part in terrible events; we have witnessed the fall and rise of
empires: and how can we be persuaded that such revolutions are
accomplished by some six or seven persons, whose two or three
uninteresting confidants bustle and declaim in a space of fifty
square feet? We have known, and that personally, great
men--conquerors, statesmen, conspirators--men of flesh and blood:
powerful by their arms, by their genius, and by their eloquence;
and, in order to be interested, we must be pointed to men equally
real, to men who resemble them in all respects.
Still, if our actually existing poets were men of the stamp of
Racine and Voltaire--if, like those great men, they knew how to
animate a deplorably withered frame by lavishing upon it all the
treasures of sentiment and of poetry--if, imitating the noble
birds of the days of chivalry, they could, like them, although
carried on the hand, release themselves from time to time from
the straitness of their position, and soar into the clouds with a
brilliant and rapid flight, they might win some success. But it
is not so; and this is exactly the one inconvenience of a style
which flourished a hundred years ago, with which we, the public
of to-day, are obliged to remain contented and happy.
{253}
Tragedies have been almost all fashioned after one model--all
cast so very nearly in the same mode, that any one rather
experienced in theatrical progression might boldly foretell the
scheme of each scene as it arrived. In the first act there is the
narrative of the dream or the storm; the second contains the
declaration, the third the recognition, and so on. The
Alexandrines march on in stately order, and seem, most of them,
to belong to the stock of theatrical properties, as much as the
decorations and costumes. The personages have their parts and
movements appropriated and determined like the pieces in a game
of chess; so much so, that we might call them, for the sake of
convenience, by some generic name; for example, the king, the
tyrant, the queen, the conspirator, the confidant--almost, as
Goëthe has entitled the interlocutors in one of his dramas, the
father, the mother, the sister, and so on. What, for instance,
does it matter whether the queen, who has killed her husband, be
called Semiramis, Clytemnestra, Joan of Naples, or Mary Stuart;
whether the royal legislator is called Minos or Peter the Great;
whether the usurper is called Artaban, Polyphontes, or
Cromwell--when their words and actions, their thoughts and
feelings, are always the same, or very nearly so? when they are
only so many variations on one necessary plot?
It is said that a young poet, whose name we have forgotten,
having borrowed the subject of his tragedy from the history of
Spain, and finding himself on this account brought into collision
with the censor of the press, took it into his head to transport
the scene, by two strokes of his pen, from Barcelona to Babylon,
and to carry the events back from the sixteenth century to a
period somewhere near the time of the deluge; a plan which
succeeded to his heart's content, besides that, as
_Babylone_ rhymes to the same words as _Barcelone_, and
is composed of exactly the same number of syllables, there was
but little necessity for changing the most vigorous and lofty
speeches. We do not guarantee the truth of the story, but we do
not think it at all improbable.
{254}
Doubtless, this insupportable monotony--the evils and puerilities
of so much conventional apparatus--the disgust, the weariness,
the satiety which it all excites in such a public as ours--the
despondency at seeing nothing true produced for the stage--these
causes have constantly led the way to all kinds of innovation.
Our public is not to be captivated either by system or by
caprice; it is no despiser of really excellent productions; it
has no disposition to blaspheme the demi-gods of past times; but,
like the little girl, it says, "My good friend, I have seen the
sun so often!" Like the grand Condé, it says, "I am quite ready
to forgive the Abbé D'Aubignac for not having observed the rules,
but I can not forgive the rules which have made him produce such
an execrable piece."
In the midst of this perplexity, not knowing what saint to
invoke, who can deliver them from this
"Race d'Agamemnon qui ne finit jamais,"
these everlasting bores who, if they are hissed down today in the
toga, will reappear to-morrow hooded with a turban; in this
perplexity, certain talented critics make their appearance,
writers of the rarest ability and of the greatest sagacity, who,
with a good-natured smile, address the public in some such terms
as these:
{255}
"Can you not see what all this weariness under which you groan is
owing to? and whence arises this monotony which sickens you? In a
given time and space only a certain number of things are
possible; and the more circumscribed the space, the more limited
the time, the fewer events can be brought before you. Names may
be changed, costumes may be changed, but no further change is
possible. And much more must this be the case if you multiply
arbitrary prescriptions and prohibitions; if you demand, for
instance, that the individual who weeps shall do nothing but
weep, and that the laugher shall do nothing but laugh; if you
forbid him who has once spoken in verse from speaking afterward
in prose, or _vice versâ_, or if you forbid him who has once
spoken in a verse of twelve syllables from ever making use of a
verse of rather smaller dimensions; and if you determine it to be
beneath the dignity of tragedy to employ any colloquial forms of
expression. Bind a man hand and foot--as you please; put a mask
on his countenance--very good; condemn him to recite litanies to
the Virgin in a style of passive imperturbability--be it so; but
do not then demand of him variety in his movements, flexibility
in his physiognomy, or diversity in his language."
And the public must confess that this is very plausible
reasoning.
Accordingly, when young poets, encouraged by favorable
circumstances, advance timidly before the people, and humbly beg
them to hold them, for a time, free from consecrated rules and
cruelly rigorous fetters, promising, in return for this
indulgence, to move them, to interest them, to show them living
and real events--the public answers them, "Make the attempt, we
will listen attentively."
{256}
This is the secret of that which is transpiring at the present
day. Are not we then, in France, in danger of being betrayed into
some rash procedures? For forty years, established usages have
been attacked which appeared more solid than our theatrical
system; things which seemed more sacred even than Aristotle's
precepts have been looked at with bold defiance.
If, at this crisis, a great dramatic poet should arise among
us--if this great dramatic poet would take part with the
innovators, all difficulties would very soon be overcome. But,
unfortunately, we have no such dramatist; as far as talent is
concerned, the authors of the new school have not hitherto had a
very decided advantage over their brethren of the old school.
Their works certainly possess more interest, more movement, more
variety; but these merits belong to the school to which they have
attached themselves, and this is the reason why their works have
drawn crowds, while the productions of their more old-fashioned
brethren are abandoned. But their works are indicative rather of
reminiscence than of invention; more of an honest disposition to
create than of a creative genius. The execution betrays absence
of power and groping after effect, rather than native vigor and
genuine originality. The blame rests with the individuals; and
this is the reason why the public is as yet undecided which of
the two opposed systems it shall finally adopt, and shows itself
much more disposed to thank them for their efforts than to award
them the palm of triumph.
How long, then, is this feeble flight of dramatic talent, this
sterility of true genius, with which, to our great regret, the
new school--that school which has hardly existed more than four
or five years--has been stricken: how long is this to last?
{257}
The answer to such a question must remain unknown to man, and
must be, left to Providence; our fervent wish, both for the
credit of art and the honor of our country, is that it may not be
delayed very long. Meanwhile, is it graceful, and, above all, is
it just, for the partisans of the old system in literature to
exult over this fact, as they too often do? Are they reasonable
in asking us, with an air of raillery, what master-pieces the new
theatrical system can boast of? Have they any right to say to the
critics who have expounded and displayed it, "You know not
whereof you are speaking; and, as a proof of this, nothing that
has been done under your auspices at all corresponds to your
magnificent promises?"
We might even agree with them; for if, by way of reprisal, we
should afterward ask, concerning Aristotle's _Poetics_, what
tragedies of worth it succeeded in inspiring in Greece;
concerning Horace's _Ars Poetica_, what illustrious
monuments of its truthfulness remain from the theatre of the
Latins; concerning La Harpe's _Cours de Littérature_, what
master-pieces we may thank it for? the answer would not be very
much to their advantage.
Nature alone creates great poets; by her sole agency the world
has been gifted, at long intervals, with a Sophocles, a
Shakspeare, a Racine, a Molière; and after each such effort, the
repose is long and protracted. No human endeavors can be so
successful as to supply the lack of that which nature alone can
give; and any theory for the creation of great men--any pompous
_megalanthropogenesy_--is an insane imposition, either in
literature or any where else. We will even go further; what is
true of genius is equally true of talent: however little of it
may exist, yet in whatever degree it is to be found, nature alone
has all the honor. Criticism does for it nothing more than it
does for every one else; it has no formula of talent ready made;
it has no receipts for the manufacture of good tragedies and
amusing comedies.
{258}
Nothing is, in fact, more common than thus to misapprehend the
design and nature of certain things.
When the _Organon_ of the Stagyrite philosopher was
rediscovered in the Middle Ages, those who first studied it
thought they had met with a kind of enchantment, and certainly
they had good reason for so thinking; for this _Organon_,
this admirable logical system, is one of the most wonderful
monuments of the greatness and power of the human mind that
exists. But immediately they started to the conclusion that the
aim of logic was to teach men reasoning, and that reasoning was,
if not the only, yet certainly the principal means of attaining
truth--that whosoever should thoroughly master the syllogism
could never again be deceived in any thing, and would have
reached the utmost boundaries of human knowledge. This was a
great mistake; no one can estimate the follies and sophistries,
the strifes and subtleties, which this has cost us. Logic teaches
man nothing which he could not already do alone, and without its
assistance; the syllogistic procedure is the natural and
spontaneous method; it need not be formally learned in order to
its being employed. There are, besides, other conditions for good
reasoning--a clear vision and an adequate conception of the
subject, a just regard to all the conditions implied in the
problem to be solved, and the faculty of retaining them firmly
during the whole course of the deduction. And these things are
all given by nature; logic can not impart the secret of acquiring
them. Must we, then, on the other hand, conclude, as some
philosophers have concluded, that logic is good for nothing? By
no means; this would be to rush blindly to the opposite extreme.
{259}
The design of logic is not to teach men to reason, but to teach
them how they actually do reason; it is a branch of mental
philosophy; it discloses to us the nature of one of our most
remarkable mental processes; it explains to us its laws, its
action, its mechanism; it reveals the human mind to itself. He
who studies it properly will always study it advantageously; he
will rise from this study with a more enlightened and practiced,
a stronger and more dexterous mental organ--more fitted, in one
word, for all things, not even excepting reasoning itself; for
never is it in any respect fruitless to develop human
intelligence, and to enlarge and purify the judgment.
The same must be said of criticism. It also is a branch of mental
philosophy. It also enlightens the mind with regard to its own
operations, and shows it in reflection the method of its own
activity; but it neither confines it within the limits of the
schools, nor subjects it to a dwarfing and lasting pupillage.
The beautiful exists; it exists in the external world and in the
soul of man, in the phenomena of nature and in the events in
which humanity displays itself. Sometimes it is manifested
entirely in these regions; but oftener it gives only a glimpse
and a hint of its presence. Genius seizes it and makes it its own
possession; it receives the impression, and then gives it out in
a purer and more vivid state than that in which it first
appeared; it is surprised by the vision, and it surprises in its
turn by the presentation of it. Thus genius acts under the
influence of an inspiration; unconsciously, yet most
spontaneously, it avails itself of the processes of art. The
eagle flies because it is an eagle; the stag bounds because it is
a stag.
{260}
What, then, is the province of criticism? Its position is that of
a mediator between the master-pieces of art and the minds which
are desirous of appreciating them; between the man of talent and
the readers whom he addresses; sometimes between him and the man
of genius. Whether we be small or great, gifted with insight or
not, it initiates us into the secret of these marvelous beauties;
it displays before us their delicate processes, their hidden
relations, their mystic laws. This is its work; neither more nor
less.
But now is the time for the approach of ratiocinative mediocrity;
it advances with lofty assumption, bearing the staff of office,
availing itself of these expositions in order to erect, by means
of them, a clumsy structure of exact formulas--burlesquing these
delicate and cautious explanations by resolving them into
pedantic precepts, and appealing to lesser spirits to experiment
upon their select list of instructions, practical precepts, and
petty routines. At its bidding, the laborers set to work.
Equipped with their rule and compass, they draw the lines and
measure out the compartments, they dissect most methodically the
mighty productions of men of genius, plundering on the right hand
and on the left, pillaging from one a posture, from another a
stroke of sentiment, from a third an idea, from a fourth a poetic
touch, and, readjusting all these bits according to the best of
their ability, they at length produce a sorry, complicated piece
of mosaic, dressed in truly harlequin gear. Hence arises, in all
languages which have received a small amount of culture, a deluge
of bastard productions, which are neither good nor bad, neither
beautiful nor ugly, neither interesting nor ridiculous, and which
have no other fault than the irremediable one of corresponding to
nothing whatever that exists either in Man or nature, neither in
the mind of the would-be poet nor in that of his unfortunate
reader.
{261}
Hence, for example, the amusement which so many poets of the last
century gave themselves, of composing tens of thousands of
pastoral verses, which gave no indication that during the whole
period of their existence they had so much as cast a glance upon
any tree in the Tuileries, or watched the course of any river in
the Gobelins. Hence arose, in a word, all that rendered
literature dull and poetry fantastic.
Criticism that is worthy of the name--true criticism, indeed--has
nothing to do with this foolish attempt to construct the
agreeable and the beautiful into a fabric. Its aim is not to
teach how beautiful things may be made, but to exhibit before all
eyes, and help all minds to understand the lustre of those things
which are beautiful. Its aim is to increase the number of lofty
and refined spirits--minds of liberality and sagacity, of
delicacy and enlightenment; it is to prepare for men of genius
and of talent, whenever nature may please to inspire such, a
public worthy of receiving them, whose admiration may animate
them, and whose severe taste may calm and moderate their too
exuberant activity.
This being granted, may we say that the new criticism, that
criticism to which has been imputed, whether advisedly or
not--or, rather, we would question whether or not it is fitting
to impute to this criticism alone and entirely--the revolution
which has been declared in our theatre, may we say that this
criticism has entirely failed in its object? If it has not, by
one stroke of any magic wand, transformed men of moderate talent
into great poets, may it not have smoothed the way before great
poets who may yet arise? If it has not caused beautiful works of
art to spring forth from the bosom of the earth, may it not have
opened many eyes, and unstopped many deafened ears? May it not,
to a certain extent, have so prepared the way for great works, if
ever Heaven shall grant them to us, that they may, on their
arrival, find an audience disposed to appreciate them and
qualified to estimate them?
{262}
Far are we from thinking that, in this respect, its labors have
been entirely unavailing. On the contrary, we are much more
disposed to suspect that, in more than one relation, and we will
by no means limit ourselves to unimportant relations, the new
criticism has succeeded beyond its expectations, and perhaps even
beyond its desires; we are disposed to suspect that it has made
something which is of greater value than itself--that it has
involuntarily disencumbered us of more shackles than it was
itself aware of, of more even than it had estimated. What is, in
fact, the error of criticism in general--we mean of all criticism
that has any weight (the smaller species are not worth our
notice)--a kind of error from which the new criticism is not
exempt to any great extent?
It is, as it seems to us, a certain absence of mental liberty
when absorbed in the contemplation of things which the mind
either approves or condemns; a certain impulsive, passionate,
intolerant disposition, which prevents it from reproving with the
severity of justice any thing faulty in that which it admires,
and of admiring with generous self-abandonment whatever may be
excellent in the productions which it condemns.
The ancients, for example, are admired every where--and
unquestionably they are entitled to be so: they are admired in
France, in Germany, in England; they are admired from very
different motives, sometimes from motives contradictory to one
another, and certainly this admiration rests upon very different
principles in different cases.
{263}
But, in truth, where have they as yet been judged? where have
they been appreciated without conventional enthusiasm, without an
unquestioning devotion? Will not the man who shall first venture
openly to expose their defects, whatever respect he may retain
for them, stand a chance of being browbeaten, and abused as a
Barbarian and a Goth? We ourselves, who dare to hint such an
insinuation--what a storm of wrath may possibly be preparing to
burst over our head?
The great masters of our language have been very ably
appreciated, analyzed, and commented upon by La Harpe--for La
Harpe was no vulgar critic--but, on the one hand, he would not
have deemed that sufficient homage had been shown to Racine and
Voltaire, had he not fastened Shakspeare by the heels to their
triumphal car, and dragged him along in the mud; and, on the
other hand, he can not venture, except at rare intervals, and
with faltering accents, to expose any trifling imperfection in
the objects of his adoration; the enormous defects of our drama
do not at all shock him; he does not even seem to have perceived
them.
On the other hand, let us take, as representative of the new
criticism, the man who is undeniably its glory and ornament--the
man who, by the extent and variety of his knowledge, by the
profundity and originality of his views, by the lively
appreciation of the beautiful, which ever animates him, and by
that ingenious sagacity which never forsakes him, has had the
greatest influence on the ideas and opinions of his
contemporaries--Wilhelm Schlegel. He will be found to exhibit the
obverse side of the medal.
{264}
He admires Shakspeare most thoroughly; he has translated him with
all the fondness of a pupil for a master; he has also a
passionate admiration for Calderon and the Spanish drama. But, in
order to balance his excesses in these directions, he habitually
judges our drama with something more than rigor; to the admirable
unaffectedness and comic vein of Molière he is entirely
insensible; he deprecates the "Phedre" of Racine as much inferior
to the "Phædra" of Euripides; to many of our merits he frequently
grants neither sympathy nor justice; to our most venial defects
he is mercilessly severe. He admires Shakspeare, and, in his
enthusiasm, not only is Shakspeare perfect in all respects, but
all that appertains, either immediately or more remotely to
Shakspeare, participates in the perfection of this ideal.
According to his judgment, the period in which Shakspeare
flourished was not only a great and remarkable period, but a
period of taste and politeness; it was not only learned, but
refined; urbanity, grace, and refined pleasantry were its most
prominent and characteristic features.
Shakspeare himself is not only a great poet, but a profound
philosopher, whose thoughts have sounded, down to their lowest
depths, all the mysteries of the world, and all the intricacies
of the human soul. Not only are his pieces in the highest degree
effective, but they are composed with a marvelous and
irreproachable art; every thing, whether it be great or small,
finds its proper place and its just estimate in his writings. The
gross obscenities with which he abounds are bursts of native
humor; the puns, quips, and quibbles which are to be met with at
every step, even in the most pathetic passages, are sallies of
the most irreproachable taste; his anachronisms have their
merits; his errors in geography, in history, in the portraiture
of men and manners, all have their explanations.
The same idolatry, the same superstitious ardor is shown for the
Spanish drama.
{265}
It must be admitted that those of our French critics who were the
first to adopt the doctrines of Schlegel have taken care not to
go quite so far as he. They were sensible of his exaggerations.
They have maintained their former admiration for Racine side by
side with their more recent admiration for Shakspeare; and they
have persisted in throwing the blame of the mistakes of
Shakspeare himself upon the times in which he lived, and upon the
rare genius with which Heaven endowed him.
But we must confess, also, that this wisdom has been neither
general nor of long duration. To see how the leaders of our
modern school express themselves when speaking of the English and
the Germans--of Schiller, of Shakspeare, and of Goëthe--we may
easily perceive that they occupy, with reference to these
writers, the same mental posture which La Harpe occupied with
reference to Racine or Voltaire; that while they are quite
willing to express censure on a point of trifling importance,
they do so on the implied condition that nothing of a serious or
fundamental character shall be questioned by them.