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CHAPTER NINTH.

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THE DRAMA.

Present State of the Drama in France.-Influence of Shakspeare-in France-in Germany.-Schiller and Goethe's Dramatic Compositions.-Definition of the Drame and Tragédie--Separate Origin, Meaning, and Tendency of both-their Subsequent History and Distinct Phases of Prosperity.--The Spirit of the Drame in Molière and Beaumarchais.--Flourishing State of the Tragédie during Absolute Royalty--its Fall with Despotism-its State during Napoleon's Reign and the Restoration.-Lemercier.--Ray nouard.-M. Soumet-M. de Jouy.--Talma's Acting-Final Ascendant of the Drame towards 1830.--M. Casimir Delavigne-his Dramatic Career--his Vepres Siciliennes---his Marino Faliero.---Lord Byron's Marino Faliero.--M. Delavigne's Subsequent Tragedies---La Fille du Cid--his Ecole des Vieillards and Don Juan d'Autriche. Character of the New Drama--its Excesses---Perversion of its True Principles.---M. Victor Hugo's Dramatic Compositions---Hernani---Analysis of Marion Delorme---Beauties and Defects of that Play--Deep Pathos of the Last Scene.-M. Vitet's Historical Dramas.---M. Alexandre Dumas---his Henri III. et sa Cour, and Subsequent Plays.--M. Alfred de Vigny--his Maréchale d'Ancre-his Othello and Chatterton.--Other Dramatists. ---Partial Return of the Tragedy.---Madlle. Rachel.--Erroneous Principles of the Dramatists.---Future and Complete Regeneration of the Drama under the Supreme Influence of Shakspeare.

THE description we have given, in the preceding chapter, of the unnatural and depraved state of fiction in France at the present time, applies still more forcibly to the Drama. Among the French novelists, we found some who merited praise-whose works afforded distinct evidence of the reformation in progress; whereas, among the dramatists, we fear we shall be unable to point out any whose productions are not so surcharged with faults, as to render unreserved encomium impossible. The dramatists form a numerous body of literati, who seem to spurn all laws and traditionary canons, and to indulge at caprice in the wildest conceits and innovations, striving apparently to surpass each other in extravagance and in the delineation of the most detestable vices and passions. Yet, amidst the hideous creations of this delirious race, a few works may be selected, which, although far from being perfect specimens of dramatic composition, are entitled to notice as best characterizing the present period of transition with regard to the drama. Such are the Henri III. of M. Alexandre Dumas, the Maréchale d'Ancre of . Alfred de Vigny, and the plays of M. Victor Hugo, especially, his Ma

rion Delorme, which, amidst many defects, contain beauties of the highest order. To these we shall hereafter more particularly advert.

The aberrations of the modern French dramatists arise principally from an egregious misconception of Shakspeare, whom they ambitiously attempt to imitate and rival. His name and those of Schiller and Goethe are perpetually on their lips, and yet the only development they aim at is that of sensual propensities, although these are lowest in the scale of themes for dramatic treatment, according to those great masters themselves. But, in truth, the eruption of English and German literature into France, caused a derangement and confusion necessarily attendant upon a sudden and extensive infusion of foreign elements. The old formal classic drama had fallen into decay and disrepute, and on the theatrical as on the political stage a new order of things was demanded by the innovating spirit of the times. Hence writers, anxious to conform to the bias of the public mind, had to create, as it were, a new school; and, in the absence of any commanding genius, their efforts were marked by all the irregularities of inexperienced and febrile excitement. The great models of other nations, hastily adopted and indistinctly understood, seemed to form standards whereon their compositions might be moulded; but those models were in many respects unsuited to French style and sentiment. Consequently, endeavors to imitate them led to productions of the most anomalous and unnatural character, wherein the stateliness of Shakspeare, the mysticism of the German, the impetuous frivolity and diseased imagination of France, were mingled in heterogeneous compound. Nevertheless, wherever the influence of Shakspeare is felt, it must be ultimately beneficial. Hitherto, from the perversion of taste, it may not have produced all those good effects to be anticipated from its extension in France; but they will naturally flow from it in time. Considering the national egotism of the French, and their propensity to follow implicitly native authorities, and considering the anathema of Voltaire, even the acknowledgment of Shakspeare as the undoubted master of the drama is in itself a mighty step; and, in proportion as he is studied, this belief will grow more general and stable, until it accomplishes that complete reformation which is equally desirable and inevitable. For he who has laid bare all the springs of human action, who has fathomed the mysteries of the human soul, is destined to exercise an influence co-existent and co-extensive with the world itself.

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We are not disposed to admit the claims of Goethe and Schiller to rank with Shakspeare, or to allow that they can be powerfully instrumental in working out the regeneration of the drama in France. Neither of them possesses the essential art of comprehending character in its illimitable shades, or of painting it free from German colors; neither is capable of disentangling himself from the mysticism and sentimentalism peculiar to his country, or of seizing the spirit, tone, and feelings of other ages and nations. They are deficient, too, in the stamp of reality; their delineations want that impress of truth and nature, that universality of application, for which Shakspeare's creations are so conspicuous. All this may be affirmed, as well of Schiller's Wallenstein, Don Carlos, and Mary Stuart, as of Goethe's Torquato Tasso. As poetical compositions, we confess their wondrous force and beauty; but when we compare them with the stupendous monuments of Shakspeare's genius, they sink into immeasurable inferiority. We read them with satisfaction and delight, but with none of that ecstasy of admiration with which we hang on the pages of the English bard-with which we revert again and again to his inimitable portraitures, to his grand and majestic passages. It is impossible that we can regard them as standards of dramatic perfection, or as fitted to obtain that general acceptation in France, which would give them any considerable sway over the formation of public taste, or render them potential elements in revolutionizing dramatic literature. Before proceeding further with our subject, it will be necessary to notice certain peculiarities affecting the drama in France. The word drame has not the general signification, in the first place, of the English word drama, which embraces all that belongs to the stage; on the contrary, it is a distinctive appellation applied to an order of dramatic compositions, in opposition, we may say, to tragédie. Again, political influences have affected the destinies of the drama in France, insomuch that the drame is emblematic of popular preponderance, the tragédie of monarchical. Hence it is incumbent on us to trace the origin, as far as possible, of these two antagonist and incompatible forms, and to show how each has flourished on the decay and to the exclusion of the other, according as the principles of liberty or despotism have prevailed.

In this inquiry, we shall have no occasion to discuss the question of the revival of theatrical representations after the overthrow of Rome. We know that, in a very rude and gross form, they existed in France at a very early date. Thus, so far back

as the ninth century, in one of the Capitulars of Hincmar, Bishop of Rheims, wherein priests are forbidden to get drunk under pretence of doing honor to the angels and the dead, we find a prohibition against farces being performed during their meals. The entertainments thus anathematised, were such buffooneries as prelates and barons were wont to beguile their hours of leisure withal, being grotesque and licentious dances, executed by persons in masks, whereby the spectators were animated to mirth and glee. In the mask, we perceive a tradition of the Greek and Roman stage, which continued to be respected for many centuries afterwards, through all the times of those extraordinary mummeries called mysteries, moralities, and so forth. Of course, the performers in such pieces were of a servile and degraded class; and we feel no surprize at an order of King Philip Augustus, directing the officers of his household to give their old clothes to his actors.

In the cloisters, as we are aware, a taste for classical literature was preserved and cherished, when all beside was immersed in ignorance and darkness; and to their erudite occupants we owe most of the treasures that have been transmitted from remote antiquity. Among the numerous productions that have issued from those learned retreats, there are some in the dramatic form, modelled on the ancient standards and on the canons of Aristotle, whose name and authority were revered as if sacred for many ages. These are the first efforts of the tragédie in modern times, and it was derived exclusively from classical sources. Its earliest framers sought their inspiration from Grecian models and rules, not from the observation of actual life, or from the discordant elements raging around him. Thus their effusions are like sickly exotics, transplanted to wild and stormy regions, where they bear no affinity to the face of nature, nor can take root and become naturalized. Hence it was only at long intervals that any production of the sort emerged from the scholastic brain of some solitary student, until a time arose peculiarly fitted for the reproduction of the ancient tragedy—a time when society was levelled beneath the yoke of absolute royalty. Then two great master-minds were found to give it adequate expression: under Corneille and Racine the French theatre attained a splendor and celebrity which yet live in the recollection of the world.

At the commencement of the fourteenth century, simultaneously with the enfranchisement of the boroughs, when the popular element first began to infuse itself into the State, when urban populations grew mutinous and independent, a native form

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of dramatic composition arose, adapted to the spirit of the times. It was chiefly allegorical; and one of the first productions of the class, by a Jew named Santo Rabbi, may be taken as emblematic of the whole. This Santo Rabbi had travelled much, and undergone many hardships and vicissitudes. As a play-wright he evinces considerable ingenuity, and evolves his moral in a striking and terrible manner. He compares human life to a ball, and entitles his piece the Universal Dance. The principal personages of the drama are Death, a priest, and a young maid. The ball opens amidst dazzling lights and the sounds of joy and mirth; the giddy throng is quickly absorbed in the pleasures of the scene; the sepulchral voice of the priest, exhorting and warning, is drowned in shouts of laughter and whisperings of love. But Death, too, was there present at the festival, in seductive guise, arrayed in smiles and flowers, to allure and deceive the thoughtless youths dancing by his side towards the end of the ball he discovers himself, and all shrink away aghast from the horrible spectre, and strive to elude its fatal dart.

Such was the germ of the drame; it sprung from the ranks of the people, was conceived and fashioned according to popular ideas and tastes, and spoke to the senses and understandings of the great commonalty. It had nothing in common with the classic drama-no tie or connection with the past; it was altogether indigenous, and grew up ignorant and regardless of Greek and Latin models, or of the great dictator Aristotle.

Tragedy we find, on the contrary, has its root in a remote antiquity-in ages when manners and ideas were totally different from those of modern times. It is of artificial growth, the result of study and imitation; whereas the drame is the natural offspring of the soil, the spontaneous expression of actual and reigning influences. The distinction may be more intelligibly marked the idea of tragedy has been derived from books, that of the drame from nature. Thus is the former purely artistic and formal, the latter pliable and of multiform shapes. Consequently, two rival dramatic camps have always existed in France -tragedy, the voice of sovereignty, rendered more imposing by speaking a language of past ages; and the drame, the voice of the multitude, adopting, by intuition, its language and tone, to move the passions and enhance the interest of the moment. shall not attempt to follow the fortunes of the drame and tragedy in France during the last centuries: the former always appeared and gained ground when the people evinced a spirit of impatience and resistance; the latter, ever prosperous and flourishing un

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