface without depth; prosaic
sentiments and thoughts decked out with a choice poetical language; a
courtly moderation throughout, whether in the display of passion, or in
the exhibition of misfortune and crime; observance of the proprieties, and
an apparent morality, for in these dramas voluptuousness is but breathed,
never named, and the heart is always in every mouth; all these properties
could not fail to recommend such tragical miniatures to the world of
fashion. There is an unsparing pomp of noble sentiments, but withal most
strangely associated with atrocious baseness. Not unfrequently does an
injured fair one dispatch a despised lover to stab the faithless one from
behind. In almost every piece there is a crafty knave who plays the
traitor, for whom, however, there is ready prepared some royal
magnanimity, to make all right at the last. The facility with which base
treachery is thus taken into favour, as if it were nothing more than an
amiable weakness, would have been extremely revolting, if there had been
anything serious in this array of tragical incidents. But the poisoned cup
is always seasonably dashed from the lips; the dagger either drops, or is
forced from the murderous hand, before the deadly blow can be struck; or
if injury is inflicted, it is never more than a slight scratch; and some
subterranean exit is always at hand to furnish the means of flight from
the dungeon or other imminent peril. The dread of ridicule, that
conscience of all poets who write for the world of fashion, is very
visible in the care with which he avoids all bolder flights as yet
unsanctioned by precedent, and abstains from everything supernatural,
because such a public carries not with it, even to the fantastic stage of
the opera, a belief in wonders. Yet this fear has not always served as a
sure guide to Metastasio: besides such an extravagant use of the "aside,"
as often to appear ludicrous, the subordinate love-stories frequently
assume the appearance of being a parody on the others. Here the Abbé,
thoroughly acquainted with the various gradations of Cicisbeism, its pains
and its pleasures, at once betrays himself. To the favoured lover there is
generally opposed an importunate one, who presses his suit without return,
the _soffione_ among the _cicisbei_; the former loves in silence, and
frequently finds no opportunity till the end of the piece, of offering his
little word of declaration; we might call him the _patito_. This
unintermitting love-chase is not confined to the male parts, but extended
also to the female, that everywhere the most varied and brilliant
contrasts may offer themselves.
A few only of the operas of Metastasio still keep possession of the stage,
owing to the change of musical taste, which demands a different
arrangement of the text. Metastasio seldom has choruses, and his airs are
almost always for a single voice: with these the scenes uniformly close,
and with them the singer never fails to make his exit. It appears as if,
proud of having played off this highest triumph of feeling, he left the
spectators to their astonishment at witnessing the chirping of the
passions in the recitatives rising at last in the air, to the fuller
nightingale tones. At present we require in an opera more frequent duos
and trios, and a crashing finale. In fact, the most difficult problem for
the opera poet is to reduce the mingled voices of conflicting passions in
one pervading harmony, without destroying any one of them: a problem,
however, which is generally solved by both poet and musician in a very
arbitrary manner.
Alfieri, a hold and proud man, disdained to please by such meretricious
means as those of which Metastasio had availed himself: he was highly
indignant at the lax immorality of his countrymen, and the degeneracy of
his contemporaries in general. This indignation stimulated him to the
exhibition of a manly strength of mind, of stoical principles and free
opinions, and on the other hand, led him to depict the horrors and
enormities of despotism. This enthusiasm, however, was by far more
political and moral than poetical, and we must praise his tragedies rather
as the actions of the man than as the works of the poet. From his great
disinclination to pursue the same path with Metastasio, he naturally fell
into the opposite extreme: I might not unaptly call him a Metastasio
reversed. If the muse of the latter he a love-sick nymph, Alfieri's muse
is an Amazon. He gave her a Spartan education; he aimed at being the Cato
of the theatre; but he forgot that, though the tragic poet may himself he
a stoic, tragic poetry itself, if it would move and agitate us, must never
be stoical. His language is so barren of imagery, that his characters seem
altogether devoid of fancy; it is broken and harsh: he wished to steel it
anew, and in the process it not only lost its splendour, but became
brittle and inflexible. Not only is he not musical, but positively anti-
musical; he tortures our feelings by the harshest dissonances, without any
softening or solution. Tragedy is intended by its elevating sentiments in
some degree to emancipate our minds from the sensual despotism of the
body; but really to do this, it must not attempt to strip this dangerous
gift of heaven of its charms: but rather it must point out to us the
sublime majesty of our existence, though surrounded on all sides by
dangerous abysses. When we read the tragedies of Alfieri, the world looms
upon us dark and repulsive. A style of composition which exhibits the
ordinary course of human affairs in a gloomy and troublous light, and
whose extraordinary catastrophes are horrible, resembles a climate where
the perpetual fogs of a northern winter should be joined with the fiery
tempests of the torrid zone. Profound and delicate delineation of
character is as little to be looked for in Alfieri as in Metastasio: he
does but exhibit the opposite but equally partial view of human nature.
His characters also are cast in the mould of naked general notions, and he
frequently paints the extremes of black and white, side by side, and in
unrelieved contrast. His villains for the most part betray all their
deformity, in their outward conduct; this might, perhaps, be allowed to
pass, although indeed such a picture will hardly enable us to recognise
them in real life; but his virtuous persons are not amiable, and this is a
defect open to much graver censure. Of all seductive graces, and even of
all subordinate charms and ornaments, (as if the degree in which nature
herself had denied them to this caustic genius had not been sufficient,)
he studiously divested himself, because as he thought it would best
advance his more earnest moral aim, forgetting, however, that the poet has
no other means of swaying the minds of men than the fascinations of his
art.
From the tragedy of the Greeks, with which he did not become acquainted
until the end of his career, he was separated by a wide chasm; and I
cannot consider his pieces as an improvement on the French tragedy. Their
structure is more simple, the dialogue in some cases less conventional; he
has also got rid of confidants, and this has been highly extolled as a
difficulty overcome, and an improvement on the French system; he had the
same aversion to chamberlains and court ladies in poetry as in real life.
But in captivating and brilliant eloquence, his pieces bear no comparison
with the better French tragedies; they also display much less skill in the
plot, its gradual march, preparations, and transitions. Compare, for
instance, the _Britannicus_ of Racine with the _Octavia_ of Alfieri. Both
drew their materials from Tacitus: but which of them has shown the more
perfect understanding 01 this profound master of the human heart? Racine
appears here before us as a man who was thoroughly acquainted with all the
corruptions of a court, and had beheld ancient Rome under the Emperors,
reflected in this mirror of observation. On the other hand, if Alfieri did
not expressly assure us that his Octavia was a daughter of Tacitus, we
should be inclined to believe that it was modelled on that of the
pretended Seneca. The colours with which he paints his tyrants are
borrowed from the rhetorical exercises of the school. Who can recognise,
in his blustering and raging Nero, the man who, as Tacitus says, seemed
formed by nature "to veil hatred with caresses?"--the cowardly Sybarite,
fantastically vain till the very last moment of his existence, cruel at
first, from fear, and afterwards from inordinate lust.
If Alfieri has, in this case, been untrue to Tacitus, in the _Conspiracy
of the Pazzi_ he has equally failed in his attempt to translate Macchiavel
into the language of poetry. In this and other pieces from modern history,
the _Filippo_ for instance, and the _Don Garcia_, he has by no means hit
the spirit and tone of modern times, nor even of his own nation: his ideas
of the tragic style were opposed to the observance of everything like a
local and determinate costume. On the other hand it is astonishing to
observe the subjects which he has borrowed from the tragic cycles of the
Greeks, such as the _Orestiad_, for instance, losing under his hands all
their heroic magnificence, and assuming a modern, not to say a vulgar air.
He has succeeded best in painting the public life of the Roman republic;
and it is a great merit in the _Virginia_ that the action takes place in
the forum, and in part before the eyes of the people. In other pieces,
while the Unity of Place is strictly observed, the scene chosen is for the
most part so invisible and indeterminate, that one would fain imagine it
is some out-of-the-way corner, where nobody comes but persons involved in
painful and disagreeable transactions. Again, the stripping his kings and
heroes, for the sake of simplicity, of all their external retinue,
produces the impression that the world is actually depopulated around
them. This stage-solitude is very striking in _Saul_, where the scene is
laid before two armies in battle-array, on the point of a decisive
engagement. And yet, in other respects this piece is favourably
distinguished from the rest, by a certain Oriental splendour, and the
lyrical sublimity in which the troubled mind of Saul gives utterance to
itself. _Myrrha_ is a perilous attempt to treat with propriety a subject
equally revolting to the senses and the feelings. The Spaniard Arteaga has
criticised this tragedy and the _Filippo_ with great severity but with
great truth.
I reserve for my notice of the present condition of the Italian theatre
all that I have to remark on the successors of Alfieri, and go back in
order of time in order to give a short sketch of the history of Comedy.
In this department the Italians began with an imitation of the ancients,
which was not sufficiently attentive to the difference of times and
manners, and translations of Plautus and Terence were usually represented
in their earliest theatres; they soon fell, however, into the most
singular extravagancies. We have comedies of Ariosto and Macchiavelli--
those of the former are in rhymeless verse, _versi sdruccioli_, and
those of the latter in prose. Such men could produce nothing which did not
bear traces of their genius. But Ariosto in the structure of his pieces
kept too close to the stories of the ancients, and, therefore, did not
exhibit any true living picture of the manners of his own times. In
Macchiavelli this is only the case in his _Clitia_, an imitation of
Plautus; the _Mandragola_, and another comedy, which is without a
name, are sufficiently Florentine; but, unfortunately, they are not of a
very edifying description. A simple deceived husband, and a hypocritical
and pandering monk, form the principal parts. Tales, in the style of the
free and merry tales of Boccacio, are boldly and bluntly, I cannot say,
dramatised: for with respect to theatrical effect they are altogether
inartificial, but given in the form of dialogue. As _Mimes_, that is,
as pictures of the language of ordinary life with all its idioms, these
productions are much to be commended. In one point they resemble the Latin
comic poets; they are not deficient in indecency. This was, indeed, their
general tone. The comedies of Pietro Aretino are merely remarkable for
their shameless immodesty. It almost seems as if these writers, deeming
the spirit of refined love inconsistent with the essence of Comedy, had
exhausted the very lees of the sensual amours of Greek Comedy.
At a still earlier period, in the beginning, namely, of the sixteenth
century, an unsuccessful attempt had been made in the _Virginia_ of
Accolti to dramatise a serious novel, as a middle species between Comedy
and Tragedy, and to adorn it with poetical splendour. Its subject is the
same story on which Shakspeare's _All's Well that Ends Well_, is founded.
I have never had an opportunity of reading it, but the unfavourable report
of a literary man disposes me to think favourably of it. [Footnote:
Bouterwek's _Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit.--Ersten Band_, s.
334, &c.] According to his description, it resembles the older pieces of
the Spanish stage before it had attained to maturity of form, and in
common with them it employs the stanza for its metre. The attempts at
romantic drama have always failed in Italy; whereas in Spain, on the
contrary, all endeavours to model the theatre according to the rules of
the ancients, and latterly of the French, have from the difference of
national taste uniformly been abortive.
We have a comedy of Tasso's, _Gli Intrichi d'Amore_, which ought rather to
be called a lengthy romance in the form of dialogue. So many and such
wonderful events are crowded together within the narrow limit of five
acts, that one incident treads closely upon the heels of another, without
being in the least accounted for by human motives, so as to give to the
whole an insupportable hardness. Criminal designs are portrayed with
indifference, and the merriment is made to consist in the manner in which
some accident or other invariably frustrates their consequences. We cannot
here recognise the Tasso whose nice sense of love, chivalry, and honour
speaks so delightfully in the _Jerusalem Delivered_, and on this ground it
has even been doubted whether this work be really his. The richness of
invention, if we may give this name to a rude accumulation of incidents,
is so great, that the attention is painfully tortured in the endeavour to
keep clear and disentangled the many and diversely crossing threads.
We have of this date a multitude of Italian comedies on a similar plan,
only with less order and connexion, and whoso aim apparently is to delight
by means of indecency. A parasite and procuress are standing characters in
all. Among the comic poets of this class, Giambatista Porta deserves to be
distinguished. His plots, it is true, are like the rest, imitations of
Plautus and Terence, or dramatised tales; but, throughout the love-
dialogues, on which he seems to have laboured with peculiar fondness,
there breathes a tender feeling which rises even from the midst of the
rudeness of the old Italian Comedy, and its generally uncongenial
materials.
In the seventeenth century, when the Spanish theatre flourished in all its
glory, the Italians seem to have borrowed frequently from it; but not
without misemploying and disfiguring whatever they so acquired. The
neglect of the regular stage increased with the all-absorbing passion for
the opera, and with the growing taste of the multitude for improvisatory
farces with standing masks. The latter are not in themselves to be
despised: they serve to fix, as it were, so many central points of the
national character in the comic exhibition, by the external peculiarities
of speech, dress, &c. Their constant recurrence does not by any means
preclude the greatest possible diversity in the plot of the pieces, even
as in chess, with a small number of men, of which each has his fixed
movement, an endless number of combinations is possible. But as to
extemporary playing, it no doubt readily degenerates into insipidity; and
this may have been the case even in Italy, notwithstanding the great fund
of drollery and fantastic wit, and a peculiar felicity in farcical
gesticulation, which the Italians possess.
About the middle of the last century, Goldoni appeared as the reformer of
Italian Comedy, and his success was so great, that he remained almost
exclusively in possession of the comic stage. He is certainly not
deficient in theatrical skill; but, as the event has proved, he is wanting
in that solidity, that depth of characterization, that novelty and
richness of invention, which are necessary to ensure a lasting reputation.
His pictures of manners are true, but not sufficiently elevated above the
range of every-day life; he has exhausted the surface of life; and as
there is little progression in his dramas, and every thing turns usually
on the same point, this adds to the impression of shallowness and ennui,
as characteristic of the existing state of society. Willingly would he
have abolished masks altogether, but he could hardly have compensated for
them out of his own resources; however, he retained only a few of them, as
Harlequin, Brighella, and Pantaloon, and limited their parts. And yet he
fell again into a great uniformity of character, which, indeed, he partly
confesses in his repeated use of the same names: for instance, his
Beatrice is always a lively, and his Rosaura a feeling young maiden; and
as for any farther distinction, it is not to be found in him.
The excessive admiration of Goldoni, and the injury sustained thereby by
the masked comedy, for which the company of Sacchi in Venice possessed the
highest talents, gave rise to the dramas of Gozzi. They are fairy tales in
a dramatic form, in which, however, along side of the wonderful,
versified, and more serious part, he employed the whole of the masks, and
allowed them full and unrestrained development of their peculiarities.
They, if ever any were, are pieces for effect, of great boldness of plot,
still more fantastic than romantic; even though Gozzi was the first among
the comic poets of Italy to show any true feeling for honour and love. The
execution does not betoken either care or skill, but is sketchily dashed
off. With all his whimsical boldness he is still quite a popular writer;
the principal motives are detailed with the most unambiguous perspicuity,
all the touches are coarse and vigorous: he says, he knows well that his
countrymen are fond of _robust_ situations. After his imagination had
revelled to satiety among Oriental tales, he took to re-modelling Spanish
plays, and particularly those of Calderon; but here he is, in my opinion,
less deserving of praise. By him the ethereal and delicately-tinted poetry
of the Spaniard is uniformly vulgarised, and deepened with the most
glaring colours; while the weight of his masks draws the aerial tissue to
the ground, for the humorous introduction of the _gracioso_ in the
Spanish is of far finer texture. On the other hand, the wonderful
extravagance of the masked parts serves as an admirable contrast to the
wild marvels of fairy tale. Thus the character of these pieces was, in the
serious part, as well as in the accompanying drollery, equally removed
from natural truth. Here Gozzi had fallen almost accidentally on a fund of
whose value he was not, perhaps, fully aware: his prosaical, and for the
most part improvisatory, masks, forming altogether of themselves the irony
on the poetical part. What I here mean by irony, I shall explain more
fully when I come to the justification of the mixture of the tragic and
comic in the romantic drama of Shakspeare and Calderon. At present I shall
only observe, that it is a sort of confession interwoven into the
representation itself, and more or less distinctly expressed, of its
overcharged one-sidedness in matters of fancy and feeling, and by means of
which the equipoise is again restored. The Italians were not, however,
conscious of this, and Gozzi did not find any followers to carry his rude
sketches to a higher degree of perfection. Instead of combining like him,
only with greater refinement, the charms of wonderful poetry with
exhilarating mirth; instead of comparing Gozzi with the foreign masters of
the romantic drama, whom he resembles notwithstanding his great disparity,
and from the unconscious affinity between them in spirit and plan, drawing
the conclusion that the principle common to both was founded in nature;
the Italians contented themselves with considering the pieces of Gozzi as
the wild offspring of an extravagant imagination, and with banishing them
from the stage. The comedy with masks is held in contempt by all who
pretend to any degree of refinement, as if they were too wise for it, and
is abandoned to the vulgar, in the Sunday representations at the theatres
and in the puppet-shows. Although this contempt must have had an injurious
influence on the masks, preventing, as it does, any actor of talent from
devoting himself to them, so that there are no examples now of the spirit
and wit with which they were formerly filled up, still the _Commedia
dell' Arte_ is the only one in Italy where we can meet with original
and truly theatrical entertainment. [Footnote: A few years ago, I saw in
Milan an excellent Truffaldin or Harlequin, and here and there in obscure
theatres, and even in puppet-shows, admirable representations of the old
traditional jokes of the country. [Unfortunately, on my last visit to
Milan, my friend was no longer to be met with. Under the French rule,
Harlequin's merry occupation had been proscribed in the Great Theatres,
from a care, it was alleged, for the dignity of man. The Puppet-theatre of
Gerolamo still flourishes, however but a stranger finds it difficult to
follow the jokes of the Piedmontese and Milan Masks.--LAST EDITION.]]
In Tragedy the Italians generally imitate Alfieri, who, although it is the
prevailing fashion to admire him, is too bold and manly a thinker to be
tolerated on the stage. They have produced some single pieces of merit,
but the principles of tragic art which Alfieri followed are altogether
false, and in the bawling and heartless declamation of their actors, this
tragic poetry, stripped with stoical severity of all the charms of
grouping, of musical harmony, and of every tender emotion, is represented
with the most deadening uniformity and monotony. As all the rich rewards
are reserved for the singers, it is only natural that their players, who
are only introduced as a sort of stop-gaps between singing and dancing,
should, for the most part, not even possess the very elements of their
art, viz., pure pronunciation, and practised memory. They seem to have no
idea that their parts can be got by heart, and hence, in an Italian
theatre, we hear every piece as it were twice over; the prompter speaking
as loud as a good player elsewhere, and the actors in order to be
distinguished from him bawling most insufferably. It is exceedingly
amusing to see the prompter, when, from the general forgetfulness, a scene
threatens to fall into confusion, labouring away, and stretching out his
head like a serpent from his hole, hurrying through the dialogue before
the different speakers. Of all the actors in the world, I conceive those
of Paris to have their parts best by heart; in this, as well as in the
knowledge of versification, the Germans are far inferior to them.
One of their living poets, Giovanni Pindemonti, has endeavoured to
introduce greater extent, variety, and nature into his historical plays,
but he has been severely handled by their critics for descending from the
height of the cothurnus to attain that truth of circumstance without which
it is impossible for this species of drama to exist; perhaps also for
deviating from the strict observation of the traditional rules, so blindly
worshipped by them. If the Italian verse be in fact so fastidious as not
to consort with many historical peculiarities, modern names and titles for
instance, let them write partly in prose, and call the production not a
tragedy, but an historical drama. It seems in general to be assumed as an
undoubted principle, that the _verso sciolto_, or rhymeless line, of
eleven syllables, is alone fit for the drama, but this does not seem to me
to be by any means proved. This verse, in variety and metrical
signification, is greatly inferior to the English and German rhymeless
iambic, from its uniform feminine termination, and from there being merely
an accentuation in Italian, without any syllabic measure. Moreover, from
the frequent transition of the sense from verse to verse, according to
every possible division, the lines flow into one another without its being
possible for the ear to separate them. Alfieri imagined that he had found
out the genuine dramatic manner of treating this verse correspondent to
the form of his own dialogue, which consists of simply detached periods,
or rather of propositions entirely unperiodical and abruptly terminated.
It is possible that he carried into his works a personal peculiarity, for
he is said to have been extremely laconic; he was also, as he himself
relates, influenced by the example of Seneca: but how different a lesson
might he have learned from the Greeks! We do not, it is true, in
conversation, connect our language so closely as in an oratorical
harangue, but the opposite extreme is equally unnatural. Even in our
common discourses, we observe a certain continuity, we give a development
both to arguments and objections, and in an instant passion will animate
us to fulness of expression, to a flow of eloquence, and even to lyrical
sublimity. The ideal dialogue of Tragedy may therefore find in actual
conversation all the various tones and turns of poetry, with the exception
of epic repose. The metre therefore of Metastasio, and before him, of
Tasso and Guarini, in their pastoral dramas, seems to me much more
agreeable and suitable than the monotonous verse of eleven syllables: they
intermingle with it verses of seven syllables, and occasionally, after a
number of blank lines, introduce a pair of rhymes, and even insert a rhyme
in the middle of a verse. From this the transition to more measured
strophes, either in _ottave rime_, or in direct lyrical metres, would
be easy. Rhyme, and the connexion which it forms, have nothing in them
inconsistent with the essence of dramatic dialogue, and the objection to
change of measure in the drama rests merely on a chilling idea of
regularity.
No suitable versification for Comedy has yet been invented in Italy. The
_verso sciolto_, it is well known, does not answer; it is not sufficiently
familiar. The verse of twelve syllables, with a _sdrucciolo_ termination
selected by Ariosto, is much better, resembling the trimeter of the
ancients, but is still somewhat monotonous. It has been, however, but
little cultivated. The Martellian verse, a bad imitation of the
Alexandrine, is a downright torture to the ear. Chiari, and occasionally
Goldoni, came at last to use it, and Gozzi by way of derision. It still
remains therefore to the prejudice of a more elegant style of prose.
Of Comedy, the modern Italians have nothing worth the name. What they
have, are nothing but pictures of manners still more dull and superficial
than those of Goldoni, without drollery, or invention, and from their
every-day commonplace, downright disagreeable. They have, on the other
hand, acquired a true relish for the sentimental drama and familiar
tragedy; they frequent with great partiality the representation of popular
German pieces of this description, and even produce the strangest and
oddest imitations of them. Long accustomed to operas and ballets, as their
favourite entertainments, wherein nothing is ever attempted beyond a
beautiful air or an elegant movement, the public seems altogether to have
lost all sense of dramatic connexion: they are perfectly satisfied with
seeing the same evening two acts from different operas, or even the last
act of an opera before the first.
We believe, therefore, that we are not going too far if we affirm, that
both dramatic poetry and the histrionic art are in a lamentable state of
decline in Italy, that not even the first foundations of a true national
theatre have yet been laid, and that there is no prospect of it, till the
prevailing ideas on the subject shall have undergone a total change.
Calsabigi attributes the cause of this state to the want of permanent
companies of players, and of a capital. In this last reason there is
certainly some foundation: in England, Spain, and France, a national
system of dramatic art has been developed and established; in Italy and
Germany, where there are only capitals of separate states, but no general
metropolis, great difficulties are opposed to the improvement of the
theatre. Calsabigi could not adduce the obstacles arising from a false
theory, for he was himself under their influence.