5. A metonymy put into action:
Voyez-vous cette figure tendre et solitaire qui se promène là-bas en attendant la mienne?
6. A rough comparison, which will not admit of examination:
Si j'étais roi, nous verrions qui serait reine, et comme ce ne serait pas moi, il faudrait que ce fût vous.
Although these divisions are not altogether satisfactory, they, with the examples cited, will serve to convey an accurate enough idea of this side of the marivaudage. Such expressions, or, at least, those in which the exaggeration of the figure is most apparent, are usually found in the mouths of servants and peasants, to which class such complicated language is not unnatural.[149]
A very minor phase of the literary activity of Marivaux remains to be considered, and that is his work in criticism. Eulogiums of the tragedies of Crébillon père,[150] of the Romulus[151] and the Inès de Castro[152] of La Motte, and of the Lettres persanes[153] of Montesquieu constitute almost his entire equipment in this line.
That he was not an unbiased critic, this unwarranted praise of his friend La Motte is enough to prove: "Je sortais, il y a quelques jours, de la comédie, ou j'étais allé voir Romulus, qui m'avait charmé, et je disais en moi-même: on dit communément l'élégant Racine, et le sublime Corneille; quelle épithète donnera-t-on à cet homme-ci, je n'en sais rien; mais il est beau de les avoir méritées toutes les deux." His criticism of the Lettres persanes is, after all, the only one worthy of praise. In it he has shown himself a fair and competent judge of this first celebrated work of Montesquieu. I realize that, in thus restricting the critical works of Marivaux, it is taking a narrow view of criticism, and that his works ridiculing the classics, l'Iliade travestie and le Télémaque travesti, together with his ideas upon the quarrel of the ancients and moderns, as seen throughout certain of his works, and particularly in le Miroir, and lastly his opinion of criticism in general, and his defense of his own style, as embodied in works already mentioned, should be taken into consideration, if we had the time to study him as critic in this broader sense.
If Marivaux, yielding to his sense of etiquette and good breeding, was sparing in his criticism of his contemporaries, he was certainly not spared by them. The circle of his friends was small, but intimate, and his timidity with men, his suspiciousness, his lack of self-assertion, made him an easy prey to such unscrupulous opponents as Voltaire. Fond of the refined society of the salons, and repelled by the less feeling and more boisterous set of the cafés, which he avoided, Marivaux became a convenient object of attack for the cabals set in motion by the latter, and, although, in spite of his general suspiciousness, he refused to give credence[154] to an idea so obnoxious to him, it is not unlikely that the frequent failure of his comedies on their "first night" may be most satisfactorily explained in this way.
Marivaux was ever ready to accept a criticism that seemed to him deserved. "J'ai eu tort de donner cette comédie-ci au théâtre," he says in the preface to his Ile de la Raison: "Elle n'était pas bonne à être représentée, et le public lui a fait justice en la condamnant. Point d'intrigue, peu d'action, peu d'intérêt; ce sujet, tel que je l'avais conçu, n'était point susceptible de tout cela…." At another time, having been present at the first performance of one of his comedies, and noticing the undissimulated yawns of the parterre, he confessed, upon leaving the theatre, that no one had been more bored than he.[155] However, notwithstanding his readiness to acknowledge his own defects, and to defer to the opinions of others, Marivaux required the criticism to be fair- minded and impersonal.
The seventh leaflet of the Spectateur contains his ideas upon this matter of criticism, which a few selections will suffice to illustrate: "A l'égard de ces critiques qui ne sont que des expressions méprisantes, et qui, sans autre examen, se terminent à dire crûment d'un ouvrage cela ne vaut rien, cela est détestable, nous serons bientôt d'accord là-dessus, et je vous ferai convenir sur-le-champ que ces sortes de raisonnements à leur tour ne valent rien et sont détestables…. Ah! que nous irions loin, qu'il naîtrait de beaux ouvrages, si la plupart des gens d'esprit qui en sont les juges, tâtonnaient un peu avant de dire, cela est mauvais ou cela est bon! … mais je voudrais des critiques qui pussent corriger et non pas gâter, qui réformassent ce qu'il y aurait de défectueux dans le caractère d'esprit d'un auteur, et qui ne lui fissent pas quitter ce caractère. Il faudrait aussi pour cela, s'il était possible, que la malice ou l'inimitié des partis n'altérât pas les lumières de la plupart des hommes, ne leur dérobât point l'honneur de se juger équitablement, n'employât pas toute leur attention à s'humilier les uns les autres, à déshonorer ce que leur talents peuvent avoir d'heureux, à se ruiner réciproquement dans l'esprit du public…."[156] When obliged to endure unfair and personal criticism, as he often was, Marivaux met it invariably with contemptuous silence,[157] saying to his friends: "J'aime mon repos et je ne veux point troubler celui des autres."[158]