Shakspeare and His Times

by François Guizot

"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."

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? 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.