“Queen of Saba” that was not equaled by his “Merlin,” produced in 1886,
or his “Prisoner of War,” produced in 1899.
To return to the great leader of opera—Verdi—one may say of him that
his operas are divided into three periods. The first included the
works written in the old Neapolitan style as he had found it. To this
class belong “Nabucco,” “Attila,” et cetera. To the second period,
which shows remarkable dramatic color and beautiful melody, belong
“Rigoletto,” “Ernani,” and “Ballo in Maschera” (in which Verdi began
to pay attention to his instrumentation). To the third period belongs
“Aïda,” which is his most characteristic and remarkable opera, in which
the melody is wonderfully fresh and beautiful, combined with remarkable
science.
[Illustration: EDWIN FORREST.]
“Otello” is also a great work, written at a time of life when most
composers retire, and broadly dramatic in its treatment of the
situations, illuminated by rich and expressive instrumentation.
As for “Falstaff,” the latest opera that Verdi has written, and
probably the last he will write, it is the greatest modern comic opera,
just as Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro” is the greatest comic opera of the
past. It convinces the world that Verdi’s genius is inexhaustible.
Next to Verdi comes Wagner, the anarchist of music, who began in
“Rienzi” and “The Flying Dutchman” by imitating the Italian forms of
melody. In “Tannhäuser,” portions are very beautiful and melodious;
in “Lohengrin,” portions are fine; but Wagner’s idea of effect was
bad and he never knew when to stop, so that many of the scenes are
interminable. This fault increased as Wagner composed the “Nibelungen”
series for the crazy king of Bavaria. Melody vanished, the singers
became secondary to the orchestra, which was persistently noisy.
Wagner’s effort was to create a new school of opera, in which
everything should be minutely descriptive. He went too far and opened
the question of failure. In opera the voices claim the first place,
and the orchestra is an accompaniment, so that Wagner’s method was
radically wrong.
Independent of this, he attempted to infuse life into the “Nibelungen”
series, whereas he adopted a tangled and childish fairy-story that
was more absurd than impressive. The later Wagner operas, which the
composer calls “music dramas,” are tiresome and monotonous to such a
degree that, with all the remarkable talent of Wagner, they may never
become popular, and may be eventually laid on the shelf, to be regarded
in the future as musical curios.
The musicians of the United States are steadily developing, and for
so young a country we have a large number of composers of first-class
ability, such as Macdowell, Foote, Lang, Chadwick, Gilchrist, and many
others who have produced important compositions.
In opera the American composers have done nothing, for the reason that
there are no opportunities for the production of such works. If there
were, we should soon have many operatic composers, and should speedily
take high rank in the lyric drama.
II. DRAMA.
[Illustration: CHARLOTTE SAUNDERS CUSHMAN.]
The theatre of the latter part of the century shows a remarkable
advance, in certain respects, over the theatre of the past, which
consisted of a “star,” an inferior company, poor scenery and
appointments, et cetera; whereas to-day there are many more really
good actors and actresses, the theatres are far more comfortable and
artistic, the scenery, costumes and details are beautiful and correct.
We have no Mrs. Siddons, no Kemble, no Rachel, no Talma; but we are
confident that the actors and actresses of to-day are like the theatre
of to-day,—they have more finish, and the results, while they may not
rise to the plane of the school of Shakespeare, are nearer nature than
they have ever been.
The school of declamation, which belonged to the plays of the past,
is the severest loss the stage of to-day has felt. The actors and
actresses fail in elocution. They do not know where to put their
emphasis. They seem lost when they appear in costume, and Shakespeare
to-day has no distinguished exponents.
The English-speaking stage of the century has been adorned by such
eloquent interpreters and powerful tragedians as Edwin Forrest,
Charlotte Cushman, Edwin Booth, and Henry Irving. But this illustrious
roll has been almost extinguished by death; and, especially if applied
to America, the question may well be asked, where is the actor or
actress who can play Hamlet, or Macbeth, or King Lear, or Shylock as we
were wont to see them rendered by those masters of the dramatic art, or
as they should be rendered? Salvini and Rossi have both passed away.
Irving verges on retiracy. Of the great dramatic actresses left to the
closing of the century, Mme. Sarah Bernhardt stands preëminent. The day
of the imposing declamatory drama seems to have lost its lustre at the
sunset of the century.
[Illustration: SCENE FROM SHAKESPEARE’S PLAY OF “ROMEO AND JULIET.”]
But the modern dramas and comedies are acted, even in the smaller
parts, with admirable intelligence and effect, and we may add that the
vice that disgraced the stage of the past is by no means so visible in
the theatre of the present.
The coarseness that clung so long to the theatre is gradually
disappearing, and the theatre-goers of to-day have discovered that the
theatre, which was created to entertain the world, can do so without
recourse to vulgarity.
The theatres of the United States are the handsomest and most
convenient in the world. This Mme. Sarah Bernhardt acknowledged the
other day, while criticising the theatres of Paris, which lack many
conveniences.
Up to within twenty-five years of the close of the century, plays
written by American authors were rare. Managers had to rely upon those
composed in Europe. But at present the United States possesses many
able and successful playwrights, just as it does its artists in all
departments. There has not been a time during the century when the
personal character of actors and actresses has escaped discussion, and
sometimes violent criticism, by those prejudiced against the theatre.
This does not seem to have lessened the estimation in which dramatic
art is held, nor to have seriously diminished in number the legion
who find in the drama their most pleasurable recreation and keenest
intellectual delight. In answer to challenges of the morality of the
stage, Bronson Howard has fittingly said: “I have never yet seen
anybody who wanted a bad picture just because it was painted by a good
man. It is society that corrupts the stage, not the stage that corrupts
society.”
THE CENTURY’S LITERATURE
BY JAMES P. BOYD, A.M., L.B.
In contrasting the world’s nineteenth century literature with that of
the eighteenth, one is impressed with the many remarkable differences.
But by no means all of such differences are to the discredit of the
older literature. As instances, the prose literature of the nineteenth
century may not surpass that of the eighteenth in elegance and
accuracy of expression, though its progress has been very marked in
the diversity of its applications to mental needs; and the poetical
literature of the nineteenth century may not excel that of the
eighteenth in beauty and virility, though it has advanced in loftiness
of theme and tenderness of mode. And so, when literature is divided
into its many minor branches, as history, philosophy, the sciences,
etc., various features of the old compare favorably with the new.
It is in its general tone and universal aptitude that the literature
of the nineteenth century stands out preëminent. The wonderful
intellectual activity of the century has been, as it were, compelled
to go forth along literary lines quite parallel with those that
distinguish other fields of activity. This may have had a tendency in
some instances to rob the century’s literature of some of the sweetly
imaginative elements, and to harden it in some of its essential forms,
but the process was necessary to secure for it just that quality which
would best meet a progressive demand. As the drift of human energy
was toward the practical, so the dominant literary thought took on
the form of direct and exact expression. There was less and less room
for the indulgence of literary foible or speculative whimsicality.
Even where elegance of style met with occasional sacrifice, it was
more than compensated by that general rise in literary tone which
has characterized the century. Literature could not be untruthful
amid active inquiry and scientific progress. It must reflect, more
accurately than ever before, its birth inspirations and its legitimate
uses. It must keep even pace with the demands for it. A world crying
for intellectual bread could not be put off with an antiquated stone.
Without closer analysis, the above is true of the literature of all
reading and writing peoples who have kept touch with the century’s
progress. But it is especially true in the literature of English
speaking peoples. History has, in accordance with a growing spirit of
research, become more truthful, philosophy more expressive, and science
more exact. The outcrop of books shows the yearnings of the century,
not only as to their number but as to theme and treatment. Authors have
multiplied as during no other world’s era, and the proportion of those
who have attained permanent distinction was never larger.
“German literature,” says Professor Ford, in “Self Culture” for
February, 1899, “has had its measure of ups and downs, but its first
age was its golden age. From the beginning of the century to the
present day is a far cry in German letters. Romanticism, idealism,
realism—the Fatherland has lived through them all. And for what? In
a land of scholars no great philosopher; among hosts of verse-makers
no great poet; among innumerable story-writers, not one who has become
known over a continent.
[Illustration: GEORGE BANCROFT.]
“Still these last years in Germany have not been without some good work
done, though often achieved under the spur of wrong ideals and improper
motives. From the days of ’48, when Young Germany felt for the first
time the seductive charm of revolutionism, a new feeling has possessed
German literature—a feeling that the past is past and out of date,
potent once but potent no longer, and that the new age of man demands
new principles, new ideals, a new faith. And so the modern literature,
particularly so since 1870, has been marked by iconoclasm and startling
innovation; it has discarded sentiment and line writing, and made a
plea for scientific methods, with the privilege of exhibiting exact,
scientific results. Crimes, disease, and grinning skeletons have
been dragged forth to the public gaze, for art is no longer art that
portrays the ideal and not the true. Such, in short, is the creed by
which the realistic or naturalistic school has thought to overthrow
the old, conventional, and frivolous, to foster the spirit of the new
nationality, and prepare a balm for the wounds of the poor.
“Two men stand to-day as leaders of this new movement,—Hermann
Sudermann and Gerhardt Hauptmann,—the most commanding figures in
contemporaneous German literature.”
During the nineteenth century the United States took a high and firm
place in the domain of literature, and, it may be said, has evolved
a literature that in scope and style is peculiar to her institutions
and environment. Her array of authors, both in number and reputation,
compares favorably with that of countries boasting of a thousand years
of literary domination, and her literature is as diversified and
practical as her activities. Among the many illustrious historians of
the century she numbers her Bancroft, her Hildreth, her Prescott, her
Motley, worthy counterparts of England’s Lingard, Hallam, Macaulay,
Buckle, and Kinglake. Among her poets are Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant,
Lowell, Halleck, fit companions of Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth,
Scott, Swinburne. Among her novelists are Cooper, Hawthorne, Stowe,
worthy congeners of Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot. And so, the
comparison holds in travel, philosophy, theology, law, and science.
If in dramatic literature the United States has, during the century,
produced few authors of permanent reputation, and perhaps none to be
compared with Knowles, Boucicault, Taylor, and Robertson, of the Old
World, nevertheless it cannot be said of these that their plays have
had more than a stage value. The drama of the century in following
the demand for artistic and commercial results has sustained only in
part the reputation of its literature. But in lieu of this partial
decadence, there have sprung up new branches of literature which are,
in a measure, compensatory. Among these are the critical literature
of arts and design, the literature of philology, or of language, and
the literature of political and social science. To these must be added
two other kinds or classes of literature which, if not peculiar to the
century, have yet found in it their most surprising evolution, greatest
glory, and widest influence. These are the literature of the newspaper
and magazine, as distinguished from that of the book.
[Illustration: JOHN G. WHITTIER.]
But before making further mention of these, let us read somewhat of New
World literature as viewed from a critical English standpoint. Says
the critic, “English critics are apt to bear down on the writers and
thinkers of the New World with a sort of aristocratic hauteur; they
are perpetually reminding them of their immaturity and their disregard
of the golden mean. Americans, on the other hand, are hard to please.
Ordinary men among them are as sensitive to foreign censure as the
_irritable genius_ of other lands. Mr. Emerson is permitted to impress
home truths on his countrymen, as ‘Your American eagle is very well;
but beware of the American peacock.’ Such remarks are not permitted to
Englishmen. If they point to any flaws in transatlantic manners or ways
of thinking with an effort after politeness, it is ‘the good-natured
cynicism of well-to-do age;’ if they commend transatlantic institutions
or achievements, it is, according to Mr. Lowell, ‘with that pleasant
European air of self-compliment in condescending to be pleased by
American merit which we find so conciliating.’
“Now that the United States have reached their full majority, it is
time that England should cease to assume the attitude of guardian,
and time that they should be on the alert to resent the assumption.
Foremost among the more attractive features of transatlantic [American]
literature is its _freshness_. The authority which is the guide of old
nations constantly threatens to become tyrannical; they wear their
traditions like a chain; and, in canonization of laws of taste, the
creative laws are depressed. Even in England we write under fixed
conditions; with the fear of critics before our eyes, we are all bound
to cast our ideas into similar moulds, and the name of ‘free thinker’
has grown to a term of reproach. Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ is
perhaps the last English book written without a thought of being
reviewed. There is a gain in the habit of self-restraint fostered by
this state of things; but there is a loss in the consequent lack of
spontaneity; and we may learn something from a literature that is ever
ready for adventures. In America the love of uniformity gives place
to impetuous impulses; the most extreme sentiments are made audible,
the most noxious ‘have their day and cease to be;’ and the truth being
left to vindicate itself, the overthrow of error, though more gradual,
may at last prove more complete. A New England poet can write with
confidence of his country as the land
“‘Where no one suffers loss or bleeds
For thoughts that men calls heresies.’
[Illustration: ALFRED TENNYSON.]
“Another feature of American literature is _comprehensiveness_. What it
has lost in depth it has gained in breadth. Addressing a vast audience,
it appeals to universal sympathies. In the Northern States, where
comparatively few have leisure to write well, almost every man, woman,
and child can read, and does read. Books are to be found in every
log-hut, and public questions are discussed by every scavenger. During
the Civil War, when the Lowell factory-girls were writing verses, the
‘Biglow Papers’ were being recited in every smithy. The consequence is,
that, setting aside the newspapers, there is little that is sectional
in the popular religion or literature; it exalts and despises no
class, and almost wholly ignores the lines that in other countries
divide the upper ten thousand and the lower ten million. Where manners
make men, the people are proud of their peerage, but they blush for
their boors. In the New World there are no ‘Grand Seigniors’ and no
human vegetables; and if there are fewer giants, there are also fewer
manikins. American poets recognize no essential distinction between
the ‘village blacksmith’ and the ‘caste of Vere de Vere.’ Burns speaks
for the one; Byron and Tennyson for the other; Longfellow, to the
extent of his genius, for both. The same spirit which glorifies labor
denounces every form of despotism but that of the multitude. Freed of
the excesses due to wide license, and restrained by the good taste and
culture of her nobler minds, we may anticipate for the literature of
America, under the mellowing influences of time, an illustrious future.”
In treating of newspaper literature, one cannot proceed without
blending its origin, style and aims with the business enterprise
that cultivates and supports it. And this may be done all the more
cheerfully and properly, for the reason that there is no history
more interesting than that of the evolution of the newspaper, and no
consummation of mental and physical energy that places the nineteenth
century in more vivid contrast with preceding centuries.
[Illustration: HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.]
For the fatherhood of the newspaper we have to travel to a land and
date calculated to rob modern civilization of some of its boastfulness.
The oldest known newspaper is the “Tsing-Pao,” or “Peking News,”
mention of whose publication is made in Chinese annals as far back
as A. D. 713, when it was then, as now, the official chronicler of
the acts of the emperor, the doings of the court, and the reports of
ministers. It has appeared daily for nearly fourteen hundred years, in
the form of a yellow-covered magazine, some 3¾ by 7½ inches in size.
The pages number twenty-four, and are printed from wooden movable type.
Two editions are published, one on superior paper, for the Court and
upper classes; the other on inferior paper, for general readers. Its
editorship is in the Grand Council of State, which furnishes to scribes
or reporters the news deemed fit for publication. As an official organ,
it first finds circulation among the heads of provinces, and is by
them further distributed to patrons. This ancient purveyor of news
seems to have pretty fully gratified the Chinese taste for that kind
of literature; for even at the present day there are few newspapers
in the empire published in the native language. The few that have
sprung up are confined to the larger cities, as Shanghai, Hongkong, and
Peking, where they are liberally patronized. But their circulation and
influence do not extend far into the interior, owing to the lack of
postal facilities. The modern Chinese newspaper can hardly be called a
native enterprise. It grew out of the necessity for a literature and a
means of news communication which arose at the time the Chinese ports
were forced open to the world’s commerce. As a consequence, a majority
of the Chinese publications have found their inception in foreign
brains and capital, and remain under the management of foreigners. The
same is true of Japan, where the modern native newspaper practically
dates from the arrival of the foreigner. But by reason of their greater
mental and commercial activity, and the rapidity with which they
adjusted themselves to modern modes of civilization, the Japanese have
far outstripped the Chinese in their evolution of newspaper literature
and enterprise. Whereas, what may be called the first modern Japanese
newspaper was founded in 1872, there sprang up in the following twenty
years the almost incredible number of 648 newspapers and periodicals,
not only due to native capital and enterprise, but under native
control. This wonderful growth took place, too, in the face of the
severest code of press laws existing in any country.
In Europe, the earliest inklings of a newspaper literature consisted of
news pamphlets of infrequent and uncertain publication, and dependent
for circulation upon temporary demand. The earliest departure from
this stage was in Germany, in 1615, when the “Frankfurter Journal” was
organized as a weekly publication, for the purpose of “collecting
and circulating the news of the day.” Antwerp followed with a similar
enterprise in 1616. The first attempt to do likewise in Great Britain
was in 1622, when “The Weekly News” was founded in London. None
of these enterprises were by editors, in a modern sense, but by
stationers, in the line of their ordinary trade. They did not depend
for patronage on regular subscribers, but sold their publications on
the streets through the agency of hawkers, corresponding to our modern
newsboys, though they bore the classical name of “mercuries.”
The foundation of the first newspaper in France that attained
permanence and fame was in 1631. It was called the “Gazette de
France,” and owed its origin to a demand for mingled news and original
discussion. It was largely under the control of Richelieu, and, of
course, reflected his sentiments. In these beginnings of the newspaper,
we find little or no attempt at journalism, as now understood and
practiced; no promise and potency of a literature peculiar to newspaper
enterprise. The journalist had yet to come into being. He first
appeared as a writer of “news-letters,” generally from some capital,
or seat of legislation, or commercial centre. His duty was to keep a
line of masters or patrons supplied with news during their absence from
court, legislative hall, or business mart. His duty evolved into a
calling. His patrons became regular paying subscribers, to each of whom
he wrote. These letters, coming from all countries of the continent
of Europe, and covering a wide field of information, became of great
interest, and many collections of them are still in existence in
libraries, adding no little to their historic value.
The step was easy from this journalistic stage to the regular periodic
publication, open not only to the “news-letter,” but to discursive
thought. Thus, in 1641, “The Weekly News,” of London, began the
publication of parliamentary proceedings in addition to its budget of
“news-letters.” This era witnessed a rapid establishment of weekly
newspapers, requiring editorial supervision and regular contributions.
They were not without their vicissitudes. Many of their careers were
brief and marked with pecuniary losses; yet out of the wreckage sprang
some of the most important of the modern journals.