Wagner's Theoretical Writings
Nothing probably has more tended to discredit Wagner's art with
thoughtful people than the statement sometimes made by his following
that he has created a new art. Wagner himself never made any such
claim. When he speaks of a new indigenous art of pure German growth,
he is merely contrasting it with the foreign art--Italian operas and
French plays--upon which Germans had lived hitherto. When an art, like
music or the drama, begins to flourish on a new soil, it is certain to
exhibit new features, to show new developments, so that with respect
to its external physiognomy it may in a sense be called new; but far
truer is the very opposite statement, that Wagner's art is as old as
art itself; its greatness lies not in any novelty of invention, but in
his having developed the old forms into something dreamed of by his
predecessors but never achieved before.
We often hear about Wagner's "theories," as if he had composed his
art-works in accordance with some theoretical scheme. After a fairly
close study of Wagner's writings extending over a great many years I
must confess my inability to say what his peculiar theories were. The
employment of music as an element of the dramatic expression was no
invention of Wagner. What he found out was how to maintain the
different elements, words, acting, music, in a natural relation to one
another in the drama. This is art, not theory; we learn it from his
works, not from his writings. It is true that Wagner's writings
contain many very interesting and valuable speculations on artistic
problems. If these are his theories, he must have abjured them the
moment that he set to work composing. In _Oper und Drama_, for
example, he has a very interesting discussion on the value of
consonants in the German language and on the characteristic difference
between the expression of the consonant and that of the vowel,
arriving at the conclusion that alliteration is better suited for the
German musical drama than the imported rime. Further, he shows--rather
convincingly, I think--that the true subject for the drama is
mythical. But not long after this he wrote _Tristan und Isolde_,
in which alliteration is generally discarded for rime or blank verse,
and a little later _Meistersinger_, which is a comedy of domestic
life, and has nothing to do with mythology. Then there are the
_Leitmotivs_ which are used so methodically in the _Ring_
that it would seem there must have been some preconceived system. But
Wagner never once mentions _Leitmotivs_ in his writings, nor did
he invent them. They have been dragged into the light by von Wolzogen,
and whatever theories we have about them are due to him, not to
Wagner.
There is indeed one doctrine which runs through all his writings, and
may be taken as their general text, namely, that art is not an
amusement but a serious undertaking, consequently that purity and
truthfulness are just as necessary in art as in actual life. It is no
excuse for the artist who deceives to say that his work is "only
poetry," and has no serious significance. He carried this exalted
notion of the mission of art almost to excess, if such a thing is
possible with so noble an idea, when he insisted upon art being a
matter of national concern. All the serious mistakes which he made in
his life, those acts which the sober judgment of his most ardent
admirers must condemn as ill-advised, sprang from his desire to
identify art with national life, for example, his part in the Saxon
revolution of 1849, his proceedings in Munich, in 1865,[7] his
attempts to influence Bismarck, etc.
[Footnote 7: See Note I. at the end of this chapter.]
Wagner's literary works are not easy reading; his German style, though
grammatical and idiomatic, is generally very involved and obscure,
often turgid. There is a want of self-discipline about the thought,
and he is too hasty in committing ill-digested thoughts ill-arranged
to print, while his style is full of tedious mannerisms, such as his
constant use of futile superlatives for positives, the constant
occurrence of certain words not always in their natural meaning, such
as _Bewusstsein_, _Erlösung_, etc. It is in marked contrast
to the lucid and finished workmanship of his dramatic and musical
composition. His dislike for theoretical exposition, and the
constraint under which he wrote are too manifest in his language.
Nevertheless, the reader who perseveres will be rewarded. The
fascination which Wagner's writings have for thinking minds is due to
the importance of the problems involved. As Dannreuther has observed,
wherever Wagner was brought to a stand a social problem lies buried;
the problems which engage his attention are those which lie at the
root of all art and all life. We may not always approve of the
solutions which he offers, but we cannot fail to be interested. And as
we travel on we gradually become aware of brilliant spots of verdure,
passages here and there--sometimes sudden flashes, sometimes whole
pages where the language and the thought are equally remarkable. What,
for example, could be more admirable than this description of Mozart?
His artistic nature was as the unruffled surface of
a clear watery mirror to which the lovely blossom of
Italian music inclined to see, to know, to love itself
therein. It was but the surface of a deep and infinite
sea of longing and desire rising from fathomless depths
to gain form and beauty from the gentle greeting of the
lovely flower bending, as if thirsting to discover
in him the secret of its own nature.[8]
Could any words give more concisely the peculiar character of the much
misunderstood Mozart, "the most delicate genius of light and love,"
"the most richly gifted of all musicians"? Does it not tell us more
than all the outpourings of Oulibichef?
[Footnote 8: _Ges. Schr._ (1872), iii. p. 304.]
Or this, in speaking of the formation of the opera and the demand for
better libretti after the period of Spontini?
The poet was ashamed to offer his master wooden
hobbies when he was able to mount a real steed and
knew quite well how to handle the bridle, to guide
the steed hither and thither in the well-trodden
riding-school of the opera. Without this musical
bridle neither musician nor poet would have dared to
mount him lest he should leap high over all the fences
away into his own wild and beautiful home in nature
itself.[9]
I must apologize for these extracts to those of my readers who are
able to follow the original, and I hope that others may yet feel
something of the warmth of Wagner's language even in the feeble shadow
of a very free paraphrase. Many more might be gathered from his works
to show how vivid and forcible was Wagner's prose when he once threw
off the restraint of cold logical reasoning. Other passages well
worthy of perusal as specimens of his better style are the description
of the theatrical sunset in _le Prophète_, and especially the
admirably worked-out metaphor of the _Volkslied_ as a wild flower
in vol. iii. of his collected works, pp. 309 and 372 seq.
[Footnote 9: _Ges. Schr_., iii, p. 298.]
Very different views have been expressed about Wagner in his capacity
of philosopher. To some he appears as a verbose dilettante totally
unable to put two ideas logically together, while others look up to
him as a teacher of the profoundest truths. I cannot say that either
view is wrong. On the one hand he possessed the deep insight which is
the first qualification for a philosopher, but is found in so few; on
the other he lacked the patience to express himself logically, feeling
that in his art he wielded a far more powerful means of persuasion
than logic. Those who persevere in studying his writings until they
master what he really was aiming at cannot fail at last to admit that
as philosopher he is at least suggestive, as art-critic he is amongst
the very first of all times, worthy of a place beside Plato,[10]
Lessing, Ruskin.
[Footnote 10: See Note II. at end of this chapter.]
A critical discussion of only the more important of the problems
raised by Wagner would require not one volume but several. For the
purpose of this book, which is only to help readers in understanding
his works, I must confine myself to the one which directly bears upon
his artistic production, namely, that of the organic union of all the
arts into one supreme art, which as their crown and completion may be
designated "art," as a universal, in distinction from the separate
individual "arts." Such art, [Greek: kat' e'xochaen], can only be the
drama, which already holds a position of its own above all the other
arts from the fact that these only _depict_ or _describe_
while the drama _represents_; its characters actually enact the
events to be expressed, whence the expression is marked by a
directness and vividness not possible to the other arts. The natural
tendency which different arts show to unite and support each other is
evident in many familiar phenomena, as, for example, illustrated
books. Lessing, in his luminous essay, has traced the limits of the
arts of depicting (painting and sculpture) and of describing (poetry).
Painting with him is the art of rest, poetry that of movement.
Wagner's theory asserts that each art, when it reaches its natural
limits, tends to call in the help of another art to express what lies
beyond its own domain. If the two are able to coalesce so as to become
organically one, it will be found that the expressive power of each
has been enormously enhanced by the union, just as the union of a man
with a woman in marriage enhances the value of each for the community.
With Lessing painting and sculpture are determined by the law of
beauty (_Schönheit_); poetry is the wider art, including all the
elements of painting, but not bound by the same restrictions. Who can
forget his fine contrast of the howling Philoktetes in _Sophokles_ with
the gently sighing Laokoon, both in mortal agony, but the latter unable
to express his pain because, being in marble, he dared not distort his
countenance? With Wagner the notion of beauty (_Schönheit_)[11]
belongs by its very definition exclusively to the arts that address the
sense of sight, painting and sculpture, and from them it has been
transferred to music, but as a metaphor only. To speak literally of
"beautiful music" would be a contradiction in terms.
[Footnote 11: It should be noted that the German and English words,
having a totally different origin, differ somewhat in meaning.
"_Schönheit_" comes from "_schauen_," and has therefore
reference to the sense of sight, while "beauty" is from the root of
_bene_, _bonus_, and was originally a moral conception, not
a sensual one at all. In modern language the meaning of the two words
is practically identical, but the distinction is very important for
the understanding of Wagner. _Schönheit_ with him means
_sensual_ beauty.]
The one aim of dramatic technique must always be to obtain the utmost
clearness, truthfulness, and completeness of _expression_. I must
confess that many years ago, when I first began the study of Wagner,
filled with the enthusiastic Hellenism of Schiller, I was not a little
startled at Wagner's apparent insistence upon truthful expression at
the expense of beauty, and could not but feel that it was contradicted
by every movement of his music. No doubt many others have felt the
same hesitation; but there really is no cause for alarm. Wagner's is
the true doctrine. Let us turn for a moment to another art, that of
architecture, where the line of demarcation between decoration and
construction is easy to recognize. Wagner's position, if applied to
architecture, would be that the builder has only to consider how to
construct in the best possible way to attain the purpose for which the
building is intended, and elegance of external appearance must be
subservient to that. If he do this skilfully, so that every part is
seen to unite harmoniously with all the others to form an organic
whole, there will emerge quite of itself a gracefulness, an artistic
beauty, founded in truth, which are high above all intentionally
constructed decoration. It is the beauty and truth of nature, that of
adaptation to an end. There is no question of sacrificing euphony,
melody, or anything at all; on the contrary, the doctrine declares
that by right adaptation the expressive power and beauty of every part
will be enhanced. The notion that Wagner's music is unmelodious had
its origin in the bad musical ears of his early critics.
The arts of design, i.e. painting, sculpture, and the kindred arts,
are in space alone, and movement is excluded from them. The arts of
expression, gesture, poetry, and music are all arts of movement in
time. The first named, therefore, must necessarily take external
beauty (_Schönheit_) as their sole guide and must confine their
attention exclusively to the superficial appearance of the objects
they imitate. They can only arrive at the inner character indirectly,
through its external manifestation, and in the hands of an inferior
artist the step is an easy one to pretence and falsehood. Defective
construction can easily be hidden beneath an outer covering of
graceful forms which distract the eye from noticing the weakness and
falsehood beneath. We need only look around us at the decoration of
any modern drawing-room to find gross examples of such perversion of
art. This explains Wagner's mistrust--noticeable especially in his
earlier writings--of the arts of design with their principle of
beauty. An artist who possesses true poetic inspiration will be in no
danger of falling into errors of this kind; with him external beauty
is expression of inner goodness, as it is in nature, who never covers
up defects by external ornament.
We have therefore to recognize two distinct kinds of beauty in art,
two kinds of pleasure that we experience: external, with which
painting and sculpture are alone directly concerned--beauty in the
narrow sense; and inner or organic. Wagner has expressed it in a
sentence which defies even a free translation. Speaking of the lovely
melodies of the Italian opera he says: "_Nicht das schlagende Herz
der Nachtigall begriff man, sondern nur ihren Kehlschlag_." Men
cared only for the pleasing sound of the nightingale's voice, nothing
for the beating heart from which it sprang.
We are now able to understand his famous doctrine that the drama is
the end, music the means, and therefore secondary. In the Italian
opera the relation was reversed; music was made the end, the drama
being only a vehicle for the music. This is dramatically wrong, and
has led to a false and unnatural form of art; in the drama music can
only be a means of dramatic expression.
It is necessary here to enter a caution against a very serious
misunderstanding into which many of Wagner's critics have fallen, a
misunderstanding very natural to those who look upon the drama as a
literary production. It has been supposed that Wagner intended to
subordinate the music to the poetry, as if the function of music were
to illustrate and vivify the more definite thought contained in the
words. This view has been held by many critics, from Aristotle
onwards. It was the view of Gluck, and will be found formulated in the
_épître dédicatoire_ prefixed to his _Alceste_. Wagner's theory is
essentially different and is peculiarly his own. With him the _drama_
denotes, not the text-book, but the actual performance on the stage,
in which there are three co-ordinate elements, acting, words, and
music, not one of which is subordinate to the others, but all of equal
value, expressing different sides of the dramatic subject-matter. Of
the inability of words in themselves to inspire music, he is very
emphatic: "No verses of a poet, not even of a Goethe or a Schiller,
can determine the music. The drama alone can do this, i.e. not the
dramatic poem, but the actual drama as it moves before our eyes as
the visible counterpart of the music."
In order to be effective the union of the three elements must be
_organic_, and I must now explain what is meant. When we speak of
a work of art as an _organism_ we mean that the different parts
of which it is composed co-operate together towards the purpose of the
whole in such a way that not one of them is superfluous or could be
dispensed with. It resembles in this respect the products of nature,
and life, which is only a complex form of organized activity. In the
higher natural products, especially those we speak of as
_living_, the single parts are not dead weights, but are
themselves organisms, containing within them individual and complete
systems of living forces, acting independently, and at the same time,
as subordinate units contributing to the purpose of the whole, so that
shortly we may say that, as each part is conditioned by the whole, so
the whole is conditioned by the single parts. When a person loses a
limb, and has it replaced by an artificial one, his first impression
is of the enormous weight of the new limb, although it may only weigh
about a quarter of the old one. This is explained by the fact that the
new limb is a dead weight, whereas the former one was a living
organism. That is to say, when he lifted it, the nervous impulses
transmitted from the brain were sustained and enforced by forces
within the limb itself; being alive it _helped_ in the effort,
whereas the mechanical limb, however perfect its adaptation, will
always remain a piece of dead mechanism, a separate thing from the
body to which it is attached and simply opposing its own inertia to
the nervous effort.
In the _mechanical_ joining together of parts, each remains
isolated; if one be abstracted the others remain as they were, while
in an _organic_ union they combine to a whole, and if one be
withdrawn the whole is destroyed, or at least vitally impaired. This
furnishes us with a criterion for the technical construction of every
work of art, whatever it be; each single part must contribute its
share towards the whole; there must be nothing superfluous. The work
has an idea to express; if we find (in a drama, for example) that no
scene, no single speech even, or sentence, can be omitted without
impairing the work as a whole, and weakening its expression, then the
work is technically as perfect as it can possibly be made; its value
will then depend only on that of the idea to be expressed.
Now let us turn to Wagner's criticism of the sunrise scene in _le
Prophète_, which I mentioned a few pages back, in the first part of
_Oper und Drama_.[12] Here was a unique opportunity for a great
dramatic artist. After the representation, not unskilfully contrived,
of the victorious career of a young and aspiring hero, in the supreme
moment of his destiny, the sun rises, adding its glory to his triumph,
as if the very heavens were shedding their blessing upon the deeds of
a noble man;--so it might have been. But Meyerbeer and Scribe care
nothing for that; such is not the effect either felt by the audience
or intended by the poet. The latter had nothing higher in his mind
than a grand spectacular effect, which may be omitted without the rest
of the drama being any the worse, and the result is in the worst sense
theatrical, but not poetic--"effect without a cause."
[Footnote 12: _Ges. Schr., iii, p. 372.]
Compare with this the scene in the third act of _Parsifal_. The
verdant landscape is here no mere theatrical decoration; if it were,
we should scarcely go into a theatre to see what can be seen in far
greater perfection in any green place on a spring morning. It is the
dramatic representation of an idea perhaps suggested to Wagner by
Goethe's _Faust_, but as old as Christianity itself. The task is
achieved; the spear has been regained, and all nature smiling in its
flowery robes rejoices in the redemption of that Easter morning; even
the withered flower-maidens add their strains to the universal chorus.
How is such a miracle possible? Only by music in organic union with
the dramatic situation. Persuasive as a living person it is able to
carry us into realms far beyond those of language and reason, to the
realm of wonder. The decorations of the Grand Opéra are as artificial
and mechanical as modern dress; they are imposed by the fashion of the
day, the caprice of the luxurious, and stand in no relation to the
body to which they are fitted.[13]
[Footnote 13: Those who are interested in the subject will find some
admirable observations in Lessing's _Hamburger Dramaturgie_,
11tes. and 12tes. Stück, where the critic compares the ghost of Ninus
in Voltaire's _Semiramis_ with the ghost in _Hamlet_. He
condemns the former because it is nothing more than a poetical
machine, while Shakespeare's is one of the persons of the drama. His
position is essentially the same as Wagner's.]
The loose construction of the Italian opera has at least one
advantage; it can be trimmed to suit the local exigencies of
performance. With the new drama this was impossible. Wagner's
insistent refusal to permit any mutilation of his work always appeared
to Intendants and Impresarii who were anxious to meet him halfway like
monstrous egotism. What Rossini and Meyerbeer had always consented to
without the smallest hesitation might, they thought, content a Richard
Wagner. The reports of the Intendants to their respective Governments,
of Lüttichau in the forties, of Royer in Paris in 1861, show how far
the authorities were from understanding the nature either of the work
which they were undertaking or of the man with whom they had to deal.
Rossini and Meyerbeer had never had any other aim than their own
personal success; with Wagner the integrity of his art was far above
all personal considerations. On this point no concession on the
composer's side was possible. You may take five shillings out of a
sovereign and there still remain fifteen shillings, but if you take a
wheel from a watch the whole mechanism is destroyed; it was just this
that distinguished his productions from operas, and in conceding the
principle that they might be trimmed he would have surrendered
everything.
It might seem superfluous to have dwelt so long upon a point which,
when clearly laid out, can scarcely be controverted, were it not that
it has been continually misunderstood, not only by nearly everybody at
the present day, but even by critics of the rank of Gluck, Goethe, and
Grillparzer. To speak either of music as enforcing the words or of the
words as forming a basis for musical expression is to place one of
them--in the former case music, in the latter the words--in an
inferior position towards the other, whereas they are organic parts of
the whole, and co-equals. Wherever either principle is adopted it will
result in that very looseness of construction which is the vital
infirmity of the Italian opera. And the poetry will be of the kind
fashionable with some literary people under the name "lines for
music," the principle of which seems to be Voltaire's: _Ce qui est
trop sot pour etre dit, on le chante_. Once the principle of
organic unity is conceded as the first and most vital condition of a
work of art, the rest of Wagner's doctrine follows directly. The
governing whole is the drama, the thing to be enacted in its actual
representation on the stage, and the different elements, gesture,
music, words, are the instruments of its expression, to be so
co-ordinated together that each shall express just that which it alone
is able to express and no more. The first outcome of the union when
rightly and skilfully effected is to impart the one quality which is
the final and only aim of all artistic technique--clearness of
expression. The new drama can represent not only higher ideas, but can
express them more intelligibly than that which uses words alone.
It will now perhaps be asked why these three particular arts and no
others have been selected for dramatic purposes. Because they are the
three ways in which all living beings utter their thoughts. They have
belonged together from the beginning, and still do so; they have
parted company for a time, but have never been divorced.
Before considering this it will be well for me to explain some terms
which I shall have to use in the following. Poetry has commonly been
divided into "lyric", "epic," and "dramatic"; these terms answer to
three different phases of expression. Lyric poetry is the purely
subjective emotion of the poet uttering itself in words. Epic poetry
on the other hand deals with things and people external to the poet.
The drama is, as we have seen, not poetry at all; the actors perform
the acts themselves, using words only to explain the reasons for their
acts; dramatic poetry therefore involves both lyric and epic elements.
The most primitive, most natural, and simplest means by which a living
being can utter itself is gesture--action. It is not necessary to
speculate on prehistoric conditions. We need only observe the world
around us, the behaviour of our friends and acquaintances,
particularly those of South-European blood, to recognize how direct
and eloquent is the expression of gesture. On the stage a simple
series of dramatic actions can be fully represented by gesture and
scenery alone with a very high intensity of emotional expression.
All movement in nature is rhythmic. I need not trouble my readers with
the evidences of a fact which is well known in science, but will refer
them to the lucid demonstration in Herbert Spencer's _First
Principles_, Pt. II., ch. 10.
Rhythmic gesture then, or dancing, is the most primitive art, and it
is purely lyric, i.e. subjective. It is very important to bear this
fact of dancing, of which acting is only a species, as the primitive
form of art before our minds. It is common to men and animals. I have
often wondered whether the extraordinary development of Wagner's
histrionic faculty did not stand in some mysterious relation to the
close sympathy which existed between him and that most consummate of
all actors--the dog.
The vital activity of the throat and vocal cords becomes sound; song
may therefore be considered as a peculiarly specialized form of
gesture, but with the radical difference that as a vehicle of
expression it addresses the ear, not the eye. The fact that it enters
the brain through a different channel gives the art of sound an
entirely different character from that of gesture proper; moreover,
from being in time only, not in space, it is apprehended more
immediately by the inner sense, and the impression received is more
intimate, more forcible. Still it retains the same lyric or subjective
character.
It was, I believe, Lord Monboddo who first observed that inarticulate
sound, music in its most primitive form, is the earliest form of
utterance, and is prior to language. Lord Monboddo's researches into
the origin and progress of language (1773) were valued so highly by
Herder that they were at his instance translated into German. The
conclusion at which he arrived, that the most primitive form of
utterance is not language but music, that language grew out of song
just as the art of writing grew out of picture-painting, is especially
valuable from the fact that it was afterwards adopted by Charles
Darwin.[14]
[Footnote 14: Descent of Man, Pt. III., ch. 19. The whole of that part
of the chapter may be read in this connection. Unfortunately, the
speculations are somewhat vitiated by the _idée fixe_ of modern
science that everything must be referred to "courtship." i.e.
sexuality.]
The "music" which Darwin and Lord Monboddo conceive as the vocal
expression of primitive man is of course not the highly-wrought
product which we now understand under that term; we may suppose it to
have been _rhythmic_ but not _metric_. It was nearer to the
cries of wild animals, and to some it may seem at first absurd to
describe such sounds as music at all. I do not think so; on the
contrary I find in the cries of some animals and many birds all the
essential qualities of music. They have tone, rhythm, cadence, in a
very high degree, and also melody, though vague and rudimentary. The
essential difference between melody and mere succession of sounds
consists in its being intelligible, that is, in its conforming to a
scale or musical scheme of some sort, but that scale is not
necessarily the one recognized in modern music. Our ears are so
accustomed to associate melody with a certain diatonic scale, and with
accompanying harmony, actual or potential, that it is very difficult
for us to comprehend as melody successions which do not conform to
that scheme, as, for example, the melodies of Oriental nations, the
scales of which are far more complex and difficult to understand than
ours. It is a very remarkable fact that while the course of evolution
is generally from simpler to more complex organisms, that of the
musical scale is just the reverse. Primitive scales are highly
complex, and involve intervals not appreciable by us as melody; with
time they gradually become simpler; and in the diatonic scale,
especially in its most modern developments, where the distinction
between major and minor tends to become effaced,[15] we seem to have
reached the limit, and the scale is reduced to the simplest possible
numerical relations. However this may be, I know that to a person who
has lived in close converse with nature and possesses a musical ear
the cries of wild animals and birds are full of melody in the strict
sense, though it is rudimentary and different from that of our
concert-rooms. And it is reasonable to suppose that man, when he first
emerged with far more highly organized faculties than any beast, would
gradually raise his musical expression into something higher,
something more melodious, than that of other creatures. Particularly
as his reason developed he would devise a scale; the rhythms would
become more definite and at the same time more varied and complex. The
result of these improvements would be to make his utterances more
intelligible.
[Footnote 15: Such is the deduction which I draw from recent theories
of harmony. See in this connection _Neue musikatische Theorien und
Phantasien_ (Stuttgart, 1906), § 40. Also Louis and Thuille,
_Harmonielehre_ (1908), especially Pt. I., ch. 6. The idea can be
traced back to Hauptmann.]
Helmholtz has observed that there is much more in a musical sound than
its mere _timbre_, and Wagner has noticed how every musical
instrument has not only its vowel sound, or _timbre_, but also
its peculiar consonant. We need not go so far as to connect the flute
with an "f," the trumpet with a "t," etc., since the instrumental
consonants need not conform exactly with those of the alphabet; it is
enough that each instrument has its own characteristic way of
attacking the tone. So we gain the idea of articulation; the point of
its entry into the musical expression marks the beginning of
_language_.
Hitherto the expression has been, as we have seen, purely lyric; the
lower animals have no other. But as man rises out of his bestial
condition and acquires reason his wants become more numerous and
diverse. The mere expression of his inner feelings no longer suffices;
he differentiates objects in the external world, and needs
sounds--names--to express them. For this he utilizes the newly
developed faculty of language. It is the most momentous crisis of his
development, the point where he becomes a human being, severed by a
wide gap from other animals, and incomparably above them. The mark of
language has from the first rightly been made the _crux_ of the
theory of the evolution of man; it is the natural inevitable outcome
of his developing the faculty of reason. Thus the need for
communicating the perceptions of external objects calls forth
_epic_ expression.[16]
[Footnote 16: "Auf das was vor mir steht zeige ich; was in mir vorgeht
drücke ich durch Töne und Gebehrden aus; was aber abwesend oder einst
geschah bedarf, wenn es vernehmlich werden soll einer zusammenhangend
geordneten Rede. So ward das Epos."--Herder, _Kalligone_.]
We may now lay down a scheme of the three fundamental vehicles of
human expression based on their historical development. We have
_Emotional or subjective:_
Gesture--obvious and material.
Music--warmer, deeper, and more spiritual.
_Rational or objective:_
Language.
But a warning must be added against pressing this classification
unduly. All schemes of nature are only approximate; there are no such
sharply divided compartments into which our notions may be
pigeon-holed. Language may of course be intensely emotional, but we
may notice that just in proportion as it becomes emotional it calls in
the aid of music; the voice becomes melodious, it develops rhythm,
accent, cadence, and ultimately becomes poetry, which is language
united with a large element of music.
Students of economic science have of recent years given attention to
ethnology, and their researches into the origin and primitive
characteristics of labour have brought to light some facts which are
very interesting to us. The familiar distinction between _work_
and _play_ has no root in nature. Animals do not look upon their
labours as a painful task, only to be endured for a time and then to
be rewarded by an interval of diversion; to the horse or the dog the
day's work is the day's treat; and so with those men whom we
contemptuously call "savages." It is the same with artists; no artist
has mastered the technique of his work until it has become a pleasure
and a plaything to him. There could not be a more significant comment
on the unnaturalness of a civilization in which periods of leisure for
the workman have to be wrung from the community by legislation. The
true workman, like the true artist, is never happy unless he is at
work; he needs no diversion.
Of the greatest interest to us are the results of the inquiries of
economists into the relations between work, rhythm, and song amongst
primitive people. Especially valuable is a treatise by Dr. Karl
Bucher, professor of national economy in Leipzig, entitled _Arbeit
und Rhythmus_, which ought to find many readers in England if it
were translated. I know few modern books that are more fascinating,
and it would be hard to say whether its charm lies more in its solid
scientific method or in its admirable literary presentation and apt
illustrations from the delicate verse-song of the most primitive
peoples.
"_Im Anfang war der Rhythmus_." According to Dr. Bücher, all
work, when efficient, tends to be rhythmic and each kind of work has
its peculiar rhythm. This is especially the case when the labour is
carried out in common by a number of people, and the rhythm is
embodied in a song, or rhythmic word of command sung by the leader.
Innumerable instances will at once occur to everybody--rowing,
hauling, marching, sewing, mowing, etc. In primitive people the
impulse to sing the rhythm is even more marked than it is among
ourselves, with whom the pressure of civilization helps to suppress
all natural expression of feeling, and the disturbance of so many
cross rhythms tends to obliterate the primary pulsations. The rhythm
is an essential part of the work, and not a mere ornamental adjunct;
people sing, not to "keep their spirits up," but to help on the work;
until the workman has acquired the rhythm he works imperfectly, and
tires very quickly. Those forms of work which do not admit rhythm,
such as adding figures, copying MSS., etc., are the most fatiguing.
Still more so is labour where the natural rhythm is subject to
frequent interruptions. Hence walking in the streets of a town is much
more wearying than walking in the country; you have to break the
rhythm at every few steps and never get the "swing." The constant
interruptions of rhythm by goods in shop-windows, advertisements,
etc., is, I am sure, largely the cause of nervous degeneracy in towns.
It cannot surprise us to find that amongst primitive people dancing is
the most universal occupation. All dance, dance to frenzy. Originally
the dance does not express joy or any other emotion; it is simply the
human impulse to activity, work, the most fundamental thing in human
nature. From the dance rhythm finds its way into music and poetry,
both being in the beginning intended to accompany dancing. One thing
is certain, that neither music nor the dance originated in sexuality.
Eroticism scarcely ever occurs in the poetry of primitive peoples. It
enters at a later stage.
It is not necessary to trace how, out of these primitive beginnings,
there grew the ancient drama of the more civilized countries, always
retaining the three elements from which it had sprung in closest
union. Speaking of the Indian drama in the time of the semi-mythical
Bharata, the Indian Thespis, Sir Monier Williams writes:
The drama of these early times was probably
nothing more than the Indian Nautch of the present
day. It was a species of rude pantomime, in which
dancing and movements of the body were accompanied
by mute gestures of the hands and face, or by singing
and music. _Subsequently dialogue was added_....
In Greece the early lyric epoch is represented by the Paians,
Dithyrambs, etc., at the festivals of Apollo and Dionysos, rhythmic
dances to accompaniment of cithara or flute, with words generally
improvised. Out of the Bacchic dithyrambs grew the tragedy. In the
works of the great Attic tragedians the chorus, or dance-song, which
had descended from earlier times still remained the principal feature
of the representation. It was the drama that crystallized out of the
music and dance, not the music that was called in to support or adorn
the drama. Not until the time of Euripides did the chorus become a
secondary element of the representation, and from this time on the
drama begins to decline, becoming more and more a literary product.
It would be a worthy undertaking for a competent student to set
himself the task of bringing order into the chaos of Wagner's
theoretical writings. They are crowded with thoughts of the deepest
import, which seem to point the way to further inquiry, but which
remain suggestions only. The most tiresome quality in Wagner's
literary style is that he scarcely ever comes to the point. Whenever
he asserts a rule in clear and unmistakable language, it is either
brought in almost parenthetically amidst a mass of rhetoric, or--as,
for example, in the dictum of music being a means to the dramatic
end--he treats it with scorn, as something too obvious to be stated.
In either case its chances of gaining the reader's attention are
seriously diminished by such wrong method. A student who should
undertake the task of ordering his thought would need to possess, in
addition to the highest musical and dramatic qualifications a
metaphysical habit of mind such as is rare at the present day, and a
sympathetic capacity for discerning the grains of golden truth amidst
the dross. He must construct anew. Wagner's theoretical edifice will
not stand as it is; it is too loosely jointed; but the materials are
valuable. That there will ever be a real science of aesthetics I do
not believe; art would cease to be art if it lost its mystery. For the
present at least we must be content to remain in darkness as to the
precise conditions of musical expression, and eschew theory. That
music does reveal the nature of things in a way different from words
can scarcely be questioned. So, too, does all nature through its
silent music reveal more than meets the senses. But we cannot say
exactly how or why. Enough that the divine reason whereby the world is
fashioned is not the same as our human reason, and will not be forced
into its forms.
NOTES
I
LUDWIG II. AND WAGNER
Although I have no intention of defending the extravagances of the
Wittelsbach kings and may say at once that my sympathies are entirely
with the patriotic citizens of Munich who in 1865 succeeded in turning
Wagner out of a position which he ought never to have held, it is only
fair to point out that even from the standpoint of material gain the
lavish expenditure of those art-loving princes has proved a splendid
investment, of which the results may now be seen. What is it that has
enabled Munich to double its population in about twenty years and has
raised it from being a rather sleepy old-fashioned German town to its
present flourishing condition and made it the most delightful capital
in Europe, a meeting-place for the cultured of every country of Europe
and America? What else but the art-collections and musical
performances? Had Wagner then succeeded in founding his art-school and
theatre, with Semper, the builder of Dresden, as his architect, and
his own supreme mind directing the whole, who can say what the result
might have been?
II
PLATO AS AN ART-CRITIC
I ought to say here that I find nothing more admirable in Plato than
his criticism of poetry, and I cannot understand the difficulties
which scholars find in his treatment of artists in the _Republic_
and elsewhere. After all, scholars have as a rule little experience of
any art that lies outside the narrow range of their own studies.
Plato's remarks appear to me the perfection of common sense. Would any
sane statesman, when devising such a revolutionary political scheme as
is contemplated in the _Republic_, not take the opportunity of
putting a bridle upon the mischievous vapourings of political poets,
reformers, dreamers, schemers, _et hoc genus omne_? It should
never be forgotten that the poet with the attractive fascination which
he possesses in his art is an enormous power in society, all the more
dangerous because his power is so subtle, and his doctrines not in
themselves untrue. Can it be doubted that our own Byrons and Shelleys,
with their frothy extravagances about freedom, have largely
contributed both to the socialism and to the libertinism with which
the politics of every nation in Europe are now infected? Even the
great Schiller was led astray by the false watchwords of his time, and
highly as I revere Goethe I cannot deny that the sensuality of his
poetry has had a most baneful influence upon modern Germany. Many more
might be named, and the subject is well worthy of fuller treatment.
With regard to Schiller, however, it ought to be explained that
"freedom" at that time in Germany meant only one thing, freedom from
the foreign tyrant--Napoleon.
Remember that it is not all poets whom Plato wishes to banish, not
those who feel the responsibility of their high calling, but only a
certain class. Nowadays poets do not slander the gods; it is not worth
their while, because nobody believes in the gods. They have other ways
of undermining society. Plato everywhere shows an unerring feeling for
art. Aristotle is a recorder and classifier, but no critic.