‘Plautus and Terence were among the most ancient Roman writers, and belonged to a time when the language of books was hardly yet in existence, and when every thing was drawn fresh from life. This naïve simplicity had its charms in the eyes of those Romans, who belonged to the period of learned cultivation; but it was much more a natural gift, than the fruit of poetical art.’
We shall conclude this part of the subject, with his observations on the nature and range of the characters introduced into the ancient Comedy.
‘Athens, where the fictitious, as well as the actual scenes, were generally placed, was the centre of a small territory; and in nowise to be compared with our great cities, either in extent or population. The republican equality admitted no marked distinction of ranks: There were no proper nobility; all were alike citizens, richer or poorer; and, for the most part, had no other occupation, than that of managing their properties. Hence the Attic comedy could not well admit of the contrasts arising from diversity of tone and conversation; it generally continues in a sort of middle state, and has something citizen-like; nay, if I may so say, something of the manners of a small town about it, which we do not see in those comedies, in which the manners of a court, and the refinement or corruption of monarchial capitals, are pourtrayed.
‘From what has been premised, we may at once see nearly the whole circle of characters; nay, those which perpetually occur, are so few, that they may almost all of them be here enumerated. The austere and frugal, or the mild and yielding father, the latter not unfrequently under the dominion of his wife, and making common cause with his son; the housewife, either loving and sensible, or obstinate and domineering, and proud of the accession brought by her to the family-property; the giddy and extravagant, but open and amiable, young man, who, even in a passion, sensual at its very commencement, is capable of true attachment; the vivacious girl, who is either thoroughly depraved, vain, cunning and selfish—or well-disposed, and susceptible of higher emotions; the simple and boorish, or the cunning slave, who assists his young master to deceive his old father, and obtain money for the gratification of his passions by all manner of tricks; the flatterer, or accommodating parasite, who, for the sake of a good meal, is ready to say or do any thing that may be required of him; the sycophant, a man whose business it was to set quietly-disposed people by the ears, and stir up lawsuits, for which he offered his services; the braggart soldier, who returns from foreign service, generally cowardly and simple, but who assumes airs from the fame of the deeds performed by him abroad; and, lastly, a servant, or pretended mother, who preaches up a bad system of morals to the young girl entrusted to her guidance; and the slave-dealer, who speculates on the extravagant passions of young people, and knows no other object than the furtherance of his own selfish views. The two last characters are to our feelings a blemish in the new Grecian comedy; but it was impossible, from the manner in which it was constituted, to dispense with them.’ p. 263.
We must now pass on to modern literature.—Of the Italian drama, which is the least prolific part of their literature, we shall shortly have to speak with reference to another work; and shall at present proceed to our author’s account of the French Theatre, which forms a class by itself, and which is here most ably analyzed.
‘With respect to the earlier tragical attempts of the French in the last half of the sixteenth, and the first part of the seventeenth century, we refer to Fontenelle, La Harpe, the Melanges Litteraires of Suard and Andre. Our chief object is an examination of the system of tragic art, practically followed by their later poets; and by them partly, but by the French critics universally, considered as alone entitled to any authority, and every deviation from it viewed as a sin against good taste. If the system is in itself the best, we shall be compelled to allow that its execution is masterly, perhaps not to be surpassed. But the great question here is, how far the French tragedy is, in spirit and inward essence, related to the Greek, and whether it deserves to be considered as an improvement upon it.
‘Of their first attempts, it is only necessary to observe, that the endeavour to imitate the ancients displayed itself at a very early period in France; and that they conceived that the surest method of succeeding in this endeavour, was to observe the strictest outward regularity of form, of which they derived their ideas more from Aristotle, and especially from Seneca, than from an intimate acquaintance with the Greek models themselves. In the first tragedies which were represented, the Cleopatra and Dido of Jodelle, a prologue and chorus were introduced; Jean de la Peruse translated the Medea of Seneca; Garnier’s pieces are all taken from the Greek tragedies, or from Seneca; but, in the execution, they bear a much closer examination to the latter. The writers of that day employed themselves also diligently on the Sophonisba of Trissino, from a regard for its classic appearance. Whoever is acquainted with the mode of proceeding of real genius, which is impelled by the almost unconscious and immediate contemplation of great and important truths, will be extremely suspicious of all activity in art, which originates in an abstract theory. But Corneille did not, like an antiquary, execute his dramas as so many learned school exercises, on the model of the ancients. Seneca, it is true, led him astray; but he knew and loved the Spanish theatre; and it had a great influence on his mind. The first of his pieces with which it is generally allowed that the classical epoch of French tragedy begins, and which is certainly one of his best, the Cid, is well known to have been borrowed from the Spanish. It violates, considerably, the unity of place, if not also that of time, and it is animated throughout by the spirit of chivalrous love and honour. But the opinion of his contemporaries, that a tragedy must be framed accurately according to the rules of Aristotle, was so universally prevalent, that it bore down all opposition. Corneille, almost at the close of his dramatic career, began to entertain scruples of conscience; and endeavoured, in a separate treatise, to prove, that his pieces, in the composition of which he had never even thought of Aristotle, were, however, all accurately written according to his rules.
‘It is quite otherwise with Racine: of all the French poets he was, without doubt, the best acquainted with the ancients, and he did not merely study them as a scholar; he felt them as a poet. He found, however, the practice of the theatre already firmly established, and he did not undertake to deviate from it for the sake of approaching these models. He only therefore appropriated the separate beauties of the Greek poets; but, whether from respect for the taste of his age, or from inclination, he remained faithful to the prevailing gallantry, so foreign to the Greek tragedy, and for the most part made it the foundation of the intrigues of his pieces.
‘Such was nearly the state of the French theatre till Voltaire made his appearance. He possessed but a moderate knowledge of the Greeks, of whom, however, he now and then spoke with enthusiasm, that on other occasions he might rank them below the more modern masters of his own nation, including himself; but yet he always considered himself bound to preach up the grand severity and simplicity of the Greeks as essential to tragedy. He censured the deviations of his predecessors as errors, and insisted on purifying and at the same time enlarging the stage, as, in his opinion, from the constraint of court manners, it had been almost straitened to the dimensions of an antichamber. He at first spoke of the bursts of genius in Shakespear, and borrowed many things from this poet, at that time altogether unknown to his countrymen; he insisted too on greater depth in the delineation of passion, on a more powerful theatrical effect; he demanded a scene ornamented in a more majestic manner; and lastly, he not unfrequently endeavoured to give to his pieces a political or philosophical interest altogether foreign to poetry. His labours have unquestionably been of utility to the French stage, although it is now the fashion to attack this idol of the last age, on every point, with the most unrelenting hostility’ p. 323.
M. Schlegel very ably exposes the incongruities which have arisen from engrafting modern style and sentiments on mythological and classical subjects in the French writers.