‘In Phædra,’ he says, ‘this princess is to be declared regent for her son till he comes of age, after the supposed death of Theseus. How could this be compatible with the relations of the Grecian women of that day?—It brings us down to the times of a Cleopatra.—When the way of thinking of two nations is so totally opposite, why will they torment themselves with attempts to fashion a subject, formed on the manners of the one to suit the manners of the other?—How unlike the Achilles in Racine’s Iphigenia to the Achilles of Homer! The gallantry ascribed to him is not merely a sin against Homer, but it renders the whole story improbable. Are human sacrifices conceivable among a people, whose chiefs and heroes are so susceptible of the most tender feelings?’
‘Corneille was in the best way in the world when he brought his Cid on the stage; a story of the middle ages, which belonged to a kindred people; a story characterized by chivalrous love and honour, and in which the principal characters are not even of princely rank. Had this example been followed, a number of prejudices respecting tragical ceremony would of themselves have disappeared; tragedy, from its greater truth, from deriving its motives from a way of thinking still current and intelligible, would have been less foreign to the heart; the quality of the objects would of themselves have turned them from the stiff observation of the rules of the ancients, which they did not understand; in one word, the French tragedy would have become national and truly romantic. But I know not what unfortunate star had the ascendant. Notwithstanding the extraordinary success of his Cid, Corneille did not go one step farther; and the attempt which he made had no imitators. In the time of Louis XIV. it was considered as beyond dispute, that the French, and in general the modern European history was not adapted for tragedy. They had recourse therefore to the ancient universal history. Besides the Greeks and Romans, they frequently hunted about among the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and Egyptians, for events, which, however obscure they might often be, they could dress out for the tragic stage. Racine made, according to his own confession, a hazardous attempt with the Turks: It was successful; and since that time, the necessary tragical dignity has been allowed to this barbarous people. But it was merely the modern, and more particularly the French names, which could not be tolerated as untragical and unpoetical; for the heroes of antiquity are, with them, Frenchmen in every thing but the name; and antiquity was merely used as a thin veil under which the modern French character could be distinctly recognized. Racine’s Alexander is certainly not the Alexander of history: but if, under this name, we imagine to ourselves the great Condé, the whole will appear tolerably natural.—And who does not suppose Louis XIV. and the Dutchess de la Valiere represented under Titus and Berenice? Voltaire expresses himself somewhat strongly, when he says, that, in the tragedies which succeeded those of Racine, we imagine we are reading the romances of Mademoiselle Scuderi, which paint citizens of Paris under the names of heroes of antiquity. He alluded here more particularly to Crebillon. However much Corneille and Racine were tainted with the way of thinking of their own nation, they were still at times penetrated with the spirit of true objective exhibition. Corneille gives us a masterly picture of the Spaniards in the Cid; and this is conceivable—for he drew his materials from them. With the exception of the original sin of gallantry, he succeeded also pretty well with the Romans: Of one part of their character at least, he had a tolerable conception, their predominating patriotism, and unyielding pride of liberty, and the magnanimity of their political sentiments. All this, it is true, is nearly the same as we find it in Lucan, varnished over with a certain inflation and self-conscious pomp. The simple republican austerity, the humility of religion, he could not attain. Racine (in Britannicus) has admirably painted the corrupt manners of the Romans under the Emperors, and the timid and dastardly manner in which the tyranny of Nero first began to display itself. He had Tacitus indeed for a model, as he himself gratefully acknowledges; but still it is a great merit to translate history in such an able manner into poetry. He has also shown a just conception of the general spirit of Hebrew history. He was less successful with the Turks: Bajazet makes love wholly in the European manner: The blood-thirsty policy of Eastern despotism is very well pourtrayed in the Vizier; but the whole resembles Turkey turned upside down, where the women, instead of being slaves, have contrived to get possession of the government; and the result is so very revolting, that we might be inclined to infer, from it, the Turks are really not so much to blame in keeping their women under lock and key. Neither has Voltaire, in my opinion, succeeded much better in his Mahomet and Zaire: the glowing colours of an Oriental fancy are no where to be found. Voltaire has, however, this great merit, that he insisted on treating subjects with more historical truth; and further, that he again elevated to the dignity of the tragical stage the chivalrous and Christian characters of modern Europe, which, since the time of the Cid, had been altogether excluded from it. His Lusignan and Nerestan are among his most true, affecting, and noble creations; his Tancred, although the invention as a whole is defective in strength, will always gain upon every heart, like his namesake in Tasso.’ p. 369.
Our author prefers Racine to Corneille, and even seems to think Voltaire more natural: but he has exhausted all that can be said of French tragedy in his account of Corneille; and all that he adds upon Racine and Voltaire, is only a modification of the same general principles. He has been able to give no general character of either, as distinct from the original founder of the French dramatic school; Corneille had more pomp, Racine more tenderness; Voltaire aimed at a stronger effect: But the essential qualities are the same in all of them; the style is always French, as much as the language in which they write.
‘It has been often remarked, that, in French tragedy, the poet is always too easily seen through the discourses of the different personages; that he communicates to them his own presence of mind; his cool reflection on their situation; and his desire to shine upon all occasions. When we accurately examine the most of their tragical speeches, we shall find that they are seldom such as would be delivered by persons, speaking or acting by themselves without any restraint; we shall generally discover in them something which betrays a reference, more or less perceptible, to the spectator. Rhetoric, and rhetoric in a court dress, prevails but too much in many French tragedies, especially in those of Corneille, instead of the suggestions of a noble, but simple and artless nature: Racine and Voltaire have approximated much nearer to the true conception of a mind carried away by its sufferings. Whenever the tragic hero is able to express his pain in antitheses and ingenious allusions, we may safely dispense with our pity. This sort of conventional dignity is, as it were, a coat of mail, to prevent the blow from reaching the inward parts. On account of their retaining this festal pomp, in situations where the most complete self-forgetfulness would be natural, Schiller has wittily enough compared the heroes in French tragedy to the kings in old copperplates, who are seen lying in bed with their mantle, crown, and sceptre.’ p. 373, &c.
Racine is deservedly the favourite of the French nation; for, besides the perfection of his style, and a complete mastery over his art, according to the rules prescribed by the national taste, there is a certain tenderness of sentiment, a movement of the heart, under all the artificial pomp by which it is disguised, which cannot fail to interest the reader. His Athalie is perhaps the most perfect of all his pieces. Some of the lyrical descriptions are equally delightful, from the beauty of the rhythm and the imagery. We might mention the chorus in which the infant Joaz is compared to a young lily on the side of a stream. Poetry is the union of imagery with sentiment; and yet nothing can be more rare than this union in French tragedy. Another passage in Racine, which might be quoted as an exception to their general style, is the speech of Phædra describing her descent into the other world, which is, however, a good deal made up from Seneca; and indeed it is the fault of this author, that he leans too constantly for support on others, and is rather the accomplished imitator than the original inventor. There is but one thing wanting to his plays—that they should have been his own. He can no more be considered as the author of the Iphigenia, for instance, than La Fontaine can be considered as the inventor of Æsop’s fables. Voltaire is more original in the choice of his subjects. But the means by which he seeks to give an interest to them, are of the most harsh and violent kind; and, even in the variety of his materials, he shows the monotony of his invention. Four of his principal tragedies turn entirely on the question of religious apostasy, or on the conflict between the attachment of supposed orphans to their newly discovered parents, and their obligations to their old benefactors. As a relief, however, the scene of these four tragedies is laid in the four opposite quarters of the globe.
M. Schlegel speaks highly of Racine’s comedy, ‘Les Plaideurs‘; and thinks that if he had cultivated his talents for comedy, he would have proved a formidable rival of Moliere. He might very probably have succeeded in imitating the long speeches which Moliere too often imitated from Racine; but nothing can (we think) be more unlike, than the real genius of the two writers. In fact, Moliere is almost as much an English as a French author,—quite a barbare, in all in which he particularly excels. He was unquestionably one of the greatest comic geniuses that ever lived; a man of infinite wit, gaiety, and invention,—full of life, laughter, and observation. But it cannot be denied that his plays are in general mere farces, without nature, refinement of character, or common probability. Several of them could not be carried on for a moment without a perfect collusion between the parties to wink at impossibilities, and act in defiance of all common sense. For instance, take the Medecin malgre lui, in which a common wood-cutter takes upon himself, and is made to support, through a whole play, the character of a learned physician, without exciting the least suspicion; and yet, notwithstanding the absurdity of the plot, it is one of the most laughable, and truly comic productions, that can well be imagined. The rest of his lighter pieces, the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, Monsieur Pourceaugnac, &c. are of the same description,—gratuitous fictions, and fanciful caricatures of nature. He indulges in the utmost license of burlesque exaggeration; and gives a loose to the intoxication of his animal spirits. With respect to his two most laboured comedies, the Tartuffe and Misanthrope, we confess that we find them rather hard to get through. They have the improbability and extravagance of the rest, united with the endless common-place prosing of French declamation. What can exceed the absurdity of the Misanthrope, who leaves his mistress, after every proof of her attachment and constancy, for no other reason than that she will not submit to the technical formality of going to live with him in a desert? The characters which Celimene gives of her friends, near the opening of the play, are admirable satires, (as good as Pope’s characters of women), but not comedy. The same remarks apply in a greater degree to the Tartuffe. The long speeches and reasonings in this play may be very good logic, or rhetoric, or philosophy, or any thing but comedy. If each of the parties had retained a special pleader to speak his sentiments, they could not have appeared more tiresome or intricate. The improbability of the character of Orgon is wonderful. The Ecole des Femmes, from which Wycherley has borrowed the Country Wife, with the true spirit of original genius, is, in our judgment, the masterpiece of Moliere. The set speeches in the original play would not be borne on the English stage, nor indeed on the French, but that they are carried off by the verse. The Critique de L’Ecole des Femmes, the dialogue of which is prose, is written in a very different style.
Our author attributes the ambitious loquacity of the French drama to their characteristic vanity, and the general desire of this nation to shine on all occasions. But this principle seems itself to require a prior cause, namely, a facility of shining on all occasions, and a disposition to admire every thing. It has been remarked, as a general rule, that the theatrical amusements of a people, which are intended as a relaxation from their ordinary pursuits and habits, are by no means a test of the national character; and it is a confirmation of this opinion, that the French, who are naturally a lively and impatient people, should be able to sit and hear with such delight their own dramatic pieces, which abound, for the most part, in sententious maxims and solemn declamation, and would appear quite insupportable to an English audience, though the latter are considered as a dull, phlegmatic people, much more likely to be tolerant of formal descriptions and grave reflections.
Extremes meet. This is the only way of accounting for that enigma, the French character. It has often been remarked, indeed, that this ingenious nation exhibits more striking contradictions in its general deportment than any other that ever existed. They are the gayest of the gay, and the gravest of the grave. Their very faces pass at once from an expression of the most lively animation, when they are in conversation or action, to a melancholy blank. They are one moment the slaves of the most contemptible prejudices, and the next launch out into all the extravagance of the most dangerous speculations. In matters of taste they are as inexorable as they are lax in questions of morality: they judge of the one by rules, of the other by their inclinations. It seems at times as if nothing could shock them, and yet they are offended at the merest trifles. The smallest things make the greatest impression on them. From the facility with which they can accommodate themselves to circumstances, they have no fixed principles or real character. They are always that which gives them least pain, or costs them least trouble. They can easily disentangle their thoughts from whatever gives them the slightest uneasiness, and direct their sensibility to flow in any channels they think proper. Their whole existence is more theatrical than real—their sentiments put on or off like the dress of an actor. Words are with them equivalent to things. They say what is agreeable, and believe what they say. Virtue and vice, good and evil, liberty or slavery, are matters almost of indifference. They are the only people who were ever vain of being cuckolded, or being conquered. Their natural self-complacency stands them instead of all other advantages!
The same almost inexplicable contradictions appear in their writings as in their characters. They excel in all that depends on lightness and grace of style, on familiar gaiety, on delicate irony, on quickness of observation, on nicety of tact—in all those things which are done best with the least effort. Their sallies, their points, their traits, turns of expression, their tales, their letters, are unrivalled. Witness the writings of Voltaire, Fontaine, Le Sage. Whence then the long speeches, the pompous verbosity, the systematic arrangement of their dramatic productions? It would seem as if they took refuge in this excessive formality, as a defence against their natural lightness and frivolity: and that they admitted of no mixed style in poetry, because the least interruption of their assumed gravity would destroy the whole effect. The impression has no natural hold of their minds. It is only by repeated efforts that they work themselves up to the tragic tone, and their feelings let go their hold with the first opportunity. They conform, in the most rigid manner, to established rules, because they have no steadiness to go alone, nor confidence to trust to the strength of their immediate impulses. The French have no style of their own in serious art, because they have no real force of character. Their tragedies are imitations of the Greek dramas, and their historical pictures a still more servile and misapplied imitation of the Greek statues. For the same reason, the expression which their artists give to their faces is affected and mechanical; and the description which their poets give of the passions, the most laboured, overt and explicit possible. Nothing is left to be understood. Nothing obscure, distant, imperfect—nothing that is not distinctly made out—nothing that does not stand, as it were, in the foreground, is admitted in their works of art.
The dark and doubtful views of things, the irregular flights of fancy, the silent workings of the heart—all these require some effort to enter into them: They are therefore excluded from French poetry, the language of which must, above all things, be clear and defined, and not only intelligible, but intelligible by its previous application. It is therefore essentially conventional and common-place. It rejects every thing that is not cast in a given mould—that is not stamped by custom—that is not sanctioned by authority;—every thing that is not French. The French, indeed, can conceive of nothing that is not French. There is something that prevents them from entering into any views which do not perfectly fall in with their habitual prejudices. In a word, they are not a people of imagination. They receive their impressions without trouble or effort, and retain no more of them than they can help. They are the creatures either of sensation or abstraction. The images of things, when the objects are no longer present, throw off all their complexity and distinctions, and are lost in the general class, or name; so that the words charming, delicious, superb, &c. convey just the same meaning, and excite just the same emotion in the mind of a Frenchman, as the most vivid description of real objects and feelings could do. Hence their poetry is the poetry of abstraction. Yet poetry is properly the embodying general ideas in individual forms and circumstances. But the French style excludes all individuality. The true poet identifies the reader with the characters he represents; the French poet only identifies him with himself. There is scarcely a single page of their tragedy which fairly throws nature open to you. It is tragedy in masquerade. We never get beyond conjecture and reasoning—beyond the general impression of the situation of the persons—beyond general reflections on their passions—beyond general descriptions of objects. We never get at that something more, which is what we are in search of, namely, what we ourselves should feel in the same situations. The true poet transports you to the scene—you see and hear what is passing—you catch, from the lips of the persons concerned, what lies nearest to their hearts;—the French poet takes you into his closet, and reads you a lecture upon it. The chef-d’œuvres of their stage, then, are, after all, only ingenious paraphrases of nature. The dialogue is a tissue of common-places, of laboured declamations on human life, of learned casuistry on the passions, on virtue and vice, which any one else might make just as well as the person speaking; and yet, what the persons themselves would say, is all we want to know, and all for which the poet puts them into those situations. It is what constitutes the difference between the dramatic and the didactic.