Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature

by August Wilhelm von Schlegel

In the Femmes Savantes raillery has also the upper hand of mirth; the action is insignificant and not in the least degree attractive; and the catastrophe, after the manner of Molière, is arbitrarily brought about by foreign means. Yet these technical imperfections might well be excused for the sake of its satirical merit. But in this respect the composition, from the limited nature of its views, is anything but equal throughout. We are not to expect from the comic poet that he should always give us, along with the exhibition of a folly, a representation also of the opposite way of wisdom; in this way he would announce his object of instructing us with too much of method. But two opposite follies admit of being exhibited together in an equally ludicrous light. Molière has here ridiculed the affectation of a false taste, and the vain-gloriousness of empty knowledge. Proud in their own ignorance and contempt for all higher enlightenment, these characters certainly deserve the ridicule bestowed on them; but that which in this comedy is portrayed as the correct way of wisdom falls nearly into the same error. All the reasonable persons of the piece, the father and his brother, the lover and the daughter, nay, even the ungrammatical maid, are all proud of what they are not, have not, and know not, and even what they do not seek to be, to have, or to know. Chyrsale's limited view of the destination of the female sex, Clitander's opinion on the inutility of learning, and the sentiments elsewhere advanced respecting the measure of cultivation and knowledge which is suitable to a man of rank, were all intended to convey Molière's own opinions himself on these subjects. We may here trace in him a certain vein of valet-de-chambre morality, which also makes its appearance on many other points. We can easily conceive how his education and situation should lead him to entertain such ideas; but they are hardly such as entitle him to read lectures on human society. That, at the end, Trissotin should be ignominiously made to commit an act of low selfishness is odious; for we know that a learned man then alive was satirized under this character, and that his name was very slightly disguised. The vanity of an author is, on the whole, a preservative against this weakness: there are many more lucrative careers than that of authorship for selfishness without a feeling of honour.

The Misanthrope, which, as is well known, was at first coldly received, is still less amusing than the two preceding pieces: the action is less rapid, or rather there is none at all; and there is a great want of coherence between the meagre incidents which give only an apparent life to the dramatic movement,—the quarrel with Oronte respecting the sonnet, and its adjustment; the decision of the law-suit which is ever being brought forward; the unmasking of Celimene through the vanity of the two Marquisses, and the jealousy of Arsinöe. Besides all this, the general plot is not even probable. It is framed with a view to exhibit the thorough delineation of a character; but a character discloses itself much more in its relations with others than immediately. How comes Alceste to have chosen Philinte for a friend, a man whose principles were directly the reverse of his own? How comes he also to be enamoured of a coquette, who has nothing amiable in her character, and who entertains us merely by her scandal? We might well say of this Celimene, without exaggeration, that there is not one good point in her whole composition. In a character like that of Alceste, love is not a fleeting sensual impulse, but a serious feeling arising from a want of a sincere mental union. His dislike of flattering falsehood and malicious scandal, which always characterise the conversation of Celimene, breaks forth so incessantly, that, we feel, the first moment he heard her open her lips ought to have driven him for ever from her society. Finally, the subject is ambiguous, and that is its greatest fault. The limits within which Alceste is in the right and beyond which he is in the wrong, it would be no easy matter to fix, and I am afraid the poet himself did not here see very clearly what he would be at. Philinte, however, with his illusory justification of the way of the world, and his phlegmatic resignation, he paints throughout as the intelligent and amiable man. As against the elegant Celimene, Alceste is most decidedly in the right, and only in the wrong in the inconceivable weakness of his conduct towards her. He is in the right in his complaints of the corruption of the social constitution; the facts, at least, which he adduces, are disputed by nobody. He is in the wrong, however, in delivering his sentiments with so much violence, and at an unseasonable time; but as he cannot prevail on himself to assume the dissimulation which is necessary to be well received in the world, he is perfectly in the right in preferring solitude to society. Rousseau has already censured the ambiguity of the piece, by which what is deserving of approbation seems to be turned into ridicule. His opinion was not altogether unprejudiced; for his own character, and his behaviour towards the world, had a striking similarity to that of Alceste; and, moreover, he mistakes the essence of dramatic composition, and founds his condemnation on examples of an accidentally false direction.

So far with respect to the famed moral philosophy of Molière in his pretended master-piece. From what has been stated, I consider myself warranted to assert, in opposition to the prevailing opinion, that Molière succeeded best with the coarse and homely comic, and that both his talents and his inclination, if unforced, would have determined him altogether to the composition of farces such as he continued to write even to the very end of his life. He seems always to have whipped himself up as it were to his more serious pieces in verse: we discover something of constraint in both plot and execution. His friend Boileau probably communicated to him his view of a correct mirth, of a grave and decorous laughter; and so Molière determined, after the carnival of his farces, to accommodate himself occasionally to the spare diet of the regular taste, and to unite what in their own nature are irreconcileable, namely, dignity and drollery. However, we find even in his prosaic pieces traces of that didactical and satirical vein which is peculiarly alien to Comedy; for example, in his constant attacks on physicians and lawyers, in his disquisitions upon the true correct tone of society, &c., the intention of which is actually to censure, to refute, to instruct, and not merely to afford entertainment.

The classical reputation of Molière still preserves his pieces on the stage, [Footnote: If they were not already in possession of the stage, the indecency of a number of the scenes would cause many of them to be rejected, as the public of the present day, though probably not less corrupt than that of the author's times, is passionately fond of throwing over every thing a cloak of morality. When a piece of Molière is acted, the head theatre of Paris is generally a downright solitude, if no particular circumstance brings the spectators together. Since these Lectures were held, George Dandin has been hissed at Paris, to the great grief of the watchmen of the critical Sion. This was probably not on account of mere indecency. Whatever may be said in defence of the morality of the piece, the privileges of the higher classes are offensively favoured in it; and it concludes with the shameless triumph of arrogance and depravity over plain honesty.] although in tone and manners they are altogether obsolete. This is a danger to which the comic poet is inevitably exposed from that side of his composition which does not rest on a poetical foundation, but is determined by the prose of external reality. The originals of the individual portraits of Molière have long since disappeared. The comic poet who lays claim to immortality must, in the delineation of character and the disposition of his plan, rest principally on such motives as are always intelligible, being taken not from the manners of any particular age, but drawn from human nature itself.

In addition to Molière we have to notice but a few older or contemporary comedians. Of Corneille, who from the imitation of Spanish comedies acquired a name before he was known as a tragic author, only one piece keeps possession of the stage, Le Menteur, from Lope de Vega; and even this evinces, in our opinion, no comic talent. The poet, accustomed to stilts, moves awkwardly in a species of the drama the first requisites of which are ease and sweetness. Scarron, who only understood burlesque, has displayed this talent or knack in several comedies taken from the Spanish, of which two, Jodelle, or the Servant turned Master, and Don Japhet of Armenia, have till within these few years been occasionally acted as carnival farces, and have always been very successful. The plot of the Jodelle, which belongs to Don Francisco de Roxas, is excellent; the style and the additions of Scarron have not been able altogether to disfigure it. All that is coarse, nauseous, and repugnant to taste, belongs to the French writer of the age of Louis XIV., who in his day was not without celebrity; for the Spanish work is throughout characterized by a spirit of tenderness. The burlesque tone, which in many languages may be tolerated, has been properly rejected by the French, for whenever it is not guided by judgment and taste, it sinks to disgusting vulgarity. Don Japhet represents in a still ruder manner the mystification of a coarse fool. The original belongs to the kind which the Spaniards call Comedias de Figuron: it also has undoubtedly been spoiled by Scarron, The worst of the matter is, that his exaggerations are trifling without being amusing.

Racine hit upon a very different plan of imitation from that which was then followed, in his Plaideurs, of which the idea is derived from Aristophanes. The piece in this respect stands alone. The action is merely a light piece of legerdemain; but the follies which it portrays belong to a circle, and, with the imitations of the officers of court and advocates, form a complete whole. Many lines are at once witty sallies and characteristic traits; and some of the jokes have that apparently aimless drollery, which genuine comic inspiration can alone inspire. Racine would have become a dangerous rival of Molière, if he had continued to exercise the talent which he has here displayed.

Some of the comedies of a younger contemporary and rival of Molière, Boursault, have still kept possession of the stage; they are all of the secondary description, which the French call pièces à tiroir, and of which Molière gave the first example in Le Fâcheux. This kind, from the accidental succession of the scenes, which are strung together on some one common occasion, bear in so far a resemblance to the Mimes of the ancients; they are intended also to resemble them in the accurate imitation of individual peculiarities. These subjects are particularly favourable for the display of the Mimic art in the more limited signification of the word, as the same player always appears in a different disguise, and assumes a new character. It is advisable not to extend such pieces beyond a single act, as the want of dramatic movement, and the uniformity of the occasion through all the different changes, are very apt to excite impatience. But Boursault's pieces, which otherwise are not without merit, are tediously spun out to five acts. The idea of exhibiting Aesop, a slave-born sage, and deformed in person, in possession of court favour, was original and happy. But in the two pieces, Aesop in the City, and Aesop at Court, the fables which are tacked to every important scene are drowned in diffuse morals; besides, they are quite distinct from the dialogue, instead of being interwoven with it, like the fable of Menenius Agrippa in Shakespeare; and modern manners do not suit with this childish mode of instruction. In the Mercure Galant all sorts of out-of-the-way beings bring their petitions to the writer of a weekly paper. This thought and many of the most entertaining details have, if I am not mistaken, been borrowed by a popular German author without acknowledgment.

A considerable time elapsed after the death of Molière before the appearance of Regnard, to whom in France the second place in Comedy is usually assigned. He was a sort of adventurer who, after roaming a long time up and down the world, fell to the trade of a dramatic writer, and divided himself betwixt the composition of regular comedies in verse, and the Italian theatre, which still continued to flourish under Gherardi, and for which he sketched the French scenes. The Joueur, his first play, is justly preferred to the others. The author was acquainted with this passion, and a gamester's life, from his own experience: it is a picture after nature, with features strongly drawn, but without exaggeration; and the plot and accessory circumstances, with the exception of a pair of caricatures which might well have been dispensed with, are all appropriate and in character. The Distrait possesses not only the faults of the methodical pieces of character which I have already censured, but it is not even a peculiar character at all; the mistakes occasioned by the unfortunate habit of being absent in thought are all alike, and admit of no heightening: they might therefore have filled up an after-piece, but, certainly did not merit the distinction of being spun out into a comedy of five acts. Regnard has done little more than dramatize a series of anecdotes which La Bruyère had assembled together under the name of a certain character. The execution of the Légataire Universel shows more comic talent; but from the error of the general plan, arising out of a want of moral feeling, this talent is completely thrown away. La Harpe declares this piece the chef-d'oeuvre of comic pleasantry. It is, in fact, such a subject for pleasantry as would move a stone to pity,—as enlivening as the grin of a death's head. What a subject for mirth: a feeble old man in the very arms of death, teased by young profligates for his property, has a false will imposed on him while he is lying insensible, as is believed, on his death-bed! If it be true that these scenes have always given rise to much laughter on the French stage, it only proves the spectators to possess the same unfeeling levity which disgusts us in the author. We have elsewhere shown that, with an apparent indifference, a moral reserve is essential to the comic poet, since the impressions which he would wish to produce are inevitably destroyed whenever disgust or compassion is excited.

Legrand the actor, a contemporary of Regnard, was one of the first comic poets who gained celebrity for after-pieces in verse, a species of composition in which the French have since produced a number of elegant trifles. He has not, however, risen to any thing like the same height of posthumous fame as Regnard: La Harpe dismisses him with very little ceremony. Yet we should be disposed to rank him very high as an artist, even if he had composed nothing else than the King of Lubberland (Le Roi de Cocagne), a sprightly farce in the marvellous style, overflowing with what is very rare in France, a native fanciful wit, animated by the most lively mirth, which although carried the length of the most frolicsome giddiness, sports on and round all subjects with the utmost harmlessness. We might call it an elegant and ingenious piece of madness; an example of the manner in which the play of Aristophanes, or rather that of Eupolis, [Footnote: See page 167.] who had also dramatised the tale of Lubberland, might be brought on our stage without exciting disgust, and without personal satire. And yet Legrand was, certainly, unacquainted with the Old Comedy, and his own genius (we scruple not to use the expression) led him to the invention. The execution is as careful as in a regular comedy; but to this title in the French opinion it can have no pretensions, because of the wonderful world which it represents, of several of the decorations, and of the music here and there introduced. The French critics show themselves in general indifferent, or rather unjust towards every suggestion of genuine fancy. Before they can feel respect for a work it must present a certain appearance of labour and effort. Among a giddy and light-minded people, they have appropriated to themselves the post of honour of pedantry: they confound the levity of jocularity, which is quite compatible with profundity in art, with the levity of shallowness, which (as a natural gift or natural defect,) is so frequent among their countrymen.

The eighteenth century produced in France a number of comic writers of the second and third rank, but no distinguished genius capable of advancing the art a step farther; in consequence of which the belief in Molière's unapproachable excellence has become still more firmly riveted. As we have not space at present to go through all these separate productions, we shall premise a few observations on the general spirit of French Comedy before entering on the consideration of the writers whom we have not yet mentioned.