In the productions of poetic genius, especially of the epic and
dramatic kind, there is, apart from Beauty, another quality which is
attractive: I mean Interest.
The beauty of a work of art consists in the fact that it holds up a
clear mirror to certain _ideas_ inherent in the world in general; the
beauty of a work of poetic art in particular is that it renders the
ideas inherent in mankind, and thereby leads it to a knowledge
of these ideas. The means which poetry uses for this end are
the exhibition of significant characters and the invention of
circumstances which will bring about significant situations, giving
occasion to the characters to unfold their peculiarities and show what
is in them; so that by some such representation a clearer and fuller
knowledge of the many-sided idea of humanity may be attained. Beauty,
however, in its general aspect, is the inseparable characteristic
of the idea when it has become known. In other words, everything is
beautiful in which an idea is revealed; for to be beautiful means no
more than clearly to express an idea.
Thus we perceive that beauty is always an affair of _knowledge_, and
that it appeals to _the knowing subject_, and not to _the will_;
nay, it is a fact that the apprehension of beauty on the part of the
subject involves a complete suppression of the will.
On the other hand, we call drama or descriptive poetry interesting
when it represents events and actions of a kind which necessarily
arouse concern or sympathy, like that which we feel in real events
involving our own person. The fate of the person represented in them
is felt in just the same fashion as our own: we await the development
of events with anxiety; we eagerly follow their course; our hearts
quicken when the hero is threatened; our pulse falters as the danger
reaches its acme, and throbs again when he is suddenly rescued. Until
we reach the end of the story we cannot put the book aside; we lie
away far into the night sympathising with our hero's troubles as
though they were our own. Nay, instead of finding pleasure and
recreation in such representations, we should feel all the pain which
real life often inflicts upon us, or at least the kind which pursues
us in our uneasy dreams, if in the act of reading or looking at the
stage we had not the firm ground of reality always beneath our feet.
As it is, in the stress of a too violent feeling, we can find relief
from the illusion of the moment, and then give way to it again at
will. Moreover, we can gain this relief without any such violent
transition as occurs in a dream, when we rid ourselves of its terrors
only by the act of awaking.
It is obvious that what is affected by poetry of this character is our
_will_, and not merely our intellectual powers pure and simple. The
word _interest_ means, therefore, that which arouses the concern of
the individual will, _quod nostrâ interest_; and here it is that
beauty is clearly distinguished from interest. The one is an affair
of the intellect, and that, too, of the purest and simplest kind. The
other works upon the will. Beauty, then, consists in an apprehension
of ideas; and knowledge of this character is beyond the range of the
principle that nothing happens without a cause. Interest, on the other
hand, has its origin nowhere but in the course of events; that is to
say, in the complexities which are possible only through the action of
this principle in its different forms.
We have now obtained a clear conception of the essential difference
between the beauty and the interest of a work of art. We have
recognised that beauty is the true end of every art, and therefore,
also, of the poetic art. It now remains to raise the question whether
the interest of a work of art is a second end, or a means to the
exhibition of its beauty; or whether the interest of it is produced by
its beauty as an essential concomitant, and comes of itself as soon as
it is beautiful; or whether interest is at any rate compatible with
the main end of art; or, finally, whether it is a hindrance to it.
In the first place, it is to be observed that the interest of a work
of art is confined to works of poetic art. It does not exist in the
case of fine art, or of music or architecture. Nay, with these forms
of art it is not even conceivable, unless, indeed, the interest be of
an entirely personal character, and confined to one or two spectators;
as, for example, where a picture is a portrait of some one whom we
love or hate; the building, my house or my prison; the music, my
wedding dance, or the tune to which I marched to the war. Interest of
this kind is clearly quite foreign to the essence and purpose of art;
it disturbs our judgment in so far as it makes the purely artistic
attitude impossible. It may be, indeed, that to a smaller extent this
is true of all interest.
Now, since the interest of a work of art lies in the fact that we
have the same kind of sympathy with a poetic representation as with
reality, it is obvious that the representation must deceive us for the
moment; and this it can do only by its truth. But truth is an element
in perfect art. A picture, a poem, should be as true as nature itself;
but at the same time it should lay stress on whatever forms the
unique character of its subject by drawing out all its essential
manifestations, and by rejecting everything that is unessential and
accidental. The picture or the poem will thus emphasize its _idea_,
and give us that _ideal truth_ which is superior to nature.
_Truth_, then, forms the point that is common both to interest and
beauty in a work of art, as it is its truth which produces the
illusion. The fact that the truth of which I speak is _ideal truth_
might, indeed, be detrimental to the illusion, since it is just here
that we have the general difference between poetry and reality, art
and nature. But since it is possible for reality to coincide with
the ideal, it is not actually necessary that this difference should
destroy the illusion. In the case of fine arts there is, in the range
of the means which art adopts, a certain limit, and beyond it illusion
is impossible. Sculpture, that is to say, gives us mere colourless
form; its figures are without eyes and without movement; and painting
provides us with no more than a single view, enclosed within strict
limits, which separate the picture from the adjacent reality. Here,
then, there is no room for illusion, and consequently none for that
interest or sympathy which resembles the interest we have in reality;
the will is at once excluded, and the object alone is presented to us
in a manner that frees it from any personal concern.
It is a highly remarkable fact that a spurious kind of fine art
oversteps these limits, produces an illusion of reality, and arouses
our interest; but at the same time it destroys the effect which fine
art produces, and serves as nothing but a mere means of exhibiting the
beautiful, that is, of communicating a knowledge of the ideas which it
embodies. I refer to _waxwork_. Here, we might say, is the dividing
line which separates it from the province of fine art. When waxwork is
properly executed, it produces a perfect illusion; but for that very
reason we approach a wax figure as we approach a real man, who, as
such, is for the moment an object presented to our will. That is
to say, he is an object of interest; he arouses the will, and
consequently stills the intellect. We come up to a wax figure with the
same reserve and caution as a real man would inspire in us: our will
is excited; it waits to see whether he is going to be friendly to us,
or the reverse, fly from us, or attack us; in a word, it expects some
action of him. But as the figure, nevertheless, shows no sign of life,
it produces the impression which is so very disagreeable, namely, of
a corpse. This is a case where the interest is of the most complete
kind, and yet where there is no work of art at all. In other words,
interest is not in itself a real end of art.
The same truth is illustrated by the fact that even in poetry it is
only the dramatic and descriptive kind to which interest attaches; for
if interest were, with beauty, the aim of art, poetry of the lyrical
kind would, for that very reason, not take half so great a position as
the other two.
In the second place, if interest were a means in the production of
beauty, every interesting work would also be beautiful. That, however,
is by no means the case. A drama or a novel may often attract us by
its interest, and yet be so utterly deficient in any kind of beauty
that we are afterwards ashamed of having wasted our time on it. This
applies to many a drama which gives no true picture of the real life
of man; which contains characters very superficially drawn, or so
distorted as to be actual monstrosities, such as are not to be found
in nature; but the course of events and the play of the action are so
intricate, and we feel so much for the hero in the situation in which
he is placed, that we are not content until we see the knot untangled
and the hero rescued. The action is so cleverly governed and guided in
its course that we remain in a state of constant curiosity as to what
is going to happen, and we are utterly unable to form a guess; so that
between eagerness and surprise our interest is kept active; and as we
are pleasantly entertained, we do not notice the lapse of time. Most
of Kotzebue's plays are of this character. For the mob this is the
right thing: it looks for amusement, something to pass the time, not
for intellectual perception. Beauty is an affair of such perception;
hence sensibility to beauty varies as much as the intellectual
faculties themselves. For the inner truth of a representation, and its
correspondence with the real nature of humanity, the mob has no sense
at all. What is flat and superficial it can grasp, but the depths of
human nature are opened to it in vain.
It is also to be observed that dramatic representations which depend
for their value on their interest lose by repetition, because they are
no longer able to arouse curiosity as to their course, since it is
already known. To see them often, makes them stale and tedious. On
the other hand, works of which the value lies in their beauty gain by
repetition, as they are then more and more understood.
Most novels are on the same footing as dramatic representations of
this character. They are creatures of the same sort of imagination as
we see in the story-teller of Venice and Naples, who lays a hat on the
ground and waits until an audience is assembled. Then he spins a tale
which so captivates his hearers that, when he gets to the catastrophe,
he makes a round of the crowd, hat in hand, for contributions, without
the least fear that his hearers will slip away. Similar story-tellers
ply their trade in this country, though in a less direct fashion. They
do it through the agency of publishers and circulating libraries. Thus
they can avoid going about in rags, like their colleagues elsewhere;
they can offer the children of their imagination to the public under
the title of novels, short stories, romantic poems, fairy tales, and
so on; and the public, in a dressing-gown by the fireside, sits down
more at its ease, but also with a greater amount of patience, to the
enjoyment of the interest which they provide.
How very little aesthetic value there generally is in productions of
this sort is well known; and yet it cannot be denied that many of them
are interesting; or else how could they be so popular?
We see, then, in reply to our second question, that interest does not
necessarily involve beauty; and, conversely, it is true that beauty
does not necessarily involve interest. Significant characters may be
represented, that open up the depths of human nature, and it may all
be expressed in actions and sufferings of an exceptional kind, so
that the real nature of humanity and the world may stand forth in
the picture in the clearest and most forcible lines; and yet no high
degree of interest may be excited in the course of events by the
continued progress of the action, or by the complexity and unexpected
solution of the plot. The immortal masterpieces of Shakespeare contain
little that excites interest; the action does not go forward in one
straight line, but falters, as in _Hamlet_, all through the play;
or else it spreads out in breadth, as in _The Merchant of Venice_,
whereas length is the proper dimension of interest; or the scenes hang
loosely together, as in _Henry IV_. Thus it is that Shakespeare's
dramas produce no appreciable effect on the mob.
The dramatic requirement stated by Aristotle, and more particularly
the unity of action, have in view the interest of the piece rather
than its artistic beauty. It may be said, generally, that these
requirements are drawn up in accordance with the principle of
sufficient reason to which I have referred above. We know, however,
that the _idea_, and, consequently, the beauty of a work of art, exist
only for the perceptive intelligence which has freed itself from
the domination of that principle. It is just here that we find the
distinction between interest and beauty; as it is obvious that
interest is part and parcel of the mental attitude which is governed
by the principle, whereas beauty is always beyond its range. The best
and most striking refutation of the Aristotelian unities is Manzoni's.
It may be found in the preface to his dramas.
What is true of Shakespeare's dramatic works is true also of Goethe's.
Even _Egmont_ makes little effect on the public, because it contains
scarcely any complication or development; and if _Egmont_ fails, what
are we to say of _Tasso_ or _Iphigenia_? That the Greek tragedians did
not look to interest as a means of working upon the public, is clear
from the fact that the material of their masterpieces was almost
always known to every one: they selected events which had often been
treated dramatically before. This shows us how sensitive was the
Greek public to the beautiful, as it did not require the interest of
unexpected events and new stories to season its enjoyment.
Neither does the quality of interest often attach to masterpieces of
descriptive poetry. Father Homer lays the world and humanity before us
in its true nature, but he takes no trouble to attract our sympathy
by a complexity of circumstance, or to surprise us by unexpected
entanglements. His pace is lingering; he stops at every scene; he puts
one picture after another tranquilly before us, elaborating it
with care. We experience no passionate emotion in reading him; our
demeanour is one of pure perceptive intelligence; he does not arouse
our will, but sings it to rest; and it costs us no effort to break off
in our reading, for we are not in condition of eager curiosity. This
is all still more true of Dante, whose work is not, in the proper
sense of the word, an epic, but a descriptive poem. The same thing may
be said of the four immortal romances: _Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy,
La Nouvelle Heloïse_, and _Wilhelm Meister_. To arouse our interest
is by no means the chief aim of these works; in _Tristram Shandy_ the
hero, even at the end of the book, is only eight years of age.
On the other hand, we must not venture to assert that the quality of
interest is not to be found in masterpieces of literature. We have it
in Schiller's dramas in an appreciable degree, and consequently
they are popular; also in the _Oedipus Rex_ of Sophocles. Amongst
masterpieces of description, we find it in Ariosto's _Orlando
Furioso_; nay, an example of a high degree of interest, bound up with
the beautiful, is afforded in an excellent novel by Walter Scott--_The
Heart of Midlothian_. This is the most interesting work of fiction
that I know, where all the effects due to interest, as I have given
them generally in the preceding remarks, may be most clearly observed.
At the same time it is a very beautiful romance throughout; it shows
the most varied pictures of life, drawn with striking truth; and it
exhibits highly different characters with great justice and fidelity.
Interest, then, is certainly compatible with beauty. That was our
third question. Nevertheless, a comparatively small admixture of the
element of interest may well be found to be most advantageous as far
as beauty is concerned; for beauty is and remains the end of art.
Beauty is in twofold opposition with interest; firstly, because it
lies in the perception of the idea, and such perception takes its
object entirely out of the range of the forms enunciated by the
principle of sufficient reason; whereas interest has its sphere mainly
in circumstance, and it is out of this principle that the complexity
of circumstance arises. Secondly, interest works by exciting the will;
whereas beauty exists only for the pure perceptive intelligence, which
has no will. However, with dramatic and descriptive literature an
admixture of interest is necessary, just as a volatile and gaseous
substance requires a material basis if it is to be preserved and
transferred. The admixture is necessary, partly, indeed, because
interest is itself created by the events which have to be devised in
order to set the characters in motion; partly because our minds would
be weary of watching scene after scene if they had no concern for us,
or of passing from one significant picture to another if we were not
drawn on by some secret thread. It is this that we call interest;
it is the sympathy which the event in itself forces us to feel, and
which, by riveting our attention, makes the mind obedient to the poet,
and able to follow him into all the parts of his story.
If the interest of a work of art is sufficient to achieve this result,
it does all that can be required of it; for its only service is to
connect the pictures by which the poet desires to communicate a
knowledge of the idea, as if they were pearls, and interest were the
thread that holds them together, and makes an ornament out of the
whole. But interest is prejudicial to beauty as soon as it oversteps
this limit; and this is the case if we are so led away by the interest
of a work that whenever we come to any detailed description in a
novel, or any lengthy reflection on the part of a character in a
drama, we grow impatient and want to put spurs to our author, so that
we may follow the development of events with greater speed. Epic and
dramatic writings, where beauty and interest are both present in a
high degree, may be compared to the working of a watch, where interest
is the spring which keeps all the wheels in motion. If it worked
unhindered, the watch would run down in a few minutes. Beauty, holding
us in the spell of description and reflection, is like the barrel
which checks its movement.
Or we may say that interest is the body of a poetic work, and beauty
the soul. In the epic and the drama, interest, as a necessary quality
of the action, is the matter; and beauty, the form that requires the
matter in order to be visible.