THE PRESENT ROMANTIC SCHOOL OF FRENCH LITERATURE.

ALEXANDRE DUMAS’ HAMLET.

We have often taken occasion to express our opinion on the present romantic school of French literature, as opposed to what may be designated as the classical literature of that country. We think that the French have succeeded better in their old vocation than in their new one, and that with all their vivacity and sprightliness they are not a very romantic people. The romantic school of France is not of national growth; but has been transferred from England and Germany, both in prose and poetry. There is nothing in the character of the French that is romantic, their imagination resembling much more that of the Greeks and Romans, and their love of glory being much more classical than that of any modern notion. To an Englishman, an American, or a German, French stage logic appears absolutely destitute of interest or meaning, but to a Frenchman it is eminently full of truth and significance, though the subjects are, with but few exceptions, taken from ancient history. Racine’s Achilles and Agamemnon are true Frenchmen, and his Alexander much more resembles Louis XIV., Conde, Turenne, or Napoleon, than Shakspeare’s Brutus resembles Charles Fox, or his Julius Cæsar, Oliver Cromwell. The English and the German poets depict men; the French only Frenchmen, though the hero of the play be a Roman or a Greek; and hence their old literature, as we may now call it, is eminently national. There is no incoherence in Achilles calling Iphigenia “Madame,” nor in her calling him “Monsieur;” for if Achilles and Iphigenia had spoken French to each other, as they are obliged to do on the French stage, they could not, without a gross breach of politeness, have used any other title in addressing each other. It is sufficiently classical that Achilles should call Iphigenia “Madame,” considering that she was but betrothed to him. In modern language she would have been called “Mademoiselle.”

Those who imagine the language of Racine and Voltaire unnatural and forced, need but acquaint themselves with the French people, and they will soon perceive that even the French people of the present day think, feel and act through the Greek idiom, and in conformity with their classic models. Not the Greeks in the Morea, or in Syria, who are nothing but Turks and Jews and Frank rabble, without a country, and without national associations, but the Parisians are the true representatives of the Greeks among the moderns.

Even in common life, in their harangues in the Chambers, in the pleadings of their lawyers, the charges of their judges, and, to a certain extent, even in their periodical writings, the French are admirably classical, even at the expense of cogent reasoning; that is, they are modern Greeks and Romans, and resemble them also in their national character. We have, of course, no reference to the Spartans; but to the Athenians the French bear a goodly resemblance, and, as far as that goes, they are decidedly agreeable—though Heathens in more than one sense of the word. No modern people are as much alive to wit, sarcasm and epigrammatic conversation as the Parisians—and there is no other mob in Europe as much capable of relishing a joke, or a witticism, or of being inspired by a happy impromptu as the canaille of the French metropolis. With all its fierce and ungovernable passions, it is capable of noble and generous emotions, and of practicing, at least for a time, a degree of self-denial which is bordering on the classical. No modern people lives as much in public as the French, or is as much dependent on popular applause—none is so keenly alive to national renown, none so fond of pleasure, of dramatic amusements, of the arts. Louis Philippe thought his throne and his dynasty less in danger from the opposition press, than from the genius of caricaturists. The spirit of the latter the people seized in an instant, and the passions excited by them were truly ungovernable. Hence the public sale of caricatures was one of the first things interdicted by the September laws.