667. Jest books. Italian comedy at Paris. In the sixteenth century the theater became entirely secular, and amusement and religion were separated as a consequence of the general movement of the Renaissance. In the Middle Ages serious men collected jests and published jest books, which were collections of the jokes made by the mimus, just as modern jests have been made by negro minstrels, circus clowns, and variety actors.[2139] At the end of the sixteenth century the Italians, "suffocated by Spanish etiquette, and poisoned by Jesuitical hypocrisy, sought to expand healthy lungs in free spaces of open air, indulging in dialectical niceties, and immortalizing street jokes by the genius of masked comedy."[2140] The commedia del arte took this course. It was open to every chance of political and social influence. It became the recognized Italian comedy and was transported to the north as such. In each province of Italy the fixed characters were independently developed, so that variations were produced. The type of play reached a climax in the middle of the seventeenth century. Then it declined for lack of competent actors. It was the realism of everyday life. It tended always back again to the mountebanks, jugglers, rope dancers, etc.[2141] The lazzi were "business" which gave the actors time to improvise. In the sixteenth century Italian comedians began to play at Paris in Italian. The Italian actresses undressed on the stage much and often, so that "Italian comedy" came to mean vulgar and licentious comedy. The Parlement of Paris held that the plays were immoral. Many of them are said to have been obscene.[2142] Madame de Maintenon having heard that they were immoral, they were forbidden in 1697.[2143] The Italian comedy struggled on, however. For a long time no women visited it, but in the eighteenth century a comedy called Arlequin, Empereur dans la Lune became celebrated. It was a satire on the France of the time. Women ignored the grossness for the sake of the satire.[2144] The plays of the Italians were all either farces for pure fun or satires on the mores of the time. "Many were satires on women." In one of these last, the saying was ascribed to Aristotle, upon seeing a tree from the limbs of which four women were hanging, "How happy men would be, if all trees bore that fruit." Women were currently represented as empty-headed, vain, fond of pleasure, frivolous, and fickle. Lawyers were also a favorite object of satire.[2145] In the Italian theater écriteaux were hung up, on which the speeches were written and the audience joined in singing the couplets.[2146]
668. "Commedia del arte" in Italy. In Italy the commedia del arte went through many vicissitudes. At Venice, late in the eighteenth century, Gozzi undertook to revive it by composing what he called "fables." They were fairy extravaganzas, based on Mother Goose stories or fairy tales. They were in part improvised, but in part written, either in prose or verse, in order to make sure of the essential points of the action. The older custom had been to prepare only a scenario, in which the story was told in brief outline, with the allotment of parts in the production.[2147] Pantaleone, in the commedia del arte, is sad,—an imbecile, dissolute old man. Gozzi gave him brio and bonarietà , with cordiality and humor. Goldoni, who got into a war with Gozzi, made Pantaleone a philistine, who used good sense against the follies of fashion. No women were present at these comedies at Venice at this time.[2148]
Scherillo[2149] quotes Perucci, that at the end of the seventeenth century the folk theater was obscene in word and act beyond the ancient comedies. If that is true, it is only a detail of the degeneracy of Italy from the middle of the sixteenth century.
669. Summary and review. It is evident that amusement and relaxation are needs of men. The fondness for exhibitions and theatrical representations can be traced through history. The suggestion is direct and forcible. It can be made to play upon harmful tastes as well as upon good ones. There is nothing to guide it or decide its form and direction except the mores,—the consenting opinion of the masses as to what is beneficial or harmful. The leading classes try to mold this opinion. The history shows that the mores can make anything right, and protect any violation of the sex taboo or of ordinary propriety. There is no subject in regard to which the mores need more careful criticism than in regard to amusements. The standard and the usage degenerate together unless there is control by an active and well-trained taste and sense. The popular taste and sense are products of inherited mores. It is this reflex action of habitual acts and experiences which makes the subject difficult. All the primary facts and the secondary or remoter reflections are intertwined as in an organic growth, and all go together. The facts exert constant education, and every positive effort to interfere with the course of things by primitive education must be content to exert slight effects for a long time. Wealth and luxury exert their evil effects through amusement. Poverty cuts down these products of wealth and brings societies back to simplicity and virtue. Men renounce when they cannot get. The periods of economic and social decay have cut off the development of forms of amusement, arrested vice, and forced new beginnings.
670. Amusements need the control of educated judgment and will. The history shows that amusements are a pitfall in which good mores may be lost and evil ones produced. They require conventional control and good judgment to guide them. This requirement cannot be set aside. Amusements always present a necessity for moral education and moral will. This fact has impressed itself on men in all ages, and all religions have produced Puritan and ascetic sects who sought welfare, not in satisfying but in counteracting the desire for amusement and pleasure. Their efforts have proved that there is no solution in that direction. There must be an educated judgment at work all the time, and it must form correct judgments to be made real by a cultivated will, or the whole societal interest may be lost without the evil tendency being perceived.
671. Amusements do not satisfy the current notions of progress. It is clear from the history that amusements have gone through waves upward and downward, but that the amplitude of the waves is very small. It is true that the shows of the late Roman empire were very base, and that the great drama has gone very high by comparison, but the oscillation between the two entirely destroys anything like a steady advance in dramatic composition or dramatic art. This is a very instructive fact. It entirely negatives the current notion of progress as a sort of function of time which is to be expected to realize itself in a steady improvement and advance to better and better. The useful arts do show an advance. The fine arts do not. They return to the starting point, or near it, again and again. The dramatic art is partly literary and partly practical handicraft. Theater buildings improve; the machinery, lights, scenery, and manipulation improve. The literary products are like other artistic products: they have periods of glory and periods of decay. It is the literary products which are nearest to the mores. They lack all progress, or advance only temporarily from worse to better literary forms.
[1987] Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, III, 85.
[1988] Maspero, Peuples de l'Orient, I, 580.
[1989] Tiele-Gehrich, Relig. im Altert., I, 160.
[1990] Barton, Semitic Origins, 85.