Mischief resulting to the French Stage from too narrow Interpretation of
the Rules of Unity--Influence of these rules on French Tragedy--Manner of
treating Mythological and Historical Materials--Idea of Tragical Dignity--
Observation of Conventional Rules--False System of Expositions.
I come now to the influence which the above rules of Unity, strictly
interpreted and received as inviolable, have, with other conventional
rules, exercised on the shape of French tragedy.
With the stage of a wholly different structure, with materials for the
most part dissimilar, and handled in an opposite spirit, they were still
desirous of retaining the rules of the ancient Tragedy, so far as they are
to be learnt from Aristotle.
They prescribed the same simplicity of action as the Grecian Tragedy
observed, and yet rejected the lyrical part, which is a protracted
development of the present moment, and consequently a stand-still of the
action. This part could not, it is true, be retained, since we no longer
possess the ancient music, which was subservient to the poetry, instead of
overbearing it as ours does. If we deduct from the Greek Tragedies the
choral odes, and the lyrical pieces which are occasionally put into the
mouths of individuals, they will be found nearly one-half shorter than an
ordinary French tragedy. Voltaire, in his prefaces, frequently complains
of the great difficulty in procuring materials for five long acts. How now
have the gaps arising from the omission of the lyrical parts been filled
up? By intrigue. While with the Greeks the action, measured by a few great
moments, rolls on uninterruptedly to its issue, the French have introduced
many secondary characters almost exclusively with the view that their
opposite purposes may give rise to a multitude of impeding incidents, to
keep up our attention, or rather our curiosity, to the close. There was
now an end therefore of everything like simplicity; still they flattered
themselves that they had, by means of an artificial coherence, preserved
at least a unity for the understanding.
Intrigue is not, in itself, a Tragical motive; to Comedy, it is essential,
as we have already shown. Comedy, even at its close, must often be
satisfied with mere suppositions for the understanding; but this is by no
means the poetic side of this demi-prosaic species of the Drama. Although
the French Tragedy endeavours in the details of execution to rise by
earnestness, dignity, and pathos, as high as possible above Comedy, in its
general structure and composition, it still bears, in my opinion, but too
close an affinity to it. In many French tragedies I find indeed a Unity
for the Understanding, but the Feeling is left unsatisfied. Out of a
complication of painful and violent situations we do, it is true, arrive
at last, happily or unhappily, at a state of repose; but in the
represented course of affairs there is no secret and mysterious revelation
of a higher order of things; there is no allusion to any consolatory
thoughts of heaven, whether in the dignity of human nature successfully
maintained in its conflicts with fate, or in the guidance of an over-
ruling providence. To such a tranquillizing feeling the so-called poetical
justice is partly unnecessary, and partly also, so very questionably and
obliquely is it usually administered, very insufficient. But even poetical
justice (which I cannot help considering as a made-up example of a
doctrine false in itself, and one, moreover, which by no means tends to
the excitation of truly moral feelings) has not unfrequently been
altogether neglected by the French tragedians.
The use of intrigue is certainly well calculated to effect the all-desired
short duration of an important action. For the intriguer is ever
expeditious, and loses no time in attaining to his object. But the mighty
course of human destinies proceeds, like the change of seasons, with
measured pace: great designs ripen slowly; stealthily and hesitatingly the
dark suggestions of deadly malice quit the abysses of the mind for the
light of day; and, as Horace, with equal truth and beauty observes, "the
flying criminal is only limpingly followed by penal retribution."
[Footnote:
Rarò antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede paena claudo.--TRANS.] Let only the attempt be made, for
instance, to bring within the narrow frame of the Unity of Time
Shakspeare's gigantic picture of Macbeth's murder of Duncan, his
tyrannical usurpation and final fall; let as many as may be of the events
which the great dramatist successively exhibits before us in such dread
array be placed anterior to the opening of the piece, and made the subject
of an after recital, and it will be seen how thereby the story loses all
its sublime significance. This drama does, it is true, embrace a
considerable period of time: but does its rapid progress leave us leisure
to calculate this? We see, as it were, the Fates weaving their dark web on
the whistling loom of time; and we are drawn irresistibly on by the storm
and whirlwind of events, which hurries on the hero to the first atrocious
deed, and from it to innumerable crimes to secure its fruits with
fluctuating fortunes and perils, to his final fall on the field of battle.
Such a tragic exhibition resembles a comet's course, which, hardly visible
at first, and revealing itself only to the astronomic eye, appears at a
nebulous distance in the heavens, but soon soars with unheard-of and
accelerating rapidity towards the central point of our system, scattering
dismay among the nations of the earth, till, in a moment, when least
expected, with its portentous tail it overspreads the half of the
firmament with resplendent flame.
For the sake of the prescribed Unity of Time the French poets must fain
renounce all those artistic effects which proceed from the gradually
accelerated growth of any object in the mind, or in the external world,
through the march of time, while of all that in a drama is calculated to
fascinate the eye they were through their wretched arrangement of stage-
scenery deprived in a great measure by the Unity of Place. Accidental
circumstances might in truth enforce a closer observance of this rule, or
even render it indispensable. From a remark of Corneille's [Footnote: In
his _Premier Discours sur la Poésie Dramatique_ he says: "Une chanson
a quelquefois bonne grâce; et dans les pièces de machines cet ornement est
redevenu nécessaire pour remplir les oreilles du spectateur, _pendant
que les machines descendent_."] we are led to conjecture that stage-
machinery in France was in his time extremely clumsy and imperfect. It was
moreover the general custom for a number of distinguished spectators to
have seats on both sides of the stage itself, which hardly left a breadth
of ten paces for the free movements of the actors. Regnard, in _Le
Distrait_, gives us an amusing description of the noise and disorder
these fashionable _petit-maîtres_ in his day kept up in this privileged
place, how chattering and laughing behind the backs of the actors they
disturbed the spectators, and drew away attention from the play to
themselves as the prominent objects of the stage. This evil practice
continued even down to Voltaire's time, who has the merit of having by his
zealous opposition to it obtained at last its complete abolition, on the
appearance of his _Semiramis_. How could they have ventured to make a
change of scene in presence of such an unpoetical chorus as this, totally
unconnected with the piece, and yet thrust into the very middle of the
representation? In the _Cid_, the scene of the action manifestly changes
several times in the course of the same act, and yet in the representation
the material scene was never changed. In the English and Spanish plays of
the same date the case was generally the same; certain signs, however,
were agreed on which served to denote the change of place, and the docile
imagination of the spectators followed the poet whithersoever he chose.
But in France, the young men of quality who sat on the stage lay in wait
to discover something to laugh at; and as all theatrical effect requires a
certain distance, and when viewed too closely appears ludicrous, all
attempt at it was, in such a state of things, necessarily abandoned, and
the poet confined himself principally to the dialogue between a few
characters, the stage being subjected to all the formalities of an
antechamber.
And in truth, for the most part, the scene did actually represent an
antechamber, or at least a hall in the interior of a palace. As the action
of the Greek tragedies is always carried on in open places surrounded by
the abode or symbols of majesty, so the French poets have modified their
mythological materials, from a consideration of the scene, to the manners
of modern courts. In a princely palace no strong emotion, no breach of
social etiquette is allowable; and as in a tragedy affairs cannot always
proceed with pure courtesy, every bolder deed, therefore, every act of
violence, every thing startling and calculated strongly to impress the
senses, as transacted behind the scenes, and related merely by confidants
or other messengers. And yet as Horace, centuries ago remarked, whatever
is communicated to the ear excites the mind far more feebly than what is
exhibited to the trusty eye, and the spectator informs himself of. What he
recommends to be withdrawn from observation is only the incredible and the
revoltingly cruel. The dramatic effect of the visible may, it is true, be
liable to great abuse; and it is possible for a theatre to degenerate into
a noisy arena of mere bodily events, to which words and gestures may be
but superfluous appendages. But surely the opposite extreme of allowing to
the eye no conviction of its own, and always referring to something
absent, is deserving of equal reprobation. In many French tragedies the
spectator might well entertain a feeling that great actions were actually
taking place, but that he had chosen a bad place to be witness of them. It
is certain that the obvious impression of a drama is greatly impaired when
the effects, which the spectators behold, proceed from invisible and
distant causes. The converse procedure of this is preferable,--to exhibit
the cause itself, and to allow the effect to be simply recounted. Voltaire
was aware of the injury which theatrical effect sustained from the
established practice of the tragic stage in France; he frequently insisted
on the necessity of richer scenical decorations; and he himself in his
pieces, and others after his example, have ventured to represent many
things to the eye, which before would have been considered as unsuitable,
not to say, ridiculous. But notwithstanding this attempt, and the still
earlier one of Racine in his _Athalie_, the eye is now more out of
favour than ever with the fashionable critics. Wherever any thing is
allowed to be seen, or an action is performed bodily before them, they
scent a melodrama; and the idea that Tragedy, if its purity, or rather its
bald insipidity, was not watchfully guarded, would be gradually
amalgamated with this species of play, (of which a word hereafter,) haunts
them as a horrible phantom.
Voltaire himself has indulged in various infractions of the Unity of Time;
nevertheless he has not dared directly to attack the rule itself as
unessential. He did but wish to see a greater latitude given to its
interpretation. It would, he thought, be sufficient if the action took
place within the circuit of a palace or even of a town, though in a
different part of them. In order however, to avoid a change of scene, he
would have it so contrived as at once to comprise the several localities.
Here he betrays very confused ideas, both of architecture and perspective.
He refers to Palladio's theatre at Vicenza, which he could hardly have
ever seen: for his account of this theatre, which, as we have already
observed, is itself a misconception of the structure of the ancient stage,
appears to be altogether founded on descriptions which clearly he did not
understand. In the _Semiramis_, the play in which he first attempted
to carry into practice his principles on this subject, he has fallen into
a singular error. Instead of allowing the persons to proceed to various
places, he has actually brought the places to the persons. The scene in
the third act is a cabinet; this cabinet, to use Voltaire's own words,
gives way (without--let it be remembered--the queen leaving it), to a
grand saloon magnificently furnished. The Mausoleum of Ninus too, which
stood at first in an open place before the palace, and opposite to the
temple of the Magi, has also found means to steal to the side of the
throne in the centre of this hall. After yielding his spirit to the light
of day, to the terror of many beholders, and again receiving it back, it
repairs in the following act to its old place, where it probably had left
its obelisks behind. In the fifth act we see that the tomb is extremely
spacious, and provided with subterraneous passages. What a noise would the
French critics make were a foreigner to commit such ridiculous blunders.
In _Brutus_ we have another example of this running about of the
scene with the persons. Before the opening of the first act we have a long
and particular description of the scenic arrangement: the Senate is
assembled between the Capitoline temple and the house of the Consuls, in
the open air. Afterwards, on the rising of the assembly, Arons and Albin
alone remain behind, and of them it is now said: _qui sont supposés être
entrés de la salle d'audience dans un autre appartement de la maison de
Brutus_. What is the poet's meaning here? Is the scene changed without
being empty, or does he trust so far to the imagination of his spectators,
as to require them against the evidence of their senses, to take for a
chamber a scene which is ornamented in quite a different style? And how
does that which in the first description is a public place become
afterwards a hall of audience? In this scenic arrangement there must be
either legerdemain or a bad memory.
With respect to the Unity of Place, we may in general observe that it is
often very unsatisfactorily observed, even in comedy, by the French poets,
as well as by all who follow the same system of rules. The scene is not,
it is true, changed, but things which do not usually happen in the same
place are made to follow each other. What can be more improbable than that
people should confide their secrets to one another in a place where they
know their enemies are close at hand? or that plots against a sovereign
should be hatched in his own antechamber? Great importance is attached to
the principle that the stage should never in the course of an act remain
empty. This is called binding the scenes. But frequently the rule is
observed in appearance only, since the personages of the preceding scene
go out at one door the very moment that those of the next enter at
another. Moreover, they must not make their entrance or exit without a
motive distinctly announced: to ensure this particular pains are taken;
the confidants are despatched on missions, and equals also are expressly,
and sometimes not even courteously, told to go out of the way. With all
these endeavours, the determinations of the places where things take place
are often so vague and contradictory, that in many pieces, as a German
writer [Footnote: Joh. Elias Schlegel, in his _Gedanken zur Aufnahme des
Dänischen Theatres_.] has well said, we ought to insert under the list
of the _dramatis personae_--"The scene is on the theatre."
These inconveniences arise almost inevitably from an anxious observance of
the Greek rules, under a total change of circumstances. To avoid the
pretended improbability which would lie in springing from one time and one
place to another, they have often involved themselves in real and grave
improbabilities. A thousand times have we reason to repeat the observation
of the Academy, in their criticism on the _Cid_, respecting the crowding
together so many events in the period of twenty-four hours: "From the fear
of sinning against the rules of art, the poet has rather chosen to sin
against the rules of nature." But this imaginary contradiction between art
and nature could only be suggested by a low and narrow range of artistic
ideas.
I come now to a more important point, namely, to the handling of the
subject-matter unsuitably to its nature and quality. The Greek tragedians,
with a few exceptions, selected their subjects from the national
mythology. The French tragedians borrow theirs sometimes from the ancient
mythology, but much more frequently from the history of almost every age
and nation, and their mode of treating mythological and historical
subjects respectively, is but too often not properly mythological, and not
properly historical. I will explain myself more distinctly. The poet who
selects an ancient mythological fable, that is, a fable connected by
hallowing tradition with the religious belief of the Greeks, should
transport both himself and his spectators into the spirit of antiquity; he
should keep ever before our minds the simple manners of the heroic ages,
with which alone such violent passions and actions are consistent and
credible; his personages should preserve that near resemblance to the gods
which, from their descent, and the frequency of their immediate
intercourse with them, the ancients believed them to possess; the
marvellous in the Greek religion should not be purposely avoided or
understated, but the imagination of the spectators should be required to
surrender itself fully to the belief of it. Instead of this, however, the
French poets have given to their mythological heroes and heroines the
refinement of the fashionable world, and the court manners of the present
day; they have, because those heroes were princes ("shepherds of the
people," Homer calls them), accounted for their situations and views by
the motives of a calculating policy, and violated, in every point, not
merely archaeological costume, but all the costume of character. In
_Phaedra_, this princess is, upon the supposed death of Theseus, to
be declared regent during the minority of her son. How was this compatible
with the relations of the Grecian women of that day? It brings us down to
the times of a Cleopatra. Hermione remains alone, without the protection
of a brother or a father, at the court of Pyrrhus, nay, even in his
palace, and yet she is not married to him. With the ancients, and not
merely in the Homeric age, marriage consisted simply in the bride being
received into the bridegroom's house. But whatever justification of
Hermione's situation may be found in the practice of European courts, it
is not the less repugnant to female dignity, and the more indecorous, as
Hermione is in love with the unwilling Pyrrhus, and uses every influence
to incline him to marriage. What would the Greeks have thought of this
bold and indecent courtship? No doubt it would appear equally offensive to
a French audience, if Andromache were exhibited to them in the situation
in which she appears in Euripides, where, as a captive, her person is
enjoyed by the conqueror of her country. But when the ways of thinking of
two nations are so totally different, why should there be so painful an
effort to polish a subject founded on the manners of the one, with the
manners of the other? What is allowed to remain after this polishing
process will always exhibit a striking incongruity with that which is new-
modelled, and to change the whole is either impossible, or in nowise
preferable to a new invention. The Grecian tragedians certainly allowed
themselves a great latitude in changing the circumstances of their myths,
but the alterations were always consistent with the general and prevalent
notions of the heroic age. On the other hand, they always left the
characters as they received them from tradition and an earlier fiction, by
means of which the cunning of Ulysses, the wisdom of Nestor, and the wrath
of Achilles, had almost become proverbial. Horace particularly insists on
the rule. But how unlike is the Achilles of Racine's _Iphigenia_ to
the Achilles of Homer! The gallantry ascribed to him is not merely a sin
against Homer, but it renders the whole story improbable. Are human
sacrifices conceivable among a people whose chiefs and heroes are so
susceptible of the tenderest emotions? In vain recourse is had to the
powerful influences of religion: history teaches that a cruel religion
invariably becomes milder with the softening manners of a people.
In these new exhibitions of ancient fables, the marvellous has been
studiously rejected as alien to our belief. But when we are once brought
from a world in which it was a part of the very order of things, into a
world entirely prosaical and historically settled, then whatever marvel
the poet may exhibit must, from the insulated state in which it stands,
appear only so much the more incredible. In Homer, and in the Greek
tragedians, everything takes place in the presence of the gods, and when
they become visible, or manifest themselves in some wonderful operation,
we are in no degree astonished. On the other hand, all the labour and art
of the modern poets, all the eloquence of their narratives, cannot
reconcile our minds to these exhibitions. Examples are superfluous, the
thing is so universally known. Yet I cannot help cursorily remarking how
singularly Racine, cautious as he generally is, has on an occasion of this
kind involved himself in an inconsistency. Respecting the origin of the
fable of Theseus descending into the world below to carry off Proserpine
for his friend Pirithöus, he adopts the historical explanation of
Plutarch, that he was the prisoner of a Thracian king, whose wife he
endeavoured to carry off for his friend. On this he grounds the report of
the death of Theseus, which, at the opening of the play, was current. And
yet he allows Phaedra [Footnote:
Je l'aime, non point tel que l'ont vu les enfers,
Volage adorateur de mille objets divers,
Qui va du dieu des morts déshonorer la couche.] to mention the fabulous
tradition as an earlier achievement of the hero. How many women then did
Theseus wish to carry off for Pirithöus? Pradon manages this much better:
when Theseus is asked by a confidant if he really had been in the world
below, he answers, how could any sensible man possibly believe so silly a
tale! he merely availed himself of the credulity of the people, and gave
out this report from political motives.
So much with respect to the manner of handling mythological materials.
With respect to the historical, in the first place, the same objection
applies, namely, that the French manners of the day are substituted to
those which properly belong to the several persons, and that the
characters do not sufficiently bear the colour of their age and nation.
But to this we must add another detrimental circumstance. A mythological
subject is in its nature poetical, and ever ready to take a new poetical
shape. In the French Tragedy, as in the Greek, an equable and pervading
dignity is required, and the French language is even much more fastidious
in this respect, as very many things cannot be at all mentioned in French
poetry. But in history we are on a prosaic domain, and the truth of the
picture requires conditions, circumstances, and features, which cannot be
given without a greater or less descent from the elevation of the tragical
cothurnus; such as has been made without hesitation by Shakspeare, the
most perfect of historical dramatists. The French tragedians, however,
could not bring their minds to submit to this, and hence their works are
frequently deficient in those circumstances which give life and truth to a
picture; and when an obstinate prosaical circumstance must after all be
mentioned, they avail themselves of laboured and artificial
circumlocutions.
Respecting the tragic dignity of historical subjects, peculiar principles
have prevailed. Corneille was in the best way of the world when he brought
his _Cid_ on the stage, a story of the middle ages, which belonged to
a kindred people, characterized by chivalrous love and honour, and in
which the principal characters are not even of princely rank. Had this
example been followed, a number of prejudices respecting the tragic
Ceremonial would have disappeared of themselves; Tragedy from its greater
verisimilitude, and being most readily intelligible, and deriving its
motives from still current modes of thinking and acting, would have come
more home to the heart: the very nature of the subjects would alone have
turned them from the stiff observation of the rules of the ancients, which
they did not understand, as indeed Corneille never deviated so far from
these rules as, in the train, no doubt, of his Spanish model, he does in
this very piece; in one word, the French Tragedy would have become
national and truly romantic. But I know not what malignant star was in the
ascendant: notwithstanding the extraordinary success of his _Cid_,
Corneille did not go one step further, and the attempt which he made found
no imitators. In the time of Louis XIV. it was considered as a matter
established beyond dispute, that the French, nay generally the modern
European history was not adapted for the purposes of tragedy. They had
recourse therefore to the ancient universal history: besides the Romans
and Grecians, they frequently hunted about among the Assyrians,
Babylonians, Persians, and Egyptians, for events which, however obscure
they might often be, they could dress out for the tragic stage. Racine,
according to his own confession, made a hazardous attempt with the Turks;
it was successful, and since that time the necessary tragical dignity has
been allowed to this barbarous people, among whom the customs and habits
of the rudest despotism and the most abject slavery are often united in
the same person, and nothing is known of love, but the most luxurious
sensuality; while, on the other hand, it has been refused to the
Europeans, notwithstanding that their religion, their sense of honour, and
their respect for the female sex, plead so powerfully in their behalf. But
it was merely modern, and more particularly French names that, as
untragical and unpoetical, could not, for a moment, be tolerated; for the
heroes of antiquity are with them Frenchmen in everything but the name;
and antiquity was merely a thin veil beneath which the modern French
character might be distinctly recognized. Racine's Alexander is certainly
not the Alexander of history; but if under this name we imagine to
ourselves the great Condé, the whole will appear tolerably natural. And
who does not suppose that Louis XIV. and the Duchess de la Vallière are
represented under the names Titus and Berenice? The poet has himself
flatteringly alluded to his sovereign. Voltaire's expression is somewhat
strong, when he says that in reading the tragedies which succeeded those
of Racine we might fancy ourselves perusing the romances of Mademoiselle
Scuderi, which paint citizens of Paris under the names of heroes of
antiquity. He alluded herein more particularly to Crebillon. Corneille and
Racine, however, deeply tainted as they were with the way of thinking of
their own nation, were still at times penetrated with the spirit of true
objective exhibition. Corneille gives us a masterly picture of the
Spaniards in the _Cid_; and this is conceivable enough, for he drew
his materials from the fountain-head. With the exception of the original
sin of gallantry, he succeeded also pretty well with the Romans: of one
part of their character, at least, he had a tolerable conception, their
predominating patriotism, and unbending pride of liberty, and the
magnanimity of their political sentiments. All this, it is true, is nearly
the same as we find it in Lucan, varnished over with a certain inflation
and self-conscious pomp. The simple republican austerity, and their
religious submissiveness, was beyond his reach. Racine has admirably
painted the corruptions of the Romans of the Empire, and the first timid
outbreaks of Nero's tyranny. It is true, as he himself gratefully
acknowledges, he had in this Tacitus for a predecessor, but still it is a
great merit so ably to translate history into poetry. He had also a just
perception of the general spirit of Hebrew history; here he was guided by
religious reverence, which, in greater or less degree, the poet ought
always to bring with him to his subject. He was less successful with the
Turks: Bajazet makes love quite in the style of an European; the
bloodthirsty policy of Eastern despotism is well portrayed, it is true, in
the Vizier: but the whole resembles Turkey upside down, where the women,
instead of being slaves, have contrived to get possession of the
government, which thereupon assumes so revolting an appearance as to
incline us to believe the Turks are, after all, not much to blame in
keeping their women under lock and key. Neither has Voltaire, in my
opinion, succeeded much better in his _Mahomet_ and _Zaire_; throughout we
miss the glowing colouring of Oriental fancy. Voltaire has, however, this
great merit, that as he insisted on treating subjects with more historical
truth, he made it also the object of his own endeavours; and farther, that
he again raised to the dignity of the tragical stage the chivalrous and
Christian characters of modern Europe, which since the time of the _Cid_
had been altogether excluded from it. His _Lusignan_ and _Nerestan_ are
among his most truthful, affecting, and noble creations; his _Tancred_,
although as a whole the invention is deficient in keeping, will always,
like his namesake in Tasso, win every heart. _Alzire_, in a historical
point of view, is highly eminent. It is singular enough that Voltaire, in
his restless search after tragic materials, has actually travelled the
whole world over; for as in _Alzire_ he exhibits the American tribes of
the other hemisphere, in his _Dschingiskan_ he brings Chinese on the
stage, from the farthest extremity of ours, who, however, from the
faithful observation of their costume, have almost the stamp of comic or
grotesque figures.
Unfortunately Voltaire came too late with his projected reformation of the
theatre: much had been already ruined by the trammels within which French
Tragedy had been so long confined; and the prejudice which gave such
disproportionate importance to the observance of external rules and
proprieties was, at it appears, established firmly and irrevocably.
Next to the rules regarding the external mechanism, which without
examination they had adopted from the ancients, the prevailing national
ideas of social propriety were the principal hindrances which impeded the
French poets in the exercise of their talents, and in many cases put it
altogether out of their power to reach the highest tragical effect. The
problem which the dramatic poet has to solve is to combine poetic form
with nature and truth, and consequently nothing ought to be included in
the former which is inadmissible by the latter. French Tragedy, from the
time of Richelieu, developed itself under the favour and protection of the
court; and even its scene had (as already observed) the appearance of an
antechamber. In such an atmosphere the spectators might impress the poet
with the idea that courtesy is one of the original and essential
ingredients of human nature. But in Tragedy men are either matched with
men in fearful strife, or set in close struggle with misfortune; we can,
therefore, exact from them only an ideal dignity, for from the nice
observance of social punctilios they are absolved by their situation. So
long as they possess sufficient presence of mind not to violate them, so
long as they do not appear completely overpowered by their grief and
mental agony, the deepest emotion is not as yet reached. The poet may
indeed be allowed to take that care for his persons which Caesar, after
his death-blow, had for himself, and make them fall with decorum. He must
not exhibit human nature in all its repulsive nakedness. The most heart-
rending and dreadful pictures must still be invested with beauty, and
endued with a dignity higher than the common reality. This miracle is
effected by poetry: it has its indescribable sighs, its immediate accents
of the deepest agony, in which there still runs a something melodious. It
is only a certain full-dressed and formal beauty, which is incompatible
with the greatest truth of expression. And yet it is exactly this beauty
that is demanded in the style of a French tragedy. No doubt something too
is to be ascribed to the quality of their language and versification. The
French language is wholly incapable of many bold flights, it has little
poetical freedom, and it carries into poetry all the grammatical stiffness
of prose. This their poets have often acknowledged and lamented. Besides,
the Alexandrine with its couplets, with its hemistichs of equal length, is
a very symmetrical and monotonous species of verse, and far better adapted
for the expression of antithetical maxims, than for the musical
delineation of passion with its unequal, abrupt, and erratic course of
thoughts. But the main cause lies in a national feature, in the social
endeavour never to forget themselves in presence of others, and always to
exhibit themselves to the greatest possible advantage. It has been often
remarked, that in French Tragedy the poet is always too easily seen
through the discourses of the different personages, that he communicates
to them his awn presence of mind, his cool reflections on their situation,
and his desire to shine on all occasions. When most of their tragical
speeches are closely examined, they are seldom found to be such as the
persons speaking or acting by themselves without restraint would deliver;
something or other is generally discovered in them which betrays a
reference to the spectator more or less perceptible. Before, however, our
compassion can be powerfully excited, we must be familiar with the
persons; but how is this possible if we are always to see them under the
yoke of their designs and endeavours, or, what is worse, of an unnatural
and assumed grandeur of character? We must overhear them in their
unguarded moments, when they imagine themselves alone, and throw aside all
care and reserve.
Eloquence may and ought to have a place in Tragedy, but in so far as it is
in some measure artificial in its method and preparation, it can only be
in character when the speaker is sufficiently master of himself; for, for
overpowering passion, an unconscious and involuntary eloquence is alone
suitable. The truly inspired orator forgets himself in the subject of his
eloquence. We call it rhetoric when he thinks less of his subject than of
himself, and of the art in which he flatters himself he has obtained a
mastery. Rhetoric, and rhetoric in a court dress, prevails but too much in
many French tragedies, especially in those of Corneille, instead of the
suggestions of a noble, but simple and artless nature; Racine and
Voltaire, however, have come much nearer to the true conception of a mind
carried away by its sufferings. Whenever the tragic hero is able to
express his pain in antitheses and ingenious allusions, we may safely
reserve our pity. This sort of conventional dignity is, as it were, a coat
of mail, which prevents the pain from reaching the inmost heart. On
account of their retaining this festal pomp in situations where the most
complete self-forgetfulness would be natural, Schiller has wittily enough
compared the heroes in French Tragedy to the kings in old engravings who
lie in bed, crown, sceptre, robes and all.
This social refinement prevails through the whole of French literature and
art. Social refinement sharpens, no doubt, the sense for the ludicrous,
and even on that account, when it is carried to a fastidious excess, it is
the death of every thing like enthusiasm. For all enthusiasm, all poetry,
has a ludicrous aspect for the unfeeling. When, therefore, such a way of
thinking has once become universal in a nation, a certain negative
criticism will be associated with it. A thousand different things must be
avoided, and in attending to these, the highest object of all, that which
ought properly to be accomplished, is lost sight of. The fear of ridicule
is the conscience of French poets; it has clipt their wings, and impaired
their flight. For it is exactly in the most serious kind of poetry that
this fear must torment them the most; for extremes run into one another,
and whenever pathos fails it gives rise to laughter and parody. It is
amusing to witness Voltaire's extreme agony when he was threatened with a
parody of his _Semiramis_ on the Italian theatre. In a petition to
the queen, this man, whose whole life had been passed in turning every
thing great and venerable into ridicule, urges his situation as one of the
servants of the king's household, as a ground for obtaining from high
authority the prohibition of a very innocent and allowable amusement. As
French wits have indulged themselves in turning every thing in the world
into ridicule, and more especially the mental productions of other
nations, they will also allow us on our part to divert ourselves at the
expense of their tragic writers, if with all their care they have now and
then split upon the rock of which they were most in dread. Lessing has,
with the most irresistible and victorious wit, pointed out the ludicrous
nature of the very plans of _Rodogune_, _Semiramis_, _Merope_, and
_Zaire_. But both in this respect and with regard to single laughable
turns, a rich harvest might yet be gathered. [Footnote: A few examples of
the latter will be sufficient. The lines with which Theseus in the
_Oedipus_ of Corneille opens his part, are deserving of one of the first
places:
Quelque ravage affreux qu'étale ici la peste
L'absence aux vrais amans est encore plus funeste.
The following from his _Otho_ are equally well known:
Dis moi donc, lorsqu' Othon s'est offert à Camille,
A-t-il paru contraint? a-t-elle été facile?
Son hommage auprès d'elle a-t-il eu plein effet?
Comment l'a-t-elle pris, et comment l'a-t-il fait?
Where it is almost inconceivable, that the poet could have failed to see
the application which might be made of the passage, especially as he
allows the confidant to answer, _J'ai tout vu._ That _Attila_ should treat
the kings who are dependent on him like good-for-nothing fellows:
Ils ne sont pas venus, nos deux rois; qu'on leur die
Qu'ils se font trop attendre, et qu' Attila s'ennuie
Qu'alors que je les mande ils doivent se hâter:
may in one view appear very serious and true; but nevertheless it appears
exceedingly droll to us from the turn of expression, and especially from
its being the opening of the piece. Generally speaking, with respect to
the ludicrous, Corneille lived in a state of great innocence; since his
time the world has become a great deal more witty. Hence, after making all
allowances for what he cannot justly be blamed for, what, namely, arises
merely from his language having become obsolete, we shall still find an
ample field remaining for our ridicule. Among the numerous plays which are
not reckoned among his master-pieces, we have only to turn up any one at
random to light upon numerous passages susceptible of a ludicrous
application. Racine, from the refinement and moderation which were natural
to him, was much better guarded against this danger; but yet, here and
there, expressions of the same kind escape from him. Among these we may
include the whole of the speech in which Theramenes exhorts his pupil
Hippolytus to yield himself up to love. The ludicrous can hardly be
carried farther than it is in these lines:
Craint-on de s'égarer sur les traces d'Hercule?
Quels courages Venus n'a-t-elle pas domtés?
Vous même, _où seriez vous_, vous qui la combattez,
Si toujours Antiope, à ses loix opposée,
D'une _pudique_ ardeur n'eut brûlé pour Thésée?
In _Berenice_, Antiochus receives his confidant, whom he had sent to
announce his visit to the Queen, with the words: _Arsace, entrerons-
nous?_ This humble patience in an antechamber would appear even
undignified in Comedy, but it appears too pitiful even for a second-rate
tragical hero. Antiochus says afterwards to the queen:
Je me suis tû cinq ans
Madame, et vais encore me taire plus long-tems--
And to give an immediate proof of his intention by his conduct, he repeats
after this no less than fifty verses in a breath.
When Orosman says to Zaire, whom he pretends to love with European
tenderness,
Je sais que notre loi, favorable aux plaisirs
Ouvre un champ sans limite _à nos vastes désirs_:
his language is still more indecorous than laughable. But the answer of
Zaire to her confidante, who thereupon reminded her that she is a
Christian, is highly comic:
Ah! que dis-tu? pourquoi rappeler mes ennuis?
Upon the whole, however, Voltaire is much more upon his guard against the
ludicrous than his predecessors: this was perfectly natural, for in his
time the rage of turning every thing into ridicule was most prevalent. We
may boldly affirm that in our days a single verse of the same kind as
hundreds in Corneille would inevitably ruin any play.] But the war which
Lessing carried on against the French stage was much more merciless,
perhaps, than we, in the present day, should be justified in waging. At
the time when he published his _Dramaturgie_, we Germans had scarcely
any but French tragedies upon our stages, and the extravagant predilection
for them as classical models had not then been combated. At present the
national taste has declared itself so decidedly against them, that we have
nothing to fear of an illusion in that quarter.
It is farther said that the French dramatists have to do with a public not
only extremely fastidious in its dislike of any low intermixture, and
highly susceptible of the ludicrous, but also extremely impatient. We will
allow them the full enjoyment of this self-flattery: for we have no doubt
that their real meaning is, that this impatience is a proof of quickness
of apprehension and sharpness of wit. It is susceptible, however, of
another interpretation: superficial knowledge, and more especially
intrinsic emptiness of mind, invariably display themselves in fretful
impatience. But however this may be, the disposition in question has had
both a favourable and an unfavourable influence on the structure of their
pieces. Favourable, in so far as it has compelled them to lop off every
superfluity, to go directly to the main business, to be perspicuous, to
study compression, to endeavour to turn every moment to the utmost
advantage. All these are good theatrical proprieties, and have been the
means of recommending the French tragedies as models of perfection to
those who in the examination of works of art, measure everything by the
dry test of the understanding, rather than listen to the voice of
imagination and feeling. It has been unfavourable, in so far as even
motion, rapidity, and a continued stretch of expectation, become at length
monotonous and wearisome. It is like a music from which the _piano_
should be altogether excluded, and in which even the difference between
_forte_ and _fortissimo_ should, from the mistaken emulation of the
performers, be rendered indistinguishable. I find too few resting-places
in their tragedies similar to those in the ancient tragedies where the
lyric parts come in. There are moments in human life which are dedicated
by every religious mind to self-meditation, and when, with the view turned
towards the past and the future, it keeps as it were holiday. This
sacredness of the moment is not, I think, sufficiently reverenced: the
actors and spectators alike are incessantly hurried on to something that
is to follow; and we shall find very few scenes indeed, where a mere
state, independent of its causal connexion, is represented developing
itself. The question with them is always _what_ happens, and only too
seldom _how_ happens it. And yet this is the main point, if an impression
is to be made on the witnesses of human events. Hence every thing like
silent effect is almost entirely excluded from their domain of dramatic
art. The only leisure which remains for the actor for his silent pantomime
is during the delivery of the long discourses addressed to him, when,
however, it more frequently serves to embarrass him than assists him
in the development of his part. They are satisfied if the web of the
intrigue keeps uninterruptedly in advance of their own quickness of tact,
and if in the speeches and answers the shuttle flies diligently backwards
and forwards to the end.
Generally speaking, impatience is by no means a good disposition for the
reception of the beautiful. Even dramatic poetry, the most animated
production of art, has its contemplative side, and where this is
neglected, the representation, from its very rapidity and animation,
engenders only a deafening tumult in our mind, instead of that inward
music which ought to accompany it.
The existence of many technical imperfections in their tragedy has been
admitted even by French critics themselves; the confidants, for instance.
Every hero and heroine regularly drags some one along with them, a
gentleman in waiting or a court lady. In not a few pieces, we may count
three or four of these merely passive hearers, who sometimes open their
lips to tell something to their patron which he must have known better
himself, or who on occasion are dispatched hither and thither on messages.
The confidants in the Greek tragedies, either old guardian-slaves and
nurses, or servants, have always peculiar characteristical destinations,
and the ancient tragedians felt so little the want of communications
between a hero and his confidant, to make us acquainted with the hero's
state of mind and views, that they even introduce as a mute personage so
important and proverbially famous a friend as a Pylades. But whatever
ridicule was cast on the confidants, and however great the reproach of
being reduced to make use of them, no attempt was ever made till the time
of Alfieri to get rid of them.
The expositions or statements of the preliminary situation of things are
another nuisance. They generally consist of choicely turned disclosures to
the confidants, delivered in a happy moment of leisure. That very public
whose impatience keeps the poets and players under such strict discipline,
has, however, patience enough to listen to the prolix unfolding of what
ought to be sensibly developed before their eyes. It is allowed that an
exposition is seldom unexceptionable; that in their speeches the persons
generally begin farther back than they naturally ought, and that they tell
one another what they must both have known before, &c. If the affair is
complicated, these expositions are generally extremely tedious: those of
Heraclius and Rodogune absolutely make the head giddy. Chaulieu says of
Crebillon's _Rhadamiste_, "The piece would be perfectly clear were it
not for the exposition." To me it seems that their whole system of
expositions, both in Tragedy and in High Comedy, is exceedingly erroneous.
Nothing can be more ill-judged than to begin at once to instruct us
without any dramatic movement. At the first drawing up of the curtain the
spectator's attention is almost unavoidably distracted by external
circumstances, his interest has not yet been excited; and this is
precisely the time chosen by the poet to exact from him an earnest of
undivided attention to a dry explanation,--a demand which he can hardly be
supposed ready to meet. It will perhaps be urged that the same thing was
done by the Greek poets. But with them the subject was for the most part
extremely simple, and already known to the spectators; and their
expositions, with the exception of the unskilful prologues of Euripides,
have not the didactic particularising tone of the French, but are full of
life and motion. How admirable again are the expositions of Shakspeare and
Calderon! At the very outset they lay hold of the imagination; and when
they have once gained the spectator's interest and sympathy they then
bring forward the information necessary for the full understanding of the
implied transactions. This means is, it is true, denied to the French
tragic poets, who, if at all, are only very sparingly allowed the use of
any thing calculated to make an impression on the senses, any thing like
corporeal action; and who, therefore, for the sake of a gradual
heightening of the impression are obliged to reserve to the last acts the
little which is within their power.
To sum up all my previous observations in a few words: the French have
endeavoured to form their tragedy according to a strict idea; but instead
of this they have set up merely an abstract notion. They require tragical
dignity and grandeur, tragical situations, passions, and pathos,
altogether simple and pure, and without any foreign appendages. Stript
thus of their proper investiture, they lose much in truth, profundity, and
character; and the whole composition is deprived of the living charm of
variety, of the magic of picturesque situations, and of all those
ravishing effects which a light but preparatory matter, when left to
itself, often produces on the mind by its marvellous and spontaneous
growth. With respect to the theory of the tragic art, they are yet at the
very same point that they were in the art of gardening before the time of
Lenotre. All merit consisted, in their judgment, in extorting a triumph
from nature by means of art. They had no other idea of regularity than the
measured symmetry of straight alleys, clipped edges, &c. Vain would have
been the attempt to make those who laid out such gardens to comprehend
that there could be any plan, any hidden order, in an English park, and
demonstrate to them that a succession of landscapes, which from their
gradation, their alternation, and their opposition, give effect to each
other, did all aim at exciting in us a certain mental impression.
The rooted and lasting prejudices of a whole nation are seldom accidental,
but are connected with some general want of intrinsic capacities, from
which even the eminent minds who read the rest are not exempted. We are
not, therefore, to consider such prejudices merely as causes; we must also
consider them at the same time as important effects. We allow that the
narrow system of rules, that a dissecting criticism of the understanding,
has shackled the efforts of the French tragedians; still, however, it
remains doubtful whether of their own inclination they would ever have
made choice of more comprehensive designs, and, if so, in what way they
would have filled them up. The most distinguished among them have
certainly not been deficient in means and talents. In a particular
examination of their different productions we cannot show them any favour;
but, on a general view, they are more deserving of pity than censure; and
when, under such unfavourable circumstances, they yet produce what is
excellent, they are doubly entitled to our admiration, although we can by
no means admit the justice of the common-place observation, that the
overcoming of difficulty is a source of pleasure, nor find anything
meritorious in a work of art merely because it is artificially composed.
As for the claim which the French advance to set themselves up, in spite
of all their one-sidedness and inadequacy of view, as the lawgivers of
taste, it must be rejected with becoming indignation.