Part 10

It is not from the death of Shakspeare that we must date, in England, that worship, the devotedness of which, after having been maintained with such fervor for sixty years, seems now to have diffused a reflection of its heat over several countries of Europe. Though Shakspeare was dead, Ben Jonson still lived; and though Beaumont had lost his friend Fletcher, he still possessed his talent, the effects of which had been weakened, rather than fortified, by Fletcher. The necessities of curiosity too often overcome those of taste; and the pleasure of going again to admire Shakspeare could not fail to yield to the keener interest of going to judge the newest productions of his competitors. It was not to his dramatic pedantry that Ben Jonson was then indebted for the empire which, in Shakspeare's lifetime, he did not venture to aspire to share. The triumphs of classical taste were confined, in his case, to the unanimous eulogies of the literary men of his time, who were easily satisfied on the score of regularity, and were always glad of an opportunity to avenge science upon the disdain of the vulgar; but the tragedies and comedies of Ben Jonson were not the less coolly received by the public, and were sometimes even rejected with an irreverence for which he afterward took his revenge in his prefaces. But his masques, a kind of opera, obtained general success; and the more Ben Jonson and the erudite strove to render tragedy and comedy tiresome, the more strongly did the public fall back upon masques for their amusement. Several poets of Shakspeare's school also endeavored to satisfy the taste of the public for the kind of pleasure to which he had accustomed them. {120} Their efforts, attended with varying success, but maintained with untiring activity, kept up that taste for the drama which survives the epoch of its master-pieces. About five hundred and fifty dramas, without reckoning those of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, were printed before the Restoration of Charles II. Of these only thirty-eight can date from times anterior to Shakspeare; and it has been seen that, during his life, the custom was not to print those plays which were intended for representation on the stage. From 1640 to 1660, the Puritans closed nearly all the theatres; and most of these productions, therefore, belong to the twenty-five years which elapsed between the death of Shakspeare and the commencement of the civil wars. This was the weight beneath which the popularity of England's first dramatic poet succumbed for a time.

His memory, however, did not perish. In 1623, Heminge and Condell published the first complete edition of his dramas, thirteen of which only had been printed during his lifetime. His name was still held in respect; but for a finished reputation to inspire something beside respect, time must come to its aid, and must at first efface and suppress it, to give it at some future time the attraction of a neglected glory, and to stimulate the self-love and curiosity of inquiring minds to give it new life by a new examination, and to find in it the charm of a new discovery. A great writer rarely obtains, in the generation succeeding his own, the homage which posterity will lavish upon him. Sometimes even long spaces of time are necessary for the revolution commenced by a superior man to accomplish its course, and to bring the world to perceive its merits. Several causes combined to prolong the interval during which Shakspeare's works were regarded with coldness, and almost utterly forgotten.

{121}

The civil wars and the triumph of Puritanism occurred first, not only to interrupt all dramatic performances, but to destroy, as far as possible, every trace of amusement of this kind. The Restoration afterward introduced into England a foreign taste, which did not, perhaps, pervade the nation, but which held sway over the court. English literature then assumed a character which was not effaced by the new revolution of 1688; and French ideas, made honorable by the literary glory of the seventeenth century, and sustained by that of the eighteenth, retained in England a youthful and vigorous influence which had been lost by the old glories of Shakspeare. Fifty years after his death, Dryden declared that his idiom was a little "out of use." At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Lord Shaftesbury complained of his "natural rudeness, his unpolished style, and his antiquated phrase and wit;" and Shakspeare was then, for these reasons, excluded from several collections of the modern poets. In fact, Dryden did not understand Shakspeare, grammatically speaking; of this fact we have several proofs, and Dryden himself has proved, by recasting his pieces, that poetically he comprehended him as little. But not only was Shakspeare not understood, he soon became no longer known. In 1707, a poet named Tate produced a work entitled "King Lear," the subject of which, he said, he had borrowed from an obscure piece of the same name, recommended to his notice by a friend. This obscure piece was Shakspeare's "King Lear."

Distinguished writers, however, had not altogether ceased to allow Shakspeare a share in the literary glory of their country; but it was timidly and by degrees that they shook off the yoke of the prejudices of their time. If, in concert with Davenant, Dryden had recast the works of Shakspeare, Pope, in the edition which he published in 1725, contented himself with omitting all that he could not bring himself to regard as the work of the genius to whom he paid at least this homage. {122} With regard to that which he was obliged to leave, Shakspeare, says Pope, "having at his first appearance no other aim in his writings than to procure a subsistence," wrote "for the people," without seeking to obtain "patronage from the better sort." In 1765, Johnson, waxing bolder, and gaining encouragement from the dawn of a return to the national taste, vigorously defended the romantic liberties of Shakspeare against the pretensions of classical authority; and though he made some concessions to the contempt of a more polished age for the vulgarity and ignorance of the old poet, he at least had the courage to remark that, when a country is "unenlightened by learning, the whole people is the vulgar."

Shakspeare's works, then, were reprinted and commentated; but the mutilations alone obtained the honors of the stage. The Shakspeare amended by Dryden, Davenant, and others, was the only one which actors ventured to perform; and the "Tattler," having to quote some lines from "Macbeth," copied them from Davenant's amended edition. It was Garrick who, finding nowhere so fully as in Shakspeare means to supply the requirements of his own talent, delivered him from this disgraceful protection, lent to his ancient glory the freshness of his own young renown, and restored the poet to possession of the stage as well as of the patriotic admiration of the English.

Since that period, national pride has daily extended and redoubled this admiration. It nevertheless remained barren of results, and Shakspeare, to use the language of Sir Walter Scott, "reigned a Grecian prince over Persian slaves, and they who adored him did not dare attempt to use his language." {123} A new impulse can not be entirely due to old recollections; and an old epoch, that it may bear new fruit, needs to be again fertilized by a movement analogous to that which gave it its first fertility.

This movement has made itself felt in Europe, and England also is beginning to feel its impulse, as Sir Walter Scott's novels sufficiently demonstrate. But England will not be the only country indebted to Shakspeare for the new direction which is manifesting itself in her drama, as well as in other branches of her literature. In the literary movement by which it is now agitated, Continental Europe turns its eyes toward Shakspeare. Germany has long adopted him as a model rather than as a guide; and thereby it has, perhaps, suspended in their course those vivifying juices which impart their vigor and freshness only to fruits of native growth. Nevertheless, the path on which Germany has entered is leading to the discovery of true wealth; and if she will but work her own mines, a rich and fertile vein will not be wanting. The literature of Spain, a natural fruit of her civilization, already possesses its own original and distinct character. Italy alone and France, the fatherlands of modern classicism, are not yet recovered from their astonishment at the first shock given to those opinions which they have established with the rigor of necessity, and maintained with the pride of faith. Doubt presents itself to us as yet only as an enemy whose attacks we are beginning to fear; it seems as though discussion bears a threatening aspect, and that examination can not probe without undermining and overturning. In this position we hesitate, as if about to destroy that which will never be replaced; we are afraid of finding ourselves without law, and of discovering nothing but the insufficiency or illegitimacy of those principles upon which we were formerly wont to rely without disquietude.

{124}

This disturbance of mind can not cease so long as the question remains undecided between science and barbarism, the beauties of order and the effects of disorder; so long as men persist in seeing, in that system of which the first outlines were traced by Shakspeare, nothing but an allowance of unrestrained liberty and undefined latitude to the flights of the imagination, as well as to the course of genius. If the romantic system has beauties, it necessarily has its art and rules. Nothing is beautiful, in the eyes of man, which does not derive its effects from certain combinations, the secret of which can always be supplied by our judgment when our emotions have attested its power. The knowledge or employment of these combinations constitutes art. Shakspeare had his own art. We must seek it out in his works, examine into the means which he employs, and the results to which he aspires. Then only shall we possess a true knowledge of his system; then we shall know how far it is capable of increased development, according to the nature of dramatic art, considered in its application to modern society.

It is, in fact, nowhere else--neither in past times, nor among peoples unacquainted with our habits--but among ourselves, and in ourselves, that we must seek the conditions and necessities of dramatic poetry. Differing in this respect from other arts, in addition to the absolute rules imposed upon it, as on all others, by the unchangeable nature of man, dramatic art has relative rules which flow from the changeful state of society. In imitating the antique style, modern statuaries labor under no other constraint but the difficulty of equaling its perfection; and the most fervent and powerful adorer of antiquity would not venture to reproduce, even upon the most submissive stage, all that he admires in a tragedy of Sophocles. {125} It is easy to discern the cause of this. When contemplating a statue or a picture, the spectator receives at first, from the sculptor or the painter, the first impression which occurs to him; but it rests with himself to continue the work. He stops and looks; his natural disposition, his recollections and thoughts, group themselves around the leading idea which is presented to his view, and gradually develop within him the ever-increasing emotion which will soon hold entire dominion over him. The artist has done nothing but awaken in the spectator the faculty of conceiving and feeling; it takes hold of the movement which has been communicated to it, follows it up in its own direction, accelerates it by its own strength, and thus creates for itself the pleasure which it enjoys. Before a picture of a martyrdom, one person is moved by the expression of fervent piety, another by the manifestation of resigned grief; some are filled with indignation at the cruelty of the executioners. A tinge of courageous satisfaction which is evident in the look of the victim, reminds the patriot of the joys of devotion to a sacred cause; and the soul of the philosopher is elevated by the contemplation of man sacrificing himself for truth. The diversity of these impressions is of little consequence; they are all equally natural and equally free; each spectator chooses, as it were, the feeling which suits him best, and when it has once entered into his soul, no external fact can disturb its supremacy, no movement can interrupt the course of that to which every man yields himself according to his inclination.

{126}

In the prolonged course of dramatic action, on the contrary, all becomes changed at every step, and each moment produces a new impression. The painter is satisfied with establishing one first and unvarying connection between his picture and the spectator. The dramatic poet must incessantly renew this relation, and maintain it through all the vicissitudes of the most various positions. All the acts in which human existence is manifested, all the forms which it assumes, and all the feelings which may modify it during the continuance of an always complicated event--these are the numerous and changeful objects which he presents to the public view; and he is never allowed to separate himself from his spectators, or to leave them for an instant alone and at liberty; he must be incessantly acting upon them, and must at every step excite in their souls emotions analogous to the ever-changing position in which he has placed them. How can he succeed in this, unless he carefully adapts himself to their dispositions and inclinations; unless he supplies the actual requirements of their mind; unless he addresses himself constantly to ideas which are familiar to them, and speaks to them in the language which they are accustomed to hear? Passion will not appear to us so touching if it be displayed in a manner contrary to our habits; and sympathy will not be awakened with the same vivacity in regard to interests of which we have ceased to be personally conscious. The necessity for appeasing the gods by a human sacrifice does not, in our mind, give that force to the speeches of Menelaus which it would have imparted to them among the Greeks, who were attached to their faith: the stern chastity of Hippolytus does not interest us in his fate: and virtue itself, in order to obtain from us that affectionate reverence which it has a right to expect, needs to connect itself with duties which our habits have taught us to respect and cherish.

{127}

Subject, therefore, at once to the conditions of the arts of imitation and to those of the purely poetical arts; bound, like epic poetry in its narratives, to set human life in motion; and called upon, like painting and sculpture, to present in its person and under its individual features--the dramatic poet is obliged to include, within the probabilities of one action, all the means which he requires to make it understood. His characters can only tell us what they would say if they were actually there, really occupied with the fact which they represent. The epic poet, as it were, does the honors, to his readers, of the edifice into which he introduces them; he accompanies them with his own speeches, assists them by his explanations, and, by the description of manners, times, and places, prepares them for the scene which he is about to disclose to their view, and opens to them in every sense the world into which he is desirous to transport them, and himself also. The dramatic personage comes forward alone, concerned with himself only; he places himself, without preliminary explanation, in communication with the spectator; and without calling or guiding them, he must make his audience follow him. Thus separated from one another, how can they succeed in coming into connection, unless a profound and general analogy already exists between them? Evidently those heroes, who do nothing for the public but speak and feel in their presence, will be understood and received by them only so far as they coincide with them in their mode of conceiving, feeling, and speaking; and dramatic effect can result only from their aptitude to unite in the same impressions.

{128}

The impressions of man communicated to man--this is, in fact, the sole source of dramatic effects. Man alone is the subject of the drama; man alone is its theatre. His soul is the stage upon which the events of this world come to play their part; it is not by their own virtue, but merely by their relations to the moral being whose destiny occupies our attention, that events take part in the action; every dramatic character abandons them as soon as they aspire to exercise a direct influence over us, instead of acting by the intermediary of a visible person, and by means of the emotion which we receive, in our turn, from the emotion which they have excited in him. Why is the narrative of Theramenes epic, and not dramatic? Because he addresses himself to the spectator, and not to Theseus. Theseus, being already aware of his son's death, is no longer capable of experiencing the impressions occasioned by the narrative; and if, while still in uncertainty, he were only to arrive at a knowledge of his misfortune through the anguish of such a recital, the poetical ornaments with which it is, perhaps, overloaded would not prevent it from being dramatic, for the impressions which it produces would be to us those of a person interested in the result: we should be conscious of them in the heart of Theseus.

In the heart of man alone can the dramatic fact take place; the event which is its occasion does not constitute it. The death of the lover is rendered dramatic by the grief of his mistress--the danger of the son by the terror of his mother; and however horrible may be the idea of the murder of a child, Andromache inspires us with greater solicitude than Astyanax. An earthquake and the physical convulsions which accompany it will furnish only a spectacle for contemplation, or the subject of an epic narrative; but the rain is dramatic upon the bald head of old Lear, and especially in the heart of his companions, racked by the pity which they feel for him. {129} The apparition of a spectre would have no effect upon the audience unless some one on the stage were alarmed by it; and to produce the dramatic effect of Lady Macbeth's somnambulism, Shakspeare has taken care that it should be witnessed by a physician and a waiting-woman, whom he has employed to transmit to us the terrible impressions which it produces upon themselves.

Thus man alone occupies the stage; his existence is displayed upon it, animated and aggrandized by the events which are connected with it, and which owe their theatrical character to this connection alone. In comedy, events, being of less magnitude than the passion which they excite in man, derive a laughable importance from this passion; in tragedy, being more powerful than the means which man has at his disposal, they move us by the exhibition of his grandeur and his weakness. The comic poet invents them freely, for his art consists in originating, in man himself and his absurdities, those events by which man is agitated. This invention is rarely a merit in the tragic poet, for his work is to discern and exhibit man and his soul in the midst of the events to which he is subjected. If it be generally requisite that the subject of tragedy should be taken from the history of the great and powerful, it is because the strong impressions which it aims at producing upon us can only be communicated to us by strong characters, incapable of succumbing beneath the blows of an ordinary destiny. It is in the development of high fortune and its terrible vicissitudes that the whole man appears, with all the wealth and energy of his nature. Thus the spectacle of the world, concentrated in an individual, is revealed to us upon the stage; thus, by the medium of the soul which receives their impress, events reach us through sympathy, the source of dramatic illusion.

{130}