THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
In tragedy the division between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is
less marked than that which distinguishes in general the literatures of the
Restoration and the Augustan eras. Yet by 1700 most of the leading
dramatists of the preceding generation had ceased to write for the stage;
and the death of Dryden marked the end of the old, as the beginning of the
reign of Anne, with its important changes in politics, society, and
literature, marked the beginning of a new development in tragedy. The
attack of Jeremy Collier (1698) was also an important landmark in the
history of the drama, assisting in a notable change from the preceding
licentiousness and toward a moralized and sentimentalized comedy. A similar
change in tragedy was its most apparent departure from Restoration models.
Chastened language and a stricter moral censorship of both subjects and
sentiments reflected that refinement of which the age of Addison and Pope
was wont to boast.
The theatrical conditions governing the reign of Queen Anne were not very
different from those of the Restoration. There was a general complaint, as
there has been ever since, that operas and spectacles were crowding the
serious drama out of favor, but there was still abundant opportunity to see
many of the best plays of the Elizabethan and Restoration periods. Of
tragedies, we find in a single season, 1703-04, "Hamlet," "Othello,"
"Julius Caesar," and alterations of "Macbeth," "Lear," "Richard III,"
"Timon," and "Titus Andronicus," Shirley's "Traitor," and Beaumont and
Fletcher's "Maid's Tragedy," "Valentinian," and "A King and No King," "The
Loyal Subject," and other of their tragicomedies. "Henry VIII," "Rollo,"
"Bonduca," and "Philaster" were performed within the next few years. Of
Restoration tragedies, Banks's "Unhappy Favorite" and Lee's "Rival Queens"
were perhaps the most popular, and other plays of Banks, Lee, Otway,
Dryden, Congreve, and Southerne were acted yearly. A number of the heroic
plays also still kept the stage, including Howard's "Indian Queen,"
Dryden's "Conquest of Granada," "Indian Emperor," and "Aureng Zebe."
Throughout the century both the London and the provincial theatres
presented each year a large number of old plays, including many of these
already mentioned. The Elizabethan tragedies, except Shakespeare's, and the
heroic plays gradually disappeared from the regular repertoire, but
Shakespeare's tragedies steadily gained in popularity, and "The Unhappy
Favorite" (rewritten as "The Earl of Essex"), "The Orphan," "Venice
Preserved," "Oronooko," "The Fatal Marriage" (altered as "Isabella"), "All
for Love," and "The Mourning Bride" maintained their places into the
nineteenth century. Tragedy thus had its permanent representatives in this
group of stock plays, to which newcomers gained admission only by marked
success on the stage.
To these stock plays no writer of the eighteenth century made more notable
additions than Nicholas Rowe, the first editor of Shakespeare, whose work
began the century, borrowed much from his predecessors, and yet introduced
most of the changes which distinguish the eighteenth century type of
tragedy from that of the Restoration or Elizabethan period. His first play
was followed by four other tragedies by 1707, and, after an interval of
seven years, by "Jane Shore" (1714) and "Lady Jane Grey" (1715). Of the
first five, three are of little interest except as representing common
variations of the prevailing type. They all relate love stories of rivalry
and intrigue among heroic personages, and all observe the French
proprieties in structure. "The Ambitious Stepmother," like so many
predecessors and successors, places the scene in an oriental court;
"Ulysses" more daringly invades Homeric territory; and "The Royal Convert"
turns to early English history, a field which literary patriotism was
appropriating for tragedy.
In "Tamerlane" (1702), love and intrigue play subordinate parts to the
political and moral interest which the author endeavored to centre upon his
protagonist. Tamerlane, who, we are told, was patterned on William III, is
an extremely pious pagan, who overtops conquest with mercy and adorns every
occasion with a moralizing discourse. Had he ever encountered his
Marlowean namesake, he would have shed the pitying tear. In general, the
structure is on the French plan, but the large number of characters and the
considerable amount of action recall Elizabethan models. The verse, too,
with its feminine endings, occasionally reminds one of Fletcher, and the
figures of speech are feebly patterned on Shakespeare, while the ravings of
Bajazet are worthy of Nat Lee. The play, long acted every November fifth,
seems to have owed its great success to its high moral tone and its
patriotic eloquence. It set the key for many similarly patriotic tunes.
"The Fair Penitent" (1703) links itself with the two later "She-tragedies,"
to borrow a term from one of their epilogues. Its prologue proclaims an
innovation from the usual tragic themes of monarchs' cares and lost
royalty, because--
"We ne'er can pity what we ne'er can share
*....*....*....*
Therefore an humbler Theme our Author chose,
A melancholy Tale of Private Woes."
This was the play of which Dr. Johnson said that "scarcely any work of any
poet is at once so interesting by the fable and so delightful by the
language." The domestic theme, the female protagonist, and the insistent
appeal to pity were all already familiar in the plays of Otway and
Southerne. Rowe gave these a larger popularity; and from his Lothario and
Calista Richardson received suggestions for Lovelace and Clarissa.
"The Fair Penitent" is also interesting as an adaptation of an Elizabethan
play. Rowe borrowed the plot and some hints in the characterization from
"The Fatal Dowry" of Massinger and Field, but he refashioned the scenes and
rewrote the verse in accord with current modes. While "The Fatal Dowry" is
by no means one of the best of Elizabethan tragedies, a comparison of it
with Rowe's version of the story emphasizes the losses which tragedy was
suffering as it moved farther and farther from its old traditions.[28] "The
Fair Penitent" reduces the host of _dramatis personae_ to eight, the fair
penitent, her husband, his rival, his sister, and three friends or
confidants, and confines the action to one place and something over
twenty-four hours. Much of the action of the early play is omitted or
reduced to narrative, including all the opening scenes of the funeral of
the husband's father and the origin of his friendship with the father of
the heroine. The various attempts of the faithful friend to mend matters
are also restricted, and Massinger's usual trial scene omitted. The result
of these structural changes is a loss of verisimilitude. The old play had
something of the illusion of a true history; in "The Fair Penitent" the
action, though narrowed, is still far too much for the time supposed, and
improbabilities are solved by well-worn theatrical devices. The guilt is
discovered by means of a lost letter and an over-heard conversation, and
throughout literary and moral proprieties lead to a reduction of action and
an increase of talk. This is well illustrated in the scenes in which the
husband confronts the guilty wife. In "The Fair Penitent," the wife and
Lothario are having a final meeting, or declamation contest, on the day
after the wedding. She upbraids him and incidentally relates the story of
her seduction; the husband overhears. In "The Fatal Dowry," the husband
comes unexpectedly to the house of Aymer where the lovers have an
assignation. Aymer is attempting to divert him with music, when a laugh is
heard within,--more music, and the lady's laugh again. The husband rushes
from the stage and returns driving in the lovers. Further, the restricted
action of Rowe's play causes a conventionalizing of the characters. The
wife and her lover are shallow persons in Massinger's play, but they have
some plausibility. In Rowe, he becomes the avenging rival; she, an
impossible declaimer, now the evil woman of the heroic plays, now the
lachrymose moralizer. The moralizing, emphatic in all of Rowe's plays, also
adds to the general artificiality. Calista dies after most voluble
repentance, and her husband matches her "groan for groan and tear for
tear."
If the Elizabethan play is confused, long spun out, and not especially
edifying, it is yet occasionally intense in its emotional effect and
maintains some verisimilitude of life and character. Rowe's artificially
ingenious and morally mellifluous play, if edifying, is never thrilling.
Its conventional persons and scenes do not depict life by action; they
declaim sentimentally a story that ends in a sermon. In its
conventionalization and moralization Rowe illustrates the main tendencies
of the drama, tendencies derived largely from the French, but it must not
be thought that either his play or the majority in the century altogether
forsake English models for French. Rowe's declamations and laments,
immeasurably inferior in all respects, differ essentially from Racine's in
that they fail to disclose psychological moments and emotional crises. They
also differ from Racine in their retention of spectacle, incident, and
business in accord with English tradition. Like other of his contemporaries
and successors, Rowe was prone to copy the Elizabethans at their worst. The
most Elizabethan thing in his play, though not found in "The Fatal Dowry,"
is the setting for the long famous fifth act. "The Scene is a Room hung
with Black; on one side, Lothario's body on a Bier; on the other, a Table
with a Scull and other Bones, a Book, and a Lamp on it. Calista is
discovered on a Couch in Black, her Hair hanging loose and disordered:
After Musick and a Song, she rises and comes forward"--and begins her
midnight soliloquy. Perhaps, as Dr. Ward surmises, this business went far
to give the act its great effectiveness.
Of the two later "She-tragedies," "Lady Jane Grey" presents the usual love
intrigue (fomented here by the discarded rival), the female protagonist,
and much Protestant and Whig patriotism, but nothing not paralleled in
Rowe's other plays. "Jane Shore" (1714), one of the most popular plays of
the century, represents another treatment of "the fair penitent," this time
not only in a story used in the Elizabethan drama, but in a style avowedly
in imitation of Shakespeare's.
Gloster, who is closely modeled on Shakespeare's
Richard III, plays an important part, usually in
consultation with his two confidants, Catesby and
Radcliffe. Hastings, suspected by Gloster of loyalty to
the child prince, becomes enamored of Jane Shore, the
former mistress of Edward IV. She, now dedicated to
penitence, resists his persuasions, in which she is
encouraged by Dumont (her husband in disguise) and his
confidant Bellmour. When Hastings resorts to force,
Dumont comes to the rescue and disarms him. Alicia,
deserted by Hastings, is the jealous and vengeful
woman, well known in tragedy; and she denounces
Hastings and Jane Shore in a letter which she
substitutes for the petition for the release of Dumont,
imprisoned through Hastings, that Jane Shore presents
to Gloster. Gloster, upon testing Hastings and Jane
Shore, is met by frank protestations from both of their
loyalty to the prince. Hastings is condemned to death,
but has time for a final interview with Alicia, and the
exchange of mutual upbraidings, confessions, and
forgiveness. Jane Shore is condemned to public penance.
She has a parting interview with Alicia, who has gone
mad, and then encounters Dumont, who, after a long
discussion with his confidant, has decided to reveal
himself and forgive his wife. She dies and he is led
away to prison.
"Let those who view this sad Example, know
What Fate attends the broken Marriage Vow;
And teach their Children in succeeding Times,
No common Vengeance waits upon their Crimes,
When such severe Repentance could not save
From Want, from Shame, and an untimely Grave."
The play is undoubtedly Rowe's masterpiece, the closing scenes having a
natural pathos that he rarely attains elsewhere. The only Shakespearean
imitation now discernible is in the character of Gloster, though Rowe may
have endeavored in his female characters to supply the naturalness and
greatness of emotions which he recognized as characteristic of
Shakespeare's men, but curiously thought lacking in his women. Here and
elsewhere in language and metaphors Rowe reverts at times to the
Elizabethans, as also in the admission of much action and spectacle, in
pale horrors, and in the plots of his two best known plays. In the general
conception and structure of his plays he follows Otway. Taken as a whole,
however, his plays, without comedy, with much heroic love, with few
persons, and a restricted action, come nearer to French models than those
of any preceding writer of large reputation. Sentimentalized, moralized,
conventionalized as the plays are, Rowe may be said to have made a novel
departure in tragedy, though one accomplished a century before by Heywood's
"A Woman Killed with Kindness." Penitence is the sole theme of his two
famous plays, and the moral lesson is constantly enforced. The protagonist
is a repentant sinner for whom we feel pity because of her punishment,
which we nevertheless regard as just.
Rowe's plays, tame as they are, seem to have been too exciting and too rude
for the coterie of wits who set the standards of criticism; and before the
appearance of "Jane Shore" an effort was made under the direction of
Addison toward still greater refinement and closer accord with French
rules. Smith's "Phaedra and Hippolitus" (1706), an adaptation of Racine,
failed on the stage in spite of Addison's approval, but it was later often
revived, and it prepared the way for the great success of Ambrose Philips's
"Distrest Mother" (1712), a translation of the "Andromaque." This success,
promoted by the zealous support of Mr. Spectator and Sir Roger de Coverley,
was due in large measure to the story, sentimental and moral in accord with
the taste of the day.[29] In these respects "The Distrest Mother" had the
advantage of "Phaedra," though both illustrate the tendency, growing since
Lee and Otway, of making the heroine the protagonist. At all events, the
success of Philips's translation was not only great for the moment, but
long continued. It remained a popular stock play through the century, gave
a favorite part to Mrs. Siddons, and introduced Macready to a London
audience.
In the flush of Philips's first success, Addison was emboldened to present
his long withheld "Cato" upon the stage. The political circumstances made
the first night one of the most memorable in the history of the theatre,
and gave the play what was then the enormous initial run of a month.
Voltaire praised; and, with the exception of the doughty Dennis, English
critics seemed agreed that here at last was an English tragedy in full
accord with classical precedents and the rules of reason. The play
continued a favorite on the stage into the nineteenth century, and even
after the retirement of Kemble, who found in Cato one of his great parts.
It would be vain to search for dramatic merits to account for this great
success. The play combines love intrigues, as absurd as those usual in
contemporary plays, with lucid declamation and aphoristic moralizing.
Aphorism and declamation have, indeed, rarely been absent from the tragedy
of any period or nation, but they were especially delightful to the taste
of the Augustan era. Addison was only continuing the success of Rowe's
"Tamerlane," reducing its rant to a more reasonable pattern. The reforming
classicists, like the theatre-pleasing Rowe, hit on the two themes which
pleased the public, the distressed female and the patriotic moralizer.
The success of "The Distrest Mother" and "Cato" was the beginning of the
long triumph of French influence over English tragedy, yet the victory was
never more than half won. There was no capitulation, and the battle
continued through the century both among the critics and on the stage.
Rowe's plays maintained at least a feeble English tradition, and
Shakespeare's won increasing admiration. If critical opinion was for a time
warm in support of French classicism, the theatre still clung to
Elizabethan practices. Later, when imitations of the French models had
established themselves in some degree upon the stage, criticism turned to
condemnation of the unities and renewed its laudations of Shakespeare. The
lines of battle were often obscured. Between Rowe's refinements of
Elizabethan plays and Addison's imitation of the French there is little
difference; and later, in spite of the din of critical essays and prefaces,
the representatives of "Shakespeare's school" and of "correct taste" have a
great similarity.
The Elizabethan tradition was directly represented by Elizabethan
imitations and revivals, by many new plays that reverted in one way or
another to the early methods, by the conservatism of actors and playgoers,
and by the tragedies of Shakespeare. As Shakespeare grew in the
appreciation of readers and critics, there was a tendency toward the
restoration of a real Shakespearean text to the stage. There were, to be
sure, innumerable new alterations and adaptations, but these were mostly of
little importance on the stage. They dealt with the minor plays, as
"Cymbeline," "Coriolanus," or "Timon;" or they were the essays of admiring
amateurs with a bent for restringing the rough diamonds of the original, or
of playwrights trying to meet the theatrical demands of the moment.
Cibber's "Richard III" and Tate's "Lear" held the stage well into the next
century, but "Julius Caesar," "Hamlet" (except for Garrick's alteration,
1772-80), and "Othello" admitted no alterations. After 1744 Shakespeare's
"Macbeth" took the place of Davenant's, and "Romeo and Juliet" of Otway's
"Caius Marius." "Coriolanus," variously revised, altered, and finally
combined with Thomson's play of the same name, was toward the end of the
century given a great vogue by Kemble; and, indeed, the only one of the
tragedies neglected during the century was "Antony and Cleopatra."[30]
Dryden's "All for Love" had usurped its place. As the critical tone toward
Shakespeare grew more admiring and less tainted by condescension, so the
attitude of actors and audiences grew in heartiness of appreciation. The
revival of the romantic comedies marked an important change of taste,
though not calling for more than mention here. Year after year his
comedies, histories, and tragedies were acted oftener and to larger
audiences, and gave opportunity for the best efforts of a long series of
great actors and actresses. Garrick's revivals and triumphs were followed
by those of Mrs. Siddons and Kemble. Now one play became a favorite, now
another, under the influence of a great impersonation; but few were
neglected, and over the theatre Shakespeare's domination was unquestioned.
Except for Shakespeare the direct influence of the Elizabethans was small.
A few of the tragedies were acted intermittently in the first half of the
century, and a few comedies kept their places in the stock list much
longer. Revivals, though not infrequent, were rarely permanent. Revampings
sometimes resulted in an almost unconditional surrender to the French.
Theobald in the first half of the century attempted a reversion to the
Elizabethans without much success, and later a revival of interest in
Massinger succeeded in restoring only his two comedies to the theatre. As
sources of incentive for those writers who shunned French modes, Otway,
Southerne, and Rowe took the places of the Elizabethans other than
Shakespeare. The English tradition which these names represent had, as we
have seen, already been much subject to French influence, though protected
by the adherence of the theatre to old custom. Consequently, while the
majority of eighteenth century tragedies retain some Elizabethan practices,
there is not one of importance that is a thoroughgoing representative of
the old methods and technic.
French influence, on the contrary, had many representatives among the new
plays. The success of "The Distrest Mother" led to a number of
translations. In the first quarter of the century there were ten of
Racine's plays and four of Corneille's; and of these fourteen, eight were
acted, and several with success. Later on, Whitehead's "Roman Father"
(1750), an adaptation of Corneille's "Horace," won a place in the stock
list. But the leading factor in the French influence on English tragedy
during the century was Voltaire. The long critical debate which he waged in
behalf of the rules and against the barbarities of Shakespeare has its
importance in English as well as French literary history. But while the
English critics grew more and more eager as the century advanced to uphold
the glory of Shakespeare and to denounce an atheist who denied this, or to
proclaim their freedom from the narrowing rules which were French, yet the
triumphs of Voltaire's plays upon the English stage continued unabated.
Adaptations of no less than nine of his tragedies had appeared on the
London stage before the English translation of his full works in 1779-80,
and there were manifold borrowings from him in many other plays.[31] A
number of the translations, Hill's "Zara" and "Merope," Miller's "Mahomet,"
and Murphy's "Orphan of China," made notable successes. From the production
of "Brutus" to that of "Semiramis" in 1776 Voltaire may be said to have
been the most popular and influential of the writers of tragedy for the
English theatre.[32]
The translations of these tragedies, however, indicate the influence of
English traditions. The long speeches are shortened, the dialogue is broken
and enlivened, the minor proprieties disregarded, the sentiments and morals
Anglicized, and some business and bloodshed introduced on the stage. In
Hill's "Merope," for example, the great scene where Merope strives to kill
the murderer of her long-lost son and discovers the supposed murderer to be
her son himself, loses all its simplicity as well as its poetry. It is
ornamented by Hill with processions, virgins in white, music, a sacrificial
song, and many starts and strains. Where on the French stage Egisthe
decorously withdraws behind the scenes as his mother approaches with the
dagger, on the English stage everything was in full sight. If some of the
other translations are less altered, the imitations and unavowed
adaptations are much more so. Hoole's "Cyrus" (1768), a popular play, is
obviously based on "Merope," but adds a much complicated plot, a mad woman,
a love intrigue between the long-lost son and the daughter of the old
tutor, and a returning husband for Mandane (Merope). The great success of
Voltaire in England did not, in fact, produce any very marked change in the
course of tragedy. He represents the continuance of French influence but
established no departures of note from the general type established in the
English theatres by 1725. Virtually no English tragedies in the eighteenth
century introduced comedy; few reveled in horrors and bloodshed, the
majority observed the unities, nearly all had few persons, a restricted
action, and themes and situations confined to slight variations of a
stereotyped love story; and nearly all had regard for poetic justice. The
differences between French and English tragedy were largely those which
adapters of Voltaire eliminated when they made over his plays for the
London theatres and gave them a more broken dialogue and more stage action,
and perhaps a mad woman or a villain. Moreover, the amelioration of the
differences between the two theatres was not all on one side, as is shown
by Voltaire's own imitations of Shakespeare and his introduction of ghosts
and horrors, and by the growing interest in France in Shakespeare and
other English dramatists.[33] Voltaire, with his ingenious plots and
telling crises, was nearer than Racine to the English tradition, and he
wrote at a time when the differences between the two national theatres were
minimized to a degree that made intercommunication easy. His talents gave
him an easy superiority over any English writer of tragedies after the
classical formulas.
In the course of the century there were also a considerable number of plays
that turned from French to Greek models. While these cannot be regarded as
wholly representative of a reaction from a pseudo to a truer classicism,
they certainly offered hardly more resemblance to Voltaire than to
Shakespeare. The Greek influence was, however, variously manifested.
Adaptations of Euripides were numerous, half a dozen of which were
presented at the theatres. In addition, a number of original plays were
written, following the Greek form. Most famous of these were two by Gray's
friend Mason, "Elfrida" and "Caractacus." The latter, while stilted and
academic, compares favorably in point of literary excellence with most
tragedies of the century, and not altogether unworthily takes its place in
a series that includes "Samson Agonistes" and "Prometheus Unbound." "Read
Shakespeare," wrote Lyttleton to Aaron Hill, "but study Racine and
Sophocles." But the classicists were occupied in the main with neither
poet, but in discussing various minor questions of dramatic propriety:
Should any violence or bloodshed be permitted? Should rhyme tags end the
scenes? Should the epilogue be comic or serious? Should figures of speech
be allowed? Should long speeches be shortened for presentation? Classicism
in both England and France was not greatly imitative of either Sophocles or
Racine, but mainly insistent on immaterialities.
If we attempt to follow the diminishing differences between English and
French standards in the work of individual authors, Young's "Busiris"
(1719) and "Revenge" (1721) are the most important of those tragedies in
the first quarter of the century which cling to some of the characteristics
of the early English drama, while his "Brothers," written at about the same
time but not acted until 1753, is based upon Thomas Corneille's "Persee et
Demetrius." In "Busiris" there is no villain, but tyranny, conspiracy, and
a passionate revenging queen play their usual parts. There is an attempt,
both in incidents and expression, at Elizabethan force and horror; the main
action deals with a rape, and five of the principal persons are killed upon
the stage. "The Revenge" is still more Elizabethan, being a palpable
imitation of "Othello." The prologue declares that the proper field for
tragedy is not villany but "the tumults of a Godlike mind," yet the
villain, the Moor Zanga, is the chief character and was acted by Garrick,
Kemble, and Kean. The villain's part, it is interesting to note, affords
the most striking difference between this popular play and the even more
popular "Zara." In both, the heroine, pure and innocent, is killed by the
husband, Othello-like in both magnanimity and jealousy; but in Voltaire the
jealousy is occasioned by the heroine's meetings with her brother, a
captive Christian, in Young by the busy and ponderous intrigues of a
Moorish Iago.
In opposition to Young, Thomson represents the vogue of classicism both in
literary circles and in the theatres. His early tragedies, "Sophonisba"
(1730), "Agammemnon" (1738), and "Edward and Eleonora," prohibited by the
censor because of its attacks upon Walpole, won little favor except in the
circle of wits who attempted to dictate the national taste in letters and
among the opponents of Walpole. The first was dedicated to the Queen and
the two later to the Princess of Wales, and "Tancred and Sigismunda" (1743)
to Frederick, Prince of Wales, the patron of the drama and the hope of the
Tories. This play, the presentation of which was fathered and superintended
by Lyttleton and Pitt, achieved a large popular success; and portions of
"Coriolanus," acted after the author's death in 1749, were combined with
Shakespeare's tragedy in versions by Thomas Sheridan and Kemble, and
supplied the latter with his greatest part. All Thomson's plays endeavor
to retell stories often used in tragedy, in strict accord with the rules,
with absolute propriety of diction, some reference to political events, and
a due inculcation of moral sentiments. In the language of one of their
admirers, they were intended to be "reasonable entertainments becoming
virtue itself to behold with tears of approbation."[34] "Sophonisba" is
sternly heroic in its subordination of love to patriotic hate of Rome in
the character of its heroine, and sternly classic in the simplicity of its
plot and the heaviness of its inflated rhetoric. "Agammemnon," also a
"She-tragedy," is designed after the school of Racine rather than of
Corneille; and its wavering, inconsistent Clytemnestra, who closes the play
with a torrent of remorse and a faint, its Melisander saved from a desert
island, and its courtly love-sick Egisthus are queer denizens of the house
of Atreus. "Edward and Eleanor," telling of the queen who sucked poison
from her husband's wound, and of the sultan who, suspected of the attempted
murder, bore a truly miraculous antidote to the Christian camp, owes
allegiance to Voltaire. Its emotional changes and elaborate intrigue bring
it also more closely in accord with the prevailing English type. "Tancred
and Sigismunda," based on the story as told in "Gil Blas,"[35] makes the
lover a claimant to the throne and the intervention of the father due to
reasons of state. The plot is developed with more skill than is usual in
Thomson, and the rival lovers, the marriage in revenge, the midnight
interview, the duel, and the murder of the heroine are quite in conformity
to the prevailing model. "Coriolanus," the subject of many French tragedies
and of Shakespearean alterations by Tate and Dennis, illustrates the
inferiority of the classic scheme to the Elizabethan in the presentation of
history. The action, beginning with the arrival of Coriolanus as a
suppliant for Tullus's hospitality, crowds the remaining events and the
changes in the two rivals within the impossible confines of the unities of
time and place. Coriolanus himself exemplifies the effort toward "Nature,"
that is, typicality and reasonableness, in pseudo-classical
characterization. He expresses the sentiments and manners approved by the
eighteenth century, and, even when pride and revenge most fire his passion,
is a very tame lion. The moral lessons, somewhat clouded in Shakespeare,
are distinctly enunciated and finally summed up by Galesus:--
"This man was once the glory of his age,
Disinterested, just, with every virtue
Of civil life adorn'd, in arms unequall'd.
His only blot was this; that, much provok'd,
He rais'd his vengeful arm against his country," etc. (v. 4).
In Thomson's other plays the inflated declamation occasionally gives way to
a bit of description that recalls "The Seasons," but in "Coriolanus" he
follows the promise of the Prologue to "Tancred" with unerring fidelity:--
"Your taste rejects the glittering false sublime,
To sigh in metaphor, and die in rhyme.
High _rant_ is tumbled from his gallery throne;
Description, dreams,--nay, similes are gone."
He was obviously seeking what he called Shakespeare's "simple, plain
sublime," and his declamations occasionally reach a sententious lucidity
worthy of Addison, but the pseudo-classic diction freezes every emotion
with its "transports," "charms," and "nuptial loves." This is Volumnia's
appeal to Coriolanus, her husband in Thomson's play:--
"Ah Coriolanus!
Is then this hand, this hand to be devoted,
The pledge of nuptial love, that has so long
Protected, bless'd, and shelter'd us with kindness,
Now lifted up against us? Yet I love it,
And, with submissive veneration, bow
Beneath th' affliction which it heaps upon us.
But O! what nobler transports would it give thee!
What joy beyond expression! couldst thou once
Surmount the furious storm of fierce revenge,
And yield ye to the charms of love and mercy.
Oh make the glorious trial!" (v. 1).
Thomson's plays were not esteemed even by his master Voltaire as
contributing greatly to that perfection of art possibly attainable by a
"due mixture of the French taste and English energy." For, though "wisely
intricated and elegantly writ," Voltaire found him, like Addison, lacking
in warmth, an "iced genius."[36] Frigid to his contemporaries, the
tragedies were long since decently interred. They constitute,
nevertheless, the most considerable attempt made by any author of the
eighteenth century to conserve the classic theory of tragedy, and they
recall nearly every variety of pseudo-classic endeavor. Of classicism it
might be said, as of Thomson, that it attempted classic and early English
history, that it found in partisan patriotism its favorite theme for
rhetoric, that its French rules and taste usually pleased readers better
than spectators, but that when it took one of Shakespeare's tragedies as
the basis for an infusion of classical theory, or when it was tempered with
a love story and a lively action, it triumphed in the theatre.
Thomson's friends, Mallet and the versatile and indefatigable Aaron Hill,
joined him in his efforts to redeem the tragic muse. Hill's efforts, if no
more successful than Thomson's and much less consistent, are at least more
amusing. His general theory seems to have been not unlike that which
actually controlled theatrical practice; he purposed a combination of
French rules with romantic incident, theatrical bustle, and his own
inimitable style. His "Fatal Vision, or Fall of Siam" (1716), he boasted,
had "a deeper and more surprising plot than any play which has been
published, that I know of, in the English tongue; and yet is written in
strict observance of the dramatic rules" and affords "room for topical
reflections, large description, love, war, show, and passion," and also "a
very high regard to decoration." The play is noticeable for its tangle of
trite dramatic motives.
The emperor's vision is of a son who shall kill him and
usurp the throne. The two elder sons are in love with
the Princess of Siam. Sworn by her to kill their
father, and condemned by him for a murder they did not
commit, they die fighting in his behalf. The third son
kills the emperor, marries the princess, and ascends
the throne. In his rapid advance he is aided by the
banished empress, who has returned to court and
attained high power, disguised as the favorite eunuch.
Hill adapted three of Voltaire's plays, "Zara," "Alzira," and "Merope." To
the first he wrote some comic choruses intended to be sung between the
acts, and to the third he prefixed his revised and final opinion of
Voltaire and French tragedy:--
"Our unpolished English stage (as he assumes the
liberty of calling it) has entertained a nobler taste
of dignify'd simplicity, than to deprive dramatic
poetry of all that animates its passions; in pursuit of
a _cold, starv'd, tame abstinence_, which, from an
affectation to shun _figure_, sinks to _flatness_: an
_elaborate escape_ from _energy_ into a groveling,
wearisome, bald, barren, unalarming _chilness_ of
expression, that _emasculates_ the mind, instead of
_moving it_."
"Athelwold" (1731), a revision of his early "Elfrid," is colorlessly
conventional; "The Roman Revenge" (1753) is an alteration of "Julius
Caesar"; "The Insolvent" (1758) is a rewriting of "The Fatal Dowry," making
the heroine an innocent object of jealousy. Most Aaronic of all is "Henry
V" (1723). Here he gives up French unities and technic, and introduces many
characters, shifting scenes, a bit of comedy, and the "genius of England,"
who sings a song. His greatest addition to Shakespeare is his Harriet, who
starts out like one of the evil queens in the heroic tragedies. When
abandoned by Henry, she is still jealous and revengeful; next she appears
disguised as a page in the French camp, and, Viola-like, relates a story of
a love-lorn sister; then recaptured by Henry, she storms and melts; but the
Jane Shore mood is transient, and, like a tragedy queen again, she stabs
herself. A man who could write a comic duet for Voltaire's "Zaire" and
could supply Prince Hal with a paramour whose grandmothers were Viola and
the Indian Queen, ought not to be wholly forgotten.
Hill's career may remind us both of the din of the critics over Voltaire
and Shakespeare, and also of the virtual compromise and amalgamation that
had taken place on the stage between French and English traditions. English
tragedy, after a long national development, had become materially modified
by French influence and had assumed a fixed and restricted form. This type,
recognizable early in the century, continues to prevail nearly to the end.
The century had little power of innovation, little that can be called a
development in the history of tragedy. The pendulum swings now toward
French, now toward Elizabethan models, but its oscillations are slight and
regulated. The plays thus far considered offer unimportant variations from
the type, and plays after the middle of the century vary still less. Home's
famous "Douglas" (1757), that thrilled every heart and in the opinion of
the judicious redeemed the stage anew from barbarism, fails now to
distinguish itself from its fellows, unless by its touches of melancholy,
medievalism, and nature, that hint of romanticism. Here, as so often, a
much suffering woman is beset by villany and jealousy. Home's other
tragedies and those of Glover, Hoole, Brown, Murphy, and Cumberland offer
even less of novelty, except that toward the end of the century refinement
in sentiments and morals becomes increasingly attenuated. Miss Hannah More
best represents this feminization of the type. Her "Percy" (1777), a very
successful play, is devoted to the sentiment:--
"Will it content me that her person's pure?
No, if her alien heart doats on another,
She is unchaste."
"The Fatal Falsehood" (1779) presents in a domestic guise the usual plot of
rivals in love and an intriguing villain, with the addition of a love-sick
lady who runs mad. "The curtain falls to soft music." The century has one
marked innovation in the realistic plays of Lillo and Moore, and after 1780
there are signs of the romanticism stirring elsewhere in literature; but in
the main the new tragedies are hopelessly commonplace representatives of an
extremely conventionalized form.
Yet tragedy was by no means neglected in literature or on the stage.
Several hundred tragedies were published during the century and many of
them went through several editions. Three or four were brought out every
year in the theatres, and many of these maintained themselves for a time as
stock plays. Most men of letters essayed tragedy,--Addison, Johnson,
Young, Thomson, Gay, the laureates Cibber, Rowe, Whitehead, Pye, and a host
of minor celebrities. Besides the tragedies acted, there were almost as
many not acted but printed. Closet dramas, common in the Elizabethan
period, grew more numerous after the Restoration. Whether the writer
scorned or was scorned by the manager, an appeal to the reading public was
always easy and apparently sometimes profitable. Tragedies were bought and
read; a popular play might start with an edition of five thousand and run
through a number of editions. Even after the novel had supplanted the drama
among readers, there was no diminution of printed plays. The non-acted
plays, however, offer nothing of importance for the history of the drama.
The majority are unactable; others follow the usual formulas; a few Greek
plays, alterations of Shakespeare, and sacred dramas have some interest as
curiosities. The increase in the number of these plays does indicate a
growing separation between the drama and the theatre. Plays were no longer
written by a set of dramatists who made a profession; they were written by
any one who had literary pretensions. Only a few new plays were required;
the supply greatly exceeded the demand. The theatrical monopoly maintained
by the two patented theatres offered no great encouragement to dramatists,
and the number who wrote without any acquaintance or knowledge of the stage
increased. Literary fame rather than success in the theatre was perhaps the
greater incentive in the case of tragedy. Whatever the incentive,
individual ambition resulted in no individuality of expression. The popular
ballad of tradition is scarcely less expressive of personality than the
average eighteenth century tragedy. Even the plays of temporary importance
have no flavor of their own.[37]
The features of this type have often been mentioned in connection with
particular plays, but it may be convenient to collect them in a composite
picture. In structure and technic French models are mainly followed. Very
long speeches, indeed, are rare, bloodshed and violence are permitted on
the stage, and there is a good deal of incident; but bloodshed and horrors
after the Elizabethan style no longer appear. Comedy also has disappeared,
and is tabooed even in adaptations of Shakespeare or of Restoration plays.
Comedy is reserved for the farce which is always performed after a tragedy.
Each tragedy concerns itself with a single plot, involving only from six to
ten persons, and observing the unities, even after Johnson's salutary
condemnation of them. There are few changes of scene, ordinarily none
within an act. With the disappearance of other medieval characteristics
there has also departed the medieval freedom in respect to the suitability
of an action for the stage. The range of incidents possible for
presentation is very limited; exposition is largely by narrative;
supernatural elements, common in Lee, are unusual; the ghost at last rests
in peace. Madness, however, is still retained, especially in the case of
the long-suffering heroine. Battles, armies, stage spectacles of all kinds,
are restricted, though the scenes may be elaborate, and processions,
sacrifices, even music and songs are permissible. The first essential for
the action is a love story, the second some kind of historical setting. The
fatal or hazardous loves of princes and queens are the themes; Eastern,
classic, or early English courts are the scenes.
The love story itself often keeps to the form customary in the heroic
plays. Two rivals in love, two heroines, major and minor, a tyrant, an
intriguing minister, and the accompanying confidants appear again and again
to assist in similar stories of jealousy, ambition, and villany. The old
Elizabethan motives continue, as "Rape" and "The Fate of Villany," the
titles of two plays acted in 1729-30, may witness, but usually they are
refined and tamed. Incest and rape are averted; the tyrant in love with the
heroine only threatens; the villain who pursues casts suspicion on her
virtue but abstains from violence; the two brothers, or the son and the
father, in love with the same lady sometimes find renunciation possible.
Unjustified jealousy is perhaps the leading motive, and there are many
feeble imitations of "Othello." A secret marriage, a long-lost son, and
marriages, either for revenge or in order to save a lover, are common
elements in the plot. Hero and heroine are examples of virtue. Their
difficulties or ruin are sometimes due to one fatal error duly emphasized,
or they may be due wholly to the machinations of the villain. In the latter
case, poetic justice is usually regarded and the good are saved.
The villain is the most constant reminder of Elizabethan tragedy. He has
all the traits of the stage Machiavellis of Marlowe and Kyd, and sometimes
imitates Iago. He is wholly black at heart, but he is apparently frank and
honest; his revenge or ambition works by most devious intrigue; he confides
his schemes to the audience in long soliloquies, yet his accomplished
hypocrisy long baffles the rest of the _dramatis personae_. As in late
Elizabethan and Restoration plays, he is often a prime minister. A
collection of these villains' speeches would illustrate the
conventionalized character of eighteenth century tragedy and the tendency
of stage types to perpetuate themselves in theatrical tradition. A few
lines from two may be sufficient. The first is the opening soliloquy of
Seyfert in "The Heroine of the Cave," a play of some popularity acted in
1774.
"Revenge, thou art the deity I adore!--
From thy auspicious shrine I hope a cure
For the corroding pain that rends my heart.
The vain Alberti being thus preferr'd
By fair Constantia, passeth all enduring!
Colredo I have rouz'd--another wooer--
And in his name are such reflections dropp'd,
As 'twixt the two a duel must provoke--
My purpose is, whoe'er the conqu'ror be,
To reap advantage for my private views," etc.
The second is the opening soliloquy of Bertrand in Miss Hannah More's
"Fatal Falsehood" (1779).
"What fools are serious melancholy villains!
I play a surer game, and screen my heart
With easy looks and undesigning smiles;
And while my actions spring from sober thought,
They still appear th' effect of wild caprice,
And I, the thoughtless slave of giddy chance.
What but this frankness has engag'd the promise
Of young Orlando, to confide in me
That secret grief which preys upon his heart?
'Tis dangerous, indiscreet hypocrisy
To seem too good: I am the _careless_ Bertrand,
The honest, undesigning, plain, blunt man:" etc.
The continuance of the stage villain is worthy of some note beyond its
evidence of conventionalization. It calls attention to the fact that
English tragedy has always been largely concerned with evil persons. Though
the utterly bad were condemned as tragic figures by Aristotle, and the
overthrow of the wicked as a tragic theme has ever since been held in some
contempt by theorizers; yet from the time of Marlowe, or even earlier,
English tragedy has told the stories of evil-doers with careers of cruelty
or lust, or of machinators who have turned to bitterness and disaster the
lives of the pure and the good. Of the first class are the tyrants,
usurpers, lustful monarchs, and bloody avengers; of the second, the
Machiavellian prime ministers, the hypocritical counselors, and the
traitorous friends; and the two are often united as in Barabas or Richard
III. English authors, actors, and audiences have delighted in a visible
representative of the devil upon the stage, in an impersonation of the
source of evil. Given grandeur of ambition, the evil one becomes the
protagonist; given mere revenge and hatred as motives, he is still the main
opponent of the hero. Perhaps the highest kind of tragic feeling is not
aroused either by the fall of the depraved or by the ruin of the noble
through trickery and cunning, yet "Richard III" and "Macbeth" deal with the
one theme, and "Othello" and "Lear" with the other. Shakespeare's
tragedies, indeed, represent other conflicts than this between good and
evil, and in the representation of that conflict they are not confined by
theological or dramatic formulas. Such formulas were just what eighteenth
century writers enjoyed, and in attacking the problem of evil they clung to
one of the most artificial if also one of the most typical persons in
literature, the Elizabethan stage machinator. The conflict of bad and good,
a natural if not inevitable motive of a drama descending from medieval
times, found its expression in the excessively amiable hero and heroine and
the utterly black villain, stage types that have maintained themselves in
fiction as well as the drama through Scott and Dickens down to the present
day. The stage villain, a theory of poetic justice that refused to punish
the good except for some distinctly emphasized fault, and a faith in the
potency of moral precepts, these are the devil, providence, and salvation
of a theatrical theology, which, along with conventional technic, narrowed
plots, and some refinement in moral taste, distinguish the eighteenth
century type of tragedy.
The bird, caged and clipped, no longer sang. There was no poetry left in
tragedy, and no human nature. Was there anything, then, in this type that
showed advance over the preceding centuries, or anything that offered
promise for future development? Not one of the literary forms in which the
eighteenth century excelled, and not one fully representing the
pseudo-classical theories, tragedy cannot be fairly judged as representing
classicism _versus_ romanticism. It merely presents a deteriorated English
tradition modified and narrowed by pseudo-classical rules and theory. Yet
it corrected and modified English tradition where it needed corrections and
modifications, without quite denationalizing it. The admixture of comedy,
prone to become gross farce, the horrors and bloodshed, and the brutal and
revolting themes were rightly abandoned. In structure there was a more
positive reformation. Stage illusion and precision of effect may be aided
by an observance of the unities, and the limitation of the action to a
single plot, a few persons, and a few scenes,--Shakespeare and encomiasts
of his art to the contrary notwithstanding. It must be added that in
practice the unities are likely to result in a counter-balancing defect, in
a concentration of incident improbable and artificial, as often in
eighteenth century tragedies, and even in Ibsen. The pseudo-classicists
erred mainly in taking their rules as masters instead of as guides. Yet
eighteenth century tragedy deserves this meed of praise that it sought for
literary form, which preceding tragedy had largely lacked; and its attempts
to secure this offered useful lessons for the future. But here the
usefulness of its dramatic art ends. In the limitation of what could be
acted and of what belonged to the species, it was suicidal. French tragedy
in its effort to imitate Greek failed to take advantage of the resources of
modern theatres; and English tragedy, halting between English and French
precedents, simply confined itself to well-worn theatrical customs. There
are not only no new subjects or characters, there are no new situations,
surprises, or catastrophes, no new methods of exposition or dialogue. Some
of the worst of the old conventions survived, as the soliloquies, which
continue long, frequent, and undisguised, but it would be hard to find even
a bit of stage business that was new. Eighteenth century tragedy made no
adequate demands of its splendid theatres and great actors.[38]
The only daring departure from the prevailing type, and the most important
contribution to the general development of European tragedy in the
eighteenth century, came in the success of "George Barnwell, or the London
Merchant" (1731). This was the first tragedy of George Lillo, a London
jeweler, who had hitherto had no known theatrical or literary connections,
save for one unsuccessful play. It was followed within a few years by
another domestic tragedy, "Fatal Curiosity," two tragedies of the regular
type, "The Christian Hero" and the posthumous "Elmerick," and by
adaptations of "Pericles" and "Arden of Feversham." The two domestic
tragedies differ somewhat in both form and purpose. "The London Merchant,"
in prose, tells the story of Barnwell's downfall through the courtesan
Millwood, his murder of his uncle at her instigation, and the final
execution of both criminals. Barnwell's repentance is much dwelt upon, and
the moral lesson is enforced in every line. "The Fatal Curiosity," in blank
verse, tells of a frightful murder of a son by a father at the instigation
of the mother. From the innocent "curiosity" of the long-lost son in
concealing his identity from his parents, there is traced the chain of
circumstances which finally drive the poverty-stricken and wretched couple
to the murder of the stranger. The play is thus nearer to Greek than modern
ideas of tragedy, in that it represents destiny as something separate from
character, and it links itself with the German species of
_Schicksalstragoedie_, which indeed it directly influenced. "The London
Merchant," on the contrary, seeks the causes and effects of crime in a
crude and popular presentation of character that always makes the most of
human will and sentiment.
Daring and important as was Lillo's innovation, it was by no means without
progenitors and near kinsmen. The relations of his plays to Elizabethan
domestic tragedies are evident. Like "Arden of Feversham," which Lillo may
have been copying, "The London Merchant" presents a murder, portrays a
monstrous woman, and ends with an execution. Like the Elizabethan plays,
Lillo's are bald, detailed, and moralizing. The very pleas that he advances
in his dedication for realism and liberty had been advanced in "Arden" and
the "Warning for Fair Women." Moreover, while since 1660 no tragedies had
dealt solely with middle-class society, there had been much chafing against
the restrictions that limited tragedy to princes; and from English writers
as well as Corneille had come forecasts of the sweeping democracy of
Lillo's creed:--
"What I would infer is this, I think, evident truth;
that tragedy is so far from losing its dignity, by
being accommodated to the circumstances of the
generality of mankind, that it is more truly august in
proportion to the extent of its influence, and the
numbers that are properly affected by it. As it is more
truly great to be the instrument of good to many, who
stand in need of our assistance, than to a very small
part of that number."[39]
Southerne, Otway, and Rowe had won great success for domestic themes, and
their examples were naturally cited in the prologue which introduced "The
Merchant." Comedy might also have been summoned to support. After the
scourging from Collier it had joined in the general movement at the
beginning of the century toward sentiment and moralizing. Sentimental
comedy, seeking both pathos and a moral, may be said to begin in England
at least as early as Colley Cibber's "Careless Husband" (1704) and Steele's
"Tender Husband" (1705). Steele's "Conscious Lovers" (1722) shows the
species in full development. More general but not less important
encouragements for realism in tragedy came from the realistic tendencies
manifest in the literature of the preceding generation, notably in the
novels of Defoe, and from the moralistic tendencies everywhere manifest in
both fiction and drama. Lillo was one with his time, though out with truth
and art, in thinking "the more extensively useful the moral of any tragedy
is, the more excellent that piece must be of its kind."[40] The ascendancy
of the middle class in letters, their expanding social life, their
attachment to a conventional morality and a utilitarian art, and their
delight in sentimentality, all help to explain the appearance of "George
Barnwell." Lillo was writing for a generation that had "The Fair Penitent"
and was waiting for "Pamela."
Lillo's work, however, was none the less that of a pioneer. "The Fatal
Curiosity" had a special influence, beginning forty years after its
appearance, in the German tragedies of destiny; and "The London Merchant,"
soon after its publication, became of importance in both France and
Germany. In France its welcome was prepared by the growth of a species of
sentimental comedy paralleling the English, and it was translated in time
(1748) to serve as an example and stimulant to Diderot's plays and
theories. Even before the publication of his "Le Fils Naturel"[41] (1757),
and "Le Pere de Famille"[42] (1758), Lessing's "Miss Sara Sampson" (1755)
had appeared directly modeled on "The London Merchant." Through Diderot and
Lessing and, a little later, through German translations of Lillo's plays,
domestic tragedy continued its leavening work in the German drama. By that
time, sentimental comedy and domestic tragedy were returning from France
and Germany to influence the English drama.
In England the direct stream of domestic tragedy never flowed high. A
one-act play, "Fatal Extravagance," in prose, had appeared in 1721 under
the patronage of Aaron Hill, and was revived the year before the success of
"Barnwell," and later enlarged into five acts. There were a few
successors--"Caelia, or the Perjured Lover" (1732), by Charles Johnson,
presenting a Lovelace-like protagonist; "Love the Cause and Cure of Grief"
(1743), a three-act play in prose; and Victor's adaptation of "A Woman
Killed with Kindness" (1776). Far more important than any of these was
Moore's "Gamester" (1753), long a stock play, and almost as influential on
the continent as "Barnwell." Like "The Yorkshire Tragedy," it pictures the
horrors of gaming. The gamester, his long-suffering wife, a faithful
servant, a spirited girl, her lover, the intriguing villain, and his
accomplices play a story of far more insistent dramatic power than Lillo's
and of no less sentimental and moral conclusiveness. Cumberland's
"Mysterious Husband" (1783) is a later and less crude representative of the
same species.[43]
Lord Davenant has deceived his wife into marrying him
by slandering her lover Dormer. Later he has entrapped
Dormer's sister into a pretended marriage and then
deserted her. She, supposing her husband dead, marries
Lord Davenant's son. On their marriage day, Dormer
returns; Lord Davenant is discovered and kills himself.
Though a man and not a woman is the central figure of this social
entanglement, we are reminded of the Tanquerays and Ebbsmiths of a later
day in its powerful and not unveracious presentation of domestic ruin.
One reason for the failure of Lillo's pioneering to arouse a larger
following in tragedy was the possession which comedy had taken of both
domestic sentiment and morality. The species of sentimental and tearful
comedy, which had already by 1730 appeared in both England and France, soon
flourished in both countries. Their vogue was diminished by the success of
"She Stoops to Conquer" and "The Rivals," but there was a further
development during the last thirty years of the century in the plays of
Cumberland, Holcroft, Mrs. Inchbald, and others. A certain amount of low
comedy was, after "The Rivals," admitted to be necessary, as Holcroft avows
in the preface to "Duplicity," but in such plays as his "Duplicity" and
"Road to Ruin," or Cumberland's "The Jew" and "The Wheel of Fortune,"
suffering abounds, ruin is imminent, there is much weeping, and a salient
moral lesson. The suffering usually is confined to loss of fortune or
temptation of virtue, and the moral lesson is directed against gaming, or
loose living, or marital infidelity upon the part of the husband. The
intriguing villain in this kind of play sinks to insignificance, and the
moving force is likely to be a humanitarian benefactor who rescues the lost
fortune or saves the heroine from the hated marriage. Occasionally this
type of serious comedy comes close to tragedy. In Holcroft's "Deserted
Daughter" (1795), a revamping of Cumberland's "Fashionable Lover," the
father has disowned his daughter by his first marriage, and, through his
wicked agent, she has been sent to a house of ill-fame. Not knowing his own
daughter, the father, ruined in fortune and conscience, plans to aid a
friend to secure her, and himself visits her. The situation is ghastly
enough, but all comes out happily. The happy ending was in fact the dram of
eale that corrupted the whole substance of this sentimental comedy. The
theatrical necessity of a happy ending forbade either tragedy or a serious
study of life. It compelled the dramatist to devote a large part of a play
to preparing for the reconciliation, to spend much time on youthful love,
to maintain a lightness of tone throughout; and it destroyed the
possibility of tracing out character and incident to anything like a
logical conclusion. The domestic drama, devoted to a serious presentation
of social life, had its opportunity in the eighteenth as well as in the
twentieth century. It shrank from tragedy; it advanced as far as attacking
fashionable excesses, or as dramatizing moral theses, but it never got
beyond the lovers who must be united and the everything that must come out
well. It resigned itself to sentimentality and false conclusions, and was
naturally overwhelmed by the theatrically more captivating sentimentality
and falsity of Kotzebue. When "The London Merchant" and "The Gamester"
encouraged the vogue of sentimental comedy, they nourished an ingrate which
destroyed the legitimate brood of domestic tragedy. In the theatres men
took their realism sugared by a sentimentality that sent them home
contented. But Lillo's work was not unheeded by the genius who in "Tom
Jones" and "Amelia" gave literary greatness to a realistic study of manners
and morals. The sentimentalizing and moralizing of the middle classes,
which from the time of Southerne had threatened to have their say on the
stage, found their spokesman in the author of "Clarissa Harlowe."
In the last third of the century the various social, intellectual, and
imaginative changes that make up the beginnings of the Romantic movement
had their effect upon tragedy, but only in a partial and secondary fashion.
The drama was already losing place to the novel in popularity, and showing
signs of becoming a sort of literary by-product. Successful novels were
made over into plays, and the various romantic tendencies to medievalism,
melancholy, supernaturalism, and naturalism found expression in novel or
verse rather than in play. The reawakening interest in the Elizabethan
dramatists was represented by a revival of a number of the plays of
Massinger and of Beaumont and Fletcher,[44] and imitations of Elizabethan
diction became frequent. A more important departure was furnished by the
so-called Terrific School of fiction. Medieval stories and scenes, and the
various accessories of horror, ghosts, graveyards, dungeons, vaults, and
the midnight bell had never been lacking in eighteenth century tragedy, but
the novels of Walpole and his successors offered some novelties. Walpole's
own unacted "Mysterious Mother" (1768), perhaps the most powerful of the
Gothic tragedies, was the pioneer of the movement. Robert Jephson, whose
"Braganza" (1775) was heralded as
"His; no French tragedy,--tame, polish'd, dull by rule!
Vigorous he comes, and warm from Shakespeare's school,"
produced in 1781 an adaptation of Walpole's "Castle of Otranto," called
"The Count of Narbonne," which, as the epilogue boasts,
"Midst the placid murmurings of Love
Rolls the rough tide of Gothick force along."
His "Julia" (1787), another popular play with his usual abundance of
soliloquies, tells a story of Elizabethan villany; and there were a few
other Gothic attempts, as Cumberland's "Carmelite" (1784), before Lewis's
"Castle Spectre" (1797) carried the town by storm. The further history of
the terrific tragedies belongs to the next chapter, as does that of the
German importations which culminated in the craze for Kotzebue, but it may
be noted here that "Werter," acted in 1785, and "Emilia Galotti," acted in
1794, were among the earlier indications of German influence on the stage.
By 1790 the decadence of English tragedy had apparently run its course and
nearly come to a full stop. The freedom and independence of Elizabethan
days had degenerated by the time of Charles I into a fairly definite type.
That type, maintained in the Restoration period, though with modifications
and innovations, had now become conventionalized, debased, sterile. French
influence had proved unprocreative. In spite of the activities of the
theatres, the inspiration of Shakespeare, and the assistance of great
actors and actresses, tragedy had failed to produce literature comparable
to that of its rival, the novel. The drama, to be sure, had played a large
part, both in tragedy and comedy, in reflecting and promoting the
sentimentality and moralizing common in the literature of the century;
Otway, Southerne, and Rowe had in a way fathered the sentimental novels.
But in tragedy their Isabellas and Calistas had no successors to rank with
Clarissa and Amelia. If tragedy through its alliance with sentiment failed
of permanent advance, it was still more unsuccessful in representing the
reasonableness, typicality, and austerity which the classical conception
required. It was half-hearted, turning now to Shakespeare, now to Voltaire,
but never producing anything not conventionalized and dull. The escapes
from its dullness remained until the very end of the century only
half-opened doors. Through the door opened by "Barnwell" and "The
Gamester," the drama saw only the broad path that led back to
sentimentality and overlooked the straight and narrow way leading to
realism and truth. Over the threshold that opened to medieval castles and
chambers of horrors it was still hesitating. The divorce between literature
and the stage had widened, and tragedy failed to attract genius to its
rescue. Crabbe did not write a tragedy of the village, and Burns did not
summon poetry and passion to the stage.
NOTE ON BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ward's _History of Dramatic Literature_ ends with the death of Queen Anne;
and there is no adequate history of the English drama for the last two
centuries, and no good bibliography. Genest continues to be the main source
of information. Lowe's _Bibliographical Account_ and the histories of the
theatre noted in the last chapter are useful for the matter of the present.
In addition, _The History and Illustration of the London Theatres_, by
Chas. Dibdin, Jr. (1826); Victor's _History of the Theatres of London and
Dublin_ (1761); W. C. Dalton's _History of the Theatres_, 1771-95; and _The
Dramatic Censor_ (1770) become available for this period. A large number of
memoirs of actors also supply information in regard to the drama. _An
Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian, written by himself_
(1750), reviews the Restoration period as well. Others of interest are:
Davies's _Memoirs of Garrick_ (1780); Murphy's _Life of Garrick_ (1801);
Boaden's _Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons_ (1827) and _Memoirs of Kemble_ (1825);
Cumberland's _Memoir_ (1806); Mudford's _Critical Examination of the
Writings of Richard Cumberland_, etc. (1812); Boaden's _Memoirs of Mrs.
Inchbald_ (1833); _Private Correspondence of David Garrick_ (1831-32);
Holcroft's _Memoirs_, ed. by Hazlitt (1816); Cooke's _Memoirs of Charles
Macklin_ (2d ed., 1808).
The plays by authors of note can be found in the collected editions of
their works, the more popular plays in the various collections noted in the
last chapter. The majority of the tragedies, however, have never been
reprinted and can be obtained only in the original editions. Dramatic
criticism of the period can be studied in various essays by Addison,
Steele, Gildon, Dennis, and Dr. Johnson, especially his Preface to the
edition of Shakespeare and his _Lives of the Poets_. Lord Kames's _Elements
of Criticism_ (1762) was highly approved in its own day; and several essays
on tragedy are of historical interest: William Guthrie's _Essay on Tragedy_
(1747); Mrs. Montagu's _Essay on the Genius and Writing of Shakespeare_
(1769); Edwin Taylor's _Cursory Remarks on Tragedy_ (1774); William Cook's
_Elements of Dramatic Criticism_ (1775); and Hodson's _Observations on
Tragedy_, prefixed to his tragedy _Zoraida_ (1780).
Beljame's _Le Public et les Hommes de Lettres en Angleterre_ bears on this
as on the preceding chapter. Voltaire's influence on English tragedy has
never been fully studied, but the following recent books bear on his
relations with England: A. Ballantyne's _Voltaire's Visit to England_
(1893); J. Churton Collins's _Bolingbroke, a historical study, and Voltaire
in England_ (1886); Lounsbury's _Shakespeare and Voltaire_ (1902), which
gives much information on the drama and criticism of the period and
sufficient directory to Voltaire's comment on the English drama; and
Jusserand's _Shakespeare en France_, which is also very valuable for this
period. Miss Canfield's study of _Corneille and Racine in England_ is also
of marked service; and L. Morel's _James Thomson_ (Paris, 1895) gives a
very full study of Thomson's plays and literary relations. The
_Belles-Lettres Series_ contains editions with introductions of plays of
Rowe, ed. Miss Sophie Hart; and of Lillo, ed. A. W. Ward (1906). Dr. Ward's
introduction is particularly valuable for its sketch of the course of
domestic tragedy and sentimental comedy on the continent. From the notes in
these various studies, and from _La Litterature comparee, essai
bibliographique_, by Louis P. Betz, Strasbourg, 1904, direction can be had
to a number of monographs dealing with special phases of the relations
between the dramas of England and France, and, toward the end of the
century, between England and Germany.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] For comparisons of the two plays, see Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on the
Drama," Cumberland's _Observer_, Nos. 77, 78, 79; and Gifford's
introduction to his edition of Massinger.
[29] See _Corneille and Racine in England_. Dorothea Canfield. New York,
1904.
[30] Its only appearance on the stage recorded by Genest was in Capell's
adaptation, acted six times by Garrick in 1759.
[31] _Brutus_ (1734), _Zara_ (1736), _Alzira_ (1736), _Mahomet_ (1744),
_Merope_ (1749), _Orphan of China_ (1759), _Orestes_ (1769), _Almida_
(1771) (from _Tancrede_), _Semiramis_ (1776). See, also, Hoole's _Cyrus_
(1768), Cradock's _Zobeide_ (1771), Murphy's _Alzuma_ (1773), and Brooke's
_Imposter_ (1778), not acted.
[32] Professor Lounsbury seems mistaken in finding a "sudden cessation of
interest in Voltaire" after 1750. _Shakespere and Voltaire_, pp. 304, 305.
He neglects the later popularity of _The Orphan of China_ and the continued
popularity of plays earlier translated.
[33] _Le theatre anglais_ (1746-49) of Pierre de La Place contained in its
8 vols. synopses and partial translations of the following plays:
_Othello_, _3 Henry VI_, Richard III, Hamlet, _Macbeth_, _Cymbeline_,
_Julius Caesar_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, _Timon of Athens_, _Merry Wives of
Windsor_, _The Maid's Tragedy_, _Catiline_, _The Fair Penitent_, _Venice
Preserved_, _Aureng Zebe_, _The Mourning Bride_, _Tamerlane_, _Siege of
Damascus_ (by Hughes, 1720), _Busiris_, _Love for Love_, _The Innocent
Adultery_, _Cato_, _The Funeral_ (Steele, 1702). This list, in which it
will be noticed tragedy greatly predominates, represents fairly the English
taste of the time.
[34] Dr. Rundle, Letters, quoted by Morel, _James Thomson_, p. 82.
[35] _Gil Blas_, Book 4, "Le Mariage de vengeance."
[36] For various references to Thomson in Voltaire's Letters, see Morel,
_op. cit._ pp. 192-194; and a letter on the French translation of _Tancred
and Sigismunda_, p. 153.
[37] The following list includes all eighteenth century tragedies, not
mentioned in the text, that achieved any considerable popularity. These all
became stock plays, and most were acted in the nineteenth century. Hughes,
_Siege of Damascus_(1720); Fenton, _Mariamne_(1723); Jones, _Earl of Essex_
(1753), which superseded Banks's play as a stage favorite; Brown,
_Barbarossa_ (1754); Francklin, _Earl of Warwick_ (1766); Hartson,
_Countess of Salisbury_ (1767); Murphy, _Zenobia_ (1768), and _The Grecian
Daughter_ (1772), which gave a famous part, Euphrasia, to Mrs. Siddons and
later to Miss Fannie Kemble.
[38] The eighteenth century was not blind to the absurdities of its
tragedies, but made fun of them without stint. The number of burlesque
tragedies is large and includes: Gay's _What d'ye Call It_ (1715); Carey's
_Chrononhotonthologos_ (1734); Fielding's _Tom Thumb_ (1730); Foote's
_Tragedy a la Mode_ (1764); and Sheridan's _Critic_ (1779).
[39] Dedication to _The London Merchant_.
[40] Dedication to _The London Merchant_.
[41] Translated into English as _Dorval, or the Test of Virtue_(1767).
[42] Translated 1770, and as _A Family Picture_ (1781). Also, cf. General
Burgoyne's _Heiress_ (1786), which borrows from _Le Pere de Famille_, and
Holcroft's _Love's Frailties_ (1794), based on a German adaptation.
[43] Criticised in _The Critical Review_, lv, 151, because of its
introduction of a comic character.
[44] The elder Colman was a leader in this revival. Besides the few
comedies which remained on the stock list and "Philaster," which was
frequently acted at this time, the following Elizabethan plays were revived
in the decade 1778-88: _Bonduca_, _Bondman_, _City Madam_, _Duke of Milan_,
_Knight of Malta_, _A King and No King_, _Marcella_ (based on _The
Changeling_), _Maid of Honor_, _The Picture_, _The Pilgrim_, _Scornful
Lady_ (altered as _The Capricious Lady_), _Triumph of Honor_, _Women
Pleased_.