Use at first made of the Spanish Theatre by the French--General Character
of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire--Review of the principal Works of
Corneille and of Racine--Thomas Corneille and Crebillon.
I have briefly noticed all that was necessary to mention of the
antiquities of the French stage. The duties of the poet were gradually
more rigorously laid down, under a belief in the authority of the
ancients, and the infallibility of Aristotle. By their own inclination,
however, the poets were led to the Spanish theatre, as long as the
Dramatic Art in France, under a native education, had not attained its
full maturity. They not only imitated the Spaniards, but, from this mine
of ingenious invention, even borrowed largely and directly. I do not
merely allude to the earlier times under Richelieu; this state of things
continued through the whole of the first half of the age of Louis XIV.;
and Racine is perhaps the oldest poet who seems to have been altogether
unacquainted with the Spaniards, or at least who was in no manner
influenced by them. The comedies of Corneille are nearly all taken from
Spanish pieces; and of his celebrated works, the _Cid_ and _Don Sancho of
Aragon_ are also Spanish. The only piece of Rotrou which still keeps its
place on the theatre, _Wenceslas_, is borrowed from Francisco de Roxas:
Molière's unfinished _Princess of Etis_ is from Moreto, his _Don Garcia of
Navarre_ from an unknown author, and the _Festin de Pierre_ carries its
origin in its front: [Footnote: And betrays at the same time Molière's
ignorance of Spanish. For if he had possessed even a tolerable knowledge
of it, how could he have translated _El Convidado de Piedra_ (the Stone
Guest) into the _Stone Feast_, which has no meaning here, and could only
be applicable to the Feasts of Midas?] we have only to look at the works
of Thomas Corneille to be at once convinced that, with the exception of a
few, they are all Spanish; as also are the earlier labours of Quinault,
namely, his comedies and tragi-comedies. The right of drawing without
scruple from this source was so universal, that the French imitators, when
they borrowed without the least disguise, did not even give themselves the
trouble of naming the author of the original, and assigning to the true
owner a part of the applause which they might earn. In the _Cid_ alone the
text of the Spanish poet is frequently cited, and that only because
Corneille's claim to originality had been called in question.
We should certainly derive much instruction from a discovery of the
prototypes, when they are not among the more celebrated, or already known
by their titles, and thereupon instituting a comparison between them and
their copies. We must, however, go very differently to work from Voltaire
in _Heraclius_, in which, as Garcia de la Huerta [Footnote: In the
introduction to his Theatro Hespañol.] has incontestably proved, he
displays both great ignorance and studied and disgusting perversions. If
the most of these imitations give little pleasure to France in the present
day, this decision is noways against the originals, which must always have
suffered considerably from the recast. The national characters of the
French and Spanish are totally different; and consequently also the spirit
of their language and poetry. The most temperate and restrained character
belongs to the French; the Spaniard, though in the remotest West,
displays, what his history may easily account for, an Oriental vein, which
luxuriates in a profusion of bold images and sallies of wit. When we strip
their dramas of these rich and splendid ornaments, when, for the glowing
colours of their romance and the musical variations of the rhymed strophes
in which they are composed, we compel them to assume the monotony of the
Alexandrine, and submit to the fetters of external regularities, while the
character and situations are allowed to remain essentially the same, there
can no longer be any harmony between the subject and its mode of
treatment, and it loses that truth which it may still retain within the
domain of fancy.
The charm of the Spanish poetry consists, generally speaking, in the union
of a sublime and enthusiastic earnestness of feeling, which peculiarly
descends from the North, with the lovely breath of the South, and the
dazzling pomp of the East. Corneille possessed an affinity to the Spanish
spirit but only in the first point; he might be taken for a Spaniard
educated in Normandy. It is much to be regretted that he had not, after
the composition of the _Cid_, employed himself without depending on
foreign models, upon subjects which would have allowed him to follow
altogether his feeling for chivalrous honour and fidelity. But on the
other hand he took himself to the Roman history; and the severe patriotism
of the older, and the ambitious policy of the later Romans, supplied the
place of chivalry, and in some measure assumed its garb. It was by no
means so much his object to excite our terror and compassion as our
admiration for the characters and astonishment at the situations of his
heroes. He hardly ever affects us; and is seldom capable of agitating our
minds. And here I may indeed observe, that such is his partiality for
exciting our wonder and admiration, that, not contented with exacting it
for the heroism of virtue, he claims it also for the heroism of vice, by
the boldness, strength of soul, presence of mind, and elevation above all
human weakness, with which he endows his criminals of both sexes. Nay,
often his characters express themselves in the language of ostentatious
pride, without our being well able to see what they have to be proud of:
they are merely proud of their pride. We cannot often say that we take an
interest in them: they either appear, from the great resources which they
possess within themselves, to stand in no need of our compassion, or else
they are undeserving of it. He has delineated the conflict of passions and
motives; but for the most part not immediately as such, but as already
metamorphosed into a contest of principles. It is in love that he has been
found coldest; and this was because he could not prevail on himself to
paint it as an amiable weakness, although he everywhere introduced it,
even where most unsuitable, either out of a condescension to the taste of
the age or a private inclination for chivalry, where love always appears
as the ornament of valour, as the checquered favour waving at the lance,
or the elegant ribbon-knot to the sword. Seldom does he paint love as a
power which imperceptibly steals upon us, and gains at last an involuntary
and irresistible dominion over us; but as an homage freely chosen at
first, to the exclusion of duty, but afterwards maintaining its place
along with it. This is the case at least in his better pieces; for in his
later works love is frequently compelled to give way to ambition; and
these two springs of action mutually weaken each other. His females are
generally not sufficiently feminine; and the love which they inspire is
with them not the last object, but merely a means to something beyond.
They drive their lovers into great dangers, and sometimes also to great
crimes; and the men too often appear to disadvantage, while they allow
themselves to become mere instruments in the hands of women, or to be
dispatched by them on heroic errands, as it were, for the sake of winning
the prize of love held out to them. Such women as Emilia in _Cinna and
Rodogune_, must surely be unsusceptible of love. But if in his principal
characters, Corneille, by exaggerating the energetic and underrating the
passive part of our nature, has departed from truth; if his heroes display
too much volition and too little feeling, he is still much more unnatural
in his situations. He has, in defiance of all probability, pointed them in
such a way that we might with great propriety give them the name of
tragical antitheses, and it becomes almost natural if the personages
express themselves in a series of epigrammatical maxims. He is fond of
exhibiting perfectly symmetrical oppositions. His eloquence is often
admirable from its strength and compression; but it sometimes degenerates
into bombast, and exhausts itself in superfluous accumulations. The later
Romans, Seneca the philosopher, and Lucan, were considered by him too much
in the light of models; and unfortunately he possessed also a vein of
Seneca the tragedian. From this wearisome pomp of declamation, a few
simple words interspersed here and there, have been often made the subject
of extravagant praise. [Footnote: For instance, the _Qu'il mourût_ of the
old Horatius; the _Soyons amis, Cinna_: also the _Moi_ of Medea, which, we
may observe in passing, is borrowed from Seneca.] If they stood alone they
would certainly be entitled to praise; but they are immediately followed
by long harangues which destroy their effect. When the Spartan mother, on
delivering the shield to her son, used the well-known words, "This, or on
this!" she certainly made no farther addition to them. Corneille was
peculiarly well qualified to portray ambition and the lust of power, a
passion which stifles all other human feelings, and never properly erects
its throne till the mind has become a cold and dreary wilderness. His
youth was passed in the last civil wars, and he still saw around him
remains of the feudal independence. I will not pretend to decide how much
this may have influenced him, but it is undeniable that the sense which he
often showed of the great importance of political questions was altogether
lost in the following age, and did not make its appearance again before
Voltaire. However he, like the rest of the poets of his time, paid his
tribute of flattery to Louis the Fourteenth, in verses which are now
forgotten.
Racine, who for all but an entire century has been unhesitatingly
proclaimed the favourite poet of the French nation, was by no means during
his lifetime in so enviable a situation, and, notwithstanding many an
instance of brilliant success, could not rest as yet in the pleasing and
undisturbed possession of his fame. His merit in giving the last polish to
the French language, his unrivalled excellence both of expression and
versification, were not then allowed; on the stage he had rivals, of whom
some were undeservedly preferred before him. On the one hand, the
exclusive admirers of Corneille, with Madame Sevigné at their head, made a
formal party against him; on the other hand, Pradon, a younger candidate
for the honours of the Tragic Muse, endeavoured to wrest the victory from
him, and actually succeeded, not merely, it would appear, in gaining over
the crowd, but the very court itself, notwithstanding the zeal with which
he was opposed by Boileau. The chagrin to which this gave rise,
unfortunately interrupted his theatrical career at the very period when
his mind had reached its full maturity: a mistaken piety afterwards
prevented him from resuming his theatrical occupations, and it required
all the influence of Madame Maintenon to induce him to employ his talent
upon religious subjects for a particular occasion. It is probable that but
for this interruption, he would have carried his art still higher: for in
the works which we have of him, we trace a gradually advancing
improvement. He is a poet in every way worthy of our love: he possessed a
delicate susceptibility for all the tenderer emotions, and great sweetness
in expressing them. His moderation, which never allowed him to transgress
the bounds of propriety, must not be estimated too highly: for he did not
possess strength of character in any eminent degree, nay, there are even
marks of weakness perceptible in him, which, it is said, he also exhibited
in private life. He has also paid his homage to the sugared gallantry of
his age, where it merely serves as a show of love to connect together the
intrigue; but he has often also succeeded completely in the delineation of
a more genuine love, especially in his female characters; and many of his
love-scenes breathe a tender voluptuousness, which, from the veil of
reserve and modesty thrown over it, steals only the more seductively into
the soul. The inconsistencies of unsuccessful passion, the wanderings of a
mind diseased, and a prey to irresistible desire, he has portrayed more
touchingly and truthfully than any French poet before him, or even perhaps
after him. Generally speaking, he was more inclined to the elegiac and the
idyllic, than to the heroic. I will not say that he would never have
elevated himself to more serious and dignified conceptions than are to be
found in his _Britannicus_ and _Mithridate_; but here we must distinguish
between that which his subject suggested, and what he painted with a
peculiar fondness, and wherein he is not so much the dramatic artist as
the spokesman of his own feelings. At the same time, it ought not to be
forgotten that Racine composed most of his pieces when very young, and
that this may possibly have influenced his choice. He seldom disgusts us,
like Corneille and Voltaire, with the undisguised repulsiveness of
unnecessary crimes; he has, however, often veiled much that in reality is
harsh, base, and mean, beneath the forms of politeness and courtesy. I
cannot allow the plans of his pieces to be, as the French critics insist,
unexceptionable; those which he borrowed from ancient mythology are, in my
opinion, the most liable to objection; but still I believe, that with the
rules and observations which he took for his guide, he could hardly in
most cases have extricated himself from his difficulties more cautiously
and with greater propriety than he has actually done. Whatever may be the
defects of his productions separately considered, when we compare him with
others, and view him in connexion with the French literature in general,
we can hardly bestow upon him too high a meed of praise.
A new aera of French Tragedy begins with Voltaire, whose first appearance,
in his early youth, as a writer for the theatre, followed close upon the
age of Louis the Fourteenth. I have already, in a general way, alluded to
the changes and enlargements which he projected, and partly carried into
execution. Corneille and Racine led a true artist's life: they were
dramatic poets with their whole soul; their desire, as authors, was
confined to that object alone, and all their studies were directed to the
stage. Voltaire, on the contrary, wished to shine in every possible
department; a restless vanity permitted him not to be satisfied with the
pursuit of perfection in any single walk of literature; and from the
variety of subjects on which his mind was employed, it was impossible for
him to avoid shallowness and immaturity of ideas. To form a correct idea
of his relation to his two predecessors in the tragic art, we must
institute a comparison between the characteristic features of the
preceding classical age and of that in which he gave the tone. In the time
of Louis the Fourteenth, a certain traditionary code of opinions on all
the most important concerns of humanity reigned in full force and
unquestioned; and even in poetry, the object was not so much to enrich as
to form the mind, by a liberal and noble entertainment. But now, at
length, the want of original thinking began to be felt; however, it
unfortunately happened, that bold presumption hurried far in advance of
profound inquiry, and hence the spread of public immorality was quick
followed by a dangerous scoffing scepticism, which shook to the foundation
every religious and moral conviction, and the very principles of society
itself. Voltaire was by turns philosopher, rhetorician, sophist, and
buffoon. The want of singleness, which more or less characterised all his
views, was irreconcileable with a complete freedom of prejudice even as an
artist in his career. As he saw the public longing for information, which
was rather tolerated by the favour of the great than authorised and
formally approved of and dispensed by appropriate public institutions, he
did not fail to meet their want, and to deliver, in beautiful verses, on
the stage, what no man durst yet preach from the pulpit or the professor's
chair. He made use of poetry as a means to accomplish ends foreign and
extrinsecal to it; and this has often polluted the artistic purity of his
compositions. Thus, the end of his _Mahomet_ was to portray the dangers of
fanaticism, or rather, laying aside all circumlocution, of a belief in
revelation. For this purpose, he has most unjustifiably disfigured a great
historical character, revoltingly loaded him with the most crying
enormities, with which he racks and tortures our feelings. Universally
known, as he was, to be the bitter enemy of Christianity, he bethought
himself of a new triumph for his vanity; in _Zaire_ and _Alzire_, he had
recourse to Christian sentiments to excite emotion: and here, for once,
his versatile heart, which, indeed, in its momentary ebullitions, was not
unsusceptible of good feelings, shamed the rooted malice of his
understanding; he actually succeeded, and these affecting and religious
passages cry out loudly against the slanderous levity of his petulant
misrepresentations. In England he had acquired a knowledge of a free
constitution, and became an enthusiastic admirer of liberty. Corneille had
introduced the Roman republicanism and general politics into his works,
for the sake of their poetical energy. Voltaire again exhibited them under
a poetical form, because of the political effect he thought them
calculated to produce on popular opinion. As he fancied he was better
acquainted with the Greeks than his predecessors, and as he had obtained a
slight knowledge of the English theatre and Shakspeare, which, before him,
were for France, quite an unknown land, he wished in like manner to use
them to his own advantage.--He insisted on the earnestness, the severity,
and the simplicity of the Greek dramatic representation; and actually in
so far approached them, as to exclude love from various subjects to which
it did not properly belong. He was desirous of reviving the majesty of the
Grecian scenery; and here his endeavours had this good effect, that in
theatrical representation the eye was no longer so miserably neglected as
it had been. He borrowed from Shakspeare, as he thought, bold strokes of
theatrical effect; but here he was the least successful; when, in
imitation of that great master, he ventured in _Semiramis_ to call up
a ghost from the lower world, he fell into innumerable absurdities. In a
word he was perpetually making experiments with dramatic art, availing
himself of some new device for effect. Hence some of his works seem to
have stopt short half way between studies and finished productions; there
is a trace of something unfixed and unfinished in his whole mental
formation. Corneille and Racine, within the limits which they set
themselves, are much more perfect; they are altogether that which they
are, and we have no glimpses in their works of any supposed higher object
beyond them. Voltaire's pretensions are much more extensive than his
means. Corneille has expressed the maxims of heroism with greater
sublimity, and Racine the natural emotions with a sweeter gracefulness;
while Voltaire, it must be allowed, has employed the moral motives with
greater effect, and displayed a more intimate acquaintance with the
primary and fundamental principles of the human mind. Hence, in some of
his pieces, he is more deeply affecting than either of the other two.
The first and last only of these three great masters of the French tragic
stage can be said to be fruitful writers; and, even these can hardly be
accounted so, if compared with the Greeks. That Racine was not more
prolific, was owing partly to accidental circumstances. He enjoys this
advantage, however, that with the exception of his first youthful
attempts, the whole of his pieces have kept possession of the stage, and
the public estimation. But many of Corneille's and Voltaire's, even such
as were popular at first, have been since withdrawn from the stage, and at
present are not even so much as read. Accordingly, selections only from
their works, under the title of _Chef-d'oeuvres_, are now generally
published. It is remarkable, that few only of the many French attempts in
Tragedy have been successful. La Harpe reckons up nearly a thousand
tragedies which have been acted or printed since the death of Racine; and
of these not more than thirty, besides those of Voltaire, have kept
possession of the stage. Notwithstanding, therefore, the great competition
in this department, the tragic treasures of the French are far from ample.
Still we do not feel ourselves called upon to give a full account even of
these; and still farther is it from our purpose to enter into a
circumstantial and anatomical investigation of separate pieces. All that
our limits will allow us is, with a rapid pen, to sketch the character and
relative value of the principal works of those three masters, and a few
others specially deserving of mention.
Corneille brilliantly opened his career of fame with the _Cid_, of
which, indeed, the execution alone is his own: in the plan he appears to
have closely followed his Spanish original. As the _Cid_ of Guillen
de Castro has never fallen into my hands, it has been out of my power to
institute an accurate comparison between the two works. But if we may
judge from the specimens produced, the Spanish piece seems written with
far greater simplicity; and the subject owes to Corneille its rhetorical
pomp of ornament. On the other hand, we are ignorant how much he has left
out and sacrificed. All the French critics are agreed in thinking the part
of the Infanta superfluous. They cannot see that by making a princess
forget her elevated rank, and entertain a passion for Rodrigo, the Spanish
poet thereby distinguished him as the flower of noble and amiable knights;
and, on the other hand, furnished a strong justification of Chimene's
love, which so many powerful motives could not overcome. It is true, that
to be attractive in themselves, and duly to aid the general effect, the
Infanta's passion required to be set forth more musically, and Rodrigo's
achievements against the Moors more especially, _i. e._, with greater
vividness of detail: and probably they were so in the Spanish original.
The rapturous applause, which, on its first appearance, universally
welcomed a piece like this, which, without the admixture of any ignoble
incentive, founded its attraction altogether on the represented conflict
between the purest feelings of love, honour, and filial duty, is a strong
proof that the romantic spirit was not yet extinct among spectators who
were still open to such natural impressions. This was entirely
misunderstood by the learned; with the Academy at their head, they
affirmed that this subject (one of the most beautiful that ever fell to
the lot of a poet) was unfit for Tragedy; incapable of entering
historically into the spirit of another age, they made up improbabilities
and improprieties for their censure. [Footnote: Scuderi speaks even of
Chimene as a monster, and off-hand dismisses the whole, as "_ce méchant
combat de l'amour et de l'honneur_." Excellent! Surely he understood
the romantic!] The _Cid_ is not certainly a tragedy in the sense of
the ancients; and, at first, the poet himself called it a Tragi-comedy.
Would that this had been the only occasion in which the authority of
Aristotle has been applied to subjects which do not belong to his
jurisdiction!
_The Horatii_ has been censured for want of unity; the murder of the
sister and the acquittal of the victorious Roman is said to be a second
action, independent of the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii. Corneille
himself was talked into a belief of it. He appears, however, to me fully
justified in what he has done. If the murder of Camilla had not made a
part of the piece, the female characters in the first act would have been
superfluous; and without the triumph of patriotism over family ties, the
combat could not have been an action, but merely an event destitute of all
tragic complication. But the real defect, in my opinion, is Corneille
representing a public act which decided the fate of two states, as taking
place altogether _infra privates parietes_, and stripping it of every
visible pomp of circumstance. Hence the great flatness of the fifth act.
What a different impression would have been produced had Horatius, in
presence of the king and people, been solemnly condemned, in obedience to
the stern mandate of the law, and afterwards saved through the tears and
lamentations of his father, just as Livy describes it. Moreover, the poet,
not satisfied with making, as the history does, one sister of the Horatii
in love with one of the Curiatii, has thought proper to invent the
marriage of a sister of the Curiatii with one of the Horatii: and as in
the former the love of country yields to personal inclination, in the
latter personal inclination yields to love of country. This gives rise to
a great improbability: for is it likely that men would have been selected
for the combat who, with a well-known family connexion of this kind, would
have had the most powerful inducements to spare one another? Besides, the
conqueror's murder of his sister cannot be rendered even poetically
tolerable, except by supposing him in all the boiling impetuosity of
ungovernable youth. Horatius, already a husband, would have shown a wiser
and milder forbearance towards his unfortunate sister's language; else
were he a ferocious savage.
_Cinna_ is commonly ranked much higher than _The Horatii_; although, as to
purity of sentiment, there is here a perceptible falling off from that
ideal sphere in which the action of the two preceding pieces moves. All is
diversely complicated and diseased. Cinna's republicanism is merely the
cloak of another passion: he is a tool in the hands of Emilia, who, on her
part, constantly sacrifices her pretended love to her passion of revenge.
The magnanimity of Augustus is ambiguous: it appears rather the caution of
a tyrant grown timid through age. The conspiracy is, with a splendid
narration, thrust into the background; it does not excite in us that
gloomy apprehension which so theatrical an object ought to do. Emilia, the
soul of the piece, is called by the witty Balzac, when commending the
work, "an adorable fury." Yet the Furies themselves could be appeased by
purifications and expiations: but Emilia's heart is inaccessible to the
softening influences of benevolence and generosity; the adoration of so
unfeminine a creature is hardly pardonable even in a lover. Hence she has
no better adorers than Cinna and Maximus, two great villains, whose
repentance comes too late to be thought sincere.
Here we have the first specimen of that Machiavellism of motives, which
subsequently disfigured the poetry of Corneille, and which is not only
repulsive, but also for the most part both clumsy and unsuitable. He
flattered himself, that in knowledge of men and the world, in an
acquaintance with courts and politics, he surpassed the most shrewd and
clear-sighted observers. With a mind naturally alive to honour, he yet
conceived the design of taking in hand the "doctrine of the murderous
Machiavel;" and displays, broadly and didactically, all the knowledge
which he had acquired of these arts. He had no suspicion that a
remorseless and selfish policy goes always smoothly to work, and
dexterously disguises itself. Had he been really capable of anything of
the kind, he might have taken a lesson from Richelieu.
Of the remaining pieces in which Corneille has painted the Roman love of
liberty and conquest, the _Death of Pompey_ is the most eminent. It
is full, however, of a grandeur which is more dazzling than genuine; and,
indeed, we could expect nothing else from a cento of Lucan's hyperbolical
antitheses. These bravuras of rhetoric are strung together on the thread
of a clumsy plot. The intrigues of Ptolemy, and the ambitious coquetry of
his sister Cleopatra, have a petty and miserable appearance alongside of
the picture of the fate of the great Pompey, the vengeance-breathing
sorrow of his wife, and the magnanimous compassion of Caesar. Scarcely has
the conqueror paid the last honours to the reluctant shade of his rival,
when he does homage at the feet of the beautiful queen; he is not only in
love, but sighingly and ardently in love. Cleopatra, on her part,
according to the poet's own expression, is desirous, by her love-ogling,
to gain the sceptre of her brother. Caesar certainly made love, in his own
way, to a number of women: but these cynical loves, if represented with
anything like truth, would be most unfit for the stage. Who can refrain
from laughing, when Rome, in the speech of Caesar, implores the
_chaste_ love of Cleopatra for young Caesar?
In _Sertorius_, a much later work, Corneille has contrived to make the
great Pompey appear little, and the hero ridiculous. Sertorius on one
occasion exclaims--
_Que c'est un sort cruel d'aimer par politique!_
This admits of being applied to all the personages of the piece. In love
they are not in the least; but they allow a pretended love to be
subservient to political ends. Sertorius, a hardy and hoary veteran, acts
the lover with the Spanish Queen, Viriata; he brings forward, however,
pretext after pretext, and offers himself the while to Aristia; as Viriata
presses him to marry her on the spot, he begs anxiously for a short delay;
Viriata, along with her other elegant phrases, says roundly, that she
neither knows love nor hatred; Aristia, the repudiated wife of Pompey,
says to him, "Take me back again, or I will marry another;" Pompey
beseeches her to wait only till the death of Sylla, whom he dare not
offend: after this there is no need to mention the low scoundrel Perpenna.
The tendency to this frigidity of soul was perceptible in Corneille, even
at an early period of his career; but in the works of his old age it
increased to an incredible degree.
In _Polyeucte_, Christian sentiments are not unworthily expressed; yet we
find in it more _superstitious reverence_ than _fervent enthusiasm_ for
religion: the wonders of grace are rather _affirmed_, than embraced by a
mysterious illumination. Both the tone and the situations in the first
acts, incline greatly, as Voltaire observes, to comedy. A woman who, in
obedience to her father, has married against her inclinations, and who
declares both to her lover (who returns when too late) and to her husband,
that "she still retains her first love, but that she will keep within the
bounds of virtue;" a vulgar and selfish father, who is sorry that he has
not chosen for his son-in-law the first suitor, now become the favourite
of the Emperor; all this promises no very high tragical determinations.
The divided heart of Paulina is in nature, and consequently does not
detract from the interest of the piece. It is generally agreed that her
situation, and the character of Severus, constitute the principal charm of
this drama. But the practical magnanimity of this Roman, in conquering his
passion, throws Polyeucte's self-renunciation, which appears to cost him
nothing, quite into the shade. From this a conclusion has been partly
drawn, that martyrdom is, in general, an unfavourable subject for Tragedy.
But nothing can be more unjust than this inference. The cheerfulness with
which martyrs embraced pain and death did not proceed from want of
feeling, but from the heroism of the highest love: they must previously,
in struggles painful beyond expression, have obtained the victory over
every earthly tie; and by the exhibition of these struggles, of these
sufferings of our mortal nature, while the seraph soars on its flight to
heaven, the poet may awaken in us the most fervent emotion. In
_Polyeucte_, however, the means employed to bring about the catastrophe,
namely, the dull and low artifice of Felix, by which the endeavours of
Severus to save his rival are made rather to contribute to his
destruction, are inexpressibly contemptible.
How much Corneille delighted in the symmetrical and nicely balanced play
of intrigue, we may see at once from his having pronounced _Rodogune_
his favourite work. I shall content myself with referring to Lessing, who
has exposed pleasantly enough the ridiculous appearance which the two
distressed princes cut, between a mother who says, "He who murders his
mistress I will name heir to my throne," and a mistress who says, "He who
murders his mother shall be my husband." The best and shortest way of
going to work would have been to have locked up the two furies together.
As for Voltaire, he is always recurring to the fifth act, which he
declares to be one of the noblest productions of the French stage. This
singular way of judging works of art by piecemeal, which would praise the
parts in distinction from the whole, without which it is impossible for
the parts to exist, is altogether foreign to our way of thinking.
With respect to _Heraclius_, Voltaire gives himself the unnecessary
trouble of showing that Calderon did not imitate Corneille; and, on the
other hand, he labours, with little success, to give a negative to the
question whether the latter had the Spanish author before him, and availed
himself of his labours. Corneille, it is true, gives out the whole as his
own invention; but we must not forget, that only when hard pressed did he
acknowledge how much he owed to the author of the Spanish _Cid_. The
chief circumstance of the plot, namely, the uncertainty of the tyrant
Phocas as to which of the two youths is his own son, or the son of his
murdered predecessor, bears great resemblance to an incident in a drama of
Calderon's, and nothing of the kind is to be found in history; in other
respects the plot is, it is true, altogether different. However this may
be, in Calderon the ingenious boldness of an extravagant invention is
always preserved in due keeping by a deeper magic colouring of the poetry;
whereas in Corneille, after our head has become giddy in endeavouring to
disentangle a complicated and ill-contrived intrigue, we are recompensed
by a succession of mere tragical epigrams, without the slightest
recreation for the fancy.
_Nicomedes_ is a political comedy, the dryness of which is hardly in
any degree relieved by the ironical tone which runs through the speeches
of the hero.
This is nearly all of Corneille's that now appears on the stage. His later
works are, without exception, merely treatises or reasons of state in
certain difficult conjunctures, dressed out in a pompous dialogical form.
We might as well make a tragedy out of a game at chess.
Those who have the patience to wade through the forgotten pieces of
Corneille will perceive with astonishment that they are constructed on the
same principles, and, with the exception of occasional negligences of
style, executed with as much expenditure of what he considered art, as his
admired productions. For example, _Attila_ bears in its plot a striking
resemblance to _Rodogune_. In his own judgments on his works, it is
impossible not to be struck with the unessential nature of things on which
he lays stress; all along he seems quite unconcerned about that which is
certainly the highest object of tragical composition, the laying open the
depths of the mind and the destiny of man. For the unfavourable reception
which he has so frequently to confess, his self-love can always find some
excuse, some trifling circumstance to which the fate of his piece was to
be attributed.
In the two first youthful attempts of Racine, nothing deserves to be
remarked, but the flexibility with which he accommodated himself to the
limits fixed by Corneille to the career which he had opened. In the
_Andromache_ he first broke loose from them and became himself. He
gave utterance to the inward struggles and inconsistencies of passion,
with a truth and an energy which had never before been witnessed on the
French stage. The fidelity of Andromache to the memory of her husband, and
her maternal tenderness, are affectingly beautiful: even the proud
Hermione carries us along with her in her wild aberrations. Her aversion
to Orestes, after he had made himself the instrument of her revenge, and
her awaking from her blind fury to utter helplesssness and despair, may
almost be called tragically grand. The male parts, as is generally the
case with Racine, are not to advantageously drawn. The constantly repeated
threat of Pyrrhus to deliver up Astyanax to death, if Andromache should
not listen to him, with his gallant protestations, resembles the arts of
an executioner, who applies the torture to his victim with the most
courtly phrases. It is difficult to think of Orestes, after his horrible
deed, as a light-hearted and patient lover. Not the least mention is made
of the murder of his mother; he seems to have completely forgotten it the
whole piece through; whence, then, do the Furies come all at once at the
end? This is a singular contradiction. In short, the way in which the
whole is connected together bears too great a resemblance to certain
sports of children, where one always runs before and tries to surprise the
other.
In _Britannicus_, I have already praised the historical fidelity of
the picture. Nero, Agrippina, Narcissus, and Burrhus, are so accurately
sketched, and finished with such light touches and such delicate
colouring, that, in respect to character, it yields, perhaps, to no French
tragedy whatever. Racine has here possessed the art of giving us to
understand much that is left unsaid, and enabling us to look forward into
futurity. I will only notice one inconsistency which has escaped the poet.
He would paint to us the cruel voluptuary, whom education has only in
appearance tamed, breaking loose from the restraints of discipline and
virtue. And yet, at the close of the fourth act, Narcissus speaks as if he
had even then exhibited himself before the people as a player and a
charioteer. But it was not until he had been hardened by the commission of
grave crimes that he sunk to this ignominy. To represent the perfect Nero,
that is, the flattering and cowardly tyrant, in the same person with the
vain and fantastical being who, as poet, singer, player, and almost as
juggler, was desirous of admiration, and in the agony of death even
recited verses from Homer, was compatible only with a mixed drama, in
which tragical dignity is not required throughout.
To _Berenice_, composed in honour of a virtuous princess, the French
critics generally seem to me extremely unjust. It is an idyllic tragedy,
no doubt; but it is full of mental tenderness. No one was better skilled
than Racine in throwing a veil of dignity over female weakness.--Who
doubts that Berenice has long yielded to Titus every proof of her
tenderness, however carefully it may be veiled over? She is like a
Magdalena of Guido, who languishingly repents of her repentance. The chief
error of the piece is the tiresome part of Antiochus.
On the first representation of _Bajazet_, Corneille, it seems was heard to
say, "These Turks are very much Frenchified." The censure, as is well
known, attaches principally to the parts of _Bajazet_ and _Atalide_. The
old Grand Vizier is certainly Turkish enough; and were a Sultana ever to
become the Sultan, she would perhaps throw the handkerchief in the same
Sultanic manner as the disgusting Roxane. I have already observed that
Turkey, in its naked rudeness, hardly admits of representation before a
cultivated public. Racine felt this, and merely refined the forms without
changing the main incidents. The mutes and the strangling were motives
which in a seraglio could hardly be dispensed with; and so he gives, on
several occasions, very elegant circumlocutory descriptions of strangling.
This is, however, inconsistent; when people are so familiar with the idea
of a thing, they usually call it also by its true name.
The intrigue of _Mithridate_, as Voltaire has remarked, bears great
resemblance to that of the _Miser_ of Molière. Two brothers are rivals for
the bride of their father, who cunningly extorts from her the name of her
favoured lover, by feigning a wish to renounce in his favour. The
confusion of both sons, when they learn that their father, whom they
had believed dead, is still alive, and will speedily make his appearance,
is in reality exceedingly comic. The one calls out: _Qu'avons nous fait?_
This is just the alarm of school-boys, conscious of some impropriety, on
the unexpected entrance of their master. The political scene, where
Mithridates consults his sons respecting his grand project of conquering
Rome, and in which Racine successfully competes with Corneille, is no
doubt logically interwoven in the general plan; but still it is unsuitable
to the tone of the whole, and the impression which it is intended to
produce. All the interest is centred in Monime: she is one of Racine's
most amiable creations, and excites in us a tender commiseration.
On no work of this poet will the sentence of German readers differ more
from that of the French critics and their whole public, than on the
_Iphigenie_.--Voltaire declares it the tragedy of all times and all
nations, which approaches as near to perfection as human essays can; and
in this opinion he is universally followed by his countrymen. But we see
in it only a modernised Greek tragedy, of which the manners are
inconsistent with the mythological traditions, its simplicity destroyed by
the intriguing Eriphile, and in which the amorous Achilles, however brave
in other respects his behaviour may be, is altogether insupportable. La
Harpe affirms that the Achilles of Racine is even more Homeric than that
of Euripides. What shall we say to this? Before acquiescing in the
sentences of such critics, we must first forget the Greeks.
Respecting _Phèdre_ I may express myself with the greater brevity, as
I have already dedicated a separate Treatise to that tragedy. However much
Racine may have borrowed from Euripides and Seneca, and however he may
have spoiled the former without improving the latter, still it is a great
advance from the affected mannerism of his age to a more genuine tragic
style. When we compare it with the _Phaedra_ of Pradon, which was so
well received by his contemporaries for no other reason than because no
trace whatever of antiquity was discernible in it, but every thing reduced
to the scale of a modern miniature portrait for a toilette, we must
entertain a higher admiration of the poet who had so strong a feeling for
the excellence of the ancient poets, and the courage to attach himself to
them, and dared, in an age of vitiated and unnatural taste, to display so
much purity and unaffected simplicity. If Racine actually said, that the
only difference between his _Phaedra_ and that of Pradon was, that he
knew how to write, he did himself the most crying injustice, and must have
allowed himself to be blinded by the miserable doctrine of his friend
Boileau, which made the essence of poetry to consist in diction and
versification, instead of the display of imagination and fancy.
Racine's last two pieces belong, as is well known, to a very different
epoch of his life: they were both written at the same instigation; but are
extremely dissimilar to each other. _Esther_ scarcely deserves the name of
a tragedy; written for the entertainment of well-bred young women in a
pious seminary, it does not rise much higher than its purpose. It had,
however, an astonishing success. The invitation to the representations in
St. Cyr was looked upon as a court favour; flattery and scandal delighted
to discover allusions throughout the piece; Ahasuerus was said to
represent Louis XIV; Esther, Madame de Maintenon; the proud Vasti, who is
only incidentally alluded to, Madame de Montespan; and Haman, the Minister
Louvois. This is certainly rather a profane application of the sacred
history, if we can suppose the poet to have had any such object in view.
In _Athalie_, however, the poet exhibited himself for the last time,
before taking leave of poetry and the world, in his whole strength. It is
not only his most finished work, but, I have no hesitation in declaring it
to be, of all French tragedies the one which, free from all mannerism,
approaches the nearest to the grand style of the Greeks. The chorus is
conceived fully in the ancient sense, though introduced in a different
manner in order to suit our music, and the different arrangement of our
theatre. The scene has all the majesty of a public action. Expectation,
emotion, and keen agitation succeed each other, and continually rise with
the progress of the drama: with a severe abstinence from all foreign
matter, there is still a display of the richest variety, sometimes of
sweetness, but more frequently of majesty and grandeur. The inspiration of
the prophet elevates the fancy to flights of more than usual boldness. Its
import is exactly what that of a religious drama ought to be: on earth,
the struggle between good and evil; and in heaven the wakeful eye of
providence beaming, from unapproachable glory, rays of constancy and
resolution. All is animated by one breath--the poet's pious enthusiasm, of
whose sincerity neither his life nor the work itself allow us a moment to
doubt. This is the very point in which so many French works of art with
their great pretensions are, nevertheless, deficient: their authors were
not inspired by a fervent love of their subject, but by the desire of
external effect: and hence the vanity of the artist is continually
breaking forth to throw a damp over our feelings.
The unfortunate fate of this piece is well known. Scruples of conscience
as to the propriety of all theatrical representations (which appear to be
exclusively entertained by the Gallican church, for both in Italy and
Spain men of religion and piety have thought very differently on this
subject,) prevented the representation in St. Cyr; it appeared in print,
and was universally abused and reprobated; and this reprobation of it long
survived its author. So incapable of every thing serious was the puerile
taste of the age.
Among the poets of this period, the younger Corneille deserves to be
mentioned, who did not seek, like his brother, to excite astonishment by
pictures of heroism so much as to win the favour of the spectators by
"those tendernesses which," to use the words of Pradon, "are so
agreeable." Of his numerous tragedies, two, only the _Comte d'Essex_
and _Ariadné_, keep possession of the stage; the rest are consigned to
oblivion. The latter of the two, composed after the model of _Berenice_,
is a tragedy of which the catastrophe may, properly speaking, be said to
consist in a swoon. The situation of the resigned and enamoured Ariadne,
who, after all her sacrifices, sees herself abandoned by Theseus and
betrayed by her own sister, is expressed with great truth of feeling.
Whenever an actress of an engaging figure, and with a sweet voice, appears
in this character, she is sure to excite our interest. The other parts,
the cold and deceitful Theseus, the intriguing Phaedra, who continues to
the last her deception of her confiding sister, the pandering Pirithbus,
and King Oenarus, who instantly offers himself in the place of the
faithless lover, are all pitiful in the extreme, and frequently even
laughable. Moreover, the desert rocks of Naxos are here smoothed down to
modern drawing-rooms; and the princes who people them, with all the
observances of politeness seek to out-wit each other, or to beguile the
unfortunate princess, who alone has anything like pretensions to nature.
Crebillon, in point of time, comes between Racine and Voltaire, though he
was also the rival of the latter. A numerous party wished to set him, when
far advanced in years, on a par with, nay, even to rank him far higher
than, Voltaire. Nothing, however, but the bitterest rancour of party, or
the utmost depravity of taste, or, what is most probable, the two
together, could have led them to such signal injustice. Far from having
contributed to the purification of the tragic art, he evidently attached
himself, not to the better, but the more affected authors of the age of
Louis the Fourteenth. In his total ignorance of the ancients, he has the
arrogance to rank himself above them. His favourite books were the
antiquated romances of a Calprenede, and others of a similar stamp: from
these he derived his extravagant and ill-connected plots. One of the means
to which he everywhere has recourse, is the unconscious or intentional
disguise of the principal characters under other names; the first example
of which was given in the _Heraclius_. Thus, in Crebillon's _Electra_,
Orestes does not become known to himself before the middle of the piece.
The brother and sister, and a son and daughter of Aegisthus, are almost
exclusively occupied with their double amours, which neither contribute
to, nor injure, the main action; and Clytemnestra is killed by a blow from
Orestes, which, without knowing her, he unintentionally and involuntarily
inflicts. He abounds in extravagances of every kind; of such, for
instance, as the shameless impudence of Semiramis, in persisting in her
love after she has learnt that its object is her own son. A few empty
ravings and common-place displays of terror, have gained for Crebillon the
appellation of _the terrible_, which affords us a standard for judging of
the barbarous and affected taste of the age, and the infinite distance
from nature and truth to which it had fallen. It is pretty much the same
as, in painting, to give the appellation of the majestic to Coypel.