Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846
"Cosi all egro fanciul' porgiamo aspersi,
Di soave licor gli orli del Vaso;
Succhi amari, ingannato intanto ei beve,
Et dall' inganno suo vita riceve."
The elevating influence of the noble sentiments with which the higher dramatic works abound, is more loudly called for in this than it has been in any former period of British history. We are no longer in the age of enthusiasm. The days of chivalry have gone by – and gone by, it is feared, never to return. We are in the age of commerce and the mechanical arts. Material appliances, creature comforts, – stimulants to the senses – now form the great moving power of society. Gain is every where sought after with the utmost avidity; but it is sought not for any lofty object, but on account of the substantial physical comforts with which the possession of riches is attended. Sensuality, disguised under the veil of elegance, refinement, and accomplishment, is making rapid strides amongst us. It does so in all old, wealthy, and long-established communities; it is the well-known and oft-described premonitory symptom of national decline. We can scarce venture to hope, we should find in the British empire at this period the enthusiasm which manned the ramparts of Sarragossa, the patriotism which fired the torches of Moscow. We should find united, too generally it is to be feared, at least in a considerable portion, the timidity and selfishness which signed the capitulation of Venice. How important, then, to gain possession of so mighty a lever for moving the general mind, and counteracting the selfishness which is degrading society, as the enthusiasm of the theatre affords; and instead of permitting it to fall into the hands of vice, to become the handmaid of licentiousness, to turn its vast powers to the rousing of elevated sentiments, the strengthening of virtuous resolutions, the nourishing of generous emotions! Whoever succeeds in this, whether author, actor, or actress, is a friend to the best interests of humanity, and is to be ranked with the benefactors of the human race.
Nor be it said that the theatre has been now irrevocably turned, in this country, to frivolous or contemptible representations, or that dancing and singing have for ever banished the tragic muse from the stage. Facts – well known and universally acknowledged facts, prove the reverse. How strong soever the desire for excitement or physical enjoyment may be, the passion for heart-stirring incident, the besoin of strong emotions, the thirst for tragic event, is still stronger. Look at the Parisian stage – what a concatenation of murders, suicides, conflagrations, massacres, and horrors of every description, have there grown up with the spread of the romantic drama in the lesser theatres! That shows how strong is the passion for tragic excitement in highly civilized and long corrupt society. Enter any of our courts of law, when any trial for murder or any other serious crime is going forward – observe how unwearied is the attention of all classes, and especially the lowest; with what patience they will sit for days and nights together, to watch the proceedings; mark the deathlike silence which pervades the hall, when any important part of the evidence is delivered, or the verdict of the jury is returned. Observe the mighty throng which attends a public execution. The writer once was present, when an hundred and fifty thousand persons assembled in one spot to witness the expiation of their guilt by two murderers on the scaffold.13 When the mournful procession set out for the place of punishment, four miles distant, not a sound was to be heard from the innumerable spectators who lined the streets; the clang of the horses' hoofs on the pavement was audible among two hundred thousand persons. When it returned with the dead bodies, the clang of voices, the pent-up emotion, burst forth in so mighty a shout, that the discharge of artillery would hardly have been heard in the throng. The anxiety, sometimes amounting almost to frenzy, to get a sight of the convicted murderer, to be present at the condemned sermon, to see his last agonies on the scaffold, to examine the scenes of his crime, even to obtain a lock of his hair or a piece of his garments, is another proof of the disordered and often extravagant desires which the longing for strong and tragic excitement will produce in a large portion of society. Rely upon it, deep emotion, if rightly managed and properly directed, is more attractive than either amusement or licentiousness. Suffering exacts a far deeper sympathy than joy; the generous, for the time at least, overpower the selfish feelings. Let but the tragic muse be restored to her appropriate position on the stage, and supported by the requisite ability in the author and performers, and she will extinguish rivalry, and bear down opposition.
We have said that the tragic muse will do this, "if supported by the requisite ability in the authors and performers." We have said this advisedly; for we belong to the former class, and we have no complaint to make of want of ability on the stage. On the contrary, talent and genius, of the most elevated kind, are to be found upon it. The fault lies with our own profession, or rather with that portion of it who cultivate dramatic composition. The origin of the evil is to be found, the remote cause of the present degraded condition of the stage, is to be found in – strike but hear – in Shakspeare!
The most devoted worshipper of the genius of the Bard of Avon, the most enthusiastic admirer of the profound knowledge of the human heart, and unequalled force of expression which he possessed, cannot exceed ourselves in the deep admiration which we entertain for his transcendent excellences. On the contrary, it is those very excellences which have done the mischief; it is they which have misled subsequent dramatic writers in this country, and occasioned the constant failures by which his imitators have been distinguished. It is not surprising that it is so. Shakspeare was supremely great; but he was so, not in consequence of his dramatic principles, but in spite of them. He fired his arrow further than mortal man has yet done; but he fired it not altogether in the right direction, and no one since has been able to draw the bow of Ulysses.
There is no one who has not heard of the famous dramatic unities, and the long-continued controversy which has been maintained between the admirers of the Greek drama, founded on their strict observance, and the followers of Shakspeare, who set them at defiance. In this, as in other disputes, probably neither party will ever convince the other; and the only effect of the contention is to fix each more immovably in its own opinion. But, waiving at present the abstract question, which of the two systems is in itself preferable, or essential to dramatic success, there is a practical consideration of deep interest to society, with which we are all concerned and the result of which throws no small light on the theoretical principle. It is this. Placing the creators of the two systems – Æschylus and Shakspeare – on a par; conceding to the author of Hamlet an equal place with that of the composer of the Prometheus Vinctus; which of the two systems has had most success in the world; has longest preserved its sway over the human mind; has best withstood the causes of corruption inherent in all earthly change?
What a noble set of followers have, in all ages, graced the banners of the Athenian bard! Sophocles, Aristophanes, Menander, and Euripides, in Greece; Terence and Plautus in Rome; Metastasio, Goldoni, and Alfieri in Italy; Corneille, Racine, Molière, and Voltaire in France; Schiller,14 in himself a host, in Germany – contribute the brightest stars in the immortal band. Their merits may be unequal, their talent various, their pieces sometimes uninteresting; but, taken as a whole, their works exhibit the greatest efforts of human genius. What has the Romantic school to exhibit, after its inimitable founder, as a set-off to this long line of greatness? The ephemeral and now forgotten lights of the British stage – the blasting indecencies of Beaumont and Fletcher; the vigorous ribaldry of Dryden; the shocking extravagances of the recent French and Spanish stage; the Tour de Nesle, and other elevating pieces, which adorn the modern Parisian theatre, and train to virtuous and generous feeling the present youth of France. Shakspeare himself, with all his transcendent excellences, is unable to keep his ground on the British stage. Like all great men, whom accident or error has embarked in a wrong course, he has been passed by a host of followers, who, unable to imitate his beauties, have copied only his defects, till they have fairly banished the legitimate tragic drama from the London stage. If the precept of Scripture be true – "By their fruits shall ye know them" – the palm must be unquestionably awarded to the old Grecian school.
If the different principles on which the two great schools of the drama proceed are considered, it will not appear surprising that this result has taken place.
The Greek drama embraced a very limited number of stories and events, and they were all thoroughly known to every audience in the country. The incidents and tragic occurrences so wonderfully illustrated by the genius of their tragic poets, are almost all to be found sketched out in the Odyssey of Homer, or in the successive disasters of the fated race of Œdipus. The sacrifice of Iphigenia to procure fair gales when setting out for Troy, the foundation of the exquisite tragedy by Euripides of Iphigenia in Aulis; the subsequent meeting of her with her brothers, the basis of Iphigenia in Tauris, by the same poet; the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra and her adulterous lover; the revenge of Electra and Orestes, who put their mother and her lover to death; the subsequent remorse and woful fate of the avenging brother and sister – form so many tragedies, which for centuries entranced the Athenian audience. The sorrows of Andromache, when torn from her home after the death of Hector and sack of Troy, and subjected to the jealousy of the daughter of Menelaus; the deep woes of Hecuba, who saw in one day her daughter sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles, and the corpse of her son washed ashore, after having been perfidiously murdered by his Thracian host, as they appeared in the thrilling verses of Euripides – were all previously well known to the Grecian audience. If to these we add the multiplied disasters of the line of Œdipus; the despair of that unhappy man at his incestuous marriage with Jocasta; his subsequent sorrow when an exile, poor and bowed down by misfortune; the dreadful fate which befell his sons when they fell by each others' hands before the walls of Thebes; and the heroic self-sacrifice of Antigone to procure the rites of sepulture for her beloved and innocent brother – we shall find we have embraced nearly the whole dramas which exercised the genius of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
It resulted from this limited number of incidents in the Greek drama, and the thorough acquaintance of the audience, in every instance, with the characters, the incidents, and the dénouement of the piece, that the grand object of the poet was to work up a particular part of the story to the highest perfection, rather than, to an audience unacquainted with any part of it, to unfold the whole. It was that which created the difference between it and the Romantic drama of modern times. There was no use in attempting to tell the story, for that was already known to all the audience. It would have been like telling the story of Wallace, or Queen Mary, or Robert Bruce, to a Scottish assembly. Genius was to be displayed; effect was to be produced, not by unfolding new and unknown incidents, but working up to the highest degree those already known. Hence the peculiar character of the Greek drama; hence the astonishing and unequalled perfection to which it was brought. The world has never seen, perhaps it will never again see, any thing so exquisite as the masterpieces of Sophocles and Euripides – any thing so sublime as some of Æschylus. All subsequent ages have concurred in this opinion. All nations have united in it. The moderns and the ancients, differing in so many other points, are at one in this particular. There is as little diversity of opinion on the subject, as in the admiration of the sculpture of Phidias, the verses of Virgil, or the paintings of Raphael.
It was by the strict observance of the unities, and the necessity to which it exposed the poet of supplying, by his own genius and taste, all adventitious aids derived from change of scene, splendour of decoration, and novelty of story, that this astonishing perfection was attained. Force of language, grandeur of thought, pathos of feeling, were all in all. The dramatist was compelled to rest on these, and these alone. If he did not succeed in them, he was lost. The audience, composed of the most refined and enlightened citizens that then existed in the world, went to the theatre, expecting not to be interested or surprised by the unravelling of a new and intricate story, but to be fascinated by the force of expression and pathos of feeling, with which a mournful catastrophe already known was told. To attain this object, the dramatic writers of antiquity selected that period in an interesting and tragic story, when its incidents were approaching their crisis, when the dénouement for good or for evil took place; and they represented that at full length, and in all its detail to the spectators. The previous incidents which had brought matters up to this point, were narrated in the course of the dialogue in the earlier scenes; the closing catastrophe, often too terrible to be represented on the stage, was described by some of the characters who had witnessed it. But the intervening period, the events and thoughts which succeeded the past, and preceded the future, were painted in their fullest detail, and with all the force and finishing of which the artist was capable. Nothing resembles the structure of a tragedy of antiquity so much as a modern trial for murder; and in the undying interest which such a proceeding invariably excites in all countries and all ages, we may see the deep foundation laid in human nature for the influence of that species of dramatic composition. As in the Greek drama, the witnesses tell the preceding story, and explain the previous crimes or events by which matters have been brought to the present stage, when life or death depends upon the issue of the proceedings. The trial itself takes up these proceedings at the decisive point, and, with strict regard to unity of time and place, exhibits their aims and issue to the mind of the spectators. If the execution of the criminal were immediately to follow the verdict of the jury, and some persons were, when the spectators were still sitting in the hall thrilling with the interest they had felt, to come in, and relate the demeanour and last words of the unhappy being on the scaffold, that would be a Greek drama complete.
As the field of dramatic representation was thus limited on the stage of antiquity, the whole genius and powers of the poet were bent to concentrating on that narrow space all the powers and beauties of which his art was susceptible. Nothing was omitted which could either elevate, interest, entrance, or melt the heart of the audience. It is a common opinion in modern times with persons not acquainted in the originals with the Greek tragedy, that it was couched in a stately measured tone, wholly different from nature, and more akin to the pompous and sonorous verses of the French theatre. There never was a greater mistake. If it is characterized by any peculiarity more than another, it is the brevity and condensation of the language, the energy of the expressions, and the force with which the most vehement passions, and strongest emotions of the heart are conveyed in the simplest words. So brief is the expression, so frequent the breaks and interjections, that the rhythm and verse are frequently, and for a long period, forgotten. Euripides alone, who had great rhetorical powers, sometimes indulges in the lengthened disquisitions, the arguments in verse, which exhibit so admirable a view of all that can be urged on a particular subject, and which have been so frequently imitated by Corneille and Racine. But even he, when he comes to the impassioned or pathetic scenes, as in the Medea, the Iphigenia in Aulis, and Hecuba, is as brief and energetic in his expression as Shakspeare himself. Simplicity of language, energy of thought, and force of passion, are the grand characteristics of the Greek drama, as they were of the Greek oratory, and their combination constituted the excellence of both. The fire of the poet, the reach of imagination, was reserved for the chorus, which frequently exhibited the most sublime specimens of lyric poetry, rivalling the loftiest strains of the Pindaric muse. Thus the audience, in a short piece, in which the plot was rapidly urged forward, and the interest was never allowed for a moment to flag, were presented alternately with the force of Demosthenes' declamation, the pathos of Sophocles' expressions, and the fire of Pindar's poetry. It was as if the finest scenes of Shakspeare's tragedies were thrown together with no other interjections but the eloquence of Burke in the dialogue, and lyric poetry on a level with Dryden's "Alexander's Feast," Gray's "Bard," or Campbell's "Last Man," in the chorus. Is it surprising that tragedies, exhibiting such a combination, worked out by the most perfect masters of the human heart, should have entranced every subsequent age?
Though one scene only was presented in each tragedy on the Greek stage, so that unity of place was effectually observed, yet unity of time was by no means so strictly attended to; so that the poet was far from being so fettered in this respect as is commonly imagined. Every scholar knows that a very considerable time, sometimes some hours, or half a day, were supposed to be consumed in the few minutes that the strophe and antistrophe of the chorus were in course of being chanted. For instance, in the Antigone of Sophocles, during the time that one of the chorus is reciting a few verses, the heroic sister has found out the body of her beloved brother, and, in violation of the command of Creon, bestowed on it the rites of sepulture. In the Hecuba of Euripides, in the brief space occupied by a chorus, her daughter Polyxine is led to the tomb of Achilles by Ulysses, and sacrificed there, in presence of the whole Greek army, to procure favourable gales for the return of the troops from Troy. In the Electra of the same author, during the strophes of one chorus, Orestes and Electra effect the death of the husband of Clytemnestra; during another, murder their unhappy mother herself. In the Phœnissæ of Euripides, the duel between the two sons of Jocasta, their mutual slaughter, and the self-immolation of that fated mother on the body of her beloved son Polynices, take place while the chorus were reciting a few verses, and are described when the actors return on the stage. In truth, it is often in the tragic events which thus take place behind the scenes during the chorus, but in close connexion with what had just before been exhibited on the boards, that a material part of the interest of the piece consists, and the art of the poet is shown. The interest is never allowed for a moment to flag; it is wrought up first by the anticipation of the catastrophe, then by its description; and the intervening period, when it was actually going forward, is filled up by the recital of sublime lyric poetry, at once causing the stop of time to be forgotten, affording a brief respite to the overwrought feelings, and yet keeping up the enthusiastic and elevated state of mind in the audience.
It is impossible to conceive a more perfect drama than the Antigone of Sophocles. The subject, the characters, the moral tone of the piece, are as perfect as its execution is masterly and felicitous. It possesses, what is not frequent in Greek tragedy, the interest arising from elevated moral feeling and heroic courage devoted to noble purposes. The steady perseverance of Antigone in her noble resolution to perform the last rites to her dead brother, in defiance of the cruel threats of Creon; the courage with which she does discharge those mournful duties; the rage of the tyrant at the violation of his commands; the momentary reappearance of the woman in Antigone, when she thinks of her betrothed, and contemplates her dreadful fate, to be shut up in a living tomb in the rock; the despair of Hæmon, who kills himself on the body of his beloved; the silent despair of his mother, which, unable to find words for its expression, leads to her self-immolation – the last victim of the curses bestowed on the race of Œdipus; are all portrayed with inimitable force and pathos. Simplicity of expression, depth of feeling, resolution of mind, are its great characteristics, as they are of all the works of Sophocles. It has been revived with signal success in recent times. If a translation could be made, which should render into English the force and beauty of the original language, the mingled energy and delicacy of Sophocles's conception, we should, indeed, have a perfect idea of the magic of the Greek drama. Such a translation is not beyond the bounds of possibility; the English language is capable of it, and could, in the hands of a master, render back a faithful image of the brevity and power of the Greek. But that master must be a Sophocles, or a Shakspeare; and ages will probably elapse before the world produce either the one or the other.
The Prometheus Vinctus of Æschylus is not properly a drama; at least, it has so little of the peculiar interest belonging to that species of poetry, that it can hardly be called such. Nevertheless, it is perhaps the most sublime composition that ever came from the thoughts of uninspired man. It is meant to portray the heroic devotion, the undaunted courage of Prometheus – the friend of man, the assuager of his sufferings, the aider of his enterprises – who was chained to a rock, exposed to the burning heats of summer, the shivering frosts of winter, by Jupiter, for having stolen fire – the parent of art, the spring of enterprise, the source of improvement – from heaven, to give it to the human race. From the expressions he uses on the ultimate results of that inestimable gift, one would almost suppose he had a prophetic anticipation of the marvels of Steam. The opening scene, where Prometheus is chained to a rock in Scythia, by Vulcan, in presence of "Force and Strength," the agents of Jupiter's commands; and the closing one, where he remains firm and unshaken amidst the wrath of the elements, the upheaving of the ocean, and the lightnings of heaven hurled at his devoted head, are of unrivalled sublimity. They literally realize the idea of the poet —
"Si fractus illabatur orbis,
Impavidum ferient ruinæ."
The Prometheus Vinctus is the Inferno of Dante dramatised; but it is fraught with a nobler moral. It does not portray the sufferings of sin for past guilt; it exhibits the heroism of virtue under present injustice. It paints the triumph of devoted benevolence, sustained by unconquerable will, over the oppression of physical force, the tyranny of resistless power. It exhibits the charity of the Saviour in the Paradise Regained, united to the indomitable spirit of Satan, who is chained on the burning lake, in Paradise Lost. It is the prophetical wail of humanity, so often doomed to suffer in the best of causes from external injustice.
The Iphigenia in Aulis is the most perfect of all the tragedies of Euripides, and the best adapted for modern representation. The well-known story of the daughter of the King of Men being devoted to sacrifice, to appease the angry deities, and procure favourable gales for the fleet on the way to Troy, and of the agony of her parents under the infliction, is developed with all the pathos and eloquence of which that great master of the tragic art was capable. Nothing can exceed the progressive interest which the character of Iphigenia excites. At first, horrorstruck, and shrinking with the timidity of her sex from the axe of the priest, she gradually rises when her fate appears inevitable, and at length devotes herself for her country with a woman's devotion, and more than a man's fortitude. In the French plays on the same subject, a love episode is introduced between her and Achilles; but the simplicity of the Greek original appears preferable, in which she had no previous acquaintance with the son of Peleus, and he is interested in her fate, and strives to avert it, only from finding that his name, as her betrothed, had, without his knowledge, been used by Agamemnon to induce Clytemnestra to bring her to the Grecian camp. Doubtless, the tenderness of Racine in the love-scenes between her and Achilles, is inimitable; but the simplicity of the Greek original, where grief on her parents' part for her loss, and her own heroic self-sacrifice on the altar of patriotic duty, are undisturbed by any other emotion, is yet more touching, and far more agreeable to ancient manners, where love on the woman's part, previous to marriage, was, as now in the East, almost unknown.
In these great masterpieces of ancient art, the unity of emotions is strictly preserved; and it is that, joined to the lofty moral tone preserved through the drama, which constitutes their unequalled charm. This, however, is not always the case in the Greek tragedies. They are not insensible to the effect of a high moral tone, or the development of poetical justice; but they did not regard either as the principal object, or even a material part, of dramatic composition. To delineate the play of the passions was their great object: Aristotle says expressly that was the end of tragedy. To that object they devoted all their powers; they succeeded in laying bare the human heart in its most agonized moments, and in its inmost recesses, with terrible fidelity. In this way, they frequently represented it as torn by a double distress, each prompting to atrocious actions; as in the Medea of Euripides, where the unhappy wife of Jason distracted by jealousy at the desertion and second marriage of her husband, destroys her own children in the fury of her vengeance against him; or the Hecuba of the same author, where the discrowned and captive widow of Priam, doomed in one day to see her daughter sacrificed on the tomb of Achilles, and the dead body of her son washed ashore by the waves, takes a terrible vengeance on his murderer, by putting his children to death, and turning him, after his eyes have been put out, to beg his way through the world. The Greeks seem to have been deeply impressed with the evils, vicissitudes, and sufferings of life. No word occurs so frequently in their dramas as evils, (κακα.) In witnessing the delineation of its miseries on the stage, they seem to have held somewhat of the same stern pleasure which the North American Indians have in beholding the prolonged torture inflicted on a condemned captive at the stake. Every one felt a thrill of interest at beholding how another could bear a series of reverses and sufferings, which might any day be his own.
Notwithstanding all our admiration for the Greek tragedies, and firmly believing that they are framed on the true principle of dramatic composition – the neglect of which has occasioned its long-continued decline in this country – we are yet far from thinking them perfect. The age of the world, the peculiarities of ancient manners, rendered it impossible it should be so. We could conceive dramas more perfect and varied than any even of the masterpieces of Sophocles or Euripides. We are persuaded the world will yet see them outdone; though they will be outdone only by those who follow out their principles. But there are three particulars, in which, in modern times, themes of surpassing interest and importance are opened to the dramatic poet, which were of necessity unknown to the writers of antiquity; and it is by blending the skilful use of these with the simplicity and pathos of the Greek originals, that the highest perfection of this noble art is to be attained.
In the first place, the Greeks had no idea whatever of a system of divine superintendence, or moral retribution, in this world. On the contrary their ideas were just the reverse. Fate, superior to the decrees of Jove himself, was the supreme power which they discerned in all the changes of time; and it was the crushing of a human soul beneath its chariot-wheels that they principally delighted to portray. The omnipotence of Fate, in their opinion, was more shown in the destruction than the rewards of the good. Success in life they were willing enough to ascribe to the able conduct of the persons concerned; they only began, like the French, to speak about destiny when they were unfortunate. Their ignorance of the fundamental principles of religion, familiar to every peasant in Europe, shines forth in every page of Sophocles and Euripides. The noblest tragedy of Æschylus, the Prometheus Vinctus, is intended to portray the highest divine benevolence overpowered by supreme power, and eternally suffering under eternal injustice. The frequent overthrow of virtue by wickedness, of innocence by fraud, of gentleness by violence, in this world, seems to have produced an indelible impression on their minds. They not only had no confidence in the divine justice, or the ultimate triumph of virtue over vice, but they had the reverse. They had a mournful conviction that innocence in this vale of tears was everlastingly doomed to suffering; that vice would eternally prove triumphant; and that it was in inward strength and resolution that the only refuge for oppressed virtue was to be found. Their greatest philosophers thought the same. Their tragedies were dramatised Stoicism. Grandeur of character, force of mind, the indomitable will, might be portrayed to perfection under such a belief; but the mild graces, the confidence in God, the resignation to his will, breathed into the human heart by the Gospel, were unknown. What a volume of thoughts and sentiments, of virtues and graces, were wanting in a world to which faith, hope, and charity were unknown! A dramatic Raphael was impossible in antiquity; it was the spirit of the Redeemer which inspired his Holy Families. Their morality, accordingly, is of a sterner cast than any thing with which we are acquainted in modern times. They were full of admiration of the qualities which formed the patriot and the hero, and have portrayed them to perfection in their dramas; but they were ignorant of that more heavenly disposition of mind, which