The history of the unity of time during the next century does not strictly concern us here; but it may be well to point out that it was through the offices of Chapelain, seconded by the authority of Cardinal Richelieu, that it became fixed in the dramatic theory of France. In a long letter, dating from November, 1630, and recently published for the first time, Chapelain sets out to answer all the objections made against the rule of twenty-four hours. It is sustained, he says, by the practice of the ancients and the universal consensus of the Italians; but his own proof is based on reason alone. It is the old argument of vraisemblance, as found in Maggi, Scaliger, and especially Castelvetro, whom Chapelain seems in part to follow. By 1635 he had formulated the whole theory of the three unities and converted Cardinal Richelieu to his views. In the previous year Mairet's Sophonisbe, the first "regular" French tragedy, had been produced. In 1636 the famous Cid controversy had begun. By 1640 the battle was gained, and the unities became a part of the classic theory of the drama throughout Europe. A few years later their practical application was most thoroughly indicated by the Abbé d'Aubignac, in his Pratique du Théâtre; and they were definitely formulated for all time by Boileau in the celebrated couplet:—
"Qu'en un lieu, qu'en un jour, un seul fait accompli
Tienne jusqu'à la fin le théâtre rempli."[374]
III. Heroic Poetry
It was the supreme ambition of the Pléiade to produce a great French epic. In the very first manifesto of the new school, Du Bellay urges every French poet to attempt another Iliad or Æneid for the honor and glory of France. For Pelletier (1555) the heroic poem is the one that really gives the true title of poet; it may be compared to the ocean, and all other forms to rivers.[375] He seems to be following Giraldi Cintio's discourse on the romanzi, published the year before his own work, when he says that the French poet should write a Heracleid, the deeds of Hercules furnishing the mightiest and most heroic material he can think of.[376] At the same time Virgil is for him the model of an epic poet; and his parallel between Homer and Virgil bears striking resemblance to the similar parallel in Capriano's Della Vera Poetica, published in the very same year as his own treatise.[377] Like Capriano, Pelletier censures the superfluous exuberance, the loquaciousness, the occasional indecorum, and the inferiority in eloquence and dignity of Homer when compared with the Latin poet.
It was Ronsard's personal ambition to be the French Virgil, as in lyric poetry he had been proclaimed the French Pindar. For twenty years he labored on the Franciade, but never finished it. In the two prefaces which he wrote for it, the first in 1572, and the second (published posthumously) about 1584, he attempts to give expression to his ideal of the heroic poet. In neither of them does he succeed in formulating any very definite or consistent body of epic theory. They are chiefly interesting in that they indicate the general tendencies of the Pléiade, and show Ronsard's own rhetorical principles, and his feeling for nature and natural beauty. The passage has already been cited in which he speaks of the heroic poem as entirely of a martial character, and limits its action to the space of one year. It has also been seen that for him, as for the Italians, verisimilitude, and not fact, is the test of poetry. At the same time, the epic poet is to avoid anachronisms and misstatements of fact. Such faults do not disturb the reader so much when the story is remote in point of time; and the poet should therefore always use an argument, the events of which are at least three or four hundred years old. The basis of the work should rest upon some old story of past times and of long-established renown, which has gained the credit of men.[378] This notion of the antiquity of the epic fable had been accepted long ago by the Italians. It is stated, for example, in Tasso's Discorsi dell' Arte Poetica, written about 1564, though not published until 1587, fifteen years after Tasso had visited Ronsard in Paris.
Vauquelin de la Fresnaye has the Pléiade veneration for heroic poetry; but he cannot be said to exhibit any more definite conception of its form and function. For him the epic is a vast and magnificent narration, a world in itself, wherein men, things, and thoughts are wondrously mirrored:—
"C'est un tableau du monde, un miroir qui raporte
Les gestes des mortels en differente sorte....
Car toute poësie il contient en soyméme,
Soit tragique ou comique, ou soit autre poëme."[379]
With this we may compare what Muzio had said in 1551:—
"Il poema sovrano è una pittura
De l'universo, e però in sè comprende
Ogni stilo, ogni forma, ogni ritratto."
But despite this very vague conception of the epic in the French Renaissance, there was, as has been said, a high veneration for it as a form, and for its masters, Homer and especially Virgil. This accounts for the large number of attempts at epic composition in France during the next century. But beyond the earlier and indefinite notion of heroic poetry the French did not get for a long time to come. Even for Boileau the epic poem was merely the vaste récit d'une longue action.[380]