furnishes Shakspeare with another means of effect, which would be
impracticable in any other system. The poet who can take his
actors from all ranks of society, and place them in all
positions, may also bring every thing into action--that is to
say, may remain constantly dramatic. In "Julius Caesar," the
scene opens with a living picture of popular movements and
feelings; what explanation or conversation could make us so well
acquainted with the nature of the seductive influence exercised
by the Dictator over the Romans, of the kind of danger to which
liberty is exposed, and of the error, as well as the peril, of
the republicans who hope to restore liberty by the death of
Caesar? When Macbeth determines to get rid of Banquo, he has not
to inform us of his project in the person of a confidant, or to
receive an account of the execution of the deed in order to make
us aware of it: he sends for the assassins and converses with
them; we witness the artifices by which a tyrant renders the
passions and misfortunes of man subservient to his designs; and
we afterward see the murderers lie in wait for their victim,
strike the fatal blow, and return, with blood-stained hands, to
demand their reward. Banquo can then appear to us; the real
presence of crime has produced all its effect, and we reject none
of the terrors which accompany it.
{151}
When we desire to produce man upon the stage in all the energy of
his nature, it is not too much to summon to our aid man as a
whole, and to exhibit him under all the forms and in all the
positions of which his existence admits. Such a representation is
not merely more complete and striking, but it is also more
truthful and accurate. We deceive the mind with regard to an
event, if we present to it merely one salient part adorned with
the colors of truth, while the other part is rejected and effaced
in a conversation or a narrative. Thence results a false
impression which, in more than one instance, has injured the
effect of the finest works. "Athalie," that masterpiece of our
drama, still finds us imbued with a certain prejudice against
Joad and in favor of Athalie, whom we do not hate sufficiently to
rejoice in her destruction, and whom we do not fear enough to
approve the artifice which draws her into the snare. And yet
Athalie has not only massacred her son's children, in order that
she might reign in their stead; but she is a foreigner,
maintained on the throne by foreign troops; the enemy of the God
adored by her people, she insults and braves Him by the presence
and pomp of a foreign worship, while the national religion,
stripped of its power and honors, and clung to with fear and
trembling by only "a small number of zealous worshipers," daily
expects to fall a victim to the hatred of Mathan, the insolent
despotism of the queen, and the avidity of her base courtiers.
Here is, indeed, an exhibition of tyranny and misfortune; here is
matter enough to drive the people to revolt, and to lead to
conspiracies among the last defenders of their liberties.
{152}
And all these facts are related in the speeches of Joad, of
Abner, of Mathan, and even of Athalie herself. But they are
displayed in speeches only; all that we behold in action is Joad
conspiring with the means which his enemy still leaves at his
disposal, and the imposing grandeur of the character of Athalie.
The conspiracy is under our eyes; but we have only heard of
tyranny. If the action had revealed to us the evils which
oppression involves; if we had beheld Joad excited and stimulated
to revolt by the cries of the unhappy victims of the vexations of
the foreigner; if the patriotic and religious indignation of the
people against a power "lavish of the blood of the defenseless,"
had given legitimacy to Joad's conduct in our eyes--the action,
when thus completed, would leave no uncertainty in our minds; and
"Athalie" would perhaps present to us the ideal of dramatic
poetry, at least, according to our conception of it at the
present time.
Though easily attained among the Greeks, whose life and feelings
might be summed up in a few large and simple features, this ideal
did not present itself to modern nations under forms sufficiently
general and pure to receive the application of the rules laid
down in accordance with the ancient models. France, in order to
adopt them, was compelled to limit its field, in some sort, to
one corner of human existence. Our poets have employed all the
powers of genius to turn this narrow space to advantage; the
abysses of the heart have been sounded to their utmost depth, but
not in all their dimensions. Dramatic illusion has been sought at
its true source, but it has not been required to furnish all the
effects that might have been obtained from it. Shakspeare offers
to us a more fruitful and a vaster system. It would be a strange
mistake to suppose that he has discovered and brought to light
all its wealth.
{153}
When we embrace human destiny in all its aspects, and human
nature in all the conditions of man upon earth, we enter into
possession of an exhaustless treasure. It is the peculiar
advantage of such a system, that it escapes, by its extent, from
the dominion of any particular genius. We may discover its
principles in Shakspeare's works; but he was not fully acquainted
with them, nor did he always respect them. He should serve as an
example, not as a model. Some men, even of superior talent, have
attempted to write plays according to Shakspeare's taste, without
perceiving that they were deficient in one important
qualification for the task; and that was, to write as he did, to
write them for our age, just as Shakspeare's plays were written
for the age in which he lived. This is an enterprise, the
difficulties of which have hitherto, perhaps, been maturely
considered by no one. We have seen how much art and effort was
employed by Shakspeare to surmount those which are inherent in
his system. They are still greater in our times, and would unvail
themselves much more completely to the spirit of criticism which
now accompanies the boldest essays of genius. It is not only with
spectators of more fastidious taste, and of more idle and
inattentive imagination, that the poet would have to do, who
should venture to follow in Shakspeare's footsteps. He would be
called upon to give movement to personages embarrassed in much,
more complicated interests, pre-occupied with much more various
feelings, and subject to less simple habits of mind, and to less
decided tendencies. Neither science, nor reflection, nor the
scruples of conscience, nor the uncertainties of thought,
frequently encumber Shakspeare's heroes; doubt is of little use
among them, and the violence of their passions speedily transfers
their belief to the side of their desires, or sets their actions
above their belief.
{154}
Hamlet alone presents the confused spectacle of a mind formed by
the enlightenment of society, in conflict with a position
contrary to its laws; and he needs a supernatural apparition to
determine him to act, and a fortuitous event to accomplish his
project. If incessantly placed in an analogous position, the
personages of a tragedy conceived at the present day, according
to the romantic system, would offer us the same picture of
indecision. Ideas now crowd and intersect each other in the mind
of man, duties multiply in his conscience, and obstacles and
bonds around his life. Instead of those electric brains, prompt
to communicate the spark which they have received--instead of
those ardent and simple-minded men, whose projects, like
Macbeth's, "will to hand"--the world now presents to the poet
minds like Hamlet's, deep in the observation of those inward
conflicts which our classical system has derived from a state of
society more advanced than that of the time in which Shakspeare
lived. So many feelings, interests, and ideas, the necessary
consequences of modern civilization, might become, even in their
simplest form of expression, a troublesome burden, which it would
be difficult to carry through the rapid evolutions and bold
advances of the romantic system.
We must, however, satisfy every demand; success itself requires
it. The reason must be contented at the same time that the
imagination is occupied. The progress of taste, of enlightenment,
of society, and of mankind, must serve, not to diminish or
disturb our enjoyment, but to render them worthy of ourselves,
and capable of supplying the new wants which we have contracted.
Advance without rule and art in the romantic system, and you will
produce melodrames calculated to excite a passing emotion in the
multitude, but in the multitude alone, and for a few days; just
as, by dragging along without originality in the classical
system, you will satisfy only that cold literary class who are
acquainted with nothing in nature which is more important than
the interests of versification, or more imposing than the three
unities.
{155}
This is not the work of the poet who is called to power and
destined for glory; he acts upon a grander scale, and can address
the superior intellects, as well as the general and simple
faculties of all men. It is doubtless necessary that the crowd
should throng to behold those dramatic works of which you desire
to make a national spectacle; but do not hope to become national
if you do not unite in your festivities all those classes of
persons and minds whose well-arranged hierarchy raises a nation
to its loftiest dignity. Genius is bound to follow human nature
in all its developments; its strength consists in finding within
itself the means for constantly satisfying the whole of the
public. The same task is now imposed upon government and upon
poetry; both should exist for all, and suffice at once for the
wants of the masses and for the requirements of the most exalted
minds. Doubtless stopped in its course by these conditions, the
full severity of which will only be revealed to the talent that
can comply with them, dramatic art, even in England, where, under
the protection of Shakspeare, it would have liberty to attempt
any thing, scarcely ventures at the present day to endeavor
timidly to follow him. Meanwhile, England, France, and the whole
of Europe demand of the drama pleasures and emotions that can no
longer be supplied by the inanimate representation of a world
that has ceased to exist. The classical system had its origin in
the life of its time; that time has passed; its image subsists in
brilliant colors in its works, but can no more be reproduced.
{156}
Near the monuments of past ages, the monuments of another age are
now beginning to arise. What will be their form? I can not tell;
but the ground upon which their foundations may rest is already
perceptible. This ground is not the ground of Corneille and
Racine, nor is it that of Shakspeare; it is our own; but
Shakspeare's system, as it appears to me, may furnish the plans
according to which genius ought now to work. This system alone
includes all those social conditions and all those general or
diverse feelings, the simultaneous conjunction and activity of
which constitute for us, at the present day, the spectacle of
human things. Witnesses, during thirty years, of the greatest
revolutions of society, we shall no longer willingly confine the
movement of our mind within the narrow space of some family
event, or the agitations of a purely individual passion. The
nature and destiny of man have appeared to us under their most
striking and their simplest aspect, in all their extent and in
all their variableness. We require pictures in which this
spectacle is reproduced, in which man is displayed in his
completeness, and excites our entire sympathy. The moral
dispositions which impose this necessity upon poetry will not
change; but we shall see them, on the contrary, manifesting
themselves more plainly, and receiving greater development, day
by day. Interests, duties, and a movement common to all classes
of citizens, will strengthen among them that chain of habitual
relations with which all public feelings connect themselves.
Never could dramatic art have taken its subjects from an order of
ideas at once more popular and more elevated; never was the
connection between the most vulgar interests of man and the
principles upon which his highest destinies are dependent, more
clearly present to all minds; and the importance of an event may
now appear in its pettiest details as well as in its mightiest
results.
{157}
In this state of society, a new dramatic system ought to be
established. It should be liberal and free, but not without
principles and laws. It should establish itself like liberty, not
upon disorder and forgetfulness of every check, but upon rules
more severe and more difficult of observance, perhaps, than those
which are still enforced to maintain what is called order against
what is designated license.
{158}
{159}
Historical And Critical Notices
of the
Principal Dramas Of Shakspeare.
{160}
{161}
Romeo And Juliet.
(1595.)
Two powerful families of Verona, the Montecchi and the Capelletti
(the Montagues and Capulets), had long lived on terms of such
hostility to each other, that it had frequently led to sanguinary
conflicts in the open streets. Alberto della Scala, the second
perpetual captain of Verona, had ineffectually endeavored to
reconcile them; but he succeeded so far in bridling their enmity,
that "when they met," says Grirolamo della Corte, the historian
of Verona, "the younger men made way for their elders, and they
mutually exchanged salutations."
In the year 1303, under the reign of Bartolommeo della Scala, who
had been chosen perpetual captain on the death of his father
Alberto, Antonio Capelletto, the leader of his faction, gave a
great entertainment during the carnival, to which he invited most
of the nobility of Verona. Romeo Montecchio, who was about
twenty-one years of age, and one of the handsomest and most
amiable young men in the city, went thither in a mask,
accompanied by some of his friends. After some time, taking off
his mask, he sat down in a corner, from which he could see and be
seen. Much astonishment was felt at the boldness with which he
had thus ventured in the midst of his enemies.
{162}
However, as he was young and of agreeable manners, the Capulets,
says the historian, "did not pay so much attention to his
presence as they might have done if he had been older." His eyes
and those of Giulietta Capelletto soon met, and being equally
struck with admiration, they did not cease to look at each other.
The festivities terminated with a dance, which "among us," says
Girolamo, "is called the hat-dance (_dal cappello_)," in
which Romeo engaged; but, after having danced a few figures with
his partner, he left her to join Juliet, who was dancing with
another. "Immediately that she felt him touch her hand, she said,
'Blessed be your coming!' And he, pressing her hand, replied,
'What blessing do you receive from it, lady?' And she answered,
with a smile, 'Be not surprised, sir, that I bless your coming;
Signor Mercurio had been chilling me for a long while, but by
your politeness you have restored me to warmth.' (The hands of
this young man, who was called Mercurio the Squinter, and who was
beloved by every one for the charms of his mind, were always
colder than ice.) To these words, Romeo replied, 'I am greatly
delighted to do you service in any thing.' When the dance was
over, Juliet could say no more than this: 'Alas! I am more yours
than my own.'"
Romeo having repaired on several occasions to a small street upon
which Juliet's windows looked out, one evening she recognized him
"by his sneezing or some other sign," and opened the window; they
saluted each other very courteously (_cortesissimamente_),
and, after having conversed for a long while of their loves, they
agreed that they must be married, whatever might happen; and that
the ceremony should be performed by Friar Leonardo, a Franciscan
monk, who was "a theologian, a great philosopher, an admirable
distiller, a proficient in the art of magic," and the confessor
of nearly all the town.
{163}
Romeo went to see this worthy; and the monk, thinking of the
credit he would gain, not only with the perpetual captain, but
also with the whole city, if he succeeded in reconciling the two
families, acceded to the request of the young couple. On
Quadragesima Sunday, when confession was obligatory, Juliet went
with her mother to the church of St. Francis in the citadel; and
having entered first into the confessional, on the other side of
which Romeo was stationed, they received the nuptial benediction
through the window of the confessional, which the monk had had
the kindness to leave open. Afterward, by the connivance of a
very adroit old nurse of Juliet's, they spent the night together
in her garden.
However, after the festival of Easter, a numerous troop of
Capulets met, at a little distance from the gates of Verona, a
band of Montagues, and attacked them, at the instigation of
Tebaldo, a cousin-german of Juliet, who, seeing Romeo use every
effort to put an end to the combat, went up to him, and, forcing
him to defend himself, received a sword-thrust in his throat,
from which he fell dead on the spot. Romeo was banished; and a
short time afterward, Juliet, on the point of finding herself
compelled to marry another, had recourse to Friar Leonardo, who
gave her a powder to swallow, by means of which she would appear
to be dead, and would be interred in the family vault, which
happened to be in the church attached to Leonardo's convent. The
monk was to deliver her immediately from her grave, and to send
her in disguise to Mantua, where Romeo was residing; and he
promised to inform her lover of their design.
{164}
Matters were arranged as Leonardo had suggested; but Romeo,
having been informed of Juliet's death by an indirect source,
before he received the monk's letter, set out at once for Verona
with a single domestic, and, having provided himself with a
violent poison, hastened to the tomb, opened it, bathed Juliet's
body with his tears, swallowed the poison, and died. Juliet
awaking from her trance the instant afterward, seeing Romeo dead,
and learning from the monk, who had come up in the meanwhile, all
that had happened, was seized with such violent paroxysms of
grief, that, "without being able to utter a word, she fell dead
upon the bosom of her Romeo." [Footnote 19]
[Footnote 19: See Girolamo della Corte, "Istorie di Verona,"
vol. i., p. 89, _et seq_ ed. 1594.]
This story is told as true by Girolamo della Corte, and he
assures his readers that he had often seen the tomb of Romeo and
Juliet, which, rising a little above the level of the ground, and
being situated near a well, then served as a laundry to the
orphan asylum of St. Francis, which was being built in that
locality. He relates, at the same time, that the Cavalier Gerardo
Boldiero, his uncle, who had first taken him to this tomb, had
pointed out to him, at a corner of the wall, near the Capuchin
Convent, the place from which he had heard it said that the bones
of Romeo and Juliet, and of several other persons, had been
transferred a great number of years before. Captain Bréval, in
his Travels, also mentions that he saw at Verona, in 1762, an old
building which was then an orphan asylum, and which his guide
informed him had once contained the tomb of Romeo and Juliet, but
that it no longer existed.
It was probably not in accordance with the narrative of Girolamo
della Corte that Shakspeare composed his tragedy. It was first
performed, as it would appear, in 1595, under the patronage of
Lord Hunsdon, the Lord Chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth, and was
printed for the first time in 1597.
{165}
Now the work of Girolamo della Corte, which was intended to
contain twenty-two books, was interrupted in the middle of the
twentieth book, and in the year 1560, by the illness of the
author. We learn, moreover, from the editor's preface, that this
illness was prolonged, and terminated in the death of the
historian; that the necessity for revising a work, to which
Girolamo himself had been unable to give the finishing stroke,
occupied a considerable period; and, finally, that the lawsuits,
"both civil and criminal," with which the editor was tormented,
prevented him from bringing his undertaking to a conclusion as
promptly as he could have desired; so that the work of Girolamo
could not have been published until a long while after his death.
The edition of 1594 is, therefore, to all appearance, the first
edition, and could scarcely have fallen into Shakspeare's hands
so early as 1595.
But the history of Romeo and Juliet, which was doubtless very
popular at Verona, had already formed the subject of a novel by
Luigi da Porto, published at Venice in 1535, six years after the
death of the author, under the title of "La Giulietta." This
novel was reprinted, translated and imitated in several
languages, and furnished Arthur Brooke with the subject of an
English poem, which was published in 1562, and from which
Shakspeare certainly derived the subject of his tragedy.
[Footnote 20]
[Footnote 20: The title is, "The Tragicall Historye of Romeus
and Juliet, containing a rare Example of true Constancie;
with the Subtill Counsels and Practises of an old Fryer, and
their ill event." This poem has been reprinted at the end of
the tragedy in the large editions of Shakspeare; among
others, in Malone's edition.]
{166}
The imitation is complete. Juliet, in Brooke's poem, as well as
in the novel of Luigi da Porto, kills herself with Romeo's
dagger, instead of dying of grief, as in the history of Girolamo
della Corte; but it is a singular circumstance, that both Arthur
Brooke's poem and Shakspeare's tragedy make Romeo die, as in the
history, before Juliet awakes, whereas, in the novel of Luigi da
Porto, he does not die until after he has witnessed her
restoration to life, and had a scene of sorrowful farewell with
her. Shakspeare has been blamed for not having adopted this
version, which would have furnished him with a very pathetic
position; and it has been inferred that he was not acquainted
with the Italian novel, although it had been translated into
English. Several circumstances, however, give us reason to
believe that Shakspeare was acquainted with this translation. As
for his motives for preferring the poet's narrative to that of
the novelist, he may have had many; in the first place, to
account for his departing in so important a point from the novel
of Luigi da Porto, which he has followed most scrupulously in
almost every other particular, perhaps Arthur Brooke, the author
of the poem, may have had some knowledge of the true history, as
related by Girolamo della Corte. Being a contemporary of
Shakspeare, he may have communicated this to him, and
Shakspeare's careful conformity, as far as he was able, to
history, or to the narratives received as such, would not have
allowed him to hesitate as to his choice. Moreover--and this was
probably the true reason of the poet--Shakspeare very seldom
precedes a strong resolution by long speeches. As Macbeth says:
"Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives."
Whatever anguish reflection may add to grief, it fixes the mind
on too large a number of objects not to distract it from the
single and absorbing idea which leads to desperate actions. After
having received Romeo's farewell, and lamented his death in
concert with him, it might have happened that Juliet would have
bewailed him all her life instead of killing herself on the spot.
{167}
Garrick rewrote the scene in the monument, in accordance with the
supposition adopted in the novel of Luigi da Porto; the scene is
touching, but, as was perhaps inevitable in such a situation,
which it would be impossible to delineate in words, the feelings
are too much and too little agitated, and the despair is either
excessive or not sufficiently violent. In the laconism of
Shakspeare's "Romeo and Juliet," in these last moments, there is
much more passion and truth.