Freytag’s Technique of the Drama
An Exposition of Dramatic Composition and Art
By Dr Gustav Freytag
An Authorized Translation from the Sixth German Edition
by Elias J. MacEwan, M.A.
Third Edition.
Chicago – Scott, Foresman and Company 1900
Copyright 1894 by S.C. Griggs & Company
Contents
Biographical Note
Introduction: Technique of the drama not absolute. Certain craftsman’s
skill of earlier times. Condition of present time. Aristotle’s Poetics.
Lessing. The great dramatic works as models.
Chapter I. – Dramatic Action.
1. The Idea. – How the drama originates in the mind of the poet.
Development of the idea. Material and its transformation. The historian and the
poet. The range of material. Transformation of the real, according to
Aristotle.
2. What is Dramatic? – Explanation. Effects. Characters. The
Action. The dramatic life of the characters. Entrance of the dramatic into the
life of men. Rareness of dramatic power.
3. Unity. – The Law. Among the Greeks. How it is produced. How the
unity of historical material is not secured. False unity. Where dramatic
material is to be found. The character in the modern drama. Counter-play and
its danger. Episodes.
4. Probability. – What is probable. Social effects of the drama.
The strange. The marvellous. Mephistopheles. The irrational. Shakespeare and
Schiller.
5. Importance and Magnitude. – Weakness of characters.
Distinguished heroes. Private persons. Degrading the art.
6. Movement and Ascent. – Public actions. Inward struggles. Poet
dramas. Nothing important to be omitted. Prince of Homburg. Antony
and Cleopatra. Messenger scenes. Concealment and effect through reflex
action. Effects by means of the action itself. Necessity of ascent. Contrasts.
Parallel scenes.
7. What is Tragic? – How far the poet may not concern himself about
it. The purging. Effects of ancient tragedy. Contrast with German tragedy. The
tragic force (moment). The revolution and recognition.
Chapter II. – The Construction of the Drama.
1. Play and Counter-Play. – Two halves. Rise and fall. Two kinds of
structure. Drama in which the chief hero leads. Drama of counter-play.
Examples. Spectacle-play and tragedy.
2. Five Parts and Three Crises. – The introduction. The exciting
force (moment). The ascent. The tragic force or incident. Falling action. The
force or motive of last suspense. The catastrophe. Necessary qualifications of
the poet.
3. Construction of the Drama in Sophocles. – Origin of tragedy.
Pathos scenes. Messenger scenes. Dialogues. Representation. The three actors.
Scope of their work compared with modern actors. Same actor used to strengthen
effects. Cast of parts. Ideas of preserved tragedies. Construction of the
action. The characters. Ajax as an example. Peculiarity of Sophocles. His
relation to the myth. The parts of the tragedy. Antigone. King
Oedipus. Oedipus at Colonos. The Trachinian Women.
Ajax. Philoctetes.
4. Germanic Drama. – Stage of Shakespeare. Its influence on the
structure of the pieces. Shakespeare's peculiarities. Its falling action and
its weaknesses. Construction of Hamlet.
5. The Five Acts. – Influence of the curtain on the modern stage.
Development of the act. The five parts. Their technical peculiarities. First
act. Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Examples. Construction of the double drama,
Wallenstein.
Chapter 3. – Construction of Scenes.
1. Members. – Entrances. Scenes. Units of the poet. Their
combination into scenes. Structure of the scene. Intervals. Change of scenery.
Chief scenes and subordinate scenes.
2. The Scenes According to the Number of Persons. – Conduct of
action through the scenes. Monologues. Messenger scenes. Dialogue scenes.
Different structure. Love scenes. Three persons. Ensemble scenes. Their
laws. The galley scene in Antony and Cleopatra. Banquet scene in
Piccolomini. Rütli scene. Parliament in Demetrius. Mass scenes.
Distributed voices. Battles.
Chapter 4. – the Characters.
1. Peoples and Poets. – Assumptions of dramatic characterization,
creation, and after-creation. Variety of peoples and characters. Germans and
Latins. Difference according to poets. Shakespeare's characters. Lessing,
Goethe, Schiller.
2. Characters in the Material and in the Play. – The character
dependent on the action. Example of Wallenstein. Characters with
portraiture. Historical characters. Poets and history. Opposition between
characters and action. The epic hero intrinsically undramatic. Euripides. The
Germans and their legends. Older German history. Nature of historical heroes.
Inner poverty. Mingling of opposites. Lack of unity. Influence of Christendom.
Henry IV. Attitude of the poet toward the appearances of reality. Opposition
between poet and actor.
3. Minor Rules. – The characters must have dramatic unity. The
drama must have but one chief hero. Double heroes. Lovers. The action must be
based on characteristics of the persons. Easily understood. Mingling of good
and evil. Humor. Accident. The characters in the different acts. Demands of the
actor. The conception of the stage arrangement must be vivid in the poet's
mind. The province of the spectacle play. What is it to write effectively?
Chapter 5. – Verse and Color.
1. Prose and Verse. – Iambic pentameter. Tetrameter. Trimeter.
Alexandrine. Verse of the Nibelungen Lied. Dramatic element of verse.
Color.
Chapter 6. – the Poet and His Work.
1. Poet of Modern Times. – Material. Work. Fitting for the stage.
Cutting out. Length of the piece. Acquaintance with the stage.
Biographical Note.
Gustav Freytag, scholar, poet, novelist, critic, playwright, editor,
soldier, publicist, was born in Kreuzberg, Silesia, in 1816. Still living in
quiet retirement in Wiesbaden, he is one of the best known of modern German
writers. His preliminary education was acquired at the Gymnasium of Oels, which
he entered in 1829, at the age of thirteen. In 1835, he began the study of
German philology under Hofmann, at the University of Breslau. Later he
continued this line of study with Lachmann, at the University of Berlin, where,
in 1838-9, he was given the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, on the presentation
of a thesis on De initiis scenicae poeseos apud Germanos. Between this
time and 1846, he was connected with the University of Breslau, as an
instructor in the German language and literature. Having gained some notice, as
the author of a comedy, The Bridal Journey (1844), and a volume of short
popular poems, In Breslau (1845), he now (1847), in connection with
Julian Schmidt, undertook the management of the political and literary
newspaper, Die Grenzboten, in Leipzig. He continued his literary work,
and entered in earnest upon what has proved a long and honorable career of a
man of letters.
In 1847, Valentine appeared, followed the next year by Count
Waldemir, both society plays, evincing the author's dramatic power, and
with his inclination toward the spirit, the dialectics, and the sketchy manner
of the younger writers, showing his delicate feeling for clearness and purity
of style, his skill in the conduct of the action, in dialogue, and his genial
fresh humor. His next play, The Scholar, he is rather a psychological
study in a single act, than a drama. In 1854, his greatest piece, The
Journalists, was first acted; and it is still one of the most popular
modern society dramas represented on the German stage. Perfectly natural and
healthful in tone, it abounds in striking situations, depicts with fidelity
many important types of German character, amusingly exhibits social rivalries
and political machinations, and affords abundant opportunity for the author's
effective satire. Another play, The Fabii, appeared in 1859.
Freytag's first great novel, Soll und Haben (1858), translated into
English under the title of Debit and Credit (1859), has become a
classic. In this, his view of human life is broader and his insight into the
springs of human action deeper than in his plays. Its purpose is to show the
value and dignity of a life of labor. It attempts to show that the active,
vigorous life of a great German merchant is purer, nobler, more beneficent than
the life of a haughty aristocrat, relying only on the traditional merits of his
family; and, in this attempt, the author weaves a web of glory about the life
of the ordinary citizen. A second novel, The Lost Manuscript (1864), in
like manner shows the superiority of the scholar over the nobleman.
The Technique of the Drama was written in 1863, and dedicated to the
author's friend – Wolf, Count of Baudissin. The book has passed through six
editions, and attained the rank of a first-class authority on the matters of
which he treats, though now for the first time translated into English.
In 1862, Freytag began his famous series of connected historical tales, in
New Pictures from the Life of the German People, continued the next year
in Pictures from the German Past, and still further in 1876 and later,
in The Ancestors, including Ingo and Ingraban; The Nest of the
Hedge-sparrows; The Brothers of the German House; Marcus
King; The Brothers and Sisters; From a Little City, etc.
These are all descriptions of the German life, based on accurate research, and
including periods from the fourth to the nineteenth century. Devoted to the
glory of the German people, this, the author's most extensive work, makes an
entertaining exposition of some of the noblest traits of German character. In
1870, he published a striking biography of his intimate friend, entitled
Karl Mathy; Story of His Life.
Freytag continued to edit Die Grenzboten four at twenty-three years,
when he went over to a new journal called Im Neuen Reich. His political
writings having introduced him to public life, he became in 1867, a
representative of the Liberal party in the North-German Parliament. On the
breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, he entered the imperial army
as an officer on the staff of the Crown Prince, remaining in military service
till after the Battle of Sedan. He gave up public life in 1879.
Introduction.
That the technique of the drama is nothing absolute and unchangeable
scarcely need be stated. Since Aristotle established a few of the highest laws
of dramatic effect, the culture of the human race has grown more than two
thousand years older. Not only have the artistic forms, the stage and method of
representation undergone a great change, but what is more important, the
spiritual and moral nature of men, the relation of the individual to the race
and to the highest forces of earthly life, the idea of freedom, the conception
of the being of Divinity, have experienced great revolutions. A wide field of
dramatic material has been lost; a new and greater range has been won. With the
moral and political principles which control our life, our notion of the
beautiful and the artistically effective has developed. Between the highest art
effects of the Greek festivals, the autos sacramentales, and the drama
of the time of Goethe and Iffland, the difference is not less great than
between the Hellenic choral theater, the structure for the mystery play, and
the complete inclosed room of the modern stage. It may be considered certain
that some of the fundamental laws of dramatic production will remain in force
for all time; in general, however, not only the final requisites of the drama
have been found in continuous development, but also the artistic means of
producing its effects. Let no one think that the technique of poetry has been
advanced through the creations of the greatest poets only; we may say without
self-exaltation that we at present have clearer ideas upon the highest art
effects in the drama and upon the use of technical equipment, then had Lessing,
Schiller and Goethe.
The poet of the presence is inclined to look with amazement upon a method of
work in which the structure of scenes, the treatment of characters, and the
sequence of effects were governed by a transmitted code of fixed technical
rules. Such a limitation easily seems to us the death of free artistic
creation. Never was a greater error. Even an elaborate system of specific
rules, a certain limitation founded in popular custom, as to choice of material
and structure of the peace, have been at different periods the best aid to
creative power. Indeed, they are, it seems, necessary prerequisites of that
rich harvest of many past periods, which has seemed to us so enigmatical and
incomprehensible. We recognize still that Greek tragedy possessed such a
technique, and that the greatest poets worked in according to craftsman's rules
which were in part common, and in part might be the property of distinct
families and guilds. Many of these were well-known to Attic criticism, which
judge the worth of a piece according to them – whether the revolution scene
were in the right place and the pathos scene aroused the desired degree of
sympathy. That the Spanish cloak-and-dagger drama artistically wove the threads
of its intrigue likewise according to fixed rules, no poetics of a Castilian
informs us; but we are able to recognize very well many of these rules in the
uniform construction of the plays, and in the ever recurring characters; and it
would not be very difficult to formulate a code of peculiar rules from the
plays themselves. These rules, of course, even to contemporaries, to whom they
were useful, were not invariable; through the genius and shrewd invention of
individuals, these gradually learned how to improve and remodel, until the
rules became lifeless; and after a period of spiritless application, together
with the creative power of the poets, they were lost.
It is true, an elaborate technique which determines not only the form, but
also many aesthetic effects, barks out for the dramatic poetry of a period a
limited boundary within which the greatest success is attained, and to
transgress which is not allowed even to the greatest genius. In later times
such a limitation is considered a hindrance to a versatile development. But
even we Germans might be well content with the unappreciative judgment of
posterity if we only possessed now the aid of a generally useful technique. We
suffer from the opposite of narrow limitations, the lack of proper restraint,
lack of form, a popular style, a definite range of dramatic material, firmness
of grasp; our work has become in all directions casual and uncertain. Even
to-day, eighty years after Schiller, the young poet finds it difficult to move
upon the stage with confidence and ease.
If, however, we must deny ourselves the advantage of composing according to
the craftsman's traditions which were peculiar to the dramatic art as well as
to the plastic arts of former centuries, yet we should not scorn to speak, and
intelligently to use, the technical rules of ancient and modern times, which
facilitate artistic effects on our stage. To be sure, these rules are not to be
prescribed at the dictation of a single person, not established through the
influence of one great thinker or poet; but drawn from the noblest effects of
the stage, they must include what is essential – they must serve criticism
and creative power not as dictator but as honest helper; and under them a
transformation and improvement according to the needs of the time is not to be
excluded.
It is remarkable that the technical rules of a former time, in accordance
with which the playwright must construct the artistic framework of his piece,
have been so seldom transmitted in writing to later generations. Two thousand
two hundred years have passed since Aristotle formulated a part of these laws
for the Hellenes. Unfortunately his Poetics has come down to us
incomplete. Only in outline has been received, which unskilled hands have made
– a corrupt text with gaps, apparently disconnected chapters, hastily thrown
together. In spite of this condition, what we have received is of highest value
to us. Today is our science of the past is indebted for a glance into the
remains of the Hellene's theater world. In our text-books on aesthetics, this
still affords the foundation for the theory of our dramatic art, and to the
growing poet, some chapters of the little work are instructive; for besides a
theory of dramatic effects, there's the greatest thinker of antiquity explained
them to his contemporaries, and besides many principles of a popular system of
criticism, as the cultured Athenian brought it into use in considering a new
production, the work contains many fine appliances from the workshops of
antiquity, which we can use to great advantage in our labors. In the following
pages, so far as the practical purpose of the book will allow, these will be
the subject of our discussion.
It is a hundred and twenty years since Lessing undertook to decipher for the
Germans this stenography of the ancients. His Hamburgische Dramaturgie
was the avenue to a popular comprehension of the dramatically beautiful. The
victorious battle which he waged in this book, against the tyranny of French
taste, will secure to him forever to respect and affection of the German
people. For our time, the polemic past is of most importance. Where Lessing
elucidates Aristotle, his understanding of the Greek does not seem entirely
sufficient for our present time, which has at hand a more abundant means of
explanation; where he exposes the laws of dramatic creation, his judgment is
restricted by the narrow conception of the beautiful and effective, which he
himself accepted.
Indeed, the best source of technical rules is the plays of great poets,
which still to-day, exercise their charm alike on reader and spectator,
especially the Greek tragedies. Whoever accustoms himself to look aside from
the peculiarities of the old models, will notice with real joy that the
skillful tragic poet of the Athenians, Sophocles, use the fundamental laws of
dramatic construction, with enviable certainty and shrewdness. For development,
climax, and return of the action, he presents us a model seldom reached.
About two thousand years after Oedipus at Colonos, Shakespeare, the
second mighty genius which gave immortal expression to dramatic art, wrote the
tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. He created the drama of the Germanic races.
His treatment of the tragic, is the regulation of the action, his manner of
developing character, and his representation of soul experiences, have
established for the introduction of the drama, and for the first half to the
climax, many technical laws which still guide us.
The Germans came in a roundabout way to a recognition of the greatness and
significance of his service. The great German poets, easily the next models
after which we have to fashion, lived in [line missing bottom of p 7 in scan]
… with the inheritance of the old past. There was lacking therefore, to the
technique which they inherited, something of certainty and consistency in
effects; and directly because the beautiful which they discovered has been
infused into our blood, we are bound, in our work, to reject many things which
with them rested upon an incomplete or insecure foundation.
The examples brought forward in the following discussion are taken from
Sophocles, Shakespear, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller, for it has seemed
desirable to limit examples to universally known works.
Chapter 1. The Dramatic Action.
I. The Idea.
In the soul of the poet, the drama gradually takes shape out of the crude
materials furnished by the account of some striking event. First appear single
movements; internal conflicts and personal resolution, a deed fraught with
consequence, the collision of two characters, the opposition of a hero to his
surroundings, rise so prominently above their connection with other incidents,
that they become the occasion for the transformation of other material. This
transformation goes on to such an extent that the main element, vividly
perceived, and comprehended in its entrancing, soul-stirring or terrifying
significance, is separated from all that casually accompanies it, and with
single supplementary, invented elements, is brought into a unifying relation of
cause and effect. The new unit which thus arises is the Idea of the
Drama. This is the center toward which further independent inventions are
directed, like rays. This idea works with the power similar to the secret power
of crystallization. Through this are unity of action, significance of
characters, and at last, the whole structure of the drama produced.
How ordinary material becomes a poetic idea through inspiration, the
following example will show. A young poet of the last century reads the
following notice in a newspaper: “Stuttgart, Jan. 11. – In the dwelling of
the musician, Kritz, were found, yesterday, his oldest daughter, Louise, and
Duke Blasius von Böller, major of dragoons, lying dead upon the floor. The
accepted facts in the case, and the medical examination indicated that both had
come to their deaths by drinking poison. There is a rumor of an attachment
between the pair, which the major's father, a well-known President von Böller,
had sought to break off. The sad fate of the young woman, universally esteemed
on account of her modest demeanor, awakens the sympathy of all people of
sensibility.”
From the material thus afforded, the fancy of the poet, aroused by sympathy,
fashions the character of an ardent and passionate youth, and of an innocent
and susceptible maiden. The contrast between the court atmosphere, from which
the lover has emerged, and the narrow circle of a little village household, is
vividly felt. The hostile father becomes a heartless, intriguing courtier. An
unavoidable necessity arises, of explaining the frightful resolution of a
vigorous youth, a resolution apparently growing out of such a situation. The
creative poet finds this interconnection in an illusion which the father has
produced in the soul of the son, in a suspicion that his beloved is unfaithful.
In this manner the poet makes the account intelligible to himself and to
others; while freely inventing, he introduces an internal consistency. These
inventions are, in appearance, little supplementary additions, but they make an
entirely original production which spans over against the original occurrence
as something new, and has something like the following contents: In the breast
of a young nobleman, jealousy toward his beloved, a girl of the middle class,
has been so excited by his father, that he destroys both her and himself by
poison. Through this remodeling, an occurrence in real life becomes a dramatic
idea. From this time forward, the real occurrence is unessential to the poet.
The place, and family are lost sight of; indeed, whether the event happened as
reported, or what was the character of the victims, and of their parents, or
their rank, no longer matters at all; quick perception and the first activity
of creative power have given to the occurrence a universally intelligible
meaning and an intrinsic truth. The controlling forces of the piece are no
longer accidental, and to be found in a single occurrence; they could enter
into a hundred cases, and with the accepted characters and the assumed
connection, the outcome would always be the same.
When the poet has once thus infused his own soul into the material, then he
adopts from the real account some things which suit his purpose – the title
of the father and of the son, the name of the bride, the business of her
parents, perhaps single traits of character which he may turn to account.
Alongside this goes further creative work; the chief characters are developed,
to their distinct individualities; accessory figures are created, – a
quarrelsome accomplice of the father, another woman, the opposite of the
beloved, personality of the parents; new impulses are given to the action, and
all these inventions are determined and ruled by the idea of the piece.
This idea, the first invention of the poet, the silent soul through which he
gives life to the material coming to him from external sources, does not easily
place itself before him as a clearly defined thought; it has not the colorless
clearness of an abstract conception. On the contrary, the peculiarity in such
work of the poet's mind is, that the chief parts of the action, the nature of
the chief characters, indeed something of the color of the piece, glow in the
soul at the same time with the idea, bound into an inseparable unity, and that
they continually work like a human being producing and expanding in every
direction. It is possible, of course, that the poet's idea, however securely he
bears it in his soul, may never, during the process of composition, come to
perfection in words, and that later, through reflection, but without having
formulated it even for himself, he sets the possession of his soul into the
stamped coin of speech, and comprehends it is the fundamental thought of his
drama. It is possible, indeed, that he has perceived the idea more justly
according to the rules of his art, and he is given the central thought of his
work verbal expression.
If, however, it is inconvenient and often difficult for him to cast the idea
of a growing play into a formula, to express it in words, yet the poet will do
well, even in the beginning of his work, to temper the ardor of his soul, and
sharply discriminating, judge the idea according to the essential requisites of
the drama. It is the instructive for a stranger to a piece to seek the hidden
soul in the complete production, and however imperfect this may possibly be,
give the thought formal expression. Much may be recognized in this way that is
characteristic of single poets. For example, let the foundation of Mary
Stuart be, – “The excited jealousy of a queen incites to the killing of
her imprisoned rival;” and again of Love and Intrigue, “The excited
jealousy of a young nobleman incites to the killing of his humble beloved.”
These bare formulas will be taken from the fullness of many-colored life which
in the mind of the creative poet is connected with the idea; yet something
peculiar will become distinct in the construction of both pieces, in addition;
for example, that the poet using such a frame work was placed under the
necessity of composing in advance the first part of the action, which explains
the origin of the jealousy, and that the impelling force in the chief
characters becomes operative just in the middle of the piece, and that the
first acts contain preferably the endeavors of the accessory characters, to
excite the fatal activity of one of the chief characters. It will be further
noticed how similar in ultimate principle is the construction and motive of
these two plays of Schiller, and how both have a surprising similarity in idea
and plan, to the more powerful Othello.
The material which is transformed through the dramatic idea, is either
invented by the poet specially for his drama, or is an incident related from
the life which surrounds him, or an account which history offers, or the
contents of a tradition, or novel, or narrative poem. In all of these cases,
where the poet makes use of what is at hand, it has already been humanized by
the impress of an idea. Even in the above supposed newspaper notice, the
incipient remodeling is recognizable. In the last sentence, “There is a rumor
of an attachment,” etc., the reporter makes the first attempt to transform
the mere fact into a consistent story, to explain the tragic occurrence, to
bring to the lovers a greater degree of interest, so that a more attractive
meaning is given to their condition. The practice of transformation, through
which consistency and a meaning corresponding to the demands of the thinking
person were given to real events, is no prerogative of the poet. Inclination
toward this, and capability for it, are active in all persons, and at all
times. For thousands of years the human race has thus transposed for itself
life in heaven and on earth; it has abundantly endowed its representations of
the divine with human attributes. All heroic tradition has sprung from such a
transformation of impressions from religious life, history, or natural objects,
into poetic ideas. Even now, since historic culture prevails, and respect for
the real relations of the great events of the world has risen so high, this
tendency to explain occurrences shows itself in the greatest as well as in the
least matters. In every anecdote, even in the disagreeable gossip of society,
its activity is manifest, endeavoring, even if what is real remains unchanged,
to present vividly and with spirit some trait of narrow life, or from the
necessity of the raconteur, to make himself in contrast with others more
surely and better observed.
Historical material is already brought into order through some idea, before
the poet takes possession of it. The ideas of the historian are not at all
poetical; but they have specific and shaping influence on every part of the
work which is brought through them into being. Whoever describes the life of a
man, whoever makes an exposition of a section of past time, must set in order
his mass of material from an established point of view, must sift out the
unessential, must make prominent the most essential. Still more, he must seek
to comprehend the contents of a human life or a period of time; he must take
pains to discover ultimate characteristics and intimate connection of events.
He must also know the connection of his material with much that is external,
and much that his work does not present. In certain cases, indeed, he must
supplement what has been delivered to him, and so explain the unintelligible,
but it's probable and possible meaning is evident. He is finally directed in
the arrangement of his work, but the loss of creation, which have many things
in common with the loss of poetic composition. Through his knowledge and his
art, he made from crude material creates a picture exciting wonder, and produce
upon the soul of the reader the most powerful effect. But he is distinguished
from the poet by this, that he seeks conscientiously to understand what has
actually occurred, exactly as it was presented to view, and that the
interconnection which he seeks is produced by the laws of nature which we
revere as divine, eternal, incomprehensible. To the historian, the event
itself, with its significance for the human mind, seems of most importance. To
the poet, the highest value lies in his own invention; and out of fondness for
this, he, at his convenience, changes the actual incident. To the poet,
therefore, every work of an historical writer, however animated it may be
through the historical idea recognized in its contents, is still only raw
material, like a daily occurrence; and the most artistic treatment by the
historian is useful to the poet, only so far as it facilitates his
comprehension of what has really happened. If the poet has come in history,
found his interest awakened in the person of the martial prince, Wallenstein;
if he perceives vividly in his reading a certain connection between the deeds
and the fate of the man; if he is touched or shocked by single characteristics
of his real life, – then there begins in his mind the process of
reconstruction, so that he brings the deeds and fall of the hero into perfectly
intelligible and striking connection, and he even so transforms the character
of the hero as it is desirable for a touching and thrilling effect of the
action. That which in the historical character is only a subordinate trait, now
becomes the fundamental character of his being; the gloomy, fierce commander
receives something of the poet's own nature; he becomes a high minded,
dreaming, reflecting man. Conformably with this character, all incidents are
remodeled, all other characters determined, and guilt and calamities regulated.
Through such idealization arose Schiller's Wallenstein, a figure whose
enchanting features have but little in common with the countenance of the
historical Wallenstein. Indeed, the park will have to be on his guard lest, in
his invention, there be made to appear what to his contemporaries may seem the
opposite of historical truth. How much the later poet may be limited by such a
consideration, will be discussed later.
It will depend on the personality of the poet, whether the first rapture of
his poetic activity is derived from the enchanting characteristics of mankind,
or from what is striking in real destiny, or from the really interesting in the
color of the time, which he finds in the historical record. But from the moment
when the enjoyment and ardor necessary to his production begin, he proceeds,
indeed, with unfettered freedom, however faithfully he seems to himself to
adhere to historical material. He transforms all available material into
dramatic forces. [1] (See Notes, commencing page 383.)
Moreover, when the poet adopts material which has already been put in order
more or less perfectly according to the laws of epic construction, as heroic
poem, saga, artistically finished narrative, what is prepared for another
species of poetry, is for him only material. Let it not be thought that an
event with the persons involved, which has already been ennobled through an art
so nearly allied, has for that reason a better preparation for the drama. On
the contrary, there is between the great creations of the epic which shadow
forth occurrences and heroes as they stand near each other, and dramatic art
which represents actions and characters as they are developed through each
other, a profound opposition which it is difficult for the creative artist to
manage. Even the poetic charm which these created images exercise upon his
soul, may render it the more difficult for him to transform them according to
the vital requisites of his art. The Greek drama struggled as severely with its
material, which was taken from the epic, as the historic poet of our time must,
with the transformation of historical ideas into dramatic.
To transform material artistically, according to a unifying idea, means to
idealize it. The characters of the poet, in contrast with the images from
reality material, and according to a convenient craftsman's expression, are
called ideals.
II. What Is Dramatic?
The dramatic includes those emotions of the soul which steel themselves to
will, and to do, and those emotions of the soul which are aroused by a deed or
course of action; also the inner processes which man experiences from the first
glow of perception to passionate desire and action, as well as the influence
which one's own and others' deeds exert upon the soul; also the rushing forth
of willpower from the depths of man's soul toward the external world, and the
influx of fashioning influences from the outer world into man's innermost
being; also the coming into being of a deed, and its consequences on the human
soul.
And action, in itself, is not dramatic. Passionate feeling, in itself, is
not dramatic. Not the presentation of a passion for itself, but of a passion
which leads to action is the business of dramatic art; not the presentation of
an event for itself, but for its effect on the human soul is the dramatist's
mission. The exposition of passionate emotions as such, is in the province of
the lyric poet; the depicting of thrilling events is the task of the epic
poet.
The two ways in which the dramatic expresses itself are, of course, not
fundamentally different. Even while man is under stress, and laboring to turn
his innermost soul toward the external, his surroundings exert a stimulating or
repressing influence on his passionate emotions. And, again, while what has
been done exerts a reflex influence upon him, he does not remained merely
receptive, but gains new impulses and transformations. Yet, there is a
difference in these closely connected processes. The first, the inward struggle
of man toward a deed, has always the highest charm. The second stimulates to
more external emotion, a more violent co-operation of different forces; almost
all that satisfies curiosity belongs to this; and yet, however indispensable it
is to the drama, it is principally a satisfying of excited suspense; and the
impatience of the hearer, if he has creative power, easily runs in advance,
seeking a new vehement agitation in the soul of the hero. What is occurring
chains the attention most, not what, as a thing of the past, has excited
wonder.
Since the dramatic art presents men as their innermost being exerts an
influence on the external, or as they are affected by external influences, it
must logically use the means by which it can make intelligible to the auditor
these processes of man's nature. These means are speech, tone, gesture. It must
bring forward its characters as speaking, singing, gesticulating. Poetry uses
also as accessories in her representations, music and scenic art.
In close fellowship with her sister arts, with vigorous, united effort she
sends her images into the receptive souls of those who are at the same time
auditors and spectators. The impressions which she produces are called effects.
These dramatic effects have a very peculiar character; they differ not only
from the effects of the plastic arts through the force of emphasis and the
progressive and regular gradation of the chosen movement, but also from the
powerful effects of music, in this, that they flow in at the same time through
two senses, and excite with the rapture not only emotional, but also
intellectual activity.
From what has already been said, it is clear that the characters, presented
according to the demands of dramatic art, must have something unusual in their
nature which may distinguish them not only from the innumerable, more manifold,
and more complicated beings whose images real life impresses on the soul, but
also from the poetic images which are rendered effective through other forms a
part, the epic, the romance, the lyric. The dramatis persona must
represent human nature, not as it is aroused and mirrored in its surroundings,
active and full of feeling, but as a grand and passionately excited inner power
striving to embody itself in a deed, transforming and guiding the being and
conduct of others. Man, in the drama, must appear under powerful restraint,
excitement, transformation. Specially must there be represented in him in full
activity those peculiarities which come effectively into conflict with other
men, force of sentiment, violence of will, achievement hindered through
passionate desire, just those peculiarities which make character and are
intelligible through character. It thus happens, not without reason, that in
the terms of art, the people of a drama are called characters. But the
characters which are brought forward by poetry and her accessory arts, can
evince their inner life only as participants in an event or occurrence, the
course and internal connections of which becomes apparent to the spectator
through the dramatic processes in the soul of the poet. This course of events,
when it is arranged according to the demands of dramatic art, is called the
action. [2]
Each participant in the dramatic action has a definite appointment with
reference to the whole; for each, and exact, circumscribed personality is
necessary, which must be so constituted that so much of it is has a purpose may
be conveniently perceived by the auditor, and what is common to man and what is
peculiar to this character may be effectively represented by the actor by means
of his art.
Those spiritual processes which have been indicated above as dramatic, are,
of course, not perfectly apparent in every person represented, especially on
the later stage, which is fond of bringing forward a greater number of
characters as participants in the action. But the chief characters must abound
in them; only when these, in an appropriate manner, exhibit their real nature
with power and fullness, even to the innermost recesses of their hearts, can
the drama produce great effects. If this last dramatic element is not apparent
in the leading characters, is not forced upon the hearer, the drama is
lifeless; it is an artificial, empty form, without corresponding contents; and
the pretentious cooperation of several combined arts makes this hollowness the
more painful.
Along with the chief characters, the subordinate persons participate in this
dramatic life, each according to the space occupied in the piece. It does not
entirely disappear, even in the last rôle, in those figures which with a few
words can show their participation; the attendant or the messenger, owes it as
a duty, at least to the actor's art, by costume, manner of speech, deportment,
gesture, posture at entering, to represent in a manner suitable to the piece
what he personates, so far as externals will do it, even if meagerly and
modestly.
But since the representation of these mental processes, which are the
prerogative and requisite of the drama, requires time, and since the poet's
time for the producing of effects is limited according to the custom of his
people, it follows that the event represented must bring the chief characters
much more boldly into prominence than is necessary in an actual occurrence
which is brought about through the general activity of many persons.
The capability of producing dramatic effects is not accorded to the human
race in every period of its existence. Dramatic poetry appears later than epic
and lyric; its blossoming among any people depends on the fortunate conjunction
of many impelling forces, but specially on this, that in the actual life of the
contemporary public, the corresponding mental processes are frequently and
fully seen. This is first possible when the people have reached a certain
degree of development, when men have become accustomed to observe themselves
and others critically under the impulse to a deed, when speech has acquired a
high degree of flexibility and a clever dialect; when the individual is no
longer bound by the interdict of tradition and external force, ancient formula
and popular custom, but is able more freely to fashion his own life. We
distinguish two periods in which the dramatic has come to the human race. This
intensification of the human soul appeared for the first time in the ancient
world, about 500 years before Christ, when the youthful consciousness of the
free Hellenic community awoke with the bloom of commerce, with freedom of
speech, and with the participation of the citizen in affairs of state. The
dramatic spirit appeared the second time, in the newer family of European
peoples, after the Reformation, at the same time with the deepening of mind and
spirit, which was produced through the sixteenth century, not only among the
Germans, but also among the Latin races, but by different methods. Centuries
before the inception of this mighty effort of the human spirit, not only the
Hellenes, but the various branches of migrating nations, had already been
developing the rudiments of a speech and art of pantomime which was seeking the
dramatic. There, as here, great festivals in honor of the gods had occasioned
the song in ceremonial costume, and the playing of popular masques. But the
entrance of dramatic power into these lyric or epic exhibitions, was in both
cases a wonderfully rapid, almost sudden one. Both times, the dramatic was
developed, from the moment it became alive, with a marvelous power to a beauty
which, through the later centuries, it has not easily reached. Immediately
after the Persian wars, came Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in close
succession. Shortly after the Reformation, there appeared among the European
nations, first in England and Spain, and later in France, last of all among the
Germans, left behind through helpless weakness, the highest popular florescence
of this rare art.
But there is this difference between the beginning of the dramatic in the
old world and in the new: the drama of antiquity originated in the lyric choral
song; that of the newer world rests on the epic enjoyment in the exhibition of
important events. In the former, from the beginning, the passionate excitement
of feeling was the charm; in the latter, the witnessing of thrilling incident.
This difference of origin has powerfully influenced the form and meaning of the
drama in its artistic development; and however eminent the contributions of art
were in both periods, they retained something essentially different.
But even after dramatic life has arisen among the people, the highest
effects of poetry remained the prerogative of a few, and since that time
dramatic power has not been accorded to every poet; indeed, it does not pervade
with sufficient power every work even of the greatest poets. We may conclude
that even in Aristotle's time, those stately plays with a simple action, with
no characteristic desires on the part of the leading persons, with loosely
connected choruses, had, possibly, lyric, but not dramatic beauty. And among
the historic plays which, year after year, are written in Germany, the greater
part contains little more than mangled history thrown into dialogue, some epic
material thrown into scenic form, at all events nothing of dramatic character.
Indeed, single poems of the greatest poets suffer from the same lack. Only two
celebrated dramas need here be named. The Hecuba of Euripides shows,
until the end, only a little progress, and that entirely unsatisfactory, from
the excited disposition, toward a deed; first in the final conflict against
Polymnestor does Hecuba exhibit a passion that becomes a determination; here
the dramatic suspense first begins; up to this point there was evoked from the
briefly sketched and pathetic circumstances of the chief characters, only lyric
complaints. And again, in Shakespeare's Henry V., in which the poet
wished to compose a patriotic piece according to the old epic customs of his
stage, with military parades, fights, little episodes, there is apparent
neither in the chief characters, nor in their accessories, any deeply laid
foundation for their deeds, in a dramatically presentable motive. In short
waves, wish and demand ripple along; the actions themselves are the chief
thing. Patriotism must excite a lively interest, as in Shakespeare's time, and
among his people, it always did abundantly. For us, the play is less
presentable than the parts of Henry VI. On the contrary, to name only a
few of one poet's pieces, Macbeth, as far as the banquet scene, the
whole of Coriolanus, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Julius
Caesar, Lear, up to the hovel scene, and Richard III.,
contain the most powerful dramatic elements that have ever been created by a
Teuton or a Saxon.
From the inner struggles of the leading characters, the judgment of
contemporaries, as a rule, or at least that of the immediately following time,
rates the significance of a piece. Where this life is wanting, no skill in
treatment, no attractive material, is able to keep the work alive. Where this
dramatic life is present, even later times regard with great respect a poetical
composition and gladly overlook its shortcomings.
III. Unity of Action.
By action is meant, an event or occurrence, arranged according to a
controlling idea, and having its meaning made apparent by the characters. It is
composed of many elements, and consists in a number of dramatic efficients
(momente), which become effective one after the other, according to a
regular arrangement. The action of the serious drama must possess the following
qualities:
It must present complete unity.
This celebrated law has undergone a very different application with the
Greeks and Romans, with the Spanish and French, with Shakespeare and the
Germans, which has been occasioned partly by those learned in art, partly by
the character of the stage. The restriction of its claims through the French
classics, and the strife of the Germans with the three unities, of place, of
time, and of action, have for us only a literary-historical interest. [3]
No dramatic material, however perfectly its connections with other events
have been severed, is independent of something presupposed. These indispensable
presupposed circumstances must be so far presented to the hearer, in the
opening scenes, that he may first survey the groundwork of the piece, not in
detail, indeed, lest the field of the action itself, be limited; then
immediately, time, people, place, establishment of suitable relations between
the chief persons who appear, and the unavoidable threads which come together
in these, from whatever has been left outside the action. When, for instance,
in Love and Intrigue, an already existing love affair forms the
groundwork, the hearer must be given a sharp informing glance into this
relation of the two leading characters, and into the family life from which the
tragedy is to be developed. Moreover, in the case of historical material, which
is furnished by the vast and interminable connections of the great events of
the world, this exposition of what has gone before is no easy undertaking; and
the poet must take heed that he simplify it as much as possible.
From this indispensable introduction, the beginning of the impassioned
action must arise, like the first notes of a melody from the introductory
chords. This first stir of excitement, this stimulating impulse, is of great
importance for the effect of the drama, and will be discussed later. The end of
the action must, also, appear as the intelligible and inevitable result of the
entire course of the action, the conjunction of forces; and right here, the
inherent necessity must be keenly felt; the close must, however, represent the
complete termination of the strife and excited conflicts.
Within these limits, the action must move forward with uniform consistency.
This internal consistency is produced by a representing an event which follows
another, as an effect of which that other is the evident cause; let that which
occasions, be the logical cause of occurrences, and the new scenes and events
be conceived as probable, and generally understood results of previous actions;
or let that which is to produce an effect, be a generally comprehensible
peculiarity of a character already made known. If it is unavoidable that,
during the course of events, new incidents appear, unexpected to the auditor,
are very surprising, these must be explained imperceptibly, but perfectly,
through what has preceded. This laying the foundations of the drama is called,
assigning the motive (motiviren). Through the motives, the elements of
the action are bound into an artistic, connected whole. This binding together
of incidents by the free creation of a causative connection, is the
distinguishing characteristic of this species apart. Through this linking
together of incidents, dramatic idealization is effected.
Let the remodeling of the narrative into a dramatic action serve as an
example. There lived in Verona, two noble families, in enmity and feuds of long
standing. As chance would have it, the son of one of them only, together with
his companions, play the presumptuous trick of thrusting themselves disguised
into a masked ball, given by the chief of the other house. At this ball the
intruder beholds the daughter of his enemy, and in both arises a reckless
passion. They determine upon a clandestine marriage and are wedded by the
father confessor of the maiden. Then fate directs that the new bridegroom is
betrayed into a conflict with the cousin of his bride, and because he has slain
him in the duel, is banished from his country by the prince of the land, under
penalty of death. Meantime a distinguished suitor has visited the parents to
sue for the hand of the newly married wife. The father disregards the
despairing entreaties of his daughter, and appoints the day for the marriage.
In these fearful circumstances, the young woman receives from her priest, a
sleep-potion which shall give her the appearance of death; the priest
undertakes to remove her privately from the coffin and communicate her
embarrassing situation to her distant husband. But again an unfortunate chance
directs that the husband, in a foreign land, is informed of the death of his
wife, before the messenger of the priest arrives. He hastens, in secret, back
to his native city, and forces his way into the vault, where lies the body of
his wife. Unfortunately, he meets there the man destined by her parents to be
her bridegroom, kills him, and upon the coffin of his beloved, drinks the fatal
poison. The loved one awakes, sees her dying husband, and stabs herself with
his dagger. [4]
This narrative is a simple account of a striking occurrence. The fact, that
all this so happened, is told; how and why it came about, does not matter. The
sequence of narrated incidents possesses no close connection. Chance, the
caprice of fate, an unaccountable conjunction of unfortunate forces, occasions
the progress of events and the catastrophe. Indeed, just this striking sport of
chance is what gives enjoyment. Such a material appears specially unfavorable
for the drama; and yet a great poet has made from it one of his most beautiful
plays.
The facts have remained, on the whole, unchanged; only their connection has
become different. The task of the poet was not to present the facts to us, on
the stage, but to make them perceptible in the feeling, desire, and action of
his persons, to make them more evident, to develop them in accordance with
probability and reason. He had, in the first place, to set forth what was
naturally prerequisite to the action; the brawls in an Italian city, in a time
when swords were carried, and combativeness quickly laid hand to weapon, the
leaders of both parties, the ruling power which had trouble to restrain the
restless within proper limits; then the determination of the Capulets to give a
banquet. Then he must represent the marry conceit which brought Romeo and his
attendants into the Capulets’ house. This exciting impulse, the beginning of
the action, must not appear an accident; it must be accounted for from the
characters. Therefore it was necessary to introduce the companions of Romeo,
fresh, in uncontrolled, youthful spirits, playing with life. To this necessity
for establishing motives, Mercutio owes his existence. In contrast with his mad
companions, the poet had fashioned the dejected Romeo, whose nature, even
before his entrance into the excited action, must express its amorous passion.
Hence his vagaries about Rosalind. This availed to make probable the awakening
passion of the lovers. For this, the masque-scene and the balcony-scene were
constructed. Every enchantment of poetry is here used to the greatest purpose,
to make apparent, conceivable and as a matter of course, that henceforward the
sweet passion of the lovers determines their lives.
The accessory figures, which enter into the piece from this point, must
forward the complication, and aid in giving motive toward the tragic outcome.
For the narrative, it was sufficient that a priest performed the marriage
rights, and gave directions of the unfortunate intrigue; such aids have always
been at hand; as soon, however, as he himself has stepped upon the stage, and
by his words has entered the action, he must receive a personality which
accounts for all that follows; – he must be good-hearted and sympathetic, and
through the goodness of heart, merit full confidence; he must be unpracticed,
and inclined to quiet artifices as frequently the better priests of the Italian
church are, in order to venture later, the doubtful play of death for his
penitent. Thus originated Laurence.
After the wedding, the unfortunate affair with Tybalt comes into the story.
Here the dramatic poet had special motive in taking from the character entering
so suddenly, all that was merely casual. It could not suffice for him to
introduce Tybalt as a hot-headed brawler; without letting the spectator sees
purpose, he must lay the foundation in what had gone before, for the peculiar
hatred toward Romeo and his companions. Hence the little side scene at the
masked ball, in which Tybalt’s anger flames up at the intrusion of Romeo. And
in this scene itself, the poet had to bring to bear the strongest motive, to
compel Romeo to engage in the duel. Mercutio must first be slain for this
reason, and for the further purpose of heightening the tragic power of the
scene, and accounting for the wrath of the prince.
To send a Romeo immediately into banishment, as is done in the narrative,
would be impossible in the drama. To show the spectator that the loving pair
were bound inseparably to each other, there was the most pressing necessity to
give to their excited passion the deepest intensity. How the poet succeeded in
this is known to all. The scene on the marriage eve is the climax of the
action; and by poetic elaboration, which need not be explained here, it arises
to the highest beauty. But this scene was necessary on other grounds. Juliet's
character renders necessary a rising into what is noble. It must be shown that
the lovely heroine is capable of magnificent emotion, of mighty passion in
order that her later, despairing determination may be found consistent with her
nature. Her marvelous inward conflict over Tybalt’s death and Romeo’s
banishment must precede the wedding night, to impart to her natural longing the
beautifully pathetic element which increases the interest in this always
delicate scene. But even the possibility of this scene must be made clear. Its
accessory persons, Friar Laurence and the nurse, are again significant. The
character of the nurse, one of Shakespeare's unsurpassable inventions, is,
likewise, not fashioned accidentally; just as she is, she is a suitable
accomplice; and she makes explicable Juliet's inward withdrawal from her and
the catastrophe.
Immediately after her wedding night, the command is given to Juliet to be
married to Paris. But the beautiful daughter of the wealthy Capulet would find
a distinguished suitor, and that her father, – for whose hot-headedness a
sufficient ground has already been laid, – would exercise harsh compulsion in
the matter, would be conceded by the hearer without further preparation, as
probable and a matter of course. But it is a matter of much consequence to the
dramatist, to lay beforehand the foundation for this important event. Already,
before the marriage of Juliet, he has Paris receive her father's promise; he
would throw this dark shadow upon the great love scene; and he would account
right distinctly, and to the common understanding for the approaching
calamity.
Now the fate of the loving pair has been put into the weak hands of Friar
Laurence. Up to this point, the drama has carefully excluded every intrusion of
any chance. Even to the most minute accessory fact, all is accounted for by the
kind of characters. Now a tremendous destiny is weighing down upon two
unfortunates: spilled blood, deadly family hate, a clandestine marriage,
banishment, a new wooing, – all this is pressing upon the hearer's
sensibility with a certain compulsion. The introduction of a little explanatory
motives is no longer effective, and no longer necessary. Now the stratagem of
the stupid visionary priest can be thwarted by an accident; for the feeling
that it was desperate and presumptuous in the highest degree, to expose a
living person to the incalculable chances of a sleep-potion and burial, has
become so strong in the hearer’s mind, that he already considers an unhappy
result as probable.
Thus the catastrophe is introduced and given a foundation. But that the hope
of a happy outcome may entirely vanish from the mind of the spectator, and that
the inherent necessity of ruin may yet at the last moment overtop the
foreboding of unavoidable fatalities in the burial vault, Romeo must slay Paris
before the tomb.
The death of the stranger is the last force furthering the sad end of the
lovers. Even when Juliet now in a fortunate moment awakes, her path and
Romeo’s is so overflowed with blood, that any good fortune, or even life, has
become improbable to them.
The task undertaken here has been only to point out in a few chief
particulars the contrast between inner dramatic unification and epic narration.
The piece contains still an abundance of other motives; and even the minute
details are so dovetailed and riveted as to evince the dramatist's special
purpose.
The internal unity of a dramatic action is not secured merely by making a
succession of events appear as deeds and sufferings of the same hero. No great
fundamental law of dramatic creation is more frequently violated, even by great
poets, than this one; and this disregard has always interfered with the effects
of even the power of genius. The Athenian stage suffered on this account; and
Aristotle attempted to meet the evil, when in his firm way he said: “The
action is the first and most important thing, the characters only second;”
and, “The action is not giving unity by being made to concern only one
person.” Especially, we later ones, who are most frequently attracted by the
charm of historical material, have urgent reason to cling to the law, that
union about a person alone does not suffice to gather and bind to the events
into unity.
It still frequently happens that a poet undertakes to present the life of an
heroic prince, as he is at variance with his vassals, as he wages war with his
neighbors and the church, and is again reconciled to them, and that he finally
perishes in one of these conflicts; the poet distributes the principal moving
forces of the historical life among the five acts and three hours of the acting
play, makes in speech and response an exposition of political interests and
party standpoints, interweaves well or ill a love episode, and thinks to have
changed the historical picture into a poetic one. He is positively a
weak-hearted destroyer of history, and no priest of his proud goddess. What he
has produced is not history, and not drama. He has, sure enough, yielded to
some of the demands of his art; he has omitted weighty events which did not
suit his purpose; he has fashioned the character of his hero simply and
according to rule, has not been sparing in the additions, small and great, as
here and there are substituted for the complicated connections of historical
events, invented ones. Through all this, however, he has attained a general
effect which is at best a weak reflection of the sublime effect that the life
of the hero would have produced, if well presented by the historian; and his
error has been in putting the historic idea in the place of the dramatic
idea.
Even the poet who thinks more worthily of his art, is in danger, when busied
with historical matter, of seeking a false unity. The historical writer has
taught him that the shifting events of historical life are accounted for by the
peculiarities of characters, which assume results, which conjure up a fatality.
The effect which the intimate connections of an historic life produce, is
powerful, and excites wonder. Determined by such a force of the real, the poet
seeks to comprehend the inner connections of the events in the characteristic
elements of the hero's life. The character of the hero is to him the last
motive in laying the foundation for the various vicissitudes of an active
existence. A German prince, for example, powerful and high spirited, is forced
by sheer violence into conflicts and submission; in heart-rending humiliation
and deepest abasement, he finds again his better self, and subdues his soaring
pride; such a character may possess all the qualities of a dramatic hero, –
what is universally comprehensible and significant gushes forth powerfully from
the casual in his earthly life; and his lot in life shows the relation between
guilt and punishment, which takes hold in men's minds; he appears as the
artificer of his own happiness or misery; the germ and essence of his life may
be very like a poetic idea. But just before such a similarity, let the poet
pause in distrust. He has to ask himself whether through his art he can infuse
anything more powerful or effective than the story itself offers; or, indeed,
whether he is at all in a position to enlarge through his art any part of the
effects which, perceiving in advance, he admires in the historical material. Of
course he may intensify the character of his hero. What was working in the soul
of Henry IV. as he journeyed toward Canossa and stood in his penitential
garment by the castle wall, is the secret of the poet; the historian knows very
little to tell about it. To such impelling forces of a real life, the poet has
an inalienable right. But the disposition and transformations of the historical
hero do not fashion themselves completely in short periods of personal
isolation; and what the poet was lured by was exactly an heroic nature whose
original texture showed itself in various occurrences. Now these occurrences
which the historian reports, are very numerous. The poet is obliged to limit
himself to a very few. He is obliged to remodel these few in order to give them
the significance which in reality the course of the whole had. He will see with
astonishment how difficult this is, and how by this means his hero becomes
smaller and weaker, and that his historic idea is completed with so little.
But, even in the representation of these selected events, the poet is poorer
than the historian. Every one of his impelling forces must have an introduction
that will account for it; he must introduce to the spectator his Hannos, his
Ottos, his Rudolphs and Henrys; he must to a certain extent make their affairs
attractive; two or three times in the piece he will create excitement, then
allay it; the persons will throng and conceal each other on the narrow stage;
the rising interest of hearers will every now and then relapse. He will make
the astonishing discovery that the hearer’s suspense is usually not produced
by the characters, however interesting these may be, but only through the
progress of the action; and he will at best attain only one or the other
greatly elaborated scene with pure dramatic life, which stands alone in the
desert of sketchy, brief suggestions of mutilated history, and cramped
invention.
Engaged in such labor upon the abundant beautiful material offered in
history, the poet has probably often abandoned the material without seeing its
beauty. To idealize an entire political human life is a prodigious undertaking.
Cyclic dramas, trilogies, tetralogies, may in most cases scarcely suffice for
this. A single historic movement may give the dramatist superabundant material.
For, as faith begins when knowledge ends, so poetry begins when history leaves
off. What history is able to declare can be to the poet only the frame within
which he paints his most brilliant colors, the most secret revelations of human
nature; how shall space and inward freedom remain to him for this, when he must
toil and moil to present a succession of historical events? Schiller has made
use, in his two greatest historical pieces, of the historical catastrophe only,
the last scenes of a real historical life; and for so small an historic segment
he has required in Wallenstein three dramas. Let this example be taken
to heart. It is true Götz von Berlichingen will always be considered a
very commendable poem, because the chivalric anecdotes which are excellently
presented with short, sharp strokes, hold the reader spellbound; but upon the
stage the piece is not an effective drama; and the same is true of
Egmont, although its feeble action, and the lack of characterization of
its hero, is to a certain extent compensated for in the greater elaboration of
its vigorous female characters.
Concerning the heartless treatment of historical material through the epic
traditions of our old stage, Shakespeare, above all others, has given hints to
the Germans. His historic place, taken from English history, the structure of
which, except Richard III. we should not imitate, had a far different
justification. At that time there was no writing of history, as we understand
the term; and as the poet made use of material from historic resources for his
artistic figures, he wrought from an abundance, and opened up the immediate
past to his nation, in a multitude of masterly character sketches. But he,
himself, achieved from the stage of his time the wonderful advance to a
complete action; and we owe to him, after he began to make use of the material
in Italian novels, our comprehension of how irreplaceable and noble effects are
which are produced by a unified and well-ordered action. His Roman plays, if
one makes allowance for a few of the practices of the stage, and the third act
of Antony and Cleopatra, are models of an established construction. We
do not do well to imitate what he has overcome.
Without doubt, the influence of the characters on the texture of the action,
is greater in the modern drama than on the stage of the ancients. As the first
impulse toward creation comes to the Germanic mind frequently through the
characteristic features of an historic hero; as the delineation of the
characters and their representation by actors have received a finer finish than
was possible in the Greek masque tragedy, so will the character of the hero
exert greater influence on the structure of the action, but only that we may
thereby account for the inner, consistent, unified action through the
characteristic peculiarities of the hero. Such an establishing of motive was
not unknown to the Greeks. Already in one of the older plays of Aeschylus,
The Suppliants, the vacillating character of the King of Argos is made
so prominent that one distinctly recognizes how, in the missing piece which
followed, the poet has laid the motive in this for the surrender of the
Danaids, who were begging protection. Sophocles is specially skillful in
introducing as controlling motive some marked trait of his characters, for
example, Antigone, Ajax, Odysseus. Indeed, Euripides is even more like the
Germans than Sophocles in this, that he delights in making more prominent the
peculiarities of his characters. In general, however, the epic trend of the
fable was much stronger than with us; as a rule the persons were fashioned
according to the demands of the well known and already prepared network of
events, as in the case of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Orestes. This was an
advantage to the Greeks, but to us it seems a restraint. With us the poet not
seldom finds himself in the position, that his hero is seeking an action which
shall be a luminous center, throwing light on everything that approaches it. We
will be able to explain from his nature, what is more profound and hidden. But
however rigidly we construct the action according to his needs, it must always
be composed of individual parts which belong to the same event, and this must
extend from the beginning to the end of the piece. Among the Greeks, Sophocles
is our master in the management of this dramatic unity, Euripides
unconscionably against it. How, in his serious plays, Shakespeare disclosed
this law to himself, and gradually to us, in the face of the sixteenth century
stage, has already been mentioned. Among the Germans, Lessing preserves the
unity with great care; Goethe, in the short action of Clavigo, and in
the later plays in which he had thought of the stage – Tasso and
Iphigenia. Schiller has observed the law faithfully in Love and
Intrigue. Is it an accident that in his last plays, in Tell, and in
Demetrius, so far as this play may be judged from notices of it, he has
neglected the law? Whenever he approached the bounds of license, it occurred
through his delight in episodes ending double heroes, as in Don Carlos,
Mary Stuart, and Wallenstein.
Of kinds of material, those taken from epic legends make it not difficult to
preserve the unity of action, but their action is not easily permit dramatic
elaboration of characters. Material from novels preserves well the unity of
action, but the characters, on account of the entangled action, are easily
thrown about too little freedom of movement, are they are restrained in their
movement through the portrayal of situations. Historical material offers the
greatest and most beautiful opportunities; but it is very difficult to combine
it into a good action.
The poet's interest in the characters of his counter-players easily mounts
so high that to them is accorded a rich, detailed portrayal, a sympathetic
exposition of their striving and their fighting moods, and a peculiar destiny.
Thereby arises a double action for the drama; or the action of the piece may be
of such a nature as to require for its illumination and completion a
subordinate action, which through the exposition of concurrent or opposing
relations brings into greater prominence the chief persons, with what they do
and what they suffer.
Various defects – especially one-sidedness – in material, may make such
a completion desirable. One play is not to run through the whole wide range of
affecting and thrilling moods; it is not to play from its sober ground color,
through all the possible color-tones; but a variation in mood and modest
contrast and color are as necessary to the drama as it is that in a painting in
which there are many figures, the swing of lesser lines should be in contrast
with the greater lines and groups, and that in contrast with the ground color,
use should be made of dependent, supplementary colors. A specially somber
material renders necessary the introduction of bright accessory figures. To
contrast with the defined characters of Iphigenia and Creon, the milder
counterparts, Ismene and Haemon, were invented; through the introduction of
Tecmessa, the despair of Ajax receives an affecting tone, the magic charm of
which we still feel to-day. The gloomy, pathetic Othello requires opposed to
him some one in whom the unrestrained freedom of humor is apparent. The somber
figure of Wallenstein and his companions in intrigue imperatively demands that
the brilliant Max be joined with them.
If, for this reason, the Greeks classed their plays into those with single
action, and those with double action, the modern drama has much less avoided
the extension of counter-play into an accessory action. The interweaving of
this with the main action has occurred sometimes at the expense of the combined
effect. The Germans, especially, who were always inclined, during their labor,
to grasp the significance of the accessory persons with great ardor, must guard
themselves against too wide an extension of the subordinate action. Even
Shakespeare has occasionally, in this way, injured the effect of the drama,
most strikingly in Lear, in which the whole parallel action of the house
of Gloucester, but loosely connected with the main action, and treated with no
particular fondness, retards the movement, and needlessly renders the whole
more bitter. The poet allowed the episodes in both parts of Henry IV. to
develop into an accessory action, the immortal humor of which outshines the
serious effect of the play; and this has made these dramas favorites of the
reader. Every admirer of Falstaff will grant, however, that the general effect
on the stage is not the corresponding power, in spite of this charm. Let it be
noticed, in passing, that in Shakespeare's comedies the double action belongs
to the nature of the play; he strives to take from his clowns the episodical,
while he interweaves them with the serious action. The genial humor which beams
from their scenes must sometimes conceal the harder elements in the material;
as when the constables help to prevent the sad fate threatening the heroine.
Among German poets, Schiller was most in danger of injury from the double
action. The disproportion of the accessory action in Don Carlos and
Mary Stuart rests upon this, it is harder for the character set in
contrast to the hero, becomes too great; in Wallenstein, the same
principle has extended the piece to a trilogy. In Tell, three actions
run parallel. [5]
It is the business of the action to represent to us the inner consistency of
the event, as it corresponds to the demands of the intellect and the heart.
Whatever, in the crude material, does not serve this purpose, the poet is in
duty bound to throw away. And it is desirable that he adheres strictly to this
principle, to give only what is indispensable to unity. Yet he may not avoid a
deviation from this; for there will be occasional deviations desirable which
may strengthen the color of the piece, in a manner conformable to its purpose;
which may intensify the meaning of the characters, and enhance the general
effect by the introduction of a new color, or a contrast. These embellishing
editions of the poet are called episodes. They are of various kinds. At a point
where the action suffers a short pause, a characterizing moment may be enlarged
into a situation; opportunity may be given a hero to exhibit some significant
characteristic of his being in an attractive manner, in connection with some
subordinate person; some subordinate rôle of the piece may, through ampler
elaboration, be developed into an attractive figure. By a modest use, which
must not take time from what is more important, these may become an
embellishment to the drama. And the poet has to treat them as ornaments, and to
compensate for them with serious work, if they ever retard the action. The
episodes perform different duties, according to the parts of the drama in which
they appear. While at the beginning they enter into the rôles of the chief
persons to delineate these in the idiosyncrasies, they are allowed in the last
part as enlargements of those new rôles which afford lesser aids to the
movement of the action; in each place, however, they must be felt to be
advantageous additions. [6]
The Greeks understood this word in a somewhat broader sense. That which in
the plays of Sophocles his contemporaries called episode, we no longer so name:
for the ingenious art of this great master consisted, among other things, in
this, that he interwove his beautifying additions very intimately with his
action, for the most part to set the characters of the chief heroes in a
stronger light, by means of contrast. Thus, in Electra, in addition to
the Ismene scene, mentioned later, Chrysomethis is indispensable according to
our feeling for the chief heroine, and no longer as episode, but as part of the
action. Moreover, where he paints a situation more broadly, as in the beginning
of Oedipus at Colonos, such a portrayal corresponds throughout to the
customs of our stage. Shakespeare treats his episodes almost exactly in the
same way. Even in those serious plays, which have a more artistic construction,
there are, in almost every act, partly extended scenes, partly whole rôles of
episodical elaboration; but there is so much of the beautiful worked in and
with this, so much that is efficient for the combined effect, that the severest
manager of our stage, who may be compelled to shorten the drama, rarely ever
allows these passages to be expunged. Mercutio, with his Queen Mab, and the
jests of the nurse, the interviews of Hamlet with the players and courtiers, as
well as the grave-digger scene, are such examples as recur in almost all his
plays. Almost superabundantly, and with apparent carelessness, the great artist
adorns all parts of his piece with golden ornaments; but he who approaches to
unclasp them, finds them fastened as if with steel, grown inseparably into what
they adorn. Of the Germans, Lessing, with a reverential regularity joined his
episodes to the carefully planned structure of his piece, according to his own
method, which was transferred to his successors. His episodes are little
character rôles. The painter and Countess Orsina, In Emilia Galotti
(the last, the better prototype of Lady Milford), Ricault, In Minna von
Barnhelm, indeed even the Dervise in Nathan The Wise, became models
for the German episodes of the eighteenth century. Goethe has not honored them
with a place in his regular plays, Clavigo, Tasso,
Iphigenia. In Schiller, they throng abundantly in every form, as
portrayals, as detailed situations, as accessory figures in the conjoined
action. Frequently, through their peculiar beauty, they are adapted to be
effective adjuncts to the stilted, tedious movement, but not always; for we
would gladly spare some single ones, like Parricida in William Tell,
just because in this case the understood purpose is so striking; and The Black
Knight in the Maid of Orleans; and not seldom the long-drawn
observations and delineations in his dialogue-scenes.
IV. Probability of the Action.
The action of the serious drama must be probable.
Poetic truth is imparted to material taken from real life, by its being
raised above its casual connections and receiving a universally understood
meaning and significance. In dramatic poetry, this transformation of reality
with poetic truth is effected thus: the essential parts, bound together and
unified by some causative connection, and all the accessory inventions, are
conceived as probable and credible motives of the represented events. But more
than this, poetic truth is needed in the drama. He entertained hearer
surrenders himself gladly to the invention of the poet; he gladly lets the
presumption of a piece please him, and it is in general quite inclined to
approve of the invented human relations in the world of beautiful illusion; but
he is not able entirely to forget the reality; he holds close to this poetic
picture, which rises full of charm before him, the picture of the real world in
which he breathes. He brings with him before the stage a certain knowledge of
historical relations, definite, ethical and moral demands upon human life,
presages and a clear knowledge of the course of events. To a certain extent, it
is impossible for him to renounce this purport of his own life; and sometimes
he feels it very strongly when the poetic picture contradicts it. That ocean
vessels should land on the coast of Bohemia, that Charlemagne should use
cannon, appears to our spectators a serious mistake.
That the Jew, Shylock, is promised mercy if he will turn Christian, shocks
the moral sense of the spectator, and he is probably not inclined to concede
that a just judge has so decided. That Thoas, who in so refined and dignified a
manner seeks the hand of the priestess Iphigenia, allows human sacrifices in
his kingdom, appears as an internal contradiction between the noble personality
of the characters in the presuppositions of the piece; and however shrewdly the
poet conceals this irrational element, it yet may be injurious to the effect of
the play. That Oedipus rules many years without troubling himself about the
death of Laius, appears to the Athenians, even at the first presentation of the
play, as a doubtful supposition.
Now it is well known that this picture of the real, which the spectator
holds up against the single drama, does not remain the same in every century,
but is changed by each advance of human culture. The interpretation of past
times, moral and social demands, the social relations, are nothing firmly
established; but every spectator is a child of his time; for each the
comprehension of what is commonly acceptable, is limited through his
personality and the culture of his age.
And it is further clear that this picture of real life shades off
differently in the mind of each person, and that the poet, however fully and
richly he is taken into his own life the culture of his race, still is
confronted with conceptions of reality in a thousand different tones. He has,
indeed, the great calling to be, in his time, the apostle of the highest and
most liberal culture, and without posturing as a teacher, to draw his hearers
upward toward himself. But to the dramatic poet there are for this reason
private bounds staked out. He must not exceed these bounds. He must not, in
many cases, leave vacant any of the space which they enclose. Where they arise
invisible, they may be defined in each single case only through delicate
sensibility and trustworthy feeling.
The effects of dramatic art are, so to speak, sociable. As the dramatic work
of art, in a combination of several arts, is represented through the general
activity of numerous adjuncts, so is the audience of the poet a body composed
of many changing individuals and yet, as a whole, a unit, which like every
human congregation, mightily influences the individuals who compose it; a
certain agreement in feeling and contemplation develops, elevates one,
depresses another, and to a great extent equalizes mood and judgment through a
common opinion. This community of feeling in the audience expresses itself
continually by its reception of the dramatic effects; it may increase their
power prodigiously, it may weaken them in an equal degree. Scarcely will a
single hearer escape the influence which an unsympathetic house or an
enthusiastic audience exercises on him. Indeed, everyone has felt how different
the impression is which the same piece makes, equally well presented on
different stages before a differently constituted audience. The poet, while
composing, is invariably directed, perhaps without knowing it, by his
conception of the intelligence, taste, and intellectual requirements of his
audience. He knows that he must not attribute too much to it, nor dare he offer
it too little. He must, moreover, so arrange his action that it shall not bring
into collision with its presuppositions a good average of his hearers, who
bring these from actual life before the stage; that is, he must make the
connection of events in the motives and outlines of his heroes probable. If he
succeeds in this respect with the groundwork of his piece, the action and the
outlines of his characters, as for the rest, he may trust to his hearers the
most refined culture and the keenest understanding which his performance
contains.
This consideration must guide the poet most when he is tempted to put
forward what is strange or marvelous. To make charming what is strange, is,
indeed, possible. The dramatic art specially has rich means of making it
understood, and of laying stress upon what is intelligible to us; but for this
there is needed a special expenditure of force and time; and frequently the
question is justified, whether the effect aimed at warrants the expenditure of
time and compensates for the limitation of the essentials occasioned.
Especially the newer poets, with no definitely marked out field of material, in
the midst of the period of culture to which the ready reception of extraneous
pictures is peculiar, can easily be enticed to gather material from the
culture-relations, the civilization of a dark age, of remote peoples. Perhaps
just what is marvelous in such material has appeared peculiarly valuable for
sharply delineating individual portraiture. Already a minute observation of
early times in Germany, or of the old world, offers numerous peculiarities,
circumstances unknown to the life of later times, in which a striking and
significant meaning is manifested of highest import to the historian of
culture. These can be used by the poet, however, only in exceptional cases,
with most skillful treatment, and as accessories which deepen a color. For not
out of the peculiarities of human life, but out of its immortal import, out of
what is common to us and to the old times, blossom his successes. Still more
will he avoid presenting such strange peoples as stand entirely outside the
great forward movements of civilization. That which is unusual in their manners
and customs, their costumes, or even the color of their skins, is distracting
and excites attendant images which are unfavorable to serious art effects. In a
crude way, the ideal world of poetry is joined in the hearer's mind with the
picturing of real circumstances, which can claim an interest only because they
are real. But even the inner life of such foreigners is unsuitable for dramatic
expression; for, without exception, the capability is in reality wanting in
them of presenting in any fullness the inner mental processes which our art
finds necessary. And the transferring of such a degree of culture into their
souls, rightly arouses in the hearer a feeling of impropriety. Anyone who would
lay the scene of his actions among the ancient Egyptians were the present-day
fellahs, among the Japanese or even Hindoos, would perhaps awaken an
ethnographic interest of the strange character of his people; but this interest
of curiosity in the unusual would not increase for the hearer before the stage
the real interest in what may be the poetical meaning, but would thwart it and
prejudice it. It is no accident that only such peoples are a fitting basis for
the drama as have advanced so far in their development of their intellectual
life that they themselves could produce a popular drama – Greeks, Romans,
cultured peoples of modern times; after these, a people merely like them, whose
nationality has grown up with hours, or with the ancient culture, like the
Hebrews – scarcely yet the Turks.
How far the marvelous may be deemed worthy of the drama, cannot be doubtful
even to us Germans, upon whose stage the most spirited and most amiable of all
devils has received citizenship. Dramatic poetry is poorer and richer than her
sisters, lyric and epic, in this respect, that she can represent only men, and,
if one looks more closely, only cultivated men, these, however, fully and
profoundly as no other art can. She must arrange historical relations by
inventing for them an inner consistency which is thoroughly comprehensible to
human understanding. How shall she embody the supernatural?
But granted that she undertakes this, she can do it only in so far as the
superhuman, already poetically prepared through the imagination of the people,
and provided with a personality corresponding to the human, is personifiable to
sharply stamped features even to details. Thus given form, the Greek gods lived
in the Greek world among their people; thus hover among us still, fashioned
with affection, images of many of the holy ones of Christian legend, almost
numberless shadowy forms, from the household faith of German primitive times.
Not a few of the images of fancy have come through poetry, legend, painting,
and the spirit of our people, which, credulous or incredulous, is still busied
with them, received so rich an amplification, that they surrounded the creating
artist during his labor like old, trusted friends. The Virgin Mary, St. Peter
at the gate of heaven, many saints, archangels, and angels, and not last the
considerable swarm of devils, live among our people, credulously associated
with women in white, the wild huntsman, elves, giants and dwarfs. But, however
alluringly the colors gleam which they wear in their twilight, before the shark
elimination of the tragic stage, they vanish into unsubstantial shadows. For it
is true they have received through the people a share in human feeling, and in
the conditions of human life. But this participation is only of the epic kind;
they are not fashioned for dramatic mental processes. In some of the most
beautiful legends, the Germans make the little spirits complain that they
cannot be happy; that is that they have no human soul. The same difference,
which already in the middle ages the people felt, keeps them in a different way
from the modern stage – inward struggles are wanting in them, freedom fails
to test and to choose, they stand outside of morals, law, right; neither a
complete lack of changeableness, nor perfected purity, nor complete wickedness
are presentable, because they exclude all inward agitation. Even the Greeks
felt this. When the gods should rather be represented on the stage and speak a
command ex machina, they must either become entirely men, with all the
pain and rage, like Prometheus, or they must sink beneath the nobility of human
nature, without the poets being able to hinder, down to blank generalizations
of love and hate, like Athene, in the prologue of Ajax.
While gods and spirits have bad standing in the serious drama, they have far
better success in the comedy. And the now worn-out magic tricks give only a
very pale representation of what our spirit world could be to a poet, in a
whimsical and humorous representation. If the Germans shall ever be ripe for
political comedy, then will they learn to use the wealth, the inexhaustible
treasure of motives and resistance which can be mined from this world of
phantasy, for droll freaks, political satire, and humorous portraiture.
For what has been said, Faust is the best proof; and in this play,
the rôle of Mephistopheles. Here the genius of the greatest of German poets
has created a stage problem which has become the favorite task of our character
players. Each of them seats in his own manner to solve, with credit to himself,
the riddle of which can not be solved; the one brings out the mask of the old
wood-cut devil, another, the cavalier youth Voland; at best, the player will
succeed with the business who contents himself prudently and with spirit to
render intelligible the fine rhetoric of the dialogue, and exhibits in the
comic scenes a suitable bearing and good humor. The poet has indeed made it
exceedingly difficult for the player, of whom, during the composition of the
piece, he did not think at all; for the rôle changes into all colors, from the
true-hearted speech of Hans Sachs, to the subtle discussion of a Spinozist,
from the grotesque to the terrifying. And if one examines more closely how the
representation of this piece still becomes possible on the stage, the ultimate
reason is the entrance of a comic element. Mephistopheles appears in some
serious situations, but is a comic figure treated in a grand style; and so far
as he produces an effect on the stage, he does it in this direction.
By this is not meant that the mysterious, that which has no foundation in
human reason, should be entirely banished from the province of the drama.
Dreams, portents, prophesyings, ghost-seers, the intrusion of the spirit world
upon human life, everything for which there may be supposed to be a certain
susceptibility in the soul of the hearer, the poet may employ as a matter of
course for the occasional strengthening of his effects. It is understood in
this that he must appreciate rightly the susceptibility of his contemporaries;
we are no longer of much inclined to care for this, and only very sparing use
of side effects is now accorded to the poet. Shakespeare was allowed to use
this kind of minor accessories with greater liberty; for in the sentiments of
even his educated contemporaries, the popular tradition was very vivid, and the
connection with the world of spirits was universally conceived far differently.
The soul-processes of a man struggling under a heavy burden, were, not only
among the people but with the more pretentious, very differently thought of. In
the case of the intense fear, qualm of conscience, remorse, the power of
imagination conjured up before the sufferer the image of the frightful, still
as something external; the murder saw the murdered rise before him as a ghost;
clutching into the air, he felt the weapon with which he committed the crime;
he heard the voice of the dead ringing in his ear. Shakespeare and his hearers
conceived, therefore, Macbeth’s dagger even on the stage, and the ghosts of
Banquo, Caesar, the elder Hamlet, and the victims of Richard III., far
differently from ourselves. To them this was not yet a bold, customary
symbolizing of the inward struggles of their heroes, an accidental, shrewd
invention of the poet, who supported his effects by this ghostly trumpery; but
it was to them the necessary method, customary in their land, in which
themselves experienced, dread, horror, struggles of soul. Dread was not
artistically excited by recollection of nursery tales; the stage presented only
what had been frightful in their own lives, or what could be. For while young
Protestantism had laid the severest struggles in men's consciences, and while
the thoughts and the most passionate moods of the excited soul had been already
more carefully and critically observed by individuals, the mode of thinking
natural to the middle ages, had not, for that reason, quite disappeared.
Therefore Shakespeare could make use of this kind of effects, and expect more
from them than we can.
But he finishes at the same time the best example of how these ghost-like
apparitions may be rendered artistically worthy of the drama. Whoever must
present heroes of past centuries according to the view of life of their time,
will not entirely conceal men's lack of freedom from and dependence on
legendary figures; but he will use them as Shakespeare used his witches in the
first act of Macbeth, as arabesques which mirror the color and mood of
the time, and which only give occasion for forcing from the inner man of the
hero what has grown up in his own soul, with the liberty necessary for a
dramatic figure.
It is to be observed that in the work of the modern poet, such accessories
of the action serve especially to give color and mood. They belong also to the
first half of the play. But even when they are interwoven with the effects of
the later parts, their appearance must be arranged for in the first part, by a
coloring in harmony with them; and besides this, the way must be paved for them
otherwise, with great care. Thus the appearance of The Black Knight in the
Maid of Orleans is a disturbing element, because his ghostly form comes
to view with no preparation of the audience, and is thoroughly unsuitable to
the brilliant, thoughtful language of Schiller, to the tone and color of the
piece. The time and the action would, in themselves, have very well allowed
such an apparition; and it appeared to the poet a counterpart to the Blessed
Virgin who bears banner and sword in the play. But Schiller did not bring the
Blessed Virgin herself upon the stage; he only had her reported in his
magnificent fashion. Had the prologue presented the decisive interview between
the shepherdess and the Mother of God in such language and with such naïve
address as the material from the middle ages would suggest, then there would
have been a better preparation for the later appearance of the evil spirit. In
costume and speech, the rôle is not advantageously equipped. Schiller was an
admirable master in the disposition of the most varied historical coloring; but
the glimmer of the legendary was not to the taste of one who always painted in
full colors, and if a playful simile is allowed, used most fondly, gleaming
golden yellow, and dark sky blue. On the other hand, Goethe, the unrestrained
master of lyric moods, has made an admirable use of the spirit-world to give
color to Faust, but not at all with a view to its presentation on the
stage.
V. Importance and Magnitude of the Action.
The action of the serious drama must possess importance and
magnitude.
The struggles of individual men must affect their inmost life; the object of
the struggle must, according to universal apprehension, be a noble one, the
treatment dignified. The characters must correspond to such a meaning of the
action, in order that the play may produce a noble effect. If the action is
constructed in conformity with the stated law, and the characters are
inadequate to the demands thus created, or if the characters evince strong
passion and extreme agitation, while these elements are wanting to the action,
the incongruity is painfully apparent to the spectator. Euripides’
Iphigenia in Aulis contains what affords to the stage the most frightful
struggles of the human soul; but the characters, at least with the exception of
Clytemnestra, are poorly invented, disfigured either through unnecessary
meanness of sentiment, or through lack of force, or through sudden, unwarranted
change of feeling; thus Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles, Iphigenia. Again, in
Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, the character of the hero, from the
moment when he is aroused to activity, has an ever-increasing energy and power,
to which a gloomy grandeur is not at all lacking, but idea and action stand in
incongruity with it. That a warm-hearted, trusting spendthrift should, after
the loss of external possessions, become a misanthrope through the ingratitude
and meanness of his former friends, presupposes the weakness of his own
character and the pitiableness of his surroundings; and this instability,
lamentableness of all the relations represented, restrains the sympathy of the
hearer in spite of great poetic scale.
But even the environment, the sphere of life of the hero, influences the
dignity and magnitude of the action. We demand rightly that the hero whose fate
is to hold us spellbound, shall possess a character whose force and worth shall
exceed the measure of the average man. This force of his being, however, does
not lie wholly in the energy of his will and the violence of his passion, but
as well in his possessing a rich share of the culture, manners, and spiritual
capacity of his time. He must be represented as superior in the important
relations of his surroundings; and his surroundings must be so created as
easily to awaken in the hearer a keen interest. It is, therefore, no accident
that when an action is laid in past time, it always seeks the realm in which
what is greatest and most important is contained, the greatest affairs of the
people, the life of its leaders and rulers, those heights of humanity that have
developed not only a mighty spiritual significance, but also a significant
power of will. Scarce any but the deeds and destinies of such commanding
figures have been handed down to us from the former times.
With material from later times, the relations, of course, are changed. No
longer are the most powerful passions and the sublimest soul-struggles to be
recognized that courts and among political rulers alone, nor even generally.
There remains, however, to these figures for the drama a pre-eminence which may
be, for their life and that of their contemporaries, a positive disadvantage.
They are now less exposed the compulsion which middle-class society exercises
on the private citizen. They are not, to the same degree as a private citizen,
subjected to civil law, and they know it. In domestic and foreign conflicts,
their own self has not greater right but greater might. So they appear exposed
to freer, more powerful temptation, and capable of greater self-direction. It
must be added that the relations in which they live, and the directions in
which they exert influence, offer the greatest wealth of colors and the most
varied multiplicity of figures. Finally the counterplay against their
characters and against their purposes is most effective; and the sphere of the
interests for which they should live, embraces the most important affairs of
the human race.
The life of the private citizen has also been for centuries freeing itself
from the external restraint of restricting traditions, has been gaining
nobility and spiritual freedom, and become full of contradictions and
conflicts. In any realm of reality, where worldly aims and movements resulting
from the civilization of the times have penetrated, a tragic hero may be
generated and developed in its atmosphere. It depends only on whether a
struggle is possible for him, which, according to the general opinion of the
audience, has a great purpose, and whether the opposition to this develops a
corresponding activity worthy of consideration. Since, however, the importance
and greatness of the conflict can be made impressive only by endowing the hero
with the capability of expressing his inmost thought and feeling in a
magnificent matter, with a certain luxuriance of language; and since these
demands increase among men as belong to the life of modern times, – to the
hero of the modern stage a suitable measure of the culture of the time is
indispensable. For only in this way does he receive freedom of thought and
will. Therefore, such classes of society has remained until our own time under
the sway of epic relations, whose life is specially directed by the customs of
their circle; such classes as still languish under the pressure of
circumstances which the spectator observes and decides to be unjust; finally,
such classes as are not specially qualified to transpose, in a creative manner,
their thoughts and emotions into discourse, – such are not available for
heroes of the drama, however powerfully passion works in their natures, however
their feeling, in single hours, breaks out with spontaneous, native force.
From what has been said, it follows that tragedy must forego grounding its
movement on motives which the judgment of the spectator will condemn as
lamentable, common, or unintelligible. Even such motives may force a man into
violent conflicts with his environment; but the dramatic art, considered in
general, may be in a position to turn such antagonisms to account. He who from
a desire for gain, robs, steals, murders, counterfeits; who from cowardice,
acts dishonorably; who through stupidity, short-sightedness, frivolity, and
thoughtlessness, becomes smaller and weaker than his relations demand, – he
is not at all suitable for hero of a serious play.
If a poet would completely degrade his art, and turned to account in the
action of the play full of contention and evil tendency, the social perversion
of real life, the despotism of the rich, the torments of the oppressed, the
condition of the poor who receive from society only suffering, – by such work
he would probably excite the sympathy of the audience to a high degree; but at
the end of the play the sympathy would sink into a painful discord. The
delineating of the mental processes of a common criminal belongs to halls where
trial by jury is held; efforts for the improvement of the poor and oppressed
classes should be an important part of our labor in real life; the muse of art
is no Sister of Mercy.
VI. Movement and Rise of the Action.
The dramatic action must represent all that is important to the
understanding of the play, and the strong excitement of the characters, and in
a continuously progressive increase of effects.
The action must, first of all, be capable of the strongest dramatic
excitement; and this must be universally intelligible. There are great and
important fields of human activity, which do not make the growth of a
captivating emotion, a passionate desire, or a mighty volition easy; and again,
there are violent struggles which force to the outside men's mental processes,
while the subject of the struggle is little adapted to the stage, the
importance and greatness are not lacking to it. For example, a politic prince,
who negotiates with the powerful ones of his land, who wages war and concludes
peace with his neighbors, will perhaps do all this without once exhibiting the
least excited passion; and if this does come to light as secret desire or
resentment toward others, it will be noticeable only by careful observation,
and in little ripples. But even when it is allowed to represent his whole being
in dramatic suspense, the subject of his volition, a political success or a
victory, is capable of being shown only very imperfectly and fragmentarily in
its stage setting. And the scenes in which this round of worldly purposes is
specially active, state trials, addresses, battles, are for technical reasons
not the part most conveniently put on the stage. From this point of view,
warning must be given against putting scenes from political history on the
boards. Of course the difficulties which this field of the greatest human
activity offers, are not unsurmountable; but it requires not only maturity of
genius but very peculiar and intimate knowledge of the stage to overcome them.
But the poet will never degrade his action by reducing it to an imperfect and
insufficient exposition of such political deeds and aims; he will need to make
use of a single action, or a small number of actions, as a background, before
which he presents – and in this he is infinitely superior to the historian
– a most minute revelation of human nature, in a few personages, and in their
most intimate emotional relations with each other. If he fails to do this, he
will in so far falsify history without creating poetry.
An entirely unfavorable field for dramatic material is the inward struggles
which the inventor, the artist, the thinker has to suffer with himself and with
his time. Even if he is a reformer by nature, who knows how to impress the
stamp of his own spirit on thousands of others; indeed, if his own material
misfortunes may lay claim to unusual sympathy, the dramatist will not willingly
conclude to bring him forward as the hero of the action. If the mental efforts,
the mode of thought of such a hero, are not sufficiently known to the living
audience, then the poet will have first to show his warrant for such a
character by artful discourse, by a fullness of oral explanation, and by a
representation of spiritual import. This may be quite as difficult as it is
undramatic. If the poet presupposes in his auditors a living interest in such
personages, acquaintance with the incidents of their lives, and makes use of
this interest in order to avail himself of an occurrence in the life of such a
hero, he falls into another danger. On the stage the good which is known
beforehand of a man, and the good that is reported of him, have no value at
all, as opposed to what the hero himself does on the stage. Indeed, the great
expectations which the hearer brings with him in this case, may be prejudicial
to the unbiased reception of the action. And if the poet succeeds, as is
probable in the case of popular heroes, in promoting the scenic effects through
the already awakened ardor of the audience for the hero, he must credit his
success to the interest which the audience brings with it, not to the interest
which the drama itself has merited. If the poet is conscientious, he will adopt
only those moments from the life of the artist, poet, thinker, in which he
shows himself active and suffering quite as significantly toward others as he
was in his studio. It is clear that this will be the case only by accident; it
is quite as clear that in such a case it will be only an accident, if the hero
bears a celebrated name. Therefore, the making use of anecdotes from the life
of such great men, the meaning of which does not show itself in the action but
in the non-representable activity of their laboratory, is intrinsically right
undramatic. The greatness in them is non-representable; and what is represented
borrows the greatness of the hero from a moment of his life lighting outside
the piece. The personality of Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, is in this respect
worse on the stage than in a novel or romance, and all the worse the more
intimately their lives are known.
Of course, opinions as to what may be represented on the stage, and what is
effective, are not the same in all ages. National custom as well as the
arrangement of the theater direct the poet. We have no longer the
susceptibility of the Greeks to epic narratives which are brought upon the
scene by a messenger; we have greater pleasure in what can be acted, and risk
upon our stage the imitation of actions which would have appeared entirely
impossible on the Athenian stage, in spite of its machines, its devices for
flying and its perspective painting, – popular tumults, collision of armies,
and the like. And as a rule the later poet will be inclined to do too much
rather than too little in this direction.
It may happen to him rather than to the Greek, therefore, that through full
elaboration of the action, the inner perturbation of the chief figures may be
disproportionately restricted, and that an important transition, a portentous
series of moods, remains unexpressed. A well known example of such a defect is
in Prince of Homburg, the very piece in which the poet has superbly
achieved one of the most difficult scenic tasks, the disposition of an army for
battle and the battle itself. The prince has taken his imprisonment
light-heartedly; when his friend, Hohenzollern, brings him the news that his
death-warrant is awaiting the signature, his mood naturally becomes serious,
and he determines to entreat the intercession of the electoral princess. And in
the next scene, the young hero throws himself powerless, and without
self-control, at the feet of his protectress, because, as he relates, he has
seen on his way to her, men digging his grave by torchlight; he begs for his
life, though he may be shamefully degraded. This sudden plunge to a cowardly
fear of death, does painful violence to the character of a general. It is
certainly not untrue in itself, even if we unwillingly tolerate lack of
self-control in a general under such circumstances. And the drama demanded the
severest humiliation of the hero; just this lack of courage is the turning
point of the piece; in his confusion he must plunge down to this, in order to
redeem himself worthily in the second part of the action. It was therefore a
chief task to present the abasement of a youthful heroic nature even to the
fear of death, and indeed, in such a manner that the sympathy of the hearer
should not be dissipated through contempt. That could happen only by an
accurate exhibition of the inner perturbations, even to the bursting forth of
the death anguish, which terminated in the prostration at the princess’s feet
– a difficult task for even powerful poetic genius, but one which must be
performed. And here a rule may be mentioned, which has force for the poet as
well as for the actor: it is preposterous to hasten over parts of the action
which for any reason are necessary to the play, but have not the merit of
pleasing motives; on the contrary, upon such passages, the highest technical
arts must be expended, in order to give poetic beauty to what is in itself
unsuitable. Before just this kind of tasks, the artist must achieve the proud
feeling that for him there are no unconquerable difficulties.
Another case in which the forcing forward of the chief effect has been
neglected, is the third act of Antony and Cleopatra. A defect in
Shakespeare does not, indeed, originate in want of insight, nor in haste. The
striking thing is that the piece lacks climax. Antony has withdrawn from
Cleopatra, has been reconciled with Octavianus, and has reestablished his
authority. But the spectator has long had a presentment that he will return to
Cleopatra. The inner necessity of this relapse is amply motivated from the
first act. Notwithstanding this, one demands rightly to see this momentous
relapse, with its violent passions and mental disturbances; it is the point on
which all that has gone before is suspended, and which must account for all
that follows, the degradation of Antony, even to his cowardly flight, and his
death. And yet, it is presented in only brief sections; the culmination of the
action is divided up into little scenes, and the joining of these into one
well-executed scene was the more desirable, because the important occurrence in
the last half of the play, that flight of Antony from the naval battle, cannot
be represented on the stage, but can be made intelligible only through the
short account of the subordinate commander and the thrilling struggle of the
broken-down hero which follows. [7]
But the poet has not the task, let it be understood, of representing through
what is done on the stage every individual impulse which is necessary to the
inner connection of the action as actually occurring. Such a representation of
accessories would rather conceal the essentials than make them impressive, by
taking time from the more important; it would also divide up the action into
too many parts and thereby injure the effects. Upon our stage, also, many
heroic accounts of events are necessary in vivid representation. Since they
always produce resting places in the action, however excitedly the disclaimer
may speak, the law applies to them, that they must come in as relief from a
strongly worked-up suspense. The spectator must be previously aroused by the
excited emotion of the persons concerned. The length of the narration is to be
carefully calculated; a line too much, the least unnecessary elaboration, may
cause weariness. If the narrative contains individual parts of some extent, it
must be divided and interspersed with short speeches of other characters, which
indicate the narrator’s mood; and the parts must be carefully arranged in the
order of climax, both as to meaning and style. A celebrated example of
excellent arrangement is the Swedish captain’s story in Wallenstein.
An elaborate narrative must not occur when the action is moving forward with
energy and rapidity.
One variety of messenger scene is the portrayal of an occurrence thought of
as behind the scenes, when the persons on the stage are represented as
observers; also the presentation of an occurrence from the impressions which it
has made on the characters. This kind of recital allows more easily of dramatic
excitement; it may be almost a mere, quiet narrative; it may possibly occasion
or increase passionate excitement on the stage.
The grounds upon which the poet has something happening behind the scenes,
are of various kinds. First of all, occasion is given by unavoidable incidents
which, because of their nature, cannot be represented on the stage at all, or
only through elaborate machinery – a conflagration, a naval battle, a popular
tumult, battles of cavalry and charioteers – everything in which the mighty
forces of nature or great multitudes of men are active in widespread commotion.
The effect of such reflected impressions may be greatly enhanced by little
scenic indications: calls from without, signals, lurid lights, thunder and
lightning, the roar of cannon, and similar devices which excite the fancy, and
the appropriateness of which is easily recognized by the hearer. These
indications and shrewd hints of something in the distance, will be most
successful when they are used to show the doings of men; not so favorable are
the representation of the unusual operations of nature, descriptions of
landscape, all spectacles to which the spectator is not accustomed to give
himself over before the stage. In such a case the designed effect may entirely
fail, because the audience is accustomed to strive against attempts to produce
strange illusions.
This representation of mirrored impressions, the laying a part of the action
behind the scene, has peculiar significance for the drama in moments when what
is frightful, terrifying, or horrible is to be exhibited. If it is desired by
the present-day poet that he should follow the example of the Greeks, and
discreetly lay the decisive moment of a hideous deed as much as possible behind
the scenes, and bring it to light only through the impressions which it makes
on the minds of those concerned, then an objection must be made against this
restriction in favor of the newer art; for an imposing deed is sometimes of the
greatest effect on our stage, and is indispensable to the action. First, if the
dramatically presentable individual parts of the deed give significance to what
follows; next, if we recognize in such a deed the sudden culmination of an
inner process just perfected; third, if only through the contemplation of the
action itself the spectators may be convinced how the affair really happened,
– nowhere need we fear the effects on the stage, of death, murder, violent
collision of figures, though in themselves not the highest effects of the
drama. While the Greek stage was developed out of a lyric representation of
passionate emotions, the German has arisen from the epic delineation of events.
Both have preserved some traditions of their oldest conditions; the Greek
remained just as inclined to keep in the background the moment of the deed, as
the Germans rejoiced to picture fighting and rapine.
But if the Greeks avoided violent physical efforts, blows, attacks,
wrestlings, overthrows, perhaps not the foresight of the poet, but the need of
the actors was the ultimate reason. The Greek theatre costume was very
inconvenient for violent movements of the body; the falling of a dying person
in the cothurnus must be gradual and very carefully managed if it would not be
ridiculous. And the mask took away any possibility of representing the
expression of the countenance, indispensable in the moments of highest
suspense. Aeschylus appears to have undertaken something also in this
direction; and the shrewd Sophocles went just as far as he dared. He ventured
to have even Antigone dragged by an armed force from the grove of Colonos, but
he did not venture, in Electra, to have Aegisthos killed on the stage;
Orestes and Pylades must pursue him with drawn swords behind the scenes.
Perhaps Sophocles perceived, as well as we, that in such a place this was a
disadvantage, a restriction which was laid upon him by the leather and padding
of his actors, and, too, by the religious horror which the Greeks felt for the
moment of death. Then this is one of the places in the drama where the
spectator must see that the action completes itself. Even if pursued by
two men, Aegisthos could either have defended himself against them or have
escaped them.
Through the greater ease and energy of our imitation, we are freed from such
considerations; and in our pieces, numerous effects, great and small, rest on
the supreme moment of action. The scene in which Coriolanus embraces Aufidius
before the household altar of the Volscians, receives its full significance
only through the battle scene in the first act, in which the embittered
antagonists are seen to punish each other. The contest is necessary between
Prince Henry and Percy. And again in Love and Intrigue, how
indispensable, according to the premises, is the death of the two lovers on the
stage. In Romeo and Juliet, how indispensable the death of Tybalt, of
Paris, and of the loving pair, before the eyes of the spectators. Could we
believe it, were Emilia Galotti stabbed by her father behind the scenes? And
would it be possible to dispense with the great scene in which Caesar was
murdered?
On the other hand, again, there is an entire series of great effects, when
the deed itself does not busy the eye, but is so concealed that the attending
circumstances stimulate the imagination, and cause the terrible to be felt
through those impressions which fall into the soul of the hero. Wherever there
is room to make impressive the moments preparatory to a deed; wherever the deed
does not enter into the sudden excitement of the hero; finally, wherever it is
more useful to excite horror, and hold in suspense, than sorrowfully to relax
excited suspense, – the poet will do well to have the deed itself performed
behind the scenes. We are indebted to such a concealment for many of the most
powerful effects which have been produced at all. When in the Agamemnon
of Aeschylus, the captive Cassandra announces the individual circumstances of
the murder which occurs in the house; when Electra, as the death shrieks of
Clytemnestra press upon the stage, cries to her brother behind the scene,
“Strike once more!” – the fearful power of these effects has never been
surpassed. Not less magnificent is the murdering of King Duncan in
Macbeth – the delineating of the murderer’s frame of mind before and
after the deed.
For the German stage, the suspense, the undefined horror, the unearthly, the
exciting, produced by skilful treatment, through this concealing of momentous
deeds, are especially to be esteemed in the part of the action tending toward
climax. In the more rapid course and the more violent excitement of the second
part, they will not be so easily made use of. At the last exit of the hero,
they can be used only in cases where the moment of death itself is not capable
of presentation on the stage, – execution on the scaffold, military
execution, and where the impossibility of any other solution is a matter of
course, on account of the undoubtedly greater strength of the death-dealing
antagonist. An interesting example of this is the last act of
Wallenstein. The gloomy figure of Buttler, the soliciting of the
murderers, the drawing together of the net about the unsuspecting one, – all
this is impressed upon the soul of the spectator, in a long and powerfully
exciting climax; after such a preparation, the accomplishment of the murder
itself would not add intensity; one sees the murderer press into the sleeping
room; the creaking of the last door, the clanking of arms, the succeeding
sudden silence, hold the imagination in the same unearthly suspense which
colors the whole act; and the slow awakening of the fancy, the anxious
expectation, and the last concealment of the deed itself, are exceedingly well
adapted to what is visionary and mysterious in the inspired hero, as Schiller
has conceived him.
The poet has not only to exhibit, but as well to keep silence. First of all,
there are certain illogical ingredients of the material, which the greatest art
is not able always to manage, this will be further treated in the discussion of
dramatic material. Then there is the repulsive, the disgusting, the hideous,
all that shocks dramatic taste, which depends on the crudeness of otherwise
serviceable material; what, in this respect may be repugnant to art, the artist
must himself feel; it cannot be taught him.
But further, the poet must continually heighten his effects from the
beginning to the end of his play. The listener is not the same in every part of
the performance. At the beginning of the piece, he acquiesces with readiness,
as a rule, in what is offered, and with slight demands; and as soon as the poet
has shown his power by some respectable effect, and has shown his manly
judgment, through his language, and a firm kind of characterization, the hearer
is inclined to yield himself confidently to the poet’s leading. This frame of
mind lasts till toward the climax of the piece. But in the further course, the
listener becomes more exacting; his capability for receiving what is new
becomes less; the effects enjoyed have been exciting more powerfully, have in
many respects afforded satisfaction; with increasing suspense, comes
impatience; with the greater number of impressions received, weariness comes
more easily. With all this in view, the poet must carefully arrange every part
of his action. Indeed, so far as the import of the play is concerned, he need
not, with a skilful arrangement of tolerable material, be anxious about the
listener’s increasing interest. But he must see to it, that the performance
becomes gradually greater and more impressive. During the first acts, in
general, a light and brief treatment may be made possible; and here sometimes
the heavy exaction is laid on the poet, perhaps even to moderate a great
effect; but the last acts from the climax on, require the summoning of all his
resources. It is not a matter of indifference, where a scene is placed, whether
a messenger recites his narrative in the first or in the fourth act, whether an
effect closes the second or the fourth act. It was wise foresight that made the
conspiracy scene in Julius Caesar so brief, in order not to prejudice
the climax of the piece, and the great tent scene.
Another means of heightening effects lies in the multiplicity of moods that
may be aroused, and of characters which may bear forward the action. Every
piece, as has been said, has a ground mood, which may be compared to a musical
chord or a color. From this controlling color, there is necessary a wealth of
shadings, as well as of contrasts. In many cases the poet does not find it
essential to make this necessity apparent by cool investigation; for it is an
unwritten law of all artistic creation, that anything discovered suggests its
opposite, – the chief character, his counterpart, one scene effect, that
which contrasts with it. Among the Germans, particularly, there is need that
they fondly and carefully infuse into everything which they create, a certain
totality of their feeling. Yet, during the work, the critical examination of
the figures, which by natural necessity have challenged one another, will
supply many important gaps. For in our plays, rich in figures, it is easily
possible, by means of a subordinate figure, to give a coloring which materially
aids the whole. Even Sophocles is to be admired for the certainty and delicacy
with which, in every tragedy, he counterbalances the one-sidedness of some of
his characters, by means of the suggested opposites. In Euripides, again, this
feeling for harmony is very weak. All great poets of the Germanic race, from
Shakespeare to Schiller, considered all together, create, in this direction,
with admirable firmness; and in their works we seldom find a character which is
not demanded by a counterpart, but is introduced through cool deliberation,
like Parricida in William Tell. It is a peculiarity of Kleist that his
supplementary characters come to him indistinctly; here and there arbitrariness
or license violates, in the ground lines of his figures.
From this internal throng of scenic contrasts in the action, there has
originated what, to the Germans, is the favorite scene of tragedy – the
luminous and fervid part which, as a rule, embraces the touching moments, in
contrast with the thrilling moments of the chief action. These scenic
contrasts, however, are produced not only through a variation of meaning, but
also through a change of amplified and concise scenes, of scenes of two, and of
many persons. Among the Greeks, scenes moved in a much narrower circle, both as
to matter and form. The variation is made in this way: the scenes have a
peculiar, regular, recurring construction, each according to its contents;
dialogues and messenger scenes are interrupted by pathos scenes; for each of
these kinds there arose, in essentials, an established form.
Not only sharp contrast, but the repetition of the same scenic motive, may
produce a heightened effect, as well through parallelism as through fine
contrarieties in things otherwise similar. In this case, the poet must give
diligent care, that he lay peculiar charm in the returning motive, and that
before the recurrence, he arouse suspense and enjoyment in the motive. And in
this he will not be allowed to neglect the law, that on the stage, in the last
part of the action, even very fine work will not easily suffice to produce
heightened effects by means already used, provided the same receive a broader
elaboration. There is special danger if the performer wants the peculiar art of
setting in strong contrast the repeated motive, and one that has preceded it.
Shakespeare is fond of repeating a motive to heighten effects. A good example
is the heavy sleepiness of Lucius in Julius Caesar, which in the oath
scene shows the contrast in the temper of the master and the servant, and in
the tent scene is repeated almost word for word. The second sounding of the
chord has to introduce the ghost here, and its soft minor tone reminds the
hearer very pleasingly of that unfortunate night and Brutus’s guilt.
Similarly, in Romeo and Juliet, the repetition of the deed with fatal
result, works as well through consonance as through contrasted treatment.
Further, in Othello, the splendid recurring variations of the same theme
in the little scenes between Iago and Roderigo. But success with these effects
is not always accorded to even great poets. The repetition of the weird-sister
motive, in the second half of Macbeth, is no strengthening of the
effect. The ghostly resists, indeed, a more ample elaboration in the second
place. A very remarkable example of such a repetition is the repeated wooing of
Richard III., the scene at the bier, and the interview with Elizabeth
Rivers. [8] That the repetition stands here as a significant characterizing of
Richard, and that a strong effect is intended, is perfectly clear from the
great art and full amplification of both scenes. The second scene, also, is
treated with greater fondness; the poet has made use of a technique, new to to
him, but very fine; he has treated it according to antique models, giving to
speech and response the same number of lines. And our criticism is accustomed
to account for a special beauty of the great drama from this scene. It is
certainly a disadvantage on the stage. The monstrous action presses already
toward the end, with a power which takes from the spectator the capability of
enjoying the extended and artistic battle of words in this interview. A similar
disadvantage for our spectators, is the thrice-repeated casket scene in the
Merchant of Venice. The dramatic movement of the first two scenes is
inconsiderable, and the elegance in the speeches of those choosing has not
sufficient charm, Shakespeare might gladly allow himself such rhetorical
niceties, because his more constant audience found peculiar pleasure in polite,
cultured discourse.
VII. WHAT IS TRAGIC?
It is well known how busily the German poets since Lessing’s time, have
been occupied in exploring that mysterious property of the drama which is
called the tragic. It should be the quality which the poet’s moral theory of
life deposits in the piece; and the poet should be, through moral influences, a
fashioner of his time. The tragic should be an ethical force with which the
poet has to fill his action and his characters; and in this case, there have
been only diverse opinions as to the essential nature of dramatic ethical
force. The expressions, tragic guilt, inner purification, poetic justice, have
become convenient watchwords of criticism, conveying, however, a different
meaning to different persons. But in this all agree, that the tragic effect of
the drama depends on the manner in which the poet conducts his characters
through the action, portions their fate to them, and guides and terminates the
struggle of their one-sided desire against opposing forces.
Since the poet with freedom joins the parts of his action so as to produce
unity, and since he produces this unity by setting together the individual
elements of the represented events in rational, internal consistency, it is, of
course, clear that the poet’s representations of human freedom and
dependence, his comprehension of the general consistency of all things, his
view of Providence and destiny, must be expressed in a poetic invention, which
derives from the inner nature of some important personage sustaining great
relations, his deeds and his sorrows. It is further plain that it devolves on
the poet to conduct this struggle to such a close as shall not shock the
humanity and the reason of the hearer, but shall satisfy it; and that for the
good effect of his drama, it is not at all a matter of indifference whether in
deducing guilt from the soul of the hero, and in deriving retribution from the
compelling force of the action, he shows himself a man of good judgment and
just feeling. But it is quite evident that the feeling and judgment of poets
have been quite unlike in different centuries, and in individual poets, cannot
be graduated in the same manner. Manifestly he who has developed in his own
life a high degree of culture, a comprehensive knowledge of men, and a manly
character, will, according to the view of his contemporaries, best direct the
destiny of his hero; for what shines forth from the drama is only the
reflection of the poet’s own conception of the great world-relations. It
cannot be taught; it cannot be inserted into a single drama like a rôle or a
scene.
Therefore, in answer to the question, how the poet must compose his action
so that it may be tragic in this sense, the advice, meant in all seriousness,
is given that he need trouble himself very little about it. He must develop in
himself a capable and worthy manhood, then go with glad heart to a subject
which offers strong characters in great conflict, and leave to others the
high-sounding words, guilt and purification, refining and elevating. Unsettled
must is sometimes put into bottles worthy of the purest wine. What is, in
truth, dramatic will have an earnest tragic effect in a strongly moving action
if it was a man who wrote it; if not, then assuredly not.
The poet’s own character determines the highest effects in an elevated
drama more than in any other species of art. But the error of former art
theories has been that they have sought to explain from the morale or ethics of
the drama the combined effect in which sonorousness of words, gesture, costume,
and not much else, are concerned.
The word, tragic, is used by the poet in two different meanings; it denotes,
first, the peculiar general effect which a successful drama of elevated
character produces upon the soul of the spectator; and, second, a definite kind
of dramatic causes and effects which in certain parts of the drama are either
useful or indispensable. The first is the physiological signification of the
expression; the second, a technical denotation.
To the Greeks, a certain peculiarity in the aggregate effect of the drama
was well known. Aristotle has sharply observed the special influence of the
dramatic effects on the life of the spectators, and has understood them to be a
characteristic property of the drama; so that he has included them in his
celebrated definition of tragedy. This explanation, “Tragedy is artistic
remodeling of a worthy, undivided, complete event, which has magnitude,” and
so forth, closes with the words, “and effects through pity and fear the
purification of such passions.” In another place, he explains in detail
(Rhetoric, II. 8) what pity is, and how it may be awakened. Awakening pity is
to him exhibiting the whole realm of human sorrows, circumstances, and actions,
the observation of which produces what we call emotion and strong agitation.
The word purification (katharsis), however, which as an expression of
the old healing art, denoted the removal of diseased matter, and, as an
expression of divine worship, denoted the purging of man by atonement from what
polluted, is evidently an art term adopted by him for the proper effect of
tragedy on the hearer. These peculiar effects which the critical observer
perceived upon his contemporaries, are not entirely the same which the
representation of a great dramatic masterpiece produces upon our audience, but
they are closely related; and it is worth while to notice the difference.
Any one who has ever observed the influence of a tragedy upon himself, must
have noticed with astonishment how the emotion and perturbation caused by the
excitement of the characters, joined with the mighty suspense which the
continuity of the action produces, take hold upon his nerves. Far more easily
than in real life the tears flow, the lips twitch; this pain, however, is at
the same time accompanied with intense enjoyment, while the hearer experiences
immediately after the hero, the same thoughts, sorrows, calamities, with great
vividness, as if they were his own. He has in the midst of the most violent
excitement, the consciousness of unrestricted liberty, which at the same time
raises him far above the incidents through which his capacity to receive
impressions seems to be levied upon. After the fall of the curtain, in spite of
the intense strain which he has been under for hours, he will be aware of a
rebound of vital force; his eye brightens, his step is elastic, every movement
firm and free. The dread and commotion are followed by a feeling of security;
in his mental processes of the next hour, there is a greater elevation; in his
collocation of words, emphatic force; the aggregate production, now his own,
has raised him to a high pitch. The radiance of broader views and more powerful
feeling which has come into his soul, lies like a transfiguration upon his
being. This remarkable affection of body and soul, this elevation above the
moods of the day, this feeling of unrestrained comfort after great agitation,
is exactly what, in the modern drama, corresponds to Aristotle’s
“purification.” There is no doubt that such a consequence of scenic
exhibitions among the finely cultured Greeks, after a ten hours’ suspense,
through the most powerful effects, came out all the more heightened and more
striking.
The elevating influence of the beautiful, upon the soul, is no entirely
unusual art; but the peculiar effect which is produced by a union of pain,
horror, and pleasure, with a great, sustained effort of the fancy and the
judgment, and through the perfect satisfying of our demands for a rational
consistency in all things, – this is the prerogative of the art of dramatic
poetry alone. The penetrating force of this dramatic effect is, with the
majority of people, greater than the force of effects produced by any other
form of art. Only music is able to make its influence more powerfully felt upon
the nerves; but the thrill which the musical tone evokes, falls rather within
the sphere of immediate emotions, which are not transfigured into thought; they
are more rapturous, less inspired.
Naturally the effects of the drama are no longer the same with us as they
were in Aristotle’s time. He, himself, makes that clear to us. He who knew so
well that the action is the chief thing in the drama, and that Euripides
composed his actions badly, yet called him the most tragic of the poets,
that is, one who knew how to produce most powerfully the effects peculiar to a
play. Upon us, however, scarcely a play of Euripides produces any general
effect, however powerfully the stormy commotions of the hero’s soul, in
single ones of his better plays, thrill us. Whence comes this diversity of
conception? Euripides was a master in representing excited passion, with too
little regard for sharply defined personages and rational consistency of the
action. The Greek drama arose from a union of music and lyric poetry; from
Aristotle’s time forward, it preserved something of its first youth. The
musical element remained, not in the choruses, but the rhythmical language of
the hero easily rose to climaxes in song; and the climaxes were frequently
characterized by fully elaborated pathos scenes. The aggregate effect of the
old tragedy stood between that of our opera and our drama, perhaps still nearer
the opera; it retained something of the powerful inflammatory influence of
music..
On the other hand, there was another effect of the ancient tragedy, only
imperfectly developed, which is indispensable to our tragedy. The dramatic
ideas and actions of the Greeks lacked a rational conformity to the laws of
nature, that is, such a connecting of events as would be perfectly accounted
for by the disposition and one-sidedness of the characters. We have become free
men, we recognize no fate on the stage but such as proceeds from the nature of
the hero himself. The modern poet has to prepare for the hearer the proud joy,
that the world into which he introduces him corresponds throughout to the ideal
demands which the heart and judgment of the hearer set up in comparison with
the events of reality. Human reason appears in the new drama, as agreeing with
and identical with divine; it remodels all that is incomprehensible in the
order of nature, according to the need of our spirit and heart. This
peculiarity of the action specially strengthens for the spectator of the best
modern plays, beautiful transparence and joyous elevation; it helps to make
himself for hours stronger, nobler, freer. Here is the point in which the
character of the modern poet, his frank manliness, exercises greater influence
upon the aggregate effect than in ancient times.
The Attic poet also sought this unity of the divine and the rational; but it
was very difficult for him to find it. This boldly tragical, of course, shines
forth in single dramas of the ancient world. And that can be explained; for the
vital laws of poetical creation control the poet long before criticism has
found rules for it; and in his best hours, the poet may receive an inward
freedom and expansion which raise him far above the restrictions of his time.
Sophocles directed the character and fate of his heroes sometimes, almost in
the Germanic fashion. In general, however, the Greeks did not free themselves
from a servitude which seems to us, in the highest art effects, a serious
defect. The epic source of their subjects was thoroughly unfavorable for the
free direction of their heroes’ destiny. An incomprehensible fate reached
from without into their action; prophecies and oracular utterances influence
the conclusion; accidental misfortunes strike the heroes; misdeeds of parents
control the destiny of later generations; personifications of deity enter the
action as friends and as enemies; between what excites their rage and the
punishments which they decree, there is, according to human judgment, no
consistency, much less a rational relation. The partiality and arbitrariness
with which they rule, is frightful and terrifying; and when they occasionally
grant a mild reconciliation, they remain like something foreign, not belonging
here. In contrast to such cold excess of power, meek-spirited modesty of man is
the highest wisdom. Whoever means to stand firmly by himself in his own might,
falls first before a mysterious power which annihilates the guilty as well as
the innocent. With this conception, which in its ultimate foundation was
gloomy, sad, devouring, there remained to the Greek poet only the means of
putting even into the characters of his fettered heroes, something that to a
certain degree would account for the horrors which they must endure. The great
art of Sophocles is shown, among other things, in the way he gives coloring to
his personages. But this wise disposition of characters does not always extend
far enough to establish the course of their destiny; it remains not seldom an
inadequate motive. The greatness which the ancients produced, lay first of all
in the force of passions, then in the fierceness of the struggles through which
their heroes were overthrown, finally in the intensity, unfeelingness, and
inexorableness, with which they made their characters do and suffer.
The Greeks felt very well that it was not advisable to dismiss the spectator
immediately after such effects of the efforts of the beautiful art. They
therefore closed the exhibition of the day with a parody, in which they treated
the serious heroes of the tragedy with insolent jest, and whimsically imitated
their struggles. The burlesque was the external means of affording the
recreation which lies for us in the tragedy itself.
From these considerations, the last sentence of Aristotle’s definition,
not indeed without limitation, avails for our drama. For him as well as for us,
the chief effect of the drama is the disburdening of the hearer from the sad
and confining moods of the day, which come to us through wretchedness and
whatever causes apprehension in the world. But when in another place, he knows
how to account for this, on the ground that man needs to see himself touched
and shaken, and that the powerful pacifying and satisfying of this desire gives
him inward freedom, this explanation is, indeed, not unintelligible to us; but
it accepts as the ultimate inner reason for this need pathological
circumstances, where we recognize a joyous emotional activity of the hearer.
The ultimate ground of every great effect of the drama lies not in the
necessity of the spectator passively to receive impressions, but in his
never-ceasing and irresistible desire to create and to fashion. The dramatist
compels the listener to repeat his creations. The whole world of characters, of
sorrow, and of destiny, the hearer must make alive in himself. While he is
receiving with a high degree of suspense, he is in most powerful, most rapid
creative activity. An ardor and beatifying cheerfulness like that which the
poet himself has felt, fills the hearer who repeats the poet’s efforts;
therefore the pain with the feeling of pleasure; therefore the exaltation which
outlasts the conclusion of the piece. And this stimulation of the creative
imagination is, in the new drama, penetrated with still a milder light; for
closely connected with it, is an exalting sense of eternal reason in the
severest fates and sorrows of man. The spectator feels and recognizes that the
divinity which guides his life, even where it shatters the individual human
being, acts in a benevolent fellowship with the human race; and he feels
himself creatively exalted, as united with and in accord with the great
world-guiding power.
So the aggregate effect of the drama, the tragic, is with us related to that
of the Greek, but still no longer the same. The Greeks listened in the green
youth of the human race, for the tones of the proscenium, filled with the
sacred ecstacy of Dionysus; the German looks into the world of illusion, not
less affected, but as a lord of the earth. The human race has since then passed
through a long history; we have all been educated through historical
science.
But more than the general effect of the drama is denoted by the word tragic.
The poet of the present time, and sometimes also the public, use the word in a
narrower sense. We understand by it, also, a peculiar kind of dramatic
effects.
When at a certain point in the action, there enters suddenly, unexpectedly,
in contrast with what has preceded, something sad, sombre, frightful, that we
yet immediately feel has developed from the original course of events, and is
perfectly intelligible from the presuppositions of the play, this new element
is a tragic force or motive. This tragic force must possess the three following
qualities: (1) it must be important and of serious consequence to the hero; (2)
it must occur unexpectedly; (3) it must, to the mind of the spectator, stand in
a visible chain of accessory representations, in rational connection with the
earlier parts of the action. When the conspirators have killed Caesar and, as
they think, have bound Antony to themselves, Antony, by his speech stirs up
against the murderers themselves the same Romans for whose freedom Brutus had
committed the murder. When Romeo has married Juliet, he is placed under the
necessity of killing her cousin, Tybalt, in the duel, and is banished. When
Mary Stuart has approached Elizabeth so near that a reconciliation of the two
queens is possible, a quarrel flames up between them, which becomes fatal to
Mary. Here the speech of Antony, the death of Tybalt, the quarrel of the
queens, are tragic forces; their effect rests upon this, that the spectator
comprehends the ominous occurrences as surprising, and yet inseparably
connected with what has preceded. The hearer keenly feels the speech of Antony
to be a result of the wrong which the conspirators have done Caesar; through
the relation of Antony to Caesar, and his behavior in the previous dialogue
scene with the conspirators, the speech is conceived as the necessary
consequence of the sparing of Antony, and the senseless and over-hasty
confidence which the murderers place in him. That Romeo must kill Tybalt, will
be immediately understood as an unavoidable consequence of the mortal family
quarrel and the duel with Mercutio; the quarrel of the two queens, the hearer
at once understands to be the natural consequence of their pride, hatred, and
former jealousy.
In the same technical signification, the word tragic is also sometimes used
for events in real life. The fact, for example, that Luther, that mighty
champion of the freedom of conscience, became in the last half of his life an
intolerant oppressor of conscience, contains, thus stated, nothing tragic.
Overweening desire for rule may have developed in Luther; he may have become
senile. But from the moment when it becomes clear to us, through a succession
of accessory ideas, that this same intolerance was the necessary consequence of
that very honest, disinterested struggle for truth, which accomplished the
Reformation; that this same pious fidelity with which Luther upheld his
conception of the Bible against the Roman Church, brought him to defend this
conception against an adverse decision; that he would not despair when in his
position outside of the church, but remained there, holding obstinately to the
letter of his writings; from the moment, also, when we conceive of the inner
connection of his intolerance with all that is good and great in his nature,
this darkening of his later life produces the effect of the tragic. Just so
with Cromwell. That the Protector ruled as a tyrant, produces, in itself,
nothing tragic. But that he must do it against his will, because the partisan
relations through which he had arisen, and his participation in the execution
of the king, had stirred the hearts of the conservative against him; that the
great hero from the pressure which his earlier life had laid upon him, could
not wrest himself free from his office, this makes the shadow which fell upon
his life through his unlawful reign, tragic for us. That Conradin, child of the
Hohenstaufens, gathered a horde, and was slain in Italy by his adversary, this
is not in itself dramatic, and in no sense of the word tragic. A weak youth,
with slender support, it was in order that he should succumb. But when it is
impressed upon our souls, that the youth only followed the old line of march of
his ancestors toward Italy, and that in this line of march, almost all the
great princes of his house had fallen, and that this march of an imperial race
was not accidental, but rested on ancient, historical union of Germany with
Italy, – then the death of Conradin appears to us specially tragic, not for
himself, but as the final extinction of the greatest race of rulers of that
time.
With peculiar emphasis, it must again be asserted that the tragic force must
be understood in its rational causative connection with the fundamental
conditions of the action. For our drama, such events as enter without being
understood, incidents the relation of which with the action is mysteriously
concealed, influences the significance of which rests on superstitious notions,
motives which are taken from dream-life, prophesyings, presentiments, have
merely a secondary importance. If a family picture which falls from its nail,
shall portentously indicate death and destruction; if a dagger which was used
in a crime, appears burdened with a mysterious, evil-bringing curse, till it
brings death to the murderer, – these kinds of attempts which ground the
tragic effect upon an inner connection which is incomprehensible to us, or
appears unreasonable, are for the free race of the present day, either weak or
quite intolerable. What appears to us as an accident, even an overwhelming one,
is not appropriate for great effects on the stage. It is now several centuries
since the adoption of such motives and many others, has been tried in
Germany.
The Greeks, it may be remarked incidentally, were somewhat less fastidious
in the use of these irrational forces for tragic effect. They could be
contented if the inner connection of a suddenly entering tragic force, with
what had preceded, were felt in an ominous shudder. When Aristotle cites as an
effective example in this direction, that a statue erected to a man, in falling
down, kills him who was guilty of the man’s death, we should feel in
every-day life such an accident is significant. But in art, we should not deem
it worthy of success. Sophocles understands how, with such forces, to make
conspicuous a natural and intelligible connection between cause and effect so
far as his fables allow anything of the sort. For example, the manner in which
he explains, with realistic detail, the poisonous effect of the shirt of
Nessos, which Deianeira sends to Hercules, is remarkable.
The tragic force, or incident, in the drama is one of many effects. It may
enter only once, as usually happens; it may be used several times in the same
piece. Romeo and Juliet has three such forces: the death of Tybalt after
the marriage; the betrothal of Juliet and Paris after the marriage night; the
death of Paris before the final catastrophe. The position which this force
takes in the piece, is not always the same; one point, however, is specially
adapted for it, so that the cases in which it demands another place, can be
considered as exceptions; and it is relevant in connection with the foregoing
to speak of this here, though the parts of the drama will be discussed in the
following chapter.
The point forward from which the deed of the . hero reacts upon himself, is
one of the most important in the play. This beginning of the reaction,
sometimes united in one scene with the climax, has been noted ever since there
has been a dramatic art. The embarrassment of the hero and the momentous
position into which he has placed himself, must be impressively represented; at
the same time, it is the business of this force to produce new suspense for the
second part of the piece, and so much the more as the apparent success of the
hero has so far been more brilliant, and the more magnificently the scene of
the climax has presented his success. Whatever enters into the play now must
have all the qualities which have been previously explained – it must present
sharp contrasts, it must not be accidental, it must be pregnant with
consequences. Therefore it must have importance and a certain magnitude. This
scene of the tragic force either immediately follows the scene of the climax,
like the despair of Juliet after Romeo’s departure; or is joined by a
connecting scene, like the speech of Antony after Caesar’s murder; or it is
coupled with the climax scene into scenic unity, as in Mary Stuart; or
it is entirely separated from it by the close of an act, as in Love and
Intrigue, where Louise’s writing the letter indicates the climax, and
Ferdinan’s conviction of the infidelity of his beloved forms the tragic
force. Such scenes almost always stand in the third act of our plays, sometimes
less effective in the beginning of the fourth. They are not, of course,
absolutely necessary to the tragedy; it is quite possible to bring along the
increasing reaction by several strokes in gradual reinforcement. This will most
frequently be the case where the catastrophe is effected by the mental
processes of the hero, as in Othello.
It is worth while for us in modern times to recognize how important this
entrance of the tragic force into the action appeared to the Greeks. It was
under another name exactly the same effect; and it was made still more
significantly prominent by the Attic critic than is necessary for us. Even to
their tragedies, this force was not indispensable, but it passed for one of the
most beautiful and most effective inventions. Indeed, they classed this effect
according to its producing a turn in the action itself or in the position of
the chief characters relative to one another; and they had for each of these
cases special names, apparently expressions of the old poetic laboratory, which
an accident has preserved for us in Aristotle’s Poetics. [9]
Revolution (Peripeteia), is the name given by the Greeks to that
tragic force which by the sudden intrusion of an event, unforeseen and
overwhelming but already grounded in the plan of the action, impels the
volition of the hero, and with it the action itself in a direction entirely
different from that of the beginning. Examples of such revolution scenes are
the change in the prospects of Neoptolemus in Philoctetes, the
announcement of the messenger and the shepherd to Jocasta and the king in
King Oedipus, the account of Hyllos to Deianeira, concerning the effect
of the shirt of Nessos, in The Trachinian Women. Through this force
specially there was produced a powerful movement in the second part of the
play; and the Athenians distinguished carefully between plays with revolution
and those without. Those with revolution prevailed in general, being considered
the better. This force of the ancient action is distinguished from the
corresponding newer only in this, that it does not necessarily indicate a
turning toward the disastrous, because the tragedy of the ancients did not
always have a sad ending, but sometimes the sudden reversion to the better. The
scenes claimed scarcely less significance, in which the position of the persons
concerned in the action was changed with relation to each other, by the
unexpected revival of an old and important relation between them. These scenes
of the anagnorisis, recognition scenes, it was especially, in which the
agreeable relations of the heroes became apparent in magnificent achievement.
And since the Greek stage did not know our love scenes, they occupied a similar
position, though good-will did not always appear in them, and sometimes even
hatred flamed up. The subjects of the Greeks offered ample opportunity for such
scenes. The heroes of Greek story are, almost without exception, a wandering
race. Expedition and return, the finding of friends and enemies unexpectedly,
are among the most common features of these legends. Almost every collection of
stories contains children who did not know their parents, husbands and wives,
who after long separation came together again under peculiar circumstances,
host and guest, who prudently sought to conceal their names and purposes. There
was, therefore, in much of their material, scenes of meetings, finding the
lost, reminiscences of significant past events, some of decisive importance.
Not only the recognizing of former acquaintances but the recognition of a
region, of an affair having many relations, could become a motive for a strong
movement. Such scenes afforded the old-time poet welcome opportunity for the
representation of contrasts in perception and for favorite pathetic
performances in which the excited feeling flowed forth in great waves. The
woman who will kill an enemy, and just before or just after the deed recognizes
him as her own son; the son who in his mortal enemy finds again his own mother,
like Ion; the priestess who is about to offer up a stranger, and in him
recognizes her brother, like Iphigenia; the sister who mourns her dead brother,
and in the bringer of the burial urn receives back again the living; and
Odysseus’s nurse who, in a beggar, finds out the home-returning master by a
scar on his foot, these are some of the numerous examples. Frequently such
recognition scenes became motives for a revolution, as in the case already
mentioned of the account of the messenger and the shepherd to the royal pair of
Thebes. One may read in Aristotle how important the circumstances were to the
Greeks through which the recognition was brought about; by the great
philosopher, they were carefully considered and prized according to their
intrinsic worth. And it is a source of satisfaction to observe that even to the
Greek, no accidental external characteristic passed for a motive suitable to
art, but only the internal relations of those recognizing each other, which
voluntarily and characteristically for both, manifested themselves in the
dialogue. Just a glimpse assures us how refined and fully developed the
dramatic criticism of the Greeks was, and how painfully conscientious they were
to regard in a new drama what passed for a beautiful effect according to their
theory of art.
CHAPTER II. THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA.
I. PLAY AND COUNTERPLAY.
In an action, through characters, by means of words, tones, gestures, the
drama presents those soul-processes which man experiences, from the flashing up
of an idea, to passionate desire and to a deed, as well as those inward
emotions which are excited by his own deeds and those of others.
The structure of the drama must show these two contrasted elements of the
dramatic joined in a unity, efflux and influx of will-power, the accomplishment
of a deed and its reaction on the soul, movement and counter-movement, strife
and counter-strife, rising and sinking, binding and loosing.
In every part of the drama, both tendencies of dramatic life appear, each
incessantly challenging the other to its best in play and counter-play; but in
general, also, the action of the drama and the grouping of characters is,
through these tendencies, in two parts. What the drama presents is always a
struggle, which, with strong perturbations of soul, the hero wages against
opposing forces. And as the hero must be endowed with a strong life, with a
certain one-sidedness, and be in embarrassment, the opposing power must be made
visible in a human representative.
It is quite indifferent in favor of which of the contending parties the
greater degree of justice lies, whether a character or his adversary is
better-mannered, more favored by law, embodies more of the traditions of the
time, possesses more of the ethical spirit of the poet; in both groups, good
and evil, power and weakness, are variously mingled. But both must be endowed
with what is universally, intelligibly human. The chief hero must always stand
in strong contrast with his opponents; the advantage which he wins for himself,
must be the greater, so much the greater the more perfectly the final outcome
of the struggle shows him to be vanquished.
These two chief parts of the drama are firmly united by a point of the
action which lies directly in the middle. This middle, the climax of the play,
is the most important place of the structure; the action rises to this; the
action falls away from this. It is now decisive for the character of the drama
which of the two refractions of the dramatic light shall have a place in the
first part of the play, which shall fall in the second part as the dominating
influence; whether the efflux or influx, the play or the counter-play,
maintains the first part. Either is allowed; either arrangement of the
structure can cite plays of the highest merit in justification of itself. And
these two ways of constructing a drama have become characteristic of individual
poets and of the time in which they lived.
By one dramatic arrangement, the chief person, the hero, is so introduced
that his nature and his characteristics speak out unembarrassed, even to the
moments when, as a consequence of external impulse or internal association of
ideas, in him the beginning of a powerful feeling or volition becomes
perceptible. The inner commotion, the passionate eagerness, the desire of the
hero, increase; new circumstances, stimulating or restraining, intensify his
embarrassment and his struggle; the chief character strides victoriously
forward to an unrestrained exhibition of his life, in which the full force of
his feeling and his will are concentrated in a deed by which the spiritual
tension is relaxed. From this point there is a turn in the action; the hero
appeared up to this point in a desire, one-sided or full of consequence,
working from within outward, changing by its own force the life relations in
which he came upon the stage. From the climax on, what he has done reacts upon
himself and gains power over him; the external world, which he conquered in the
rise of passionate conflict, now stands in the strife above him. This adverse
influence becomes continually more powerful and victorious, until at last in
the final catastrophe, it compels the hero to succumb to its irresistible
force. The end of the piece follows this catastrophe immediately, the situation
where the restoration of peace and quiet after strife becomes apparent.
With this arrangement, first the inception and progress of the action are
seen, then the effects of the reaction; the character of the first part is
determined by the depth of the hero’s exacting claims; the second by the
counter-claims which the violently disturbed surroundings put forward. This is
the construction of Antigone, of Ajax, of all of Shakespeare’s
great tragedies except Othello and King Lear, of The Maid of
Orleans, less surely of the double tragedy, Wallenstein.
The other dramatic arrangement, on the contrary, represents the hero at the
beginning, in comparative quiet, among conditions of life which suggest the
influence of some external forces upon his mind. These forces, adverse
influences, work with increased activity so long in the hero’s soul, that at
the climax, they have brought him into ominous embarrassment, from which, under
a stress of passion, desire, activity, he plunges downward to the
catastrophe.
This construction makes use of opposing characters, in order to give motive
to the strong excitement of the chief character; the relation of the chief
figures to the idea of the drama is an entirely different one; they do not give
direction in the ascending action, but are themselves directed, Examples of
this construction are King Oedipus, Othello, Lear,
Emilia Galotti, Clavigo, Love and Intrigue.
It might appear that this second method of dramatic construction must be the
more effective. Gradually, in a specially careful performance, one sees the
conflicts through which the life of the hero is disturbed, give direction to
his inward being. Just there, where the hearer demands a powerful intensifying
of effects, the previously prepared domination of the chief characters enters;
suspense and sympathy, which are more difficult to sustain in the last half of
the play, are firmly fixed upon the chief characters; the stormy and
irresistible progress downward is particularly favorable to powerful and
thrilling effects. And, indeed, subjects which contain the gradual rise and
growth of a portentous passion which in the end leads the hero to his
destruction, are exceedingly favorable for such an action.
But this method of constructing a play is not the most correct,
dramatically; and it is no accident, that the greatest dramas of such a
character, at the tragic close, intermingle with the emotions and perturbations
of the hearer, an irritating feeling which lessens the joy and recreation. For
they do not specially show the hero as an active, aggressive nature, but as a
receptive, suffering person, who is too much compelled by the counter-play,
which strikes him from without. The greatest exercise of human power, that
which carries with it the heart of the spectator most irresistibly, is, in all
times, the bold individuality which sets its own inner self, without regard to
consequences, over against the forces which surround it. The essential nature
of the drama is conflict and suspense; the sooner these are evoked by means of
the chief heroes themselves and given direction, the better.
It is true, the first kind of dramatic structure conceals a danger, which
even by genius, is not always successfully avoided. In this, as a rule, the
first part of the play, which raises the hero through regular degrees of
commotion to the climax, is assured its success. But the second half, in which
greater effects are demanded, depends mostly on the counter-play; and this
counter-play must here be grounded in more violent movement and have
comparatively greater authorization. This may distract attention rather than
attract it more forcibly. It must be added, that after the climax of the
action, the hero must seem weaker than the counteracting figures. Moreover, on
this account, the interest in him may be lessened. Yet in spite of this
difficulty, the poet need be in no doubt, to which kind of arrangement to give
the preference. His task will be greater in this arrangement; great art is
required to make the last act strong. But talent and good fortune must overcome
the difficulties. And the most beautiful garlands which dramatic art has to
confer, fall upon the successful work. Of course the poet is dependent on his
subject and material, which sometimes leaves no choice. Therefore, one of the
first questions a poet must ask, when contemplating attractive material, is
“does it come forward in the play or in the counterplay?”
It is instructive in connection with this topic, to compare the great poets.
From the few plays of Sophocles which we have preserved, the majority belong to
those in which the chief actor has the direction, however unfavorable the
sphere of epic material was for the unrestrained self-direction of the heroes.
Shakespeare, however, evinces here the highest power and art. He is the poet of
characters which reach conclusions quickly. Vital force and marrow, compressed
energy and the intense virility of his heroes, impel the piece in rapid
movement upward, from the very opening scene.
In sharp contrast with him, stands the tendency of the great German poets of
the last century. They love a broad motiving, a careful grounding of the
unusual. In many of their dramas, it looks as if their heroes would wait
quietly in a self-controlled mood, in uncertain circumstances, if they were
only let alone; and since, to most of the heroic characters of the Germans,
conscious power, firm self-confidence and quick decision are wanting, so they
stand in the action, uncertain, meditating, doubting, moved rather by external
relations than by claims that have no regard to consequences. It is significant
of the refinement of the last century, of the culture and spiritual life of a
people to whom a joyful prosperity, a public life, and a self-government, were
so greatly lacking. Even Schiller, who understood so well how to excite intense
passion, was fond of giving the power of direction to the counter-players in
the first half, and to the chief actors only in the second half, from the
climax downward. In Love and Intrigue, therefore, Ferdinand and Louise
are pushed forward by the intriguers; and only from the scene between Ferdinand
and the president, after the tragic force enters, Ferdinand assumes the
direction till the end. Still worse is the relation of the hero, Don Carlos, to
the action; he is kept in leading strings, not only through the ascending half,
but as well through the descending half. In Mary Stuart, the heroine has
the controlling influence over her portentous fate, up to the climax, the
garden scene; so far she controls the mental attitudes of her counter-players;
the propelling forces are, however, as the subject demanded, the intriguers and
Elizabeth.
Much better known, yet of less importance for the construction of the drama,
is the distinction of plays, which originates in the last turn in the fate of
the hero, and in the meaning of the catastrophe. The new German stage
distinguishes two kinds of serious plays, tragedy and spectacle play
(trauerspiel and schauspiel). The rigid distinction in this sense
is not old even with us; it has been current in repertoires only since
Iffland’s time. And, if now, occasionally, on the stage, comedy, tragedy, and
spectacle play are put in opposition as three different kinds of recitative
representation, the spectacle play is no third, co-ordinate kind of dramatic
creation, according to its character, but a subordinate kind of serious drama.
The Attic stage did not have the name, but it had the thing. Even in the time
of Aeschylus and Sophocles, a gloomy termination was by no means indispensable
to the tragedy. Of seven of the extant tragedies of Sophocles, two, Ajax
and Philoctetes, indeed also, in the eyes of the Athenians, Oedipus
at Colonos had a mild close, which turns the fate of the hero toward the
better. Even in Euripides, to whom the critics attribute a love of the sad
endings, there are, out of seventeen extant plays, four, besides
Alcestis, Helena, Iphigenia in Tauris, Andromache,
and Ion, the endings of which correspond to our spectacle play; in
several others, the tragic ending is accidental and without motive. And it
seems, the Athenians already had the same taste which we recognize in our
spectators; they saw most gladly such tragedies as in our sense of the word
were spectacle plays, in which the hero was severely worried by fate, but
rescued at length, safely bore off his hide and hair.
On the modern stage, it cannot be denied, the justification of the spectacle
play has become more pronounced. We have a nobler and more liberal
comprehension of human nature. We are able to delineate more charmingly, more
effectively, and more accurately inner conflicts of conscience, opposing
convictions. In a time in which men have debated the abolition of capital
punishment, the dead at the end of a play may be more easily dispensed with. In
real life, we trust to a strong human power that it will hold the duty of
living very high, and expiate even serious crimes, not with death but by a
purer life. But this changed conception of earthly existence does not bring an
advantage to the drama in every respect. It is true the fatal ending is, in the
case of modern subjects, less a necessity than in the dramatic treatment of
epic legends, or older historical events; but not that the hero’s at last
remaining alive makes a piece a spectacle play, but that he proceeds from the
strife as conqueror, or by an adjustment with his opponent, goes away
reconciled. If he must be the victim at last, if he must be crushed, then the
piece retains not only the character but the name of tragedy. The Prince of
Homburg is a spectacle play, Tasso is a tragedy.
The drama of modern times has embraced in the circle of its subjects, a
broad field which was unknown to the tragedy of the ancient Greeks, indeed, in
the main, to Shakespeare’s art: the middle-class life of the present time,
the conflicts of our society. No doubt, the strifes and sufferings of modern
life make a tragic treatment possible; and this has fallen too little to their
lot; but what is full of incident, what is quiet, what is full of scruple,
connected as a rule with this species of material, affords artistic conception
full justification; and just here it brings forward such strifes as in real
life we trust to have and want to have adjusted peaceably. With the broad and
popular expansion which this treatment has won, it is proper to propose two
things: first, that the laws for the construction of the spectacle play and the
life of the characters are, in the main, the same as for the tragedy, and that
it is useful for the playwright to recognize these laws as found in the drama
of elevated character, where every violence done them may be dangerous to the
success of the piece; and second, that the spectacle play in which a milder
adjustment of conflicts is necessary in the second part, has a double reason
for laying motives in the first half by means of fine characterization, for the
hero’s stout-hearted and vigorous desire in the second half of the play.
Otherwise, it is exposed to the danger of becoming a mere situation-piece, or
intrigue-play; in the first case, by sacrificing the strong movement of a
unified action to the more easy depiction of circumstances and characteristic
peculiarities; in the second case, by neglecting to develop the characters, on
account of the rapid chess-board performance of a restless action. The first is
the tendency of the Germans; the second of the Latins; both kinds of
preparation of a subject are unfavorable to a dignified treatment of serious
conflicts; they belong, according to their nature, to comedy, not to serious
drama.
II. FIVE PARTS AND THREE CRISES OF THE DRAMA.
Through the two halves of the action which come closely together at one
point, the drama possesses – if one may symbolize its arrangement by lines
– a pyramidal structure. It rises from the introduction with the
entrance of the exciting forces to the climax, and falls from here to
the catastrophe.
Between these three parts lie (the parts of) the rise and the
fall. Each of these five parts may consist of a single scene, or a
succession of connected scenes, but the climax is usually composed of one chief
scene.
These parts of the drama, (a) introduction, (b) rise, (c) climax, (d) return
or fall, (e) catastrophe, have each what is peculiar in purpose and in
construction. Between them stand three important scenic effects, through which
the parts are separated as well as bound together. Of these three dramatic
moments, or crises, one which indicates the beginning of the stirring action,
stands between the introduction and the rise; the second, the beginning of the
counteraction, between the climax and the return; the third, which must rise
once more before the catastrophe, between the return and the catastrophe. They
are called here the exciting moment or force, the tragic moment or force, and
the moment or force of the last suspense. The operation of the first is
necessary to every play; the second and third are good but not indispensable
accessories. In the following sections, therefore, the eight component parts of
the drama will be discussed in their natural order.
The Introduction. – It was the custom of the ancients to
communicate in a prologue, what was presupposed for the action. The prologue of
Sophocles and also of Aeschylus is a thoroughly necessary and essential part of
the action, having dramatic life and connection, and corresponding exactly to
our opening scene; and in the old stage-management signification of the word,
it comprised that part of the action which lay before the entrance song of the
chorus. In Euripides, it is, by a careless return to the older custom, an epic
messenger announcement, which a masked figure delivers to the audience, a
figure who never once appears in the play, – like Aphrodite in
Hyppolitus and the ghost of the slain Polydorus in Hecuba. In
Shakespeare, the prologue is entirely severed from the action; it is only an
address of the poet; it contains civility, apology, and the plea for attention.
Since it is no longer necessary to plead for quiet and attention, the German
stage has purposely given up the prologue, but allows it as a festive greeting
which distinguishes a single representation, or as the chance caprice of a
poet. In Shakespeare, as with us, the introduction has come back again into the
right place; it is filled with dramatic movement, and has become an organic
part of the dramatic structure. Yet, in individual cases, the newer stage has
not been able to resist another temptation, to expand the introduction to a
situation scene, and set it in advance as a special prelude to the drama.
Well-known examples are The Maid of Orleans and Kätchen of
Heilbronn, Wallenstein’s Camp, and the most beautiful of all
prologues, that to Faust.
That such a severing of the opening scene is hazardous, will be readily
granted. The poet who treats it as a separate piece, is compelled to give it an
expansion, and divide it into members which do not correspond to their inner
significance. Whatever seems separated by a strong incision, becomes subject to
the laws of each great dramatic unit; it must again have an introduction, a
rise, a proportionate climax, and a conclusion. But such presuppositions of a
drama, the circumstances previous to the entrance of the moving force, are not
favorable to a strongly membered movement; and the poet will, therefore, have
to bring forward his persons in embellished and proportionately broad,
elaborated situations. He will be obliged to give these situations in some
fulness and abundance, because every separate structure must awaken and satisfy
an independent interest; and this is possible only by using sufficient time.
But two difficulties arise in this: first, that the time of the chief action,
not too amply allotted on our stage without this, will be shortened; and
second, that the prelude, through its broad treatment and quiet subject matter,
will probably contain a color which is so different from that of the drama,
that it distracts and satisfies, instead of preparing the spectator for the
chief part. It is nearly always the convenience of the poet and the defective
arrangement of the material, which occasion the construction of a prelude to an
acting play. No material should keep further presuppositions than such as allow
of reproduction in a few short touches.
Since it is the business of the introduction of the drama to explain the
place and time of the action, the nationality and life relations of the hero,
it must at once briefly characterize the environment. Besides, the poet will
have opportunity here, as in a short overture, to indicate the peculiar mood of
the piece, as well as the time, the greater vehemence or quiet with which the
action moves forward. The moderate movement, the mild light in Tasso, is
introduced by the brilliant splendor of the princely garden, the quiet
conversation of the richly attired ladies, the garlands, the adornment of the
poet painter. In Mary Stuart, there is the breaking open of closets, the
quarrel between Paulet and Kennedy – a good picture of the situation. In
Nathan the Wise, the excited conversation of the returning Nathan with
Daja is an excellent introduction to the dignified course of the action and to
the contrasts in the inwardly disturbed characters. In Piccolomini,
there are the greetings of the generals and Questenberg, an especially
beautiful introduction to the gradually rising movement. But the greatest
master of fine beginnings is Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet, day, an
open street, brawls and the clatter of the swords of the hostile parties; in
Hamlet, night, the startling call of the watch, the mounting of the
guard, the appearance of the ghost, restless, gloomy, desperate excitement; in
Macbeth, storm, thunder, the unearthly witches and dreary heath; and
again in Richard III., no striking surroundings, a single man upon the
stage, the old despotic evil genius, who controls the entire dramatic life of
the piece, himself speaking the prologue. So in each of his artistic dramas.
It may be asserted that, as a rule, it is expedient soon after the opening
scene, to strike the first chords firmly and with as much emphasis as the
character of the piece will allow. Of course, Clavigo is not opened with
the rattle of the drum, nor William Tell with the quarrelling of
children in the quiet life of the household; a brief excited movement, adapted
to the piece, conducts without violence to the more quiet exposition.
Occasionally this first exciting strain in Shakespeare, to whom his stage
allowed greater liberty, is separated from the succeeding exposition by a
scenic passage. Thus in Hamlet, a court scene follows it; in
Macbeth, the entrance of Duncan and the news of the battle. So in
Julius Caesar, where the conference and strife between the tribunes and
the plebeians form the first strong stroke, to which the exposition, the
conversation of Cassius and Brutus, and the holiday procession of Caesar, is
closely joined. Also in Mary Stuart, after the quarrel with Paulet,
comes the exposition, the scene between Mary and Kennedy. So in William
Tell, after the charming, only too melodramatic opening situation, comes
the conversation of the country people.
Now certainly this note, sounded at the beginning, is not necessarily a loud
unison of the voices of different persons; brief but deep emotions in the chief
characters may very well indicate the first ripple of the short waves which has
to precede the storms of the drama. So in Emilia Galotti, the exposition
of the restless agitation of the prince at the work-table goes through the
greater beating of waves in the conversation with Conti even into the scene
with Marinelli, which contains the exciting force, the news of the impending
marriage of Emilia. Similarly but less conveniently in Clavigo, it goes
from the conversation at Clavigo’s desk, through Mary’s dwelling, to the
beginning of the action itself, – the visit of Beaumarchais to Clavigo.
Indeed, the action may arise so gradually that the quiet preserved from the
beginning forms an effective background, as in Goethe’s Iphigenia.
If Shakespeare and the Germans of the earlier times, – Sara
Sampson, Clavigo – have not avoided the changing of scenes in the
introduction, their example is not to be imitated on our stage. The exposition
should be kept free from anything distracting; its task, to prepare for the
action, it best accomplishes if it so proceeds that the first short
introductory chord is followed by a well-executed scene which by a quick
transition is connected with the following scene containing the exciting force.
Julius Caesar, Mary Stuart, Wallenstein, are excellent
examples in this direction.
The difficulty of giving also to the representative of the counter-play a
place in the introduction, is not insurmountable. In the arrangement of scenes,
at least, the poet must feel the full mastery of his material; and it is
generally an embarrassment of his power of imagination when this seems
impossible to him. However, should the fitting of the counter-party into the
exposition be impracticable, there is always still time enough to bring them
forward in the first scenes of the involution.
Without forcing all possible cases into the same uniform mould, therefore,
the poet may hold firmly to this: the construction of a regular introduction is
as follows: a clearly defining keynote, a finished scene, a short transition
into the first moment of the excited action.
The Exciting Force. – The beginning of the excited action
(complication) occurs at a point where, in the soul of the hero, there arises a
feeling or volition which becomes the occasion of what follows; or where the
counter-play resolves to use its lever to set the hero in motion. Manifestly,
this impelling force will come forward more significantly in those plays in
which the chief actor governs the first half by his force of will; but in any
arrangement, it remains an important motive force for the action. In Julius
Caesar, this impelling force is the thought of killing Caesar, which, by
the conversation with Cassius, gradually becomes fixed in the soul of Brutus.
In Othello, it comes into play after the stormy night-scene of the
exposition, by means of the second conference between Iago and Roderigo, with
the agreement to separate the Moor and Desdemona. In Richard III., on
the contrary, it rises in the very beginning of the piece along with the
exposition, and as a matured plan in the soul of the hero. In both cases, its
position helps to fix the character of the piece; in Othello, where the
counter-play leads at the conclusion of a long introduction; in Richard
III., where the villain alone rules in the first scene. In Romeo and
Juliet, this occasioning motive comes to the soul of the hero in the
interview with Benvolio, as the determination to be present at the masked ball;
and immediately before this scene, there runs as parallel scene, the
conversation between Paris and Capulet, which determines the fate of Juliet;
both scenic moments, in such significant juxtaposition, form together the
impelling force of this drama, which has two heroes, the two lovers. In
Emilia Galotti, it sinks into the soul of the prince, as he receives the
announcement of the impending marriage of the heroine; in Clavigo, it is
the arrival of Beaumarchais at his sister’s; in Mary Stuart, it is the
confession which Mortimer makes to the queen.
Scarcely will any one cherish the opinion that Faust might have
become better as a regular acting drama; but it is quite instructive to
conceive from this greatest poem of the Germans, how the laws of creation, even
with the freest exercise of invention, demanded obedience to dramatic form.
This poem, too, has its exciting force, the entrance of Mephistopheles into
Faust’s room. What precedes is exposition; the dramatically animated action
includes the relations of Faust and Gretchen; it has its rising, and its
falling half; from the appearance of Mephistopheles, it ascends to the climax,
to the scene which refers to the surrender of Gretchen to Faust; from there it
descends to the catastrophe. The unusual form of the structure lies, aside from
the later episodes, only in this, that the scenes of the introduction, and of
the exciting force, occupy half of the play, and that the climax is not brought
out with sufficient strength. As for the rest, the piece, the scenes of which
glitter like a string of pearls, has a little complete, well-ordered action, of
a simple and even regular character. It is necessary only to think of the
meeting with Gretchen as at the end of the first act.
Shakespeare treats the inception of the animated movement with special care.
If the exciting force is ever too small and weak for him, as in Romeo and
Juliet, he understands how to strengthen it. Therefore, Romeo, after his
conclusion to intrude upon the Capulets, must pronounce his gloomy forebodings
before the house. In three pieces, Shakespeare has yielded to his inclination
to repeat a motive, each time with increased effect. As in the scene in
Othello, “Put money in thy purse,” is a variation of the
introductory note, so are the weird sisters, who excite the bloody thought in
Macbeth, so is the ghost which announces the murder to Hamlet. What at
the beginning of the piece indicated tone and color, becomes the inciting force
for the soul of the hero.
From the examples cited, it is evident that this force of the action treads
the stage under very diverse forms. It may fill a complete scene; it may be
comprised in a few words. It must not always press from without into the soul
of the hero or his adversary; it may be, also, a thought, a wish, a resolution,
which by a succession of representations may be allured from the soul of the
hero himself. But it always forms the transition from the introduction to the
ascending action, either entering suddenly, like Mortimer’s declaration in
Mary Stuart, and the rescue of Baumgarten in William Tell, or
gradually developing through the speeches and mental processes of the
characters, like Brutus’s resolve to do the murder, where in no place in the
dialogue the fearful words are pronounced, but the significance of the scene is
emphasized by the suspicion which Caesar, entering meantime, expresses.
Yet it is for the worker to notice, that this force seldom admits of great
elaboration. Its place is at the beginning of the piece, where powerful
pressure upon the hearer is neither necessary nor advisable. It has the
character of a motive which gives direction and preparation, and does not offer
a single resting-place. It must not be insignificant; but it must not be so
strong that, according to the feeling of the audience, it takes too much from
what follows, or that the suspense which it causes, may modify, or perhaps
determine, the fate of the hero. Hamlet’s suspicion can not be raised to
unconditional certainty by the revelation of the ghost, or the course of the
piece must be entirely different. The resolution of Cassius and Brutus must not
come out in distinct words, in order that Brutus’s following consideration of
the matter, and the administration of the oath, may seem a progress. The poet
will, probably, sometimes have to moderate the importance attached to this
force, which has made it too conspicuous. But he must always bring it into
operation as soon as possible; for only from its introduction forward does
earnest dramatic work begin.
A convenient arrangement for our stage is to give the exciting force in a
temperate scene after the introduction, and closely join to this the first
following rising movement, in greater elaboration. Mary Stuart, for
example, is of this regular structure.
The Rising Movement. – The action has been started; the chief
persons have shown what they are; the interest has been awakened. Mood,
passion, involution have received an impulse in a given direction. In the
modern drama of three hours, they are no insignificant parts, which belong to
this ascent. Its arrangement has comparatively little significance. The
following are the general rules:
If it has not been possible to accord a place in what has gone before, to
the most important persons in the counter-play, or to the chief groups, a place
must be made for them now, and opportunity must be given for an activity full
of meaning. Such persons, too, as are of importance in the last half, must
eagerly desire now to make themselves known to the audience. Whether the ascent
is made by one or several stages to the climax, depends on material and
treatment. In any case, a resting place in the action, and even in the
structure of a scene, is to be so expressed that the dramatic moments, acts,
scenes, which belong to the same division of the action, are joined together so
as to produce a unified chief scene, subordinate scene, connecting scene. In
Julius Caesar, for instance, the ascent, from the moment of excitation
to the climax, consists of only one stage, the conspiracy. This makes, with the
preparatory scene, and the scene of the contrast belonging to it, an attractive
scene-group very beautifully constructed, even according to the demands of our
stage; and with this group, those scenes are closely joined which are grouped
about the murder-scene, the climax of the play. On the other hand, the rising
movement in Romeo and Juliet, runs through four stages to the climax.
The structure of this ascending group is as follows. First stage: masked ball;
three parts, two preparatory scenes (Juliet with her mother, and nurse) (Romeo
and his companions); and one chief scene (the ball itself, consisting of one
suggestion – conversation of the servants – and four forces – Capulet
stirring up matters; Tybalt’s rage and setting things to rights; conversation
of the lovers; Juliet and the nurse as conclusion). Second stage: The garden
scene; short preparatory scene (Benvolio and Mercutio seeking Romeo) and the
great chief scene (the lovers determining upon marriage). Third stage: The
marriage; four parts; first scene, Laurence and Romeo; second scene, Romeo and
companions, and nurse as messenger; third scene, Juliet, and nurse as
messenger; fourth scene, Laurence and the lovers, and the marriage. Fourth
stage: Tybalt’s death; fighting scene.
Then follows the group of scenes forming the climax, beginning with
Juliet’s words, “Gallop apace you fiery footed steeds,” and extending to
Romeo’s farewell, “It were a grief, so brief to part with thee;
farewell.” In the four stages of the rise, one must notice the different
structure of individual scenes. In the masked ball, little scenes are connected
in quick succession to the close; the garden scene is the elaborate great scene
of the lovers; in beautiful contrast with this, in the marriage scene-group,
the accomplice, Laurence, and the nurse are kept in the foreground, the lovers
are concealed. Tybalt’s death is the strong break which separates the
aggregate rise from the climax; the scenes of this part have a loftier swing, a
more passionate movement. The arrangement of the piece is very careful; the
progress of both heroes and their motives are specially laid for each in every
two adjoining scenes with parallel course.
This same kind of rise, slower, with less frequently changing scenes, is
common with the Germans. In Love and Intrigue, for example, the exciting
force of the play is the announcement of Wurm to his father that Ferdinand
loves the daughter of the musician. From here the piece rises in counterplay
through four stages. First stage: (the father demands the marriage with
Milford) in two scenes; preparatory scene (he has the betrothal announced
through Kalb); chief scene (he compels the son to visit Milford). Second stage:
(Ferdinand and Milford) two preparatory scenes; great chief scene (the lady
insists on marrying him). Third stage: Two preparatory scenes; great chief
scene (the president will put Louise under arrest, Ferdinand resists). Fourth
stage: Two scenes (plan of the president with the letter, and the plot of the
villains). The climax follows this: Chief scene, the composition of the letter.
This piece also has the peculiarity of having two heroes – the two lovers.
The import of the play is, it must be owned, painful; but the construction
is, with some awkwardness in the order of scenes, still, on the whole, regular,
and worthy of special consideration, because it is produced far more through
the correct feeling of the young poet, than through a sure technique.
As to the scenes of this rising movement, it may be said, they have to
produce a progressive intensity of interest; they must, therefore, not only
evince progress in their import, but they must show an enlargement in form and
treatment, and, indeed, with variation and shading in execution; if several
steps are necessary, the next to the last, or the last, must preserve the
character of a chief scene.
The Climax. – The climax of the drama is the place in the piece
where the results of the rising movement come out strong and decisively; it is
almost always the crowning point of a great, amplified scene, enclosed by the
smaller connecting scenes of the rising, and of the falling action. The poet
needs to use all the splendor of poetry, all the dramatic skill of his art, in
order to make vividly conspicuous this middle point of his artistic creation.
It has the highest significance only in those pieces in which the hero, through
his own mental processes, impels the ascending action; in those dramas which
rise by means of the counter-play, it does not indicate an important place,
where this play has attained the mastery of the chief hero, and misleads him in
the direction of the fall. Splendid examples are to be found in almost every
one of Shakespeare’s plays and in the plays of the Germans. The hovel scene
in King Lear, with the play of the three deranged persons, and the
judgment scene with the stool, is perhaps one of the most effective that was
ever put on the stage; and the rising action in Lear, up to the scene of
this irrepressible madness, is of terrible magnificence. The scene is also
remarkable because the great poet has here used humor to intensify the horrible
effect, and because this is one of the very rare places, where the audience, in
spite of the awful commotion, perceives with a certain surprise that
Shakespeare uses artifices to bring out the effect. Edgar is no fortunate
addition to the scene. In another way, the banquet scene in Macbeth is
instructive. In this tragedy, a previous scene, the night of the murder, had
been so powerfully worked out, and so richly endowed with the highest dramatic
poetry, that there might easily be despair as to the possibility of any further
rise in the action. And yet it is effected; the murderer’s struggle with the
ghost, and the fearful struggles with his conscience, in the restless scene to
which the social festivity and royal splendor give the most effective
contrasts, are pictured with a truth, and in a wild kind of poetic frenzy,
which make the hearer’s heart throb and shudder. In Othello, on the
other hand, the climax lies in the great scene in which Iago arouses
Othello’s jealousy. It is slowly prepared, and is the beginning of the
convulsing soul-conflict in which the hero perishes. In Clavigo, the
reconciliation of Clavigo with Marie, and in Emilia Galotti, the
prostration of Emilia, form the climax, concealed in both cases by the
predominating counter-play. Again, in Schiller, it is powerfully developed in
all plays.
This outburst of deed from the soul of the hero, or the influx of portentous
impressions into the soul; the first great result of a sublime struggle, or the
beginning of a mortal inward conflict, – must appear inseparably connected
with what goes before as well as with what follows; it will be brought into
relief through broad treatment or strong effect; but it will, as a rule, be
represented in its development from the rising movement and its effect on the
environment; therefore, the climax naturally forms the middle point of a group
of forces, which, darting in either direction, course upward and downward.
In the case where the climax is connected with the downward movement by a
tragic force, the structure of the drama presents something peculiar, through
the juxtaposition of two important passages which stand in sharp contrast with
each other. This tragic force must first receive attention. This beginning of
the downward movement is best connected with the climax, and separated from the
following forces of the counter-play to which it belongs by a division – our
close of an act; and this is best brought about not immediately after the
beginning of the tragic force, but by a gradual modulation of its sharp note.
It is a matter of indifference whether this connection of the two great
contrasted scenes is effected by uniting them into one scene, or by means of a
connecting scene. A splendid example of the former is in Coriolanus.
In this piece, the action rises from the exciting force (the news that war
with the Volscians is inevitable) through the first ascent (fight between
Coriolanus and Aufidius) to the climax, the nomination of Coriolanus as consul.
The tragic force, the banishment, begins here; what seems about to become the
highest elevation of the hero, becomes by his untamable pride just the
opposite; he is overthrown. This overthrow does not occur suddenly; it is seen
to perfect itself gradually on the stage – as Shakespeare loves to have it
– and what is overwhelming in the result is first perceived at the close of
the scene. The two points, bound together here by the rapid action, form
together a powerful group of scenes of violent commotion, the whole of
far-reaching and splendid effect. But, also, after the close of this double
scene, the action is not at once cut into; for there is immediately joined to
this, as contrast, the beautiful, dignified pathos scene of the farewell, which
forms a transition to what follows; and yet after the hero has departed, this
helps to exhibit the moods of those remaining behind, as a trembling echo of
the fierce excitement, before the point of repose is reached.
The climax and the tragic force are still more closely united in Mary
Stuart. Here, also, the beginning of the climax is sharply denoted by the
monologue and the elevated lyric mood of Mary, after the style of an ancient
pathos scene; and this mood scene is bound by a little connecting song to the
great dialogue scene between Mary and Elizabeth; but the dramatic climax
reaches even into this great scene, and in this lies the transition to the
ominous strife, which again in its development is set forth in minute
detail.
Somewhat more sharply are the climax and tragic force in Julius
Caesar separated from each other by a complete connecting scene. The group
of murder scenes is followed by the elaborate scene of the conspirators’
conversation with Antony – this interpolated passage of beautiful workmanship
– and after this the oration scenes of Brutus and Antony; and after this
follow little transitions to the parts of the return.
This close connection of the two important parts gives to the drama with
tragic force a magnitude and expanse of the middle part, which – if the
playful comparison of the lines may be carried out, – changes the pyramidal
form into one with a double apex.
The most difficult part of the drama is the sequence of scenes in the
downward movement, or, as it may well be called, the return; specially in
powerful plays in which the heroes are the directing force, do these dangers
enter most. Up to the climax, the interest has been firmly fixed in the
direction in which the chief characters are moving. After the deed is
consummated, a pause ensues. Suspense must now be excited in what is new. For
this, new forces, perhaps new rôles, must be introduced, in which the hearer
is to acquire interest. On account of this, there is already danger in
distraction and in the breaking up of scenic effects. And yet, it must be
added, the hostility of the counter-party toward the hero cannot always be
easily concentrated in one person nor in one situation; sometimes it is
necessary to show how frequently, now and again, it beats upon the soul of the
hero; and in this way, in contrast with the unity and firm advance of the first
half of the play, the second may be ruptured, in many parts, restless; this is
particularly the case with historical subjects, where it is most difficult to
compose the counter-party of a few characters only.
And yet the return demands a strong bringing out and intensifying of the
scenic effects, on account of the satisfaction already accorded the hearer, and
on account of the greater significance of the struggle. Therefore, the first
law for the construction of this part is that the number of persons be limited
as much as possible, and that the effects be comprised in great scenes. All the
art of technique, all the power of invention, are necessary to insure here an
advance in interest.
One thing more. This part of the drama specially lays claims upon the
character of the poet. Fate wins control over the hero; his battles move toward
a momentous close, which affects his whole life. There is no longer time to
secure effects by means of little artifices, careful elaboration, beautiful
details, neat motives. The essence of the whole, idea and conduct of the
action, comes forward powerfully; the audience understands the connection of
events, sees the ultimate purpose of the poet; he must now exert himself for
the highest effects; he begins, testing every step in the midst of his
interest, to contribute to this work from the mass of his knowledge, of his
spiritual affinities, and of what meets the wants of his own nature. Every
error in construction, every lack in characterization, will now be keenly felt.
Therefore the second rule is valuable for this part; only great strokes, great
effects. Even the episodes which are now ventured, must have a certain
significance, a certain energy. How numerous the stages must be through which
the hero’s fall passes, cannot be fixed by rule, farther than that the return
makes a a less number desirable than, in general, the rising movement allows.
For the gradual increase of these effects, it will be useful to insert, just
before the catastrophe, a finished scene which either shows the contending
forces in the strife with the hero, in the most violent activity, or affords a
clear insight into the life of the hero. The great scene, Coriolanus and his
mother, is an example of the one case; the monologue of Juliet, before taking
the sleep potion, and the sleep-walking scene of Lady Macbeth, of the other
case.
The Force of the Final Suspense. – It is well understood that the
catastrophe must not come entirely as a surprise to the audience. The more
powerful the climax, the more violent the downfall of the hero, so much the
more vividly must the end be felt in advance; the less the dramatic power of
the poet in the middle of the piece, the more pains will he take toward the
end, and the more will he seek to make use of striking effects. Shakespeare
never does this, in his regularly constructed pieces. Easily, quickly, almost
carelessly, he projects the catastrophe, without surprising, with new effects;
it is for him such a necessary consequence of the whole previous portion of the
piece, and the master is so certain to bear forward the audience with him, that
he almost hastens over the necessities of the close. This talented man very
correctly perceived, that it is necessary, in good time to prepare the mind of
the audience for the catastrophe; for this reason, Caesar’s ghost appears to
Brutus; for this reason, Edmund tells the soldier he must in certain
circumstances slay Lear and Cordelia; for this reason, Romeo must, still before
Juliet’s tomb, slay Paris, in order that the audience, which at this moment,
no longer thinks of Tybalt’s death, may not, after all, cherish the hope that
the piece will close happily; for this reason, must the mortal envy of Aufidius
toward Coriolanus be repeatedly expressed before the great scene of the return
of the action; and Coriolanus must utter these great words, “Thou hast lost
thy son;” for this reason the king must previously discuss with Laertes the
murdering of Hamlet by means of a poisoned rapier. Notwithstanding all this, it
is sometimes hazardous to hasten to the end without interruption. Just at the
time when the weight of an evil destiny has already long burdened the hero, for
whom the active sympathy of the audience is hoping relief, although rational
consideration makes the inherent necessity of his destruction very evident, in
such a case, it is an old, unpretentious poetic device, to give the audience
for a few moments a prospect of relief. This is done by means of a new, slight
suspense; a slight hindrance, a distant possibility of a happy release, is
thrown in the way of the already indicated direction of the end. Brutus must
explain that he considers it cowardly to kill one’s self; the dying Edmund
must revoke the command to kill Lear; Friar Laurence may still enter before the
moment when Romeo kills himself; Coriolanus may yet be acquitted by the judges;
Macbeth is still invulnerable from any man born of woman, even when Burnam Wood
is approaching his castle; even Richard III. receives the news that
Richmond’s fleet is shattered and dispersed by the storm. The use of this
artifice is old; Sophocles used it to good purpose in Antigone; Creon is
softened, and revokes the death sentence of Antigone; if it has gone so far
with her as he commanded, yet she may be saved. It is worthy of note that the
Greeks looked upon this fine stroke far differently from the way we regard
it.
Yet it requires a fine sensibility to make good use of this force. It must
not be insignificant or it will not have the desired effect; it must be made to
grow out of the action and out of the character of the persons; it must not
come out so prominent that it essentially changes the relative position of the
parties. Above the rising possibility, the spectator must always perceive the
downward compelling force of what has preceded.
The Catastrophe. – The catastrophe of the drama is the closing
action; it is what the ancient stage called the exodus. In it the
embarrassment of the chief characters is relieved through a great deed. The
more profound the strife which has gone forward in the hero’s soul, the more
noble its purpose has been, so much more logical will the destruction of the
succumbing hero be.
And the warning must be given here, that the poet should not allow himself
to be misled by modern tender-heartedness, to spare the life of his hero on the
stage. The drama must present an action, including within itself all its parts,
excluding all else, perfectly complete; if the struggle of a hero has in fact,
taken hold of his entire life, it is not old tradition, but inherent necessity,
that the poet shall make the complete ruin of that life impressive. That to the
modern mind, a life not weak, may, under certain circumstances, survive mortal
conflicts, does not change anything for the drama, in this matter. As for the
power and vitality of an existence which lies subsequent to the action of the
piece, the innumerable reconciling and reviving circumstances which may
consecrate a new life, these, the drama shall not and can not represent; and a
reference to them will never afford to the audience the satisfaction of a
definite conclusion.
Concerning the end of the heroes, however, it must be said, the perception
of the reasonableness and necessity of such a destruction, while reconciling
and elevating, must be vivid. This is possible only when, by the doom of the
heroes, a real adjustment of conflicting forces is produced. It is necessary,
in the closing words of the drama, to recall that nothing accidental, nothing
happening but a single time, has been presented, but a poetic creation, which
has a universally intelligible meaning.
To the more recent poets, the catastrophe is accustomed to present
difficulties. This is not a good sign. It requires unembarrassed judgment to
discover the reconciliation which is not opposed to the feeling of the
audience, and yet embraces collectively the necessary results of the piece.
Crudeness and a weak sensibility offend most where the entire work of the stage
should find its justification and confirmation. But the catastrophe contains
only the necessary consequences of the action and the characters; whoever has
borne both firmly in his soul, can have little doubt about the conclusion of
his play. Indeed, since the whole construction points toward the end, a
powerful genius may rather be exposed to the opposite danger of working out the
end too soon, and bearing it about with him finished; then the ending may come
into contradiction with the fine gradations which the previous parts have
received during the elaboration. Something of this kind is noticeable in The
Prince of Homburg, where the somnambulism at the close, corresponding to
the beginning, and manifestly having a firm place in the soul of the poet, is
not at all in accord with the clear tone and free treatment of the fourth and
fifth acts. Similarly in Egmont, the conclusion, Clara, as freed Holland
in transfiguration, can be conceived as written sooner than the last scene of
Clara herself in the piece, with which this conclusion is not consistent.
For the construction of the catastrophe, the following rules are of value:
First, avoid every unnecessary word, and leave no word unspoken whereby the
idea of the piece can, without effort, be made clear from the nature of the
characters. Further, the poet must deny himself broad elaboration of scenes;
must keep what he presents dramatically, brief, simple, free from ornament;
must give in diction and action, the best and most impressive; must confine the
scenes with their indispensable connections within a small body, with quick,
pulsating life; must avoid, so long as the action is in progress, new or
difficult stage-effects, especially the effects of masses.
There are many different qualities of a poetic nature, which are called into
operation in these eight parts of the drama on which its artistic structure
rests. To find a good introduction and a stimulating force which arouses the
hero’s soul and keeps it in suspense, is the task of shrewdness and
experience; to bring out a strong climax is specially the business of poetic
power; to make the closing catastrophe effective requires a manly heart and an
exalted power of deliberation; to make the return effective is the most
difficult. Here neither experience nor poetic resource, nor yet a wise, clear
vision of the poetic spirit, can guarantee success; it requires a union of all
these properties. In addition, it requires a good subject and some good ideas,
that is, good luck. Of the component parts discussed, all of them, or such as
are necessary, every artistic drama of ancient or modern times is composed.
III. SOPHOCLES’ CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA.
The tragedy of the Athenians still exercises its power over the creative
poet of the present; not only the imperishable beauty of its contents, but its
poetic form influences our poetic work; the tragedy of antiquity has
essentially contributed to separate our drama from the stage productions of the
middle ages, and give it a more artistic structure and more profound meaning.
Therefore, before an account is given of the technical arrangement in the
tragedies of Sophocles, it will be necessary to recall those peculiarities of
the ancient stage, which, so far as we can judge, with their demands and
limitations, controlled the Athenian poet. What is easily found elsewhere will
be but briefly mentioned here.
The tragedy of the old world grew out of the dithyrambic solo songs with
choruses, which were used in the Dionysian spring-time festivals; gradually the
speeches of individuals were introduced between the dithyrambs and choruses,
and were enlarged to an action. The tragedy retained from these beginnings, the
chorus, the song of single leading rôles in the moments of highest excitement,
the alternating songs of the actors and of the chorus. It was a natural
consequence that the part of the tragedy won the mastery, and the chorus
receded. In the oldest plays of Aeschylus, The Persians and The
Suppliants, the choral songs are by far the larger part. They have a
beauty, a magnitude, and so powerful a dramatic movement that neither in our
oratorios nor in our operas is there much that can be compared with them. The
short incidental sentences interpolated, spoken by individual characters, and
not lyric-musical, serve almost entirely as motives to produce new moods in the
solo singer and the chorus. But already in the time of Euripides, the chorus
had stepped into the background, its connection with the developed action was
loose, it sank from its position of guide and confidant of the chief characters
to a quite unessential part of the drama, choral songs of one drama were used
for another; and at last they represented nothing but the song which completed
the interval between acts. But the lyric element remained fixed in the action
itself. Well-planned, broadly elaborated sentimental scenes of the performers,
sung and spoken, remained in important places of the action an indispensable
component part of the tragedy. These pathos-scenes, the renown of the first
actor, the centre of brilliance for ancient acting, contain the elements of the
lyric situation in a completeness which we can no longer imitate. In them are
comprised the touching effects of the tragedy. These long-winded gushings of
inner feeling had so great a charm for the audience that to such scenes unity
and verisimilitude of action were sacrificed by the weaker poets. But however
beautiful and full the feeling sounds in them, the dramatic movement is not
great. There are poetic observations upon one’s own condition, supplications
to the gods, feeling portrayal of peculiar relations. The first of these may
perhaps be compared with the monologues of modern times, although in them the
chorus sometimes represents the sympathising hearer, sometimes the hearer who
responds.
That extension of the old dithyrambic songs, first to oratorios, the
solo-singers in which appeared in festal costume with simple pantomime, then to
dramas with a well-developed art of representation, was effected by means of an
action which was taken almost exclusively from the realm of Hellenic heroic
legend and the epic. Isolated attempts of poets to extend this realm remained,
on the whole, without success. Even before Aeschylus, a composer of oratorios
had once attempted to make use of historical material; the oldest drama of
Aeschylus which has been preserved for us, made use of historical material of
the immediate past; but the Greeks had, at that time, no historical writings at
all, in our sense of the word. A successful attempt to put on the stage
material freely invented, had in the flourishing time of the Greek tragedy
little imitation.
Such a restriction to a well-defined field of material was a blessing as
well as a doom to the Attic stage. It confined the dramatic situations and the
dramatic effects to a rather narrow circle, in which the older poets with fresh
power attained the highest success, but which soon gave occasion to the later
poets to seek new effects along side-lines; and this made the decay of the
drama unavoidable. Indeed, there was between the world from which the material
was taken and the essential conditions of the drama, an inherent opposition
which the highest skill did not suffice to conquer, and at which the talents of
Euripides grew powerless.
The species of poetry which before the development of the drama had made
legendary subjects dear to the people, maintained a place in certain scenes of
the play. It was a popular pleasure among the Greeks to listen to public
speeches, and later, to have epic poems read to them. This custom gave to the
tragedy longer accounts of occurrences which were essential to the action, and
these occupied more space than would be accorded to them in the later drama.
For the stage, the narrative was imbued with dramatic vividness. Heralds,
messengers, soothsayers, are standing rôles for such recitals; and the scenes
in which they appear have, as a rule, the same disposition. After a short
introduction, the informants give their narration; then follow a few longer or
shorter verses of like measure, quickly exchanged question and answer; at last
the result of the announcement is compassed in brief words. The narrative comes
in where it is most striking, in the catastrophe. The last exit of the hero is
sometimes only announced.
In another way, the conduct of the scenes was influenced through the great
opportunity of the Attic market, the judicial proceedings. It was a passion of
the people to listen to the speeches of the accuser and of the defender. The
highest artistic development of Greek judicial oratory, but also the artificial
manner in which it was sought to produce effects, fine sophistical rhetoric,
intruded upon the Attic stage, and determined the character of the speaking
scenes. These scenes, also, considered as a whole, are fashioned according to
established rules. The first actor delivers a little speech; the second answers
in a speech of similar, sometimes exactly equal length; then follows a sort of
rotation verses, each four answered by another four, three by three, two by
two, one by one; then both actors resume their position and condense what they
have to say, in second speeches; then follows the rattle of rotation verses,
till he who is to be victor, once more briefly explains his point of view. The
last word, a slight preponderance in verses, turns the scale. This structure,
sometimes interrupted and divided by interpolated speeches of the chorus, has
not the highest dramatic movement, despite the interchange of finished oratory,
and in spite of the externally strong and progressive animation; it is an
oratorical exposition of a point of view; it is a contest with subtle
arguments, too oratorical for our feeling, too calculated, too artificial. One
party is seldom convinced by the other. Indeed this had still another ground;
for it is not easily allowed to an Attic hero to change his opinion on account
of the orations of some one else. When there was a third rôle on the stage,
the colloquy preserved the character of a dialogue; sudden and repeated
interlocking of the characters was infrequent, and only momentary; if the third
rôle entered into the colloquy, the second retreated; the change was usually
made conspicuous by the insertion of a choral line. Mass-scenes, as we
understand the word, were not known on the ancient stage.
The action ran through these pathos-scenes, messenger-scenes,
colloquy-scenes, orations, and announcements of official persons to the chorus.
If one adds to these the revolution-scenes, and the recognition-scenes, the
aggregate contents of the piece will be found arranged according to the forms
prescribed by the craft. The endowment of the poets is preserved for us in the
way they knew how to give animation to these forms. Sophocles is greatest; and
for this reason, what is constant in his works is most varied and, as it were,
concealed.
In another way, the construction of the drama was modified through the
peculiar circumstances under which its production took place. The Attic
tragedies were presented in the flourishing time of Athens, on the days of the
Dionysian festivals. At these festivals the poet contested with his rivals, not
as author of the dramas; but when he did not also appear himself as actor, he
appeared as manager or director. As such, he was united with his actors and the
leader of the chorus in a partnership. To each poet, a day was allotted. On
this day he must produce four plays, the last being, as a rule, a
burlesque-play. It may be wondered which was the most astonishing, the creative
power of the poet, or the endurance of the audience. If we conceive of a
burlesque-play added to the trilogy of Aeschylus, and estimate the time
required for the performance according to the experience of our stage, and take
into account the slowness with which it must be delivered, because of the
peculiar acoustics of the great hall, and the necessity of a sharp, well-marked
declamation, this representation on the stage must have required, with its
brief interruptions at the end of pieces, at least nine hours. Three tragedies
of Sophocles, together with the burlesque, must have claimed at least ten
hours. [10]
The three serious plays were, in the earlier times, bound into one
consistent action, which was taken from the same legendary source. So long as
this old trilogy-form lasted, they had the nature of colossal acts, each of
which brought a part of the action to a close. When Sophocles had disregarded
this custom, and as contestant for the prize, put on the stage three
independent, complete plays, one after another, the pieces stood worthy of
confidence for their inner relations. How far a heightening of aggregate effect
was secured by significant combination of ideas and action, by parallelism and
contrast of situations, we can no longer ignore; but it follows from the nature
of all dramatic representation, that the poet must have aspired to a
progressive rise, a certain aggregation of the effects then possible. [11]
And as the spectators sat before the stage in the exalted mood of the holy
spring-festival, so the chief actors were clothed in a festal costume. The
costume of the individual rôles was usually prescribed strictly according to
the custom of the festival; the actors wore masks with an aperture for the
mouth, the high cothurnus on their feet, the body padded, and decked with long
garments. Both sides of the stage, and the three doors in the background,
through which the actors entered and made their exits, were arranged
appropriately for their use in the piece.
But the poet contested on his theatre day, through four plays, with the same
players, who were called prize-contestants. The older Attic oratorios had only
one actor, who entered in different rôles in a different costume; Aeschylus
added a second, Sophocles added a third. The Attic theatre never, in its most
palmy days, exceeded three solo actors. This restriction of the number of
players determined the technique of the Greek tragedy, more than any other
circumstance. It was, however, no restriction which any resolute will could
have dispensed with. Not external reasons alone hindered an advance; old
tradition, the interest which the state took in the representations, and
perhaps not less the circumstance, that the immense open auditorium on the
Acropolis, which seated 30,000 persons, demanded a metallic quality of voice, a
discipline of utterance possessed certainly by very few. To this must be added,
that at least two of the actors, the first and the second, must be ready
singers, before an exacting audience with a delicate ear for music.
Sophocles’ first actor must, during an effort of ten hours, pronounce about
1,600 lines, and sing at least six greater or less song pieces. [12]
This task would be great, but not inconceivable to us. One of the most
exacting of our rôles is Richard III. This includes in the printed text, 1,128
lines, of which more than 200 are usually omitted. Our lines are shorter, there
is no song, the costume is much more convenient, the voice is of a different
kind, comparatively less wearying; the effort for gesture, on the other hand,
is incomparably greater; on the whole, the creative work for the moment, much
more significant; there is a very different expenditure of nervous energy. For
our actors to compass the task of the ancients, would present no unconquerable
difficulties, but just that which presents itself to the inexperienced as an
alleviation, the prolonging the work through ten hours. And if they set up in
opposition to the actor’s art of the ancients, with some show of justice,
that their present task is a greater and higher one, it is performed not with
voice alone, but with facial expression and gesture freely invented, yet they
must not forget that the scantiness of Greek pantomime, which remained
restricted through masks and conventional movements and attitudes, found a
supplement again in a remarkably fine culture in dramatic enunciation. Old
witnesses teach us that a single false tone, a single incorrect accent, a
single hiatus in a line, could arouse the universal ill-will of the audience
against the player, and rob him of his victory; that the great actor was
passionately admired, and that the Athenians, on account of the actor’s art,
would neglect politics and the prosecution of war. One must certainly not put a
low value on the independent, creative work of the Hellenic actor; for we do
not at all know how creatively his soul worked in the usual inflections of
dramatic delivery.
Among these three actors, all the rôles of the three tragedies and the
burlesque were divided. In each play, the actor had, in addition to his chief
rôle – in which, according to custom, he wore the festal costume –
subordinate parts corresponding to his character, or for which he could be
spared. But even in this matter the poet was not allowed full liberty.
The personality of the actor on the stage was not so completely forgotten in
his rôle, by his audience, as is the case with us. He remained in the
consciousness of the Athenian, in spite of his various masks and changes of
costume, always more the genial person performing, than the player who
sought to hide himself entirely in the character of his rôle. And so in this
respect, even at the time of Sophocles, the representation on the stage was
more like an oratorio or the reading aloud of a piece, with parts assigned,
than like our production on the stage. This is an important circumstance. The
effects of the tragedy were not, for this reason, injured, but somewhat
differently colored.
The first player was, therefore, made somewhat significantly conspicuous on
the stage. To him belongs the middle door of the background – “the royal”
– for his entrances and exits; he played the most distinguished persons, and
the strongest characters. It would have been against his professional dignity
to represent on the stage, anyone who allowed himself to be influenced or led
by any other character in the piece – the gods excepted. He specially was the
player of pathetic parts, the singer and hero, of course for both masculine and
feminine rôles; his rôle alone gave the piece its name, in case he was the
controlling spirit, in the action; otherwise the name of the piece was taken
from the costume and character of the chorus. Next him stood the second
contestant, as his attendant and associate; over against him stood the third, a
less esteemed actor, as character player, intriguer, representative of the
counter-play.
This appointment was strictly adhered to by Sophocles, in the preparation
and distribution of parts. There were in his plays, the chief hero, his
attendant, and his adversary. But the subordinate parts, also, which each of
them must undertake, and which corresponded to each of the chief rôles, were,
so far as was at all possible, distributed according to their relations to the
chief rôles. The chief actor, himself, took the part of his representative and
companion in sentiment; the parts of friends and retainers, so far as possible,
the second player took; the third, or adversary, took the parts of strangers,
enemies, opposing parties; and in addition to these, sometimes with the second,
he assumed further accessory rôles.
From all this there originated a peculiar kind of stage effects, which we
might call inartistic, but which had for the Attic poet, and the Attic stage,
not a little significance. The next duty of the actor was specially to indicate
every one of the rôles he assumed in a piece, by a different mask, a different
tone of voice, a different carriage, and different gestures. And we recognize
that here, too, there was much that had conformed to custom, and become
established; for example, in the make-up and delivery of a messenger, in the
step, bearing, gesture of young women, and of old women. But a second
peculiarity of this established distribution of parts was that what was
constant in the actor, became apparent in his individual parts, and was felt by
the audience as something proper to himself, and effective. The actor on the
Attic stage became an ideal unity which held its rôles together. Above the
illusion that different persons were speaking, the feeling remained to the
hearer, that they were one and the same; and this circumstance the poet used
for peculiar dramatic effects. When Antigone was led away to death, the whole
excited soul of Tiresias rang behind the tone of voice in which his threat was
made to Creon; the same tone, the same spiritual nature in all the words of the
messenger who announced the sad end of Antigone and of Haemon, again touched
the spirit of the audience. Antigone, after she had gone away to death, came
continually back to the stage. By this means there arose, sometimes during the
performance, a climax of tragic effects, where we, in reading, notice a bathos.
When in Electra, the same actor presents Orestes and Clytemnestra, son
and mother, murderer and victim, the same quality of voice suggests the blood
relation to the audience, the same cold determination and cutting sharpness of
tone – it was the rôle of the third actor – suggests the inner kinship of
the two natures; but this sameness moderated, perhaps, the horror which the
fearful action of the play produced. When, in Ajax, the hero of the
piece kills himself at the climax, this must have been, in the eyes of the
Greeks, a danger to the effect of the play, not because this circumstance in
this case affected the unity of the action, but probably put too much of the
weight toward the beginning. But when, immediately afterwards, from the mask of
Teucros, the same honest, true-hearted nature still rang in the voice, only
more youthful, fresher, unbroken, the Athenian not only felt with satisfaction
the blood relation, but the soul of Ajax took a lively part in the struggle
continued about his grave. Particularly attractive is the way Sophocles makes
use of this means – of course, not he alone, – to present effectively, in
the catastrophe, the ruin of a chief character, which can only be announced. In
each of the four pieces, which contain the very conspicuous rôle of a
messenger in the catastrophe (in the Trachinian Women it is the nurse)
the actor who has played the part of the hero whose death is announced, became
himself the messenger, who related the affecting circumstances of the death,
sometimes in a wonderfully animated speech; to the Athenians, in such a case,
the voice of the departed came back from Hades, and pierced their souls the
voice of Oedipus at Colonos, of Jocasta, of Antigone, of Deianeira. In
Philoctetes, the return of the same actor in various rôles is most
peculiarly prized for dramatic effects, – of this there will be a discussion
later on. [13]
Such a heightening of the effect through a lessening of the scenic illusion,
is foreign to our stage, but not unheard of. A similar effect depends on the
representation of women’s parts by men, which Goethe saw in Rome.
This peculiarity of the Attic stage gave the poet some liberties in the
structure of the action, which we no longer allow. The first hero could be
spared from his chief rôle during longer parts of the play – as in
Antigone and Ajax. When, in the Trachinian Women, the
chief hero, Hercules, does not enter at all till the last scene, yet he has
been effective through his representatives from the beginning forward. The maid
of the prologue, who refers to the absent Hercules, Lichas, his herald, who
gives accounts of him, speak with the subdued voice of the hero.
And this keeping back of the hero was frequently necessary to the poet as a
prudent aid in concealing the indulgence which, before all others, the first
actor must claim for himself. The almost superhuman effort of a day’s acting
could be endured only when the same actor did not have the longest and most
exacting groups of rôles in all three tragedies. The chief rôle among the
Greeks, remained that of the protagonist, who had the dignity and the pathos
requiring great effort, even if to this part, perhaps, only a single scene was
given. But the poet was compelled, in individual pieces of the festival
occasion, to give to the second and third actors what we call the chief parts,
the most comprehensive parts; for he must be considerate enough to make a
somewhat even distribution of the lines of the three tragedies, among his three
contestants. [14]
The plays of Sophocles which have been preserved, are distinguished more by
the character of their action than by their construction, from the Germanic
drama. The section of the legend, which Sophocles used for the action of his
piece, had peculiar presuppositions. His plays, as a whole, represent the
restoration of an already disturbed order, revenge, penance, adjustment; what
is supposed to have preceded is also the direst disturbance, confusion, crime.
The drama of the Germans, considered in general, had for its premises, a
certain if insufficient order and rest, against which the person of the hero
arose, producing disturbance, confusion, crime, until he was subdued by
counteracting forces, and a new order was restored. The action of Sophocles
began somewhat later than our climax. A youth had in ignorance slain his
father, had married his mother; this is the premise – how this already
accomplished, unholy deed, this irreparable wrong comes to light, is the play.
A sister places her happiness in the hope that a young brother in a foreign
land will take vengeance upon the mother for the murder of the father. How she
mourns and hopes, is terrified at the false news of his death, is made happy by
his arrival, and learns about the avenging deed – this is the play.
Everything of misfortune, of atrocity, of the guilt, of the horrible revenge,
which preceded, yes, the horrible deed itself, is represented through the
reflections that fall upon the soul of a woman, the sister of the avenger, the
daughter of the murderess and of the murdered man. An unfortunate prince,
driven from his home, gratefully communicates to the hospitable city which
receives him the secret blessing which, according to an oracle, hangs over the
place of his burial. A virgin, contrary to the command of the prince, buries
her brother, who lies slain on the field; she is therefore sentenced to death,
and involves the son and the wife of the inexorable judge with herself in
destruction. To a wandering hero, there is sent into the foreign land, by his
wife who has heard of his infidelity, and wishes to regain his love, a magic
garment which consumes his body; on account of her grief at this, the wife
kills herself and has her body burned. [15] A hero, who through a mad delusion
has slain a captured herd instead of the abhorred princes of his people, kills
himself for shame; but his associates achieve for him an honorable burial. A
hero, who on account of an obstinate disease of his army, is left exposed on an
uninhabited island, is brought back, because an oracle, through those who hated
him and banished him, has demanded his return as a means of restoring health to
the army. What precedes the play is always a great part of what we must include
in the action. [16]
But if from the seven plays of Sophocles which have been preserved, it is
allowable to pass a guarded judgment on a hundred lost plays, this treatment of
myths does not seem universal among the Greeks, but seems to distinguish
Sophocles. We recognize distinctly that Aeschylus in his trilogies considered
longer portions of the legends – the wrong, the complication, the adjustment.
Euripides sometimes exceeded the definite end piece of the legend, or with more
convenience than art, announced what had preceded, in an epic prologue. In both
of his best pieces, Hyppolitus and Medea, the action is built on
premises, which would also have been possible in newer pieces.
This order of the action in Sophocles allowed not only the greatest
excitement of passionate feeling, but also a firm connection of characters; but
it excluded numerous inner changes, which are indispensable to our plays. How
these monstrous premises affected the heroes, he could represent with a mastery
now unattainable; but there were given most unusual circumstances, through
which the heroes were influenced. The secret and ecstatic struggles of the
inner man, which impel from a comparative quiet, to passion and deed, despair
and the stings of conscience, and again the violent changes which are produced
in the sentiment and character of the hero himself through an awful deed, the
stage of Sophocles did not allow to be represented. How any one gradually
learned something fearful little by little, how any one conducted himself after
reaching a momentous conclusion, this invited picturing; but how he struggled
with the conclusion, how the terrible calamity that pressed upon him, was
prepared by his own doings, – this, it appears, was not dramatic for the
stage of Sophocles. Euripides is more flexible in this, and more similar to us;
but in the eyes of his contemporaries, this was no unconditional excellence.
One of the most finished characters of our drama is Macbeth; yet it may be well
said, to the Athenians before the stage he would have been thoroughly
intolerable, weak, unheroic; what appears to us most human in him, and what we
admire as the greatest art of the poet, his powerful conflict with himself over
the awful deed, his despair, his remorse, – this would not have been allowed
to the tragic hero of the Greeks. The Greeks were very sensitive to
vacillations of the will; the greatness of their heroes consisted, before all,
in firmness. The first actor would scarcely have represented a character who
would allow himself in any matter of consequence, to be influenced by another
character in the piece. Every mental disturbance of the leading persons, even
in subordinate matters, must be carefully accounted for and excused. Oedipus
hesitates about seeing his son; Theseus makes all his representations of
obstinacy in vain; Antigone must first explain to the audience; to listen is
not to yield.
If Philoctetes had yielded to the reasonable arguing of the second player,
he would have fallen greatly in the regard of the audience; he would have been
no longer the strong hero. To be sure, Neoptolemus changes his relation to
Philoctetes, and the audience was extremely heated over it; that he did so,
however, was only a return to his own proper character, and he was only second
player. We are inclined to consider Creon in Antigone as a grateful
part; to the Greeks he was only a rôle of third rank; to this character, the
justification of pathos was entirely wanting. Just the trait that makes him
appeal to us, his being convulsed and entirely unstrung by Tiresias, – that
artifice of the poet to bring a new suspense into the action – this lessened
to the Greeks the interest in the character. And that the same trait in the
family and in the play comes out once more, that Haemon, too, will kill his
father only after the messenger’s announcement, but then kills himself –
for us a very characteristic and human trait – Attic criticism seems to have
established as a reproach against the poet, who brought forward such
undignified instability twice in one tragedy. If ever the conversion of one
character to the point of view of another is accomplished, it does not occur
– except in the catastrophe of Ajax – during the scene in which the
parties fight each other with long or short series of lines; but the change is
laid behind the scenes; the convert comes entirely altered, into his new
situation.
The struggle of the Greek hero was egotistic; his purpose ended with his
life. The position of the Germanic hero, with reference to his destiny, is
therefore, very different, because to him the purpose of his existence, the
moral import, his ideal consciousness, reaches far out beyond his individual
life, love, honor, patriotism. The spectators bring with them to the Germanic
play, the notion that the heroes of the stage are not there entirely for their
own sake, not even specially for their own sake, but that just they, with their
power of free self-direction, must serve higher purposes, let the higher which
stands above them be conceived as Providence, as the laws of nature, as the
body politic, as the state. The annihilation of their life is not ruin, in the
same sense as in the ancient tragedy. In Oedipus at Colonos, the
greatness of the import took a strong hold upon the Athenians; they felt here
forcibly the humanity of a life which, beyond mere existence, and indeed by its
death, rendered a high service to the universal existence. From this, too,
arises the great closing effect of The Furies. Here the sufferings and
fate of the individual are used as blessings to the universal. That the
greatest unfortunates of the legend – Oedipus and Orestes – pay so terrible
a penance for their crime, appeared to the Greeks as a new and sublime
dignifying of man upon the stage, not foreign to their life, but to their art.
The undramatic climax of pity, produced by practical closing results, however
useful to home and country, leaves us moderns unmoved. But it is always
instructive to note that the two greatest dramatists of the Hellenes once
raised their heroes to the same theory of life in which we are accustomed to
breathe and to see the heroes of our stage.
How Sophocles fashioned his characters and his situations under such
constraint is remarkable. His feeling for contrasts worked with the force of a
power of nature, to which he himself could not afford resistance. Notice the
malicious hardness of Athene, in Ajax. It is called out by contrast with
the humanity of Odysseus, and shows the needed contrast in color with an
unscrupulous sharpness, whereby naturally the goddess comes short of herself,
because she will sagaciously illuminate with her divinity the shadowing of her
nature, which is like Menelaus’s. The same piece gives in every scene a good
insight into the manner of his creation, which is so spontaneous, and withal so
powerful in effects, so carelessly sovereign, that we easily understand how the
Greeks found in it something divine. Everywhere here, one mood summons another,
one character another, exact, pure, certain; each color, each melody, forces
forward another corresponding to it. The climax of the piece is the frame of
mind of Ajax after the awakening. How nobly and humanly the poet feels the
nature of the man under the adventurous presuppositions of the piece! The
warm-hearted, honest, hot-headed hero, the ennobled Berlichingen of the Greek
army, had been several times churlish toward the gods; then misfortune came
upon him. The convulsing despair of a magnificent nature, which is broken by
disgrace and shame, the touching concealment of his determination to die, and
the restrained pathos of a warrior, who by voluntary choice performs his last
act, – these were the three movements in the character of the first hero
which gave the poet the three great scenes, and the requirements for the entire
piece. First, as contrast with the prologue, the picture of Ajax himself. Here
he is still a monster, stupid as if half asleep. He is the complete opposite of
the awakened Ajax, immediately the embodiment of shrewdness. The situation was
as ridiculous on the stage as it was dismal; the poet guarded himself, indeed,
from wishing to make anything different out of it. Both counter-players must
accommodate themselves to the depressing constraint. Odysseus receives a slight
tinge of this ridiculous element, and Athene receives the cold, scornful
hardness. It is exactly the right color, which was needed by what was being
represented, a contrast developed with unscrupulous severity, created, not by
cold calculation, not through unconscious feeling, but as a great poet creates,
with a certain natural necessity, yet with perfect, free consciousness.
In the same dependence upon the chief heroes, the collective rôles are
fashioned, according to the conditions under which the Greek composed for each
of the three actors; associate player, accessory player, counter-player. In
Ajax for instance, there was the “other self” of Ajax, the true,
dutiful brother Teucros; then, there were the second rôles, his wife, the
booty of his spear, Tecmessa, loving, anxious, well knowing, however, how to
oppose the hero; and there was his friendly rival, Odysseus; finally, the
enemies, again three degrees of hate; the goddess, the hostile partisan, and
his more prudent brother, whose hatred was under control out of regard for
policy. When, in the last scene, the counter-player and the hostile friend of
the hero were reconciled at the grave, from the compact which they made, the
Athenian would recognize very distinctly the opposite of the opening scene,
where the same voices had taken sides against the madman.
Within the individual characters of Sophocles, also, the unusual purity and
power of his feeling for harmony, and the same creation in contrasts, are
admirable. He perceived here surely and with no mistake, what could be
effective in them, and what was not allowable. The heroes of the epic and of
the legend, resist violently, being changed into dramatic characters: they
brook only a certain measure of inner life and human freedom; whoever will
endow them with more, from him they snatch away and tear into shreds the loose
web of their myths – barbarous on the stage. The wise poet of the Greeks
recognizes very well the inward hardness and untamableness of the forms which
he must transform into characters. Therefore, he takes as little as possible
from the legend itself into the drama. He finds, however, a very simple and
comprehensible outline of its essential characteristic as his action needs it,
and he always makes the best of this one peculiarity of character, with
peculiar strictness and logical congruity. This determining trait is always one
impelling toward a deed: pride, hate, connubial sense of duty, official zeal.
And the poet conducts his characters in no way like a mild commander; he exacts
from them according to their disposition, what is boldest, and most extreme; he
is so insatiably hard and pitiless, that to us weaker beings, a feeling of real
horror comes, on account of the fearful one-sidedness into which he has them
plunge; and that even the Athenians compared such effects to the loosing of
bloodhounds. The defiant sisterly love of Antigone, the mortally wounded pride
of Ajax, the exasperation of the tormented Philoctetes, the hatred of Electra,
are forced out in austere and progressive intensity, and placed in the deadly
conflict.
But over against this groundwork of the characters, he perceives again with
marvellous beauty and certainty just the corresponding gentle and friendly
quality which is possible to his characters, with their peculiar harshness.
Again, this contrast appears in his heroes, with the power of the required
complementary color; and this second and opposite quality of his persons –
almost always the gentle, cordial, touching side of their nature, love opposed
to hate, fidelity to friends opposed to treachery, honest candor against sheer
irascibility – is almost always adorned with the most beautiful poetry, the
most delicate brilliancy of color. Ajax, who would have slain his foes in mad
hatred, displays an unusual strength of family affection, true-hearted, deep,
intense love toward his companions, toward the distant brother, toward the
child, toward his wife; Electra, who almost lives upon her hatred of her
mother, clings with the gentlest expressions of tenderness about the neck of
her longed-for brother. The tortured Philoctetes, crying out in pain and
anguish, demanding the sword that he may hew asunder his own joints, looks up,
helpless, grateful, and resigned, to the benevolent youth who can behold the
odious suffering and give no expression to his horror. Only the chief
characters exhibit this unfolding of their powerfully conceived unity, in two
opposite directions; the accessory persons, as a rule show only the required
supplementary colors; Creon thrice, Odysseus twice, both in each of their
pieces differently shaded off, Ismene, Theseus, Orestes.
Such a uniting of two contrast colors in one chief character was possible to
the Greek only because he was a great poet and student of human nature; that
is, because his creative soul perceived distinctly the deepest roots of a human
existence, from which these two opposite leaves of his characters grew. And
this exact observation of the germ of every human life is the highest
prerogative of the poet, which causes the simple bringing out of two opposite
colors in character to produce the beautiful appearance of wealth, of fulness,
of symmetry. It is an enchanting illusion, in which he knows how to place his
hearers; it gives his pictures exactly the kind of life which has been possible
in his material on the stage. With us, the characters of the great poets show
much more artistic fashioning than those ancient ones, which grew up so simply,
leaf opposite to leaf, from the root; Hamlet, Faust, Romeo, Wallenstein, cannot
be traced back to so simple an original form. And they are, of course, the
evidence of a higher degree of development of humanity. But on this account,
the figures of Sophocles are not at all less admirable and enchanting. For he
knows how to design them with simplicity, but with a nobility of sentiment, and
fashion them in a beauty and grandeur of outline that excited astonishment even
in ancient times. Nowhere are loftiness and power wanting in either chief
characters or accessory characters; everywhere is seen from their bearing, the
insight and unrestrained master-power of a great poet nature.
Aeschylus embodied in the characters of the stage a single characteristic
feature, which made their individuality intelligible; in Prometheus,
Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, Sophocles intensified his great rôles, while he
attributed to them two apparently contradictory qualities, which were in
reality requisite and supplementary; when Euripides went further, and created
pictures imitating reality, which were like living beings, the threads of the
old material flew asunder, and curled up like the dyed cloth of Deianeira in
the sunlight.
This same joyousness, and the sure perception of contrasts, allowed the
poet, Sophocles, also to overcome the difficulty which his choice of fables
prepared for him. The numerous and monstrous premises of his plot seemed
peculiarly unfavorable to a powerful action proceeding from the hero himself.
In the last hours of its calamity, it appears, the heroes are almost always
suffering, not freely acting, But the greater the pressure the poet lays upon
them from without, so much higher the power becomes with which they battle
against it. Whatever already in the first ascending half of the piece, fate or
a strange power works against the hero, he does not appear as receiving it, but
as thrusting his whole being emphatically against it. He is, in truth,
impelled; but he appears in a distinctive manner to be the impelling force;
thus Oedipus, Electra, even Philoctetes, taken together, are efficient natures,
which rage, impel, advance. If any one ever stood in a position of defence
dangerous to a play, it was poor King Oedipus. Let it be observed how Sophocles
represents him, as far as the climax, fighting in increasing excitement,
against opposition; the more dismal his cause becomes to himself, so much the
more violently does he beat against his environment.
These are some of the conditions under which the poet created his action. If
the plays of Sophocles together with the chorus, claimed about the same time as
our plays, on the average, require, yet the action is much shorter than ours.
For aside from the chorus, and from the lyric and epic parts inserted, the
whole design of the scenes is greater and, on the whole, broader. The action,
according to our way of presenting, would scarcely occupy half an evening. The
transitions from scene to scene are short, but accurately motived; entrance and
exit of new rôles are explained, little connecting parts between elaborate
scenes are infrequent. The number of divisions was not uniform; only in the
later time of the ancient tragedy was the division into five acts established.
The different parts of the action were separated by choral songs. Every one of
such parts, – as a rule, corresponding to our finished scene – was
distinguished from the one preceding it, by its meaning, but not so sharply as
our acts. It appears, almost, that the single pieces of the day – not the
parts of a piece – were separated by a curtain drawn across the stage.
Indeed, the tableau in the beginning of Oedipus may be explained otherwise; but
since the decoration of Sophocles already plays a part in the piece – and he
was as fond of referring to this as Aeschylus was to his chariot and flying
machine – its fastenings must have been taken from the view of the spectator
before the beginning of a new piece.
Another characteristic of Sophocles, so far as it is recognizable to us,
lies in the symmetrical proportions of his piece.
The introduction and the conclusion of the old drama were set off from the
rest of the structure, much more markedly than at present. The introduction was
called the prologue; embraced one appearance or more of the solo-players,
before the first entrance of the chorus; contained all the essentials of the
exposition; and was separated by a choral song from the rising action. The
conclusion, exodus, likewise separated from the falling action by a
choral song, was composed of scene-groups, carefully worked out, and included
the part of the action which we moderns call the catastrophe. In Sophocles, the
prologue is, in all the plays preserved, an artfully constructed dialogue
scene, with a not insignificant movement, in which two, sometimes all three,
actors appear and show their relation to each other. It contains, first, the
general premises of the piece, and second, what appears to be peculiar to
Sophocles, a specially impressive introduction of the exciting force which
shall impel the action, after the choral song.
The first choral song follows the prologue; after this comes the action with
the entrance of the first excitement. From here the action rises in two or more
stages to the climax. There are in Sophocles, sometimes, very fine motives,
insignificant in themselves, which occasion this ascent. The summit of the
action arises mightily; for bringing out this moment, the poet uses all the
splendor of color, and all the sublimest poetic fervor. And when the action
allows of a broad turn, the scene of this turn, revolution, or recognition,
follows not suddenly and unexpectedly, but with fine transition, and always in
artistic finish. From here, the action plunges swiftly to the end, only
occasionally, before the exodus, a slight pause, or level, is arranged.
The catastrophe itself is composed like a peculiar action; it consists not of a
single scene, but of a group of scenes, – the brilliant messenger part, the
dramatic action, and sometimes lyric pathos scenes, lie in it, connected by
slight transition scenes. The catastrophe has not the same power, in all the
plays, nor is it treated with effects of progressive intensity. The relation of
the piece to the others of the same day may, also, have controlled the work of
the conclusion.
The play of Antigone contains – besides prologue and catastrophe
– five parts, of which the first three form the rising movement; the fourth,
the climax; the fifth, the return. Each of these parts, separated from the
others by a choral song, embraces a scene of two divisions. The idea of the
piece is as follows: A maiden, who contrary to the command of the king, buries
her brother, slain in a battle against his native city, is sentenced to death
by the king. The king, on this account, loses his son and his consort, by
self-inflicted death. In a dialogue scene, which affords a contrast between the
heroine and her friendly helpers, the prologue explains the basis of the
action, and makes an exposition of the exciting force, – the resolution of
Antigone to bury her brother. The first step of the ascent is, after the
introduction of Creon, the message that Polynices is secretly buried, the wrath
of Creon, and his command to find the perpetrator of the deed. The second step
is the introduction of Antigone, who has been seized, the expression of her
resistance to Creon, and the intrusion of Ismene, who declares that she is an
accomplice of Antigone and will die with her. The third step is the entreaty of
Haemon, and when Creon remains inexorable, the despair of the lover. The
messenger scene has been followed so far by dialogue scenes, continually
increasing in excitement. The pathos scene of Antigone, song and recitation,
forms the climax. This is followed by Creon’s command to lead her away to
death. From this point the action falls rapidly. The prophet, Tiresias,
announces calamity awaiting Creon, and punishes his obstinacy. Creon is
softened, and gives orders that Antigone be released from the burial vault
where she is imprisoned. And now begins the catastrophe, in a great
scene-group; announcement by messenger of Antigone’s death, and Haemon’s,
the despairing departure of Eurydice, the lament of Creon, another message,
announcing the death of Eurydice, and the concluding lament of Creon. The
continuance of Antigone herself is the seer, Tiresias, and the messenger of the
catastrophe; the friendly accessory players are Ismene and Haemon; the
counter-player, with less power and with no pathos, is Creon. Eurydice is only
an assisting rôle.
The most artistic play of Sophocles is King Oedipus. It possesses all
the fine inventions of the Attic drama, besides variations in songs and chorus,
revolution scene, recognition scene, pathos scene, finished announcement of the
messenger at the close. The action is governed by the counter-play, has a short
ascent, comparatively weak climax, and a long descent. The prologue brings out
all three actors, and announces, besides the presupposed conditions, Thebes
under Oedipus during a plague, the exciting force, an oracular utterance, –
that Laius’s murder shall be avenged, and with this the city shall be
delivered from the pestilence. From here the action rises by two steps. First,
Tiresias, called by Oedipus, hesitates to interpret the oracle; rendered
suspicious by the violent Oedipus, he hints in ambiguous, enigmatical terms, at
the mysterious murderer, and departs in wrath. Second step, strife of Oedipus
with Creon, separated by Jocasta. After this, climax; interview of Oedipus and
Jocasta. Jocasta’s account of the death of Laius, and Oedipus’s words, “O
woman, how, at your words, a sudden terror seizes me!” are the highest point
of the action. Up to this passage, Oedipus has summoned up a violent resistance
to the crowding conjectures; although he has been gradually growing anxious,
now the feeling of an infinite danger falls upon his soul. His rôle is the
conflict between defiant self-consciousness and unfathomable self-contempt; in
this place the first ends, the second begins. From here the action goes again
in two steps downward, with magnificent execution; the suspense is increased by
the counter-play of Jocasta; for what gives her the fearful certainty once more
deceives Oedipus; the effects of the recognitions are here masterfully treated.
The catastrophe has three divisions, messenger scene, pathos scene, closing
with a soft and reconciling note.
On the other hand, Electra, has a very simple construction. It
consists – besides prologue and catastrophe – of two stages of the ascent
and two of the fall; of these, the two standing nearest the climax are united
with this into a great scene-group, which makes specially conspicuous the
middle point of the play. The play contains not only the strongest dramatic
effect which we have received from Sophocles, but it is also, for other
reasons, very instructive, because in comparing it with the Libation
Pourers of Aeschylus and the Electra of Euripides, which treat the
same material, we recognize distinctly how the poets prepared for themselves,
one after another, the celebrated legend. In Sophocles, Orestes, the central
point of two pieces in Aeschylus’s trilogy, is treated entirely as an
accessory figure; he performs the monstrous deed of vengeance by command of and
as the tool of Apollo, deliberate, composed, with no trace of doubt or
vacillation, like a warrior who has set out upon a dangerous undertaking; and
only the catastrophe represents this chief part of the old subject
dramatically. What the piece presents is the mental perturbations of an
extremely energetic and magnificent female character, but shaped for the
requirements of the stage in a most striking manner, by changes in feeling,
through will and deed. In the prologue, Orestes and his warden give the
introduction and the exposition of the exciting force (arrival of the
avengers), which works at first in the action as a dream and presentiment of
Clytemnestra. The first stage of the rising action follows this: Electra
receives from Chrysothemis the news that she, the ever-complaining one, will be
put into prison; she persuades Chrysothemis not to pour upon the grave of the
murdered father the expiating libation which the mother has sent. Second stage:
Conflict of Electra and Clytemnestra, then climax; the warden brings the false
report of the death of Orestes; different effect of this news on the two women;
pathos scene of Electra added to this, the first step of the return.
Chrysothemis returns joyfully from her father’s grave, announces that she
found a strange lock of hair, as a pious benediction there; a friend must be
near. Electra no longer believes the good news, challenges the sister to unite
with herself and kill Aegisthos, rages against the resisting Chrysothemis, and
resolves to perform the deed alone. Second stage: Orestes as a stranger, with
the urn containing Orestes’s ashes; mourning of Electra, and recognition
scene of enrapturing beauty. The exodus contains the representation of
the avenging deed, first in the fearful mental convulsions of Electra, then the
entrance of Aegisthos and his death.
What is contained in Oedipus at Colonos appears, if one considers the
idea of the piece, extremely unfavorable for dramatic treatment. That an old
man, wandering about the country, should bestow the blessing which, according
to an oracle, was to hang over his grave, not upon his ungrateful native city,
but upon hospitable strangers – such a subject seems to the casual patriotic
feeling of an audience, rather offensive. And yet Sophocles has understood how
to charge even this with suspense, progressive elevation, passionate strife
between hatred and love. But the piece has a peculiarity of construction. The
prologue is expanded into a greater whole, which in its extreme compass
corresponds to the catastrophe; it consists of two parts, each composed of
three little scenes, connected by a pathetic moment of alternating song between
the solo players and the chorus, which enters at this unusually early point.
The first part of the prologue contains the exposition, the second scene the
exciting force – the news which Ismene brings the venerable Oedipus, that he
is pursued by those of his native city, Thebes. From here the action rises
through a single stage – Theseus, lord of the land, appears, offers his
protection – to the climax, a great conflict scene with powerful movement.
Creon enters, drags away the daughters by force, threatening Oedipus himself
with violence, in order that he shall return home; but Theseus maintains his
protecting power and sends Creon away. Hereupon follows the return action, in
two stages: The daughters, rescued by Theseus, are brought back to the old man;
Polynices, for his own selfish ends, entreats reconciliation with his father,
and his father’s return. Oedipus dismisses him unreconciled; Antigone
expresses in touching words the fidelity of a sister. Then follows the
catastrophe; the mysterious snatching away of Oedipus, a short oration scene
and chorus, then grand messenger scene and concluding song. By the expansion of
the prologue and the catastrophe, this piece becomes about three hundred lines
longer than the other plays of this writer. The freer treatment of the
permanent scene-forms, like the contents of the play, lets us perceive what we
also know from old accounts, that this tragedy was one of the last works of the
venerable poet.
Perhaps the earliest of the plays of Sophocles which have come down to us is
The Trachinian Women. Here, too, is something striking in construction.
The prologue contains only the introduction, anxiety of the wife, Deianeira,
for Hercules remaining far away from home, and the sending of the son, Hyllos,
to seek the father. The exciting force lies in the piece itself, and forms the
first half of the rising action, of two parts: first, arrival of Hercules;
second, Deianeira’s discovery that the female captive slave whom her husband
had sent in advance, was his mistress. Climax: In her honest heart, Deianeira
resolves to send to the beloved man a love-charm which a foe whom he had slain
had left her. She delivers the magic garment to the care of a herald. The
falling action, in a single stage, announces her anxiety and regret at sending
the garment; she has learned by an experiment that there is something unearthly
in the magic. The returning son tells her in heartless words, that the present
has brought upon the husband a fatal illness. Here follows the catastrophe also
in two parts; first, a messenger scene which announces the death of Deianeira;
then Hercules himself, the chief hero of the piece, is brought forward,
suffering mortal pain, as after a great pathos scene, he demands of his son the
burning of his body on Mount Oeta.
The tragedy, Ajax, contains after the prologue in three parts, a
rising movement in three stages; first, the lament and family affection of
Ajax, – and his determination to die; then the veiling of his plan, out of
regard for the sadness which it would cause his friends; finally, without our
perceiving a change of scene, an announcement by messenger, that to-day Ajax
will not come out of his tent, and the departure of his wife and the chorus to
seek the absent hero. Hereupon follows the climax – the pathos scene of Ajax
and his suicide, especially distinguished by this, that the chorus has
previously left the orchestra, so that the scene presents the character of a
monologue. Now comes the return action in three parts; first, the discovery of
the dead man, lament of Tecmessa and of Teucros, who now enters; then the
conflict between Teucros and Menelaus, who will forbid the burial. The
catastrophe at last, an intensifying of this strife in a dialogue scene between
Teucros and Agamemnon, the mediation of Odysseus, and the reconciliation.
Philoctetes is noticeable for its particularly regular form; the
action rises and falls in beautiful proportion. After a dialogue scene between
Odysseus and Neoptolemus in the prologue has made clear the premises and the
exciting force, the first part follows, the ascent, in a group of three
connected scenes; after this come the climax and the tragic force in two
scenes, of which the first is a two-part pathos scene splendidly finished; then
the third, the return action, corresponding exactly to the first, again in a
group of three connected scenes. Just as perfectly, the choruses correspond to
each other. The first song is an alternating song between the second actor and
the chorus; the third, just such an alternating song between the first actor
and the chorus. Only in the middle stands a full choral song. The resolution of
the chorus into a dramatically excited play in concert – not only in
Philoctetes but in Oedipus – is not an accident. It may be
concluded from the firm command of form, and the masterly conduct of the
scenes, that this drama belongs to the later time of Sophocles. [17]
Here, also, the first actor, Philoctetes, has the pathetic rôle. His
violent agitation, represented with marvellous beauty and in rich detail, goes
through a wide circle of moods, and arises in the climax, the great pathos
scene of the play, with soul-convulsing power. The circumstance of horrible
physical suffering, so important to the drama, and immediately following,
soul-devouring mental anguish, have never been delineated so boldly and so
magnificently. But the honest, embittered, obstinate man affords no opportunity
to the action itself for dramatic movement. This, therefore, is placed in the
soul of the second actor, and Neoptolemus is leader of the action. After he
has, in the prologue, not without reluctance, acceded to the wily counsels of
Odysseus, he attempts in the first part of the action to lead Philoctetes
forward by deception. Philoctetes confidently leans for support upon him as the
helper who promises to bring him into his own land; and he delivers to this
helper the sacred bow. But the sight of the sick man’s severe sufferings, the
touching gratitude of Philoctetes for the humanity which is shown him, arouse
the nobler feelings of the son of Achilles; and with an inward struggle, he
confesses to the sick man his purpose of taking him with his bow to the Greek
army. The reproaches of the disappointed Philoctetes increase the other’s
remorse, and his excitement is still further augmented when Odysseus, hastening
by, has Philoctetes seized by violence. At the beginning of the catastrophe,
the honesty of Neoptolemus is in strife against Odysseus himself; he gives back
to Philoctetes the deadly bow, summons him once more to follow to the army;
and, as Philoctetes refuses, promises him once more what he falsely promised at
the beginning of the play; now his achievement must be to defy the hatred of
the whole Greek army, and lead the suffering man and his ship home. Thus,
through the transformations in the character of the hero who directs the
action, this is concluded dramatically, but in direct opposition to the popular
tradition; and in order to bring the unchanging material of the piece into
harmony with the dramatic life of the play, Sophocles has seized upon a device
which is nowhere else found in his plays; he has the image of Hercules appear
in the closing scene and unsettle the resolution of Philoctetes. This
conclusion, according to our sense of fitness, an excrescence, is still
instructive in two directions: it shows how even Sophocles was restricted by
the epic rigor of a traditional myth, and how his high talent struggled against
dangers upon which, shortly after his time, the old tragedy was to be wrecked.
Further, he gives us instruction concerning the means by which a wise poet
might overcome the disadvantage of an apparition out of keeping, not with our
feeling, but with the sensibility of his spectators. He pacified his artistic
conscience first of all by previously concluding the inner dramatic movement
entirely. So far as the piece plays between Neoptolemus and Philoctetes, it is
at an end. After a violent conflict, the two heroes have nobly come to a mutual
agreement. But they have arrived at a point against which both the oracle and
the advantage of the Grecian army offer objections. The third actor, the wily,
unscrupulous statesman, Odysseus, now represents the highest interest. With the
fondness which Sophocles also elsewhere shows for even his third man, he has
here specially dignified that personage. After the counter-player has in the
prologue agreeably expressed the well-known character of Odysseus, the latter
appears immediately in a disguise in which the spectator not only knows in
advance that the strange figure is a shrewd invention of Odysseus, but also
recognizes the voice of Odysseus and his sly behavior. Three times more he
appears as Odysseus in the action, in order to point to the necessity of the
seizure as an advantage of the whole; his opposition becomes continually bolder
and more emphatic. At last, in the catastrophe, shortly before the divine hero
becomes visible on high, the warning voice of Odysseus rings out; his form,
apparently protected by the rock, appears in order once more to express
opposition; and this time his threatening cry is sharp and conscious of
victory. When, only a short time afterwards, perhaps above the same spot where
Odysseus’s figure was seen for a moment, the transfigured form of Hercules is
visible, and again with the voice of the third actor, makes the same demand in
a mild and reconciling tone, Hercules himself appears to the spectator as an
intensifying of Odysseus; and in this last repetition of the same command, the
spectator perceived nothing new entering from without; but rather he perceived
more vividly the irresistible power of the keen human intelligence which had
struggled through the entire play against the impassioned confusion of the
other actor. The prudence and calculation of this intensification, the
spiritual unity of the three rôles of the third actor, were confidently
believed by the audience to be a beauty of the piece.
IV. THE GERMANIC DRAMA.
That enjoyment of exhibitions, the representation of unusual occurrences by
acting on the stage, governed the beginnings of the Germanic drama, is still
recognized by the works of higher art as well as by the inclination of the
public, and most of all by the first attempts of our dramatic poets.
Shakespeare filled with dramatic life the old customs of a play-loving
people; from a loosely woven narrative, he created an artistic drama. But even
up to his time and that of his romantic contemporaries, there shot across
nearly two thousand years some brilliant rays from the splendid time of the
Attic theater.
To him also, the arrangement of a piece depended on the construction of his
stage. This had, even in his later time, scarcely side curtains and a simple
scaffolding in the rear, which formed a smaller raised stage, with pillars at
the sides, and a balcony above, from which steps led to the front stage below.
The chief stage had no drop curtain; the divisions of the piece could be
separated only by pauses; there were, therefore, fewer divisions than with us
now. It was not possible, as it is on our stage, to begin in the midst of a
situation, nor to leave it incomplete. In Shakespeare’s plays, all the
players must enter before they could address the audience, and they must all
make their exit before the eyes of the audience; even the dead must thus be
borne off in an appropriate manner. Only the inner stage was concealed behind
curtains, which could be drawn apart and drawn together without trouble, and
denote a convenient change of scene. First, the front space was the street, –
on which, for instance, Romeo and his companions entered in masks; when they
had departed, the curtains were drawn apart, and there was the guest-room of
the Capulets, as indicated by the servants in attendance. Capulet came forward
from the middle of the background and greeted his friends; his company poured
in upon the stage, and spread about the foreground. When the guests had
departed, the middle curtain was drawn behind Juliet and the nurse, and the
stage became a street again, from which Romeo slipped behind the curtain to be
out of sight of his boisterous friends who were calling him. When these were
gone, Juliet appeared on the balcony, the stage became a garden, Romeo
appeared, [18] and so on. Everything must be more in motion, lighter, quicker
changing of scene-groups, a more rapid coming and going, a more nimble play, a
closer concentration of the aggregate impression. Attention is called to this
oft discussed arrangement of the stage, because this dispensing with changes of
scenes, this former accustoming of the spectator to make every transition of
place and time with his own active fancy, exerted a decided influence on
Shakespeare’s manner of dividing his plays. The number of the smaller
divisions could be greater than with us, because they disturbed the whole less;
sometimes little scenes were inserted with no trouble at all. What seems to us
a breaking up of the action, was less perceptible on account of the technical
arrangement.
Moreover, Shakespeare’s audience, accustomed to the spectacular from
former times, had a preference for such plays as presented great numbers of men
in violent commotion. Processions, battles, scenes full of figures, were
preferably seen and belonged, notwithstanding the scanty equipment which on the
whole the spectacular drama of the time possessed, to the cherished additions
of a play. Like the Englishmen of that time, Shakespeare’s heroes are fond of
company. They like to appear with a train of attendants, and talk
confidentially in unrestrained conversation about the important relations of
their lives, on the market place and on the street.
In Shakespeare’s time, still, the actor must assume several rôles; but
his task now was to conceal his own distinctive personality entirely, and
clothe beautiful truth with the appearance of reality. Only the parts of women,
which were still played by men, preserved something of the ancient character of
stage play, which made the spectator a confidant in the illusion which was to
be produced.
Upon such a stage appeared Germanic dramatic art in its first and most
beautiful bloom. Shakespeare’s technique is the same, in essential respects,
that we still strive to attain. And he has, on the whole, established the form
and construction of our pieces. In the following pages the discussion must
recur to him continually; therefore, in this place, only a few of the
characteristics of his time and of his manner, which we can no longer imitate,
will be mentioned.
In the first place, the change of his scenes is too frequent for our stage;
above all, the little side scenes are disturbing. Where he binds together a
number of scenes, we must form the corresponding part of the action into a
single scene. When, for example, in Coriolanus, the dark figure of
Aufidius or of another Volscian appears from the first act forward in short
scenes, in order to indicate the counter-play, up to the second half of the
piece where this presses powerfully to the front, we are entirely at a loss, on
our stage, to make these fleeting forces effective, with the exception of the
battle scene in the beginning of the rising action. But we are obliged to
compose the scenes more strictly for the chief heroes and represent their
emotions and movements in a smaller number of situations, and therefore with
fuller elaboration.
In Shakespeare we admire the mighty power with which, after a brief
introduction, he throws excitement in the way of his heroes and impels them
swiftly in rapid upward stages to a momentous height. His method of leading the
action and the characters beyond the climax, in the first half of the play, may
also serve as a model to us. And in the second half, the catastrophe itself is
planned with the sureness and scope of genius, with no attempt at overwhelming
effect, without apparent effort, with concise execution, a consequence of the
play, following as a matter of course. But the great poet does not always have
success with the forces of the falling action, between climax and catastrophe,
the part which fills about the fourth act of our plays. In this important
place, he seems too much restrained by the customs of his stage. In many of the
greatest dramas of his artistic time, the action is divided up, in this part,
into several little scenes, which have an episodical character and are inserted
only to make the connection clear. The inner conditions of the hero are
concealed, the heightening of effects and the concentration so necessary here
fails. It is so in Hamlet, in King Lear, in Macbeth,
somewhat so in Antony and Cleopatra. Even in Julius Caesar, the
return action contains, indeed, that splendid quarrel scene and the
reconciliation between Brutus and Cassius, and the appearance of the ghost; but
what follows is again much divided, fragmentary. In Richard III., the
falling action is indeed drawn together into several great impulses; but yet
these do not in a sufficient degree correspond in stage effect to the immense
power of the first part.
We explain this characteristic of Shakespeare from a relic of the old custom
of telling the story on the stage by means of speech and responsive speech. As
the dark suspicion against the king works upon Hamlet; as Macbeth struggles
with the idea of murder; as Lear is continually plunged deeper into misery; as
Richard strides from one crime to another, – this must be represented in the
first half of the drama. The ego, the self of the hero, which
strives to achieve its design, here concentrates almost the entire interest in
itself. But from this point on, where the will has become deed, or where the
impassioned embarrassment of the hero has reached the highest degree, where the
consequences of what has happened are at work and the victory of the
counter-play begins, the significance of the opponent becomes, of course,
greater. As soon as Macbeth has murdered the king and Banquo, the poet must
turn the efforts of the murderous despot toward other men and events; other
opponents must bring the conflict with him to an end. When Coriolanus is
banished from Rome, he must be brought forward in new relations and with new
purposes. When Lear flies about as a deranged beggar, the piece must either
close, a thing which is not possible without something further, or the
remaining persons must make apparent new uses of his terrible fate.
It is also natural that from the climax downward, a greater number of new
motives, perhaps, too, of new persons, may be introduced into the piece; it is
further natural that this play of the opposing party must set forth the
influences which are exerted upon the hero from without, and therefore makes
necessary more external action and a broader elaboration of the engrossing
moment. And it is also not at all surprising that Shakespeare right here
yielded more to curiosity and to the very convenient scene-connection of his
time than is allowable on our stage.
But it is not this alone. Sometimes one can not repel the feeling that the
poet’s ardor for his heroes is lessened in the second part. It is certainly
not so in Romeo and Juliet. In the return action, Romeo, indeed, is
concealed; but the poet’s darling, Juliet, is so much the more powerfully
delineated. It is not so in Coriolanus, where the two most beautiful
scenes of the play, that in the house of Aufidius, and the grand scene with the
hero’s mother, lie in the return action. But it is strikingly so in King
Lear. What follows the hovel scene is only an episode or a divided
narrative in dialogue, with insufficient effect; the second mad scene of Lear
is also no intensifying of the first. Similarly in Macbeth, after the
frightful banquet scene, the poet is through with the inner life of his hero.
The finished witch scene, the prophesying, the dreary episode in Macduff’s
house, – few attractive figures of the counter-play fill this part, in an
arrangement of scenes which we may not imitate; and only occasionally the great
power of the poet blazes up, as in the catastrophe of Lady Macbeth.
Manifestly, it is his greatest joy, to fashion from the most secret depths
of human nature, a will and a deed. In this he is inexhaustibly rich, profound,
and powerful. No other poet equals him. If he has once rendered his hero this
service, if he has represented the spiritual processes culminating in a
portentous deed, then the counter-influence of the world, the later destiny of
the hero, does not fill him with the same interest.
Even in Hamlet, there is a noticeable weakness in the return action.
The tragedy was probably worked over several times by the poet; it was
apparently a favorite subject; he has mysteriously infused into it the most
thoughtful and penetrating poetry. But these workings-over at long intervals
have taken from the play the beautiful proportion, which is only possible in a
simultaneous moulding of all parts. Hamlet is, of course, no precipitate
of poetic moods from half a human life, like Faust; but breaks, gaps,
little contradictions in tone and speech, between characters and action,
remained ineffaceable to the poet. That Shakespeare worked out the character of
Hamlet so fondly, and intensified it till beyond the climax, makes the contrast
in the second half only so much the greater; indeed, the character itself
receives something iridescent and ambiguous, from the fact that deeper and more
spirited motives were introduced into the texture of the rising action.
Something of the old manner of bringing narrative upon the stage clung also to
the poet’s last revision; some places in Ophelia’s exit and the graveyard
scene appear to be new-cut diamonds, which the poet has set in while working
over the earlier connection.
Nevertheless it is instructive to set forth distinctly in a scheme, the
artistic combination of the drama from the constituent parts already discussed.
What is according to plan, what is designed for a certain purpose, has not been
found by the poet entirely through the same consideration which is necessary to
the reader when instituting his review. Much is evidently without careful
weighing; it has come into being as if by natural necessity, through creative
power; in other places, the poet is thoughtful, considerate, has doubted, then
decided. But the laws of his creation, whether they directed his invention
secretly and unconsciously to himself; or whether, as rules known to him, they
stimulated the creative power for certain effects, they are for us readers of
his completed works, everywhere, distinctly recognizable. This self-developing
organization of the drama, according to a law, will here be briefly analyzed,
without regard to the customary division into acts.
Introduction. 1. The key-note; the ghost appears on the platform; the
guards and Horatio. 2. The exposition itself; Hamlet in a room of state, before
the beginning of the exciting force. 3. Connecting scene with what follows;
Horatio and the guards inform Hamlet of the appearance of the ghost.
Interpolated exposition scene of the accessory action. The family of Polonius,
at the departure of Laertes.
The Exciting Force. 1. Introductory key-note; expectation of the
ghost. 2. The ghost appears to Hamlet. 3. Chief part, it reveals the murder to
him. 4. Transition to what follows. Hamlet and his confidants.
Through the two ghost scenes, between which the introduction of the chief
persons occurs, the scenes of the introduction and of the first excitement are
enclosed in a group, the climax of which lies near the end.
Ascending action in four stages. First stage: the counter-players.
Polonius propounds that Hamlet has become deranged through love for Ophelia.
Two little scenes: Polonius in his house, and before the king; transition to
what follows. Second stage: Hamlet determines to put the king to a test by
means of a play. A great scene with episodical performances, Hamlet against
Polonius, the courtiers, the actors. Hamlet’s soliloquy forms the transition.
Third stage: Hamlet’s examination by the counter-players. 1. The king and the
intriguers. 2. Hamlet’s celebrated monologue. 3. Hamlet warns Ophelia. 4. The
king becomes suspicious. These three stages of the rising action are worked out
with reference to the effect of the two others; the first becomes an
introduction, the broad and agreeable elaboration of the second forms the chief
part of the ascent; the third, through the continuation of the monologue,
beautifully connected with the second, forms the climax of the group, with
sudden descent. Fourth stage, which leads up to the climax: the play,
confirmation of Hamlet’s suspicion. 1. Introduction. Hamlet, the players and
courtiers. 2. The rendering of the play, the king. 3. Transition, Hamlet,
Horatio, and the courtiers.
Climax. A scene with a prelude, the king praying. Hamlet hesitating.
Closely joined to this, the
Tragic Force or Incident. Hamlet, during an interview with his
mother, stabs Polonius. Two little scenes, as transition to what follows; the
king determines to send Hamlet away. These three scene-groups are also bound
into a whole, in the midst of which the climax stands. At either side in
splendid working-out, are the last stage of the rising action and the tragic
force.
The Return. Introductory side-scene. Fortinbras and Hamlet on the
way. First stage: Ophelia’s madness, and Laertes demanding revenge. Side
scene: Hamlet’s letter to Horatio. Second stage: A scene; Laertes and the
king discuss Hamlet’s death. The announcement of the queen that Ophelia is
dead, forms the conclusion, and the transition to what follows. Third stage:
Burial of Ophelia. Introduction scene, with great episodical elaboration.
Hamlet and the grave-diggers. The short, restrained chief scene; the apparent
reconciliation of Hamlet and Laertes.
Catastrophe. Introductory scene: Hamlet and Horatio, hatred of the
king. As transition, the announcement of Osric; the chief scene, the killing.
Arrival of Fortinbras.
The three stages of the falling action are constructed less regularly than
those of the first half. The little side scenes without action, through which
Hamlet’s journey and return are announced, as well as the episode with the
grave-diggers, interrupt the connection of scenes. The work of the dramatic
close is of ancient brevity and vigor.
V. THE FIVE ACTS.
The drama of the Hellenes was built up in a regular system of parts, so that
between a completed introduction and the catastrophe, the climax came out
powerfully, bound by means of a few scenes of the rising and of the falling
action with the beginning and the end; within these limits was an action filled
with violent passion, and elaborately finished. The drama of Shakespeare led an
extensive action in a varied series of dramatic forces, in frequent change of
finished scenes and accessory scenes, by steep ascent, up to a lofty height;
and from this summit again downward, by stages. The whole passed before the
spectator tumultuously, in violent commotion, rich in figures and sublime
effects prominently brought forward. The German stage, on which since Lessing
our art has blossomed, collected the scenic effects into larger groups, which
were separated from each other by more marked boundaries. The effects are
carefully prepared, the ascent is slow, the altitude which is attained is less
lofty and of longer continuance; and gradually, as it arose, the action sinks
to the close.
The curtain of our stage has had a material influence on the structure of
our plays. The parts of the drama, which have been presented already, must now
be disposed in five separate divisions; they possessed greater independence,
because they were drawn farther apart from each other. The transition from the
old way of dividing the action to our five acts, was, of course, long ago
prepared. The meritorious method of binding together different moods, which the
ancient chorus between the single parts of the action represented, failed
already in Shakespeare; but the open stage, and the pauses, certainly shorter,
made, as we frequently recognize in his dramas, breaks in the connection, not
always so deep as does in our time, the close by means of the curtain, and the
interval with music, or without it. With the curtain, however, there came also
the attempt not only to indicate the environment of the person who entered, but
to carry on the performance with more pretentious elaboration by means of
painting and properties. By this means, the effects of the play were
essentially colored, and only occasionally supported. Moreover, by this means,
the different parts of the action were more distinctly separated than they were
yet in Shakespeare’s time. For by means of change of decorations often
brilliant, not only the acts, but the smaller parts of the action, became
peculiar pictures which form a contrast in color and tone. Every such change
distracts; each makes a new tension, a new intensifying, necessary.
Therefore little but important alterations were produced in the structure of
the pieces. Each act received the character of a completed action. For each, a
striking of chords to give the keynote, a short introduction, a climax in
strong relief, an effective close, were desirable. The rich equipment for
scenic surroundings compelled a restriction of the frequent change of place,
which in Shakespeare’s time had become too easy, a leaving out of
illustrative side scenes, and the laying of longer parts of the action in the
same room, and in divisions of time following immediately upon one another.
Thus the number of scenes became less, the dramatic flow of the whole more
quiet, the joining of greater and lesser forces more artistic. One great
advantage, however, was offered by closing up the stage. It would now be
possible to begin in the midst of a situation, and end in the midst of a
situation. The spectator could be more rapidly initiated into the action, and
more quickly dismissed, without taking in the bargain the preparation and the
solution of what had held him spell-bound; and that was no small gain which was
possible five times in a piece, for the beginning and the end of the effects.
But this advantage offered also a danger. The depiction of situations, the
presentation of circumstances with less dramatic movement, became easier now;
this painting especially favored, for the quiet Germans, the longer retention
of the characters in the same enclosed room. On such a changed stage, the
German poets of the last century produced their acts, till the time of
Schiller, planning with foresight, – introducing with care, – all with a
sustained movement of scenes and effects which corresponded to the measured and
formal sociability of the time.
In the modern drama, in general, each act includes one of the five parts of
the older drama; the first contains the introduction; the second, the rising
action; the third, the climax; the fourth, the return; the fifth, the
catastrophe. But the necessity of constructing the great parts of the piece in
the same fashion as to external contour, renders it impossible that the single
acts should correspond entirely to the five great divisions of the action. Of
the rising action, the first stage was usually in the first act, the last
sometimes in the third; of the falling action, the beginning and end were
sometimes taken in the third and fifth acts, and combined with the other
component parts of these acts into a whole. Naturally Shakespeare had already,
as a rule, made his divisions in this manner.
This number of acts is no accident. The Roman stage long ago adhered to it.
But only since the development of the modern stage among the French and
Germans, has the present construction of the play been established in these
countries.
In passing, it may be remarked that the five parts of the action will bear
contracting into a smaller number of acts, with lesser subjects of less
importance and briefer treatment. The three points, the beginning of the
struggle, the climax, and the catastrophe, must always be in strong contrast;
the action allows then of division into three acts. Even in the briefest
action, which may have its course in one act, there are five or three parts
always recognizable.
But as every act has its significance for the drama, so it has also its
peculiarities in construction. A great number of variations is possible here.
Every material, every poetic personality demands its own right. Still, from a
majority of works of art at hand, some frequently recurring laws may be
recognized.
The act of the introduction contains still, as a rule, the beginning of the
rising movement, and in general, the following moments or forces: the
introductory or key note, the scene of the exposition, the exciting force, the
first scene of the rising action. It will therefore be in two parts, as a
general thing, and concentrate its effects about two lesser climaxes, of which
the last may be the most prominent. Thus in Emilia Galotti, the prince
at his work-table is the key-note; the interview of the prince with the painter
is the exposition; in the scene with Marinelli lies the exciting force, the
approaching marriage of Emilia. The first ascent is in the following short
scene, with the prince, in his determination to meet Emilia at the
Dominicans’. In Tasso, the decking of the statues with garlands by the
two women indicates the prevailing mood of the piece; their succeeding
conversation and the talk with Alphonso is the exposition. Following this, the
decking of Tasso with wreaths by the princess is the exciting force; the
entrance of Antonio and his cool contempt for Tasso is the first stage of the
rising action. So in Mary Stuart, the forcing of the cabinets, the
confession to Kennedy, the entrance of Mortimer, and the great scene between
Mary and the emissaries, follow after each other. In William Tell, where
the three actions are interwoven, there stands after the situation near the
beginning, which gives the key-note, and after a short introductory colloquy of
country people, the first exciting force for the action of Tell, –
Baumgarten’s flight and rescue. Then follows as introduction to the action of
the confederated Swiss, the scene before Stauffacher’s house. After this, the
first rising action for Tell; the conversation before the hat on the pole.
Finally, for the second action, the exciting force, in the conversation of
Walter Fürst and Melchthal; the making of Melchthal’s father blind; and as
finale of the first ascent, the resolution of the three Swiss to delay at
Rütli.
The act of the ascent has for its duty in our dramas, to lead up to the
action with increased tension, in order to introduce the persons in the
counter-play who have found no place in the first act. Whether this contains
one or several stages of the progressing movement, the hearer has already
received a number of impressions; therefore in this, the struggles must be
greater, a grouping of several in an elaborate scene, and a good close to the
act, will be useful. In Emilia Galotti, for instance, the act begins, as
almost every act in Lessing does, with an introductory scene, in which the
Galotti family are briefly presented, then the intriguers of Marinelli expose
their plan. Then the action follows in two stages, the first of which contains
the agitation of Emilia after the meeting with the prince; the second, the
visit of Marinelli and his proposition to Appiani. Both great scenes are bound
together by a smaller situation scene which presents Appiani and his attitude
toward Emilia. The beautifully wrought scene of Marinelli follows the excited
mood of the family as an excellent close. The regular construction of
Tasso shows in two acts just two stages of the ascent: the approach of
Tasso to the princess, and in sharp contrast, his strife with Antonio. The
second act in Mary Stuart, in its introduction leads forward Elizabeth
and the other counter-players; it contains the rising action, Elizabeth’s
approach to Mary, in three stages: first, the strife of the courtiers in favor
of Mary and against her, and the effect of Mary’s letter upon Elizabeth;
further, the conversation of Mortimer with Leicester, introduced by the
conversation of the queen with Mortimer; finally, Leicester’s inducing
Elizabeth to see Mary. Tell, finally, compasses in this act the
exposition of its third action, the Attinghausen family; then, for the
confederated Swiss, a climax in an elaborate scene: Rütli.
The act of the climax must strive to concentrate its forces about a middle
scene, brought out in strong relief. This most important scene, however, if the
tragic force comes in here, is bound with a second great scene. In this case,
the climax scene moves well back toward the beginning of the third act. In
Emilia Galotti, the entrance of Emilia is the beginning of this highest
scene, after an introductory scene in which the prince explains the strained
situation, and after the explanatory announcement regarding the attack. The
prostration of Emilia and the declaration of the prince are the highest point
in the piece. The outbursting rage of Claudia against Marinelli follows this
closely, as a transition to the falling movement. In Tasso, the act
begins with the climax, the confessions which the princess makes to Leonora of
her attachment to Tasso. Following this, comes as first stage of the falling
movement, the interview between Leonora and Antonio, in which the latter
becomes interested in Tasso and resolves to establish the poet at court. In
Mary Stuart, the climax and the tragic force lie in the great park
scene, which is in two parts; following this and connected with it by a little
side scene, is the outburst of Mortimer’s passion to Mary, as beginning of
the falling action; the dispersion of the conspirators forms the transition to
the following act. The third act of Tell consists of three scenes, the
first of which contains a short preparatory situation scene in Tell’s house,
– Tell’s setting out; the second, the climax between Rudenz and Bertha; the
third, the greatly elaborated climax of the Tell action, – the shooting of
the apple.
The act of the return has been treated by the the great German poets, with
great and peculiar carefulness since Lessing’s time, and its effects are
almost always regular and included in a scene of much significance. On the
other hand, among us Germans, the introduction of new rôles into the fourth
act is much more frequent than in Shakespeare, whose praiseworthy custom it
was, previously to intertwine his counter-players in the action. If this is
impracticable, still one must be on his guard not to distract attention by a
situation scene, which a piece does not readily allow in this place. The
newcomers of the fourth act must quickly take a vigorous hold of the action,
and so by a powerful energy justify their appearance. The fourth act of
Emilia Galotti is in two parts. After the preparatory conversation
between Marinelli and the prince, the new character, Orsina, enters as
accomplice in the counter-play. Lessing understood very well how to overcome
the disadvantage of the new rôle, by giving over to the impassioned excitement
of this significant character, the direction of the following scenes to the
conclusion of the act. Her great scene with Marinelli is followed by the
entrance of Odoardo, as the second stage. The high tension which the action
receives by this, closes the act effectively. In Tasso, the return has
its course in just two scenes: Tasso with Leonora, and Tasso with Antonio; both
are concluded by Tasso’s monologues. The regular fourth act of Mary
Stuart will be discussed later. In William Tell, the fourth act for
Tell himself contains two stages for the falling action; his escape from the
boat, and Gessler’s death. Between these, stands the return action for the
Attinghausen family, which is interwoven here with the action of the Swiss
confederation.
The act of the catastrophe contains almost always, besides the concluding
action, the last stage of the falling action. In Emilia Galotti, an
introductory dialogue between the prince and Marinelli begins the last stage of
the falling action, that great interview between the prince, Odoardo and
Marinelli, hesitation to give back the daughter to her father, then the
catastrophe, murder of Emilia. The same in Tasso; after the introductory
conversation of Alphonso and Antonio, the chief scene; Tasso’s prayer that
his poem be restored to him; then the catastrophe, Tasso and the princess.
Mary Stuart, – otherwise a model structure in the individual acts –
shows the result of using a material which has kept the heroine in the
background since the middle of the piece, and has made the counter-player,
Elizabeth, chief person. The first scene-group, Mary’s exaltation and death,
contains her catastrophe, and an episodical situation scene, and her
confession, which seemed necessary to the poet, in order to win for her yet a
slight increase of sympathy. Closely following her catastrophe, is that of
Leicester, as connecting link to the great catastrophe of the piece,
Elizabeth’s retribution. The last act of Tell, in two parts, is only a
situation scene, with the episode of Parricida.
Of all German dramas, the double tragedy of Wallenstein has the most
intricate construction. In spite of its complexity, however, this is on the
whole regular, and combines its action firmly with Wallenstein’s
Death, as well as with The Piccolomini. Had the idea of the piece
been perceived by the poet as the historical subject presented it, – an
ambitious general seeks to seduce the army to a revolt against its commander,
but is abandoned by the majority of his officers and soldiers and slain, –
then the idea would, of course, have given a regular drama for rising and
falling action, a not insignificant excitement, the possibility of a faithful
reconstruction of the historical hero.
But with this conception of the idea, what is best is wanting to the action.
For a deliberate treason, which was firmly in the mind of the hero from the
beginning, excluded the highest dramatic task, – the working out of the
conclusion from the impassioned and agitated soul of the hero. Wallenstein must
be presented as he is turning traitor, gradually, through his own disposition,
and the compulsion of his relations; so another conception of the idea, and an
extension of the action became necessary, – a general is, through excessive
power, contentions of his adversaries, and his own pride of heart, brought to a
betrayal of his commanding officer; he seeks to seduce the army to revolt, but
is abandoned by the majority of his officers and soldiers, and slain.
With this conception of the idea, the rising half of the action must show a
progressive infatuation of the hero, to the climax, – to the determination
upon treason; then comes a part, – the seduction of the army to revolt, –
where the action hovers about the same height; finally in a mad plunge, failure
and destruction. The conflict of the general and his army had become the second
part of the play. The division of this action into the five acts would be about
the following: First act, introduction, the assembling of Wallenstein’s army
at Pilsen. Exciting force; dispatching of the imperial ambassador, Questenberg.
Second act, rising movement; Wallenstein seeks, in any case, the coöperation
of the army, through the signatures of the generals; banquet scene. Third act,
through evil suggestions, excited pride, desire of rule, Wallenstein is forced
to treat with the Swedes. Climax: Scene with Wrangel, to which is closely
joined, as the tragic force, the first victory of the adversary, Octavio; the
gaining of General Buttler for the emperor. Fourth act, return action, revolt
of the generals, and the majority of the army. Close of the act, a scene with
cuirassiers. Fifth act, Wallenstein in Eger, and his death. In the broad and
fine elaboration which Schiller did not deny himself, it was impossible for him
to crowd the material so rich in figures and in forces, so full of meaning,
into the frame of five acts.
Besides, the character of Max very soon became exceedingly important to him,
for reasons which could not be put aside. The necessity of having a bright
figure in the gloomy group created him; and the wish to make more significant
the relations between Wallenstein and his opponents, enforced this
necessity.
In intimate relation with Max, Friedland’s daughter grew to womanhood; and
these lovers, pictures characteristic of Schiller, quickly won a deep import in
the soul of the creating poet, expanding far beyond the episodical. Max, placed
between Wallenstein and Octavio, pictured to the eye of the poet a strong
contrast to either; he entered the drama as a second first hero; the episodical
love scenes, the conflicts between father and son, between the young hero and
Wallenstein, expanded to a special action.
The idea of this second action was: A high-minded, unsuspecting youth, who
loves his general’s daughter, perceives that his father is leading a
political intrigue against his general, and separates himself from him; he
recognizes that his general has become a traitor, and separates himself from
him, to his own destruction and that of the woman whom he loves. This action
presents, in its rising movement, the embarrassment of the lovers and their
passionate attachment, so far as the climax, which is introduced by Thekla’s
words, “Trust them not; they are traitors!” The relations of the lovers to
each other, up to the climax, are made known only by the exalted frame of mind
with which Max, in the first act, Thekla in the second, rise above and are in
contrast with their surroundings. After the climax, follows the return, in two
great stages, both of two scenes, the separation of Max from his father and the
separation of Max from Wallenstein; after this the catastrophe: Thekla receives
the announcement of the death of her lover, again in two scenes. With the
illumination of two such dramatic ideas, the poet concluded to interlace the
two actions into two dramas, which together formed a dramatic unit of ten acts
and a prelude.
In The Piccolomini, the exciting force is a double one, the meeting
of the generals with Questenberg, and the arrival of the lovers in the camp.
The chief characters of the piece are Max and Thekla; the climax of the play
lies in the interview of these two, through which the separation of the
guileless Max from his surroundings is introduced. The catastrophe is the
complete renouncing of his father by Max. The passages which are brought into
this play from the action of Wallenstein’s Death, are the scenes with
Questenberg, the interview of Wallenstein with the faithful ones, and the
banquet scene; also, a great part of the first, second, and fourth acts.
In Wallenstein’s Death, the exciting force is the rumored capture
of Sesina, closely connected with the interview between Wallenstein and
Wrangel; the climax is the revolt of the troops from Wallenstein, – farewell
of the cuirassiers. But the catastrophe is double; news of the death of Max,
together with Thekla’s flight, and the murder of Wallenstein. The scenes
interwoven from the action of The Piccolomini are the interview of Max
with Wallenstein and with Octavio, Thekla over against her relatives, and the
separation of Max from Wallenstein, the messenger scene of the Swedish captain,
and Thekla’s resolve to flee; also one scene and conclusion of the second
act, the climax of the third, the conclusion of the fourth act.
Now, however, such an interweaving of two actions and two pieces with each
other would be difficult to justify, if the union thus produced, the double
drama, did not itself again form a dramatic unity. This is peculiarly the case;
the interwoven action of the whole tragedy rises and falls with a certain
majestic grandeur. Therefore, in The Piccolomini, the two exciting
forces are closely coupled; the first belongs to the entire action, the second
to The Piccolomini. The drama has likewise two climaxes lying in close
proximity, of which, one is the catastrophe of The Piccolomini, the
other the opening part of Wallenstein’s Death. Again, at the close of
the last drama, there are two catastrophes, one for the lovers, the other for
Wallenstein and the double drama.
It is known that Schiller, during his elaboration of the play, laid the
boundaries between The Piccolomini and Wallenstein’s Death. The
former embraced, originally, the first two acts of the latter, and the
separation in spirit of Max from Wallenstein. This was, of course, an advantage
for the action of Max. But with this arrangement, the scene with Wrangel,
i.e. the portentous deed of Wallenstein, and besides this Buttler’s
apostacy to Octavio, i.e., the first ascent of Wallenstein’s
Death, and the first return of the entire drama, fell into the first of the
two pieces; and this would have been a considerable disadvantage; for then the
second drama would have contained, with such an arrangement, only the last part
of the return, and the catastrophe of the two heroes, Wallenstein and Max; and
in spite of the magnificent execution, the tension would have been too much
lacking to this second half. Schiller concluded, therefore, rightly, to make
the division farther back, and to end the first play with the great conflict
scene between father and son. By this division, The Piccolomini lost in
compactness, but Wallenstein’s Death gained in an indispensable order
of construction. Let it be noticed that Schiller made this alteration at the
last hour, and that he was probably governed less by his regard for the
structure of the parts, than by regard for the unequal time which the two parts
would take for representation according to the original division. The action
did not form itself in the soul of the poet, as we, following his thought in
the completed piece, might think. He perceived with the sureness of
deliberation, the course and the poetic effect of the whole; the individual
parts of the artistic structure took their places in the whole according to a
certain natural necessity. What was conformable to laws, in the combination, he
has in nowise made everywhere so distinct, through conscious deliberation, as
we are obliged to do, getting our notion from the completed masterpiece.
Nevertheless we have the right to point out what follows a law, even where he
has not consciously cast it in a mould, reflecting upon it afterward as we do.
For the entire drama, Wallenstein, in its division, which the poet
adopted, partly as a matter of course, when he first planned it, and again for
individual parts at a later date, perhaps for external reasons, is an entirely
complete and regular work of art. [19]
It is much to be regretted that our theatrical arrangements render it
impossible to represent the whole masterpiece at one performance; only in this
way would be seen the beautiful and magnificent effects, which lie in the
artistic sequence of parts. As the pieces are now given, the first is always at
the disadvantage of not having a complete close; the second, of having very
numerous presupposed circumstances, and of its catastrophe demanding too much
space – two acts. With a continuous representation, all this would come into
right relations. The splendid prologue, “The Camp,” the beautiful pictures
of which one only wants more powerfully condensed through an undivided action,
could hardly be dispensed with as an introduction. It is conceivable that a
time may come when it will be a pleasure to the German to witness his greatest
drama in its entirety. It is not impracticable, however great the strain would
be upon the players. For even when both pieces are given, one after the other,
no rôle exacts what would overtax the powers of a strong man. The spectators
of the present, also, are, in the great majority of cases, not incapable on
special occasions of receiving a longer series of dramatic effects than our
time allotted to a performance offers. But, indeed, such a performance would be
possible, if only as an exception, at a great festival occasion, and if only in
another auditorium than our theaters. For what exhausts the physical strength
of both player and spectator in less than three hours is the unearthly glare of
the gaslight, the excessive strain upon the eyes, which it produces, and the
rapid destruction of the breathable air, in spite of all attempts at
ventilation.
CHAPTER III. STRUCTURE OF SCENES.
I. ARRANGEMENT OF PARTS.
The acts – this short foreign word has driven the German term into the
background – are divided for stage purposes into scenes. The entrance and
exit of a person, servants and the like being excepted, begins and ends the
scene. Such a division of the acts is necessary to the management, in order
easily to supervise the efforts of each single rôle; and for the presentation
on the stage, the scenes represent the little units by the combination of which
the acts are formed. But the dramatic passages out of which the poet composes
his action, sometimes embrace more than one entrance and exit, or are bound
together in a greater number, by the continuance on the stage, of one person.
This passage, this single dramatic movement, takes its form through the various
stages in which the creative power of the poet works.
For, like the links of a chain, the nearly related images and ideas
interlock themselves during the poet’s labor, one evoking another with
logical coercion. The single strokes of the action thus arrange themselves in
such single parts, while the great outlines of the action the poet carries in
his soul. However diverse the work of the creative power in different minds may
be, these logical and poetical units are formed in every poetic work by
necessity; and anyone who gives careful attention, may easily recognize them in
the completed poem, and perceive in individual instances the greater or less
power, fervor, poetic fulness, and firm, neat method of work.
Such a passage includes as much of a monologue, of dialogue, of the entrance
and exit of persons as is needed to represent a connected series of poetic
images and ideas, which somewhat sharply divides itself from what precedes and
what follows. These passages are of very unequal length; they may consist of a
few sentences, they may embrace several pages; they may alone form a short
scene, they may, placed in juxtaposition, and provided with introductory words
and a conclusion leading over to what follows, form a greater complete whole,
within an act. For the poet, they are the links out of which he forges the long
chain of the action; he is well aware of their intrinsic merit and
characteristic quality, even when he, with powerful effort is creating and
welding them, one immediately after another.
Out of the dramatic moments, the poet composes scenes. This foreign word is
used by us with various meanings. It denotes to the director, first, the
stage-room itself, then the part of the action which is presented without
change of scenery. To the poet, however, scene means the union of several
dramatic moments which forms a part of the action, carried on by the same chief
person, perhaps an entire scene, from the director’s point of view, at all
events, a considerable piece of one. Since a change of scenery is not always
necessary or desirable at the exit of a leading character, the scene of the
poet and the scene of the director do not always exactly coincide. [20] An
example may be allowed here. The fourth act of Mary Stuart is divided by
the poet into twelve parts (entrances), separated by one shifting of scenery
within the act into two director scenes. It consists of two little scenes and
one great scene, – thus three dramatic scenes. The first scene, the
intriguers of the court, is composed of two dramatic moments, (1) after a short
key note, which gives the tone of the act, the despair of Aubespine, (2) the
strife between Leicester and Burleigh. The second scene, Mortimer’s end,
connected with the preceding by Leicester’s remaining on the stage, (1)
Leicester’s connecting monologue, (2) interview between Leicester and
Mortimer, (3) Mortimer’s death. The third great scene, the conflict about the
death sentence, is more artistically constructed. It is a double scene, similar
to the first and second, only with closer connection, and consists of ten
movements, of which the first four, the quarrel of Elizabeth and Leicester,
united in a group, and the last six, the signing of the death warrant, stand in
contrast. The six movements of the second half of the scene, coincide with the
last six entrances of the act; the last of these, Davison and Burleigh, is the
close of this animated passage, and the transition to the fifth act.
It is not always easy to recognize these logical units of the creating
spirit, from a completed drama; and now and then the critical judgment is in
doubt. But they deserve greater attention than has so far been accorded to
them.
It was said in the last section, that every act must be an organized
structure, which combines its part of the action in an order, conformable to a
purpose and an effect. In it, the interest of the spectator must be guided with
a steady hand, and increased; it must have its climax a great, strong,
elaborate scene. If it contains several such elaborate climaxes, these must be
united by means of shorter scenes, like joints, in such a manner that the
stronger interest will always rest on the later elaborate scene.
Like the act, every single scene, transition scene as well as finished
scene, must have an order of parts, which is adapted to express its import with
the highest effect. An exciting force must introduce the elaborate scene, the
spiritual processes in it must be represented with profusion, in effective
progression, and the results of the same be indicated by telling strokes after
its catastrophe, toward which it sweeps forward, richly elaborated; the
conclusion must come, brief, and rapid; for once its purpose attained, the
tension slackened, then every useless word is too much. And as it is to be
introduced with a certain rousing of expectation, so its close needs a slight
intensifying, specially a strong expression of the important personalities, at
the time they leave the stage. The so-called exits are no unwarranted desire of
the player, however much they are misused by a crude effort for effect. The
marked division at the end of the scene, and the necessity of transferring the
suspense to what follows, rather justify them as an artifice, specially at the
close of an act, but of course in moderate use.
The poet has frequent occasion, during the presentation of a piece on our
stage, to rage against the long intervals which are caused by the shifting of
the scenery, and sometimes by the useless changing of costumes. It must be the
poet’s concern, as much as possible to restrict the actor’s excuse for this
practice; and when a change of costume is necessary, have regard to it in the
arrangement of the action of the piece. A longer interval – that should never
be more than five minutes – may, according to the nature of the piece, follow
the second or third act. The acts which stand together in closer relation, must
not be separated by a pause; what follows a pause, must have the power to
gather up forces, and excite a new suspense. Therefore, pauses between the
fourth and fifth acts are most disadvantageous. These last two parts of the
action should seldom be separated more markedly than would be allowable between
two single scenes. The poet must guard against the production, in this part of
the action, of closing effects which, on account of the shifting of scenery
hard to manage, and the introduction of new crowds, occasion delay.
But even the shifting of scenery within the limits of an act, is no
indifferent matter. For every change in the appearance of the stage during an
act, makes a new, strong line of separation; and the distraction of the
spectator is increased, since the custom has been adopted in modern times, of
concealing the process of changing scenes from the spectator, by the drop
curtain. For now it is impossible to tell, except by the color of the curtain,
whether the break is made only for the sake of the management, or whether an
act is ended. In view of this inconvenience, it must be the poet’s zealous
care to make any change of scenes in the act unnecessary; and it will be well
if during the process of composition, he relies on his own power to achieve
everything in this direction; for frequently a change of the scenery seems to
his embarrassed soul quite inevitable, while in most cases, by slight
alterations in the action, it might be avoided. But if the shifting of curtains
is not entirely unavoidable during an act, care may yet be taken, at least not
to have it occur in the acts which demand the greatest elaboration, specially
the fourth, where without this the full skill of the poet is necessary in order
to secure progressive power. Such a disturbing break is most easily overcome in
the first half of the action. In the alternation of finished and connecting
scenes, there lies a great effect. By this, every part of the whole is set in
artistic contrast with its surroundings; the essentials are set in a stronger
light, the inner connection of the action is more intelligible in the
alternating light and shadow. The poet must, therefore, carefully watch his
fervid feeling, and examine with care what dramatic forces are for the
essentials of his action, what for accessories. He must restrain his
inclination to depict fully certain kinds of characters or situations, in case
these are not of importance to the action; if, however, he cannot resist the
charm of this habit, if he must deviate from this law and accord to an
unessential force broader treatment, he will do it with the understanding that
by special beauty of elaboration and finish, he must atone for the defect thus
caused in the structure.
The subordinate scene, however, whether it be the echo of a chief scene, or
the preparation for a new scene, or an independent connecting member, will
always give the poet the opportunity to show his talent for the rôles, in the
use of the greatest brevity. Here is the place for terse, suggestive sketching,
which can, in a few words, afford a gratifying insight into the inmost being of
the figures in the background.
II. THE SCENES AND THE NUMBER OF PERSONS.
The freedom in the construction of scenes for our stage, and the greater
number of the actors, make it apparently so easy for the poet to conduct his
action through a scene, that often, in the new drama, the customary result of
an excessive lack of restraint is to be regretted. The scene becomes a jumble
of speeches and responses, without sufficient order; while it has a wearying
length and smooth flowing sentences, neither elevation nor contrasts are
developed with any power. Of course, there is not a total lack of connection in
the scenes in the most bewildered work of the amateur; for the forms are to
such a degree the expression of the character, that dramatic perception and
feeling, even though unschooled, is accustomed to hit what is the correct
thing, in many essentials; but not always, and not every one. Let the poet,
therefore, during his work, critically apply a few well known rules.
Since the scene is a part of the drama, set off from other parts, and is to
prepare for the meaning of what follows in itself, to excite interest, to place
a final result in a good light, and then to lead over to what may follow in the
next scene, – minutely examined, it will be found to contain five parts,
which correspond to the five divisions of the drama. In well wrought scenes,
these parts are collectively effective. For it is impracticable to conduct the
action in a straight line to the final result. A. feels, wills, demands
something. B. meets him, thinking with him, disagreeing with him, opposing him.
In every case, the projects of the one are checked by the other, and for a time
at least, turned aside. In such scenes, whether they present a deed, a battle
of words, an exhibition of feeling, it is desirable that the climax should not
lie in a direct line which leads from the supposed conditions previous to the
action, to the final results; but that it indicate the last point in a
deviating direction, from which point the return action falls to the direct
line again. Let it be the business of a scene to render B. harmless through A.;
its proposed result, B’s promise to be harmless. Beginning of the scene: A.
entreats B. to be no longer a disturber of the peace; if B. is already willing
to yield to this wish, a longer scene is not needed. If he accepts passively
A’s reasons, the scene moves forward in a direct line; but it is in great
danger of becoming wearisome. But if B. puts himself on his defensive, and
persists in continuing the disturbance or denies it, then the dialogue runs to
a point where B. is as far as possible from the wish of A. From here, an
approach of points of view begins, the reasons put forth by A. show themselves
strongest, till B. yields.
But since every scene points to what follows, this pyramidal structure is
frequently changed into the profile of a shore-beating wave, with long
ascending line, and short falling side, – beginning, ascent, final result.
According to the number of persons they contain, scenes are determined
differently, and are subject to varied arrangement. The monologue gives the
hero of the modern stage opportunity, in perfect independence of an observing
chorus, to reveal to the audience his most secret feeling and volition. It
might be supposed that such confiding to the hearer would be very acceptable;
but it is often not the case. So great is the influence of the struggle of each
man, on every purpose of the drama, that every isolation of an individual must
have a special justification. Only where a rich inner life has been concealed
for a long time in the general play, does the auditor tolerate its private
revelation. But in cases where artistic intrigue playing will make the audience
a confidant, the spectator cares little for the quiet expression of an
individual; he prefers to gather for himself the connection and the contrasts
of characters, from a dialogue. Monologues have a likeness to the ancient
pathos-scene; but with the numerous opportunities which our stage offers for
characters to expose their inner lives, and with the changed purpose of
dramatic effects through the actor’s art, they are no necessary additions to
the modern drama.
Since monologues represent a pause for rest in the course of the action, and
place the speaker in a significant manner before the hearer, they need in
advance of themselves an excited tension of feeling in the audience, and then a
line of division either before or after them. But whether they open an act or
close it, or are placed between two scenes of commotion, they must always be
constructed dramatically. Something presented on one side, something on the
other side; final result, and indeed, final result that wins something
significant for the action itself. Let the two monologues of Hamlet in the
rising action be compared. The second celebrated soliloquy “To be or not to
be,” is a profound revelation of Hamlet’s soul, but no advance at all for
the action, as it introduces no new volition of the hero; through the
exposition of the inner struggle, it only explains his dilatoriness. The
previous monologue, on the contrary, a masterpiece of dramatic emotion, –
even this, the outburst resulting from the previous scene, has as its
foundation a simple resolution; Hamlet says: (1) “The actor exhibits so great
earnestness in mere play; (2) I sneak along inactive, in the midst of the
greatest earnestness; (3) to the work! I will institute a play, in order to win
resolution for an earnest deed.” In this last sentence, the result of the
entire preceding scene is at once concentrated, the effect which the interview
with the players produces on the character of the hero, and on the course of
the action.
Effective soliloquies have naturally become favorite passages with the
public. In Schiller’s and in Goethe’s plays, they are presented with great
fondness by the rising generation. Lessing would hardly have sought this kind
of dramatic effects, even if he had written more than Nathan The Wise in
our iambics.
Next to the monologues, stand the announcements by messenger in our drama.
As the former represent the lyric element, the latter stand for the epic. They
have been already discussed. Since it is their task to relieve the tension
already produced that they may be well received, the effect which they produce
on the counter-players of the messenger, or perhaps on himself, must be very
apparent. An intense counter-play must accompany and interrupt a longer
communication, without, of course, outdoing it. Schiller, who is very fond of
these messenger speeches, gives copious examples which serve not only for
imitation but for warning. Wallenstein alone contains a whole assortment
of them. In the beautiful model speeches, “There is in human life,” and
“We stand not idly waiting for invasion,” the poet has connected the
highest dramatic suspense with the epic situations. Wallenstein’s inspiration
and prophetic power appear nowhere so powerful as in his narratives. In the
announcement of the Swede, however, the dumb play of the mortally wounded
Thekla is in the strongest contrast with the behavior and the message of the
active stranger. Moreover, this drama has other descriptions, – for example,
the Bohemian cup and the room of the astrologer, – the curtailing or removal
of which would be an advantage on the stage.
The most important part of an action has its place in the dialogue scenes,
specially scenes between two persons. The contents of these scenes, –
something set forth, something set forth against it, perception against
perception, emotion against emotion, volition against volition, – have with
us, deviating from the uniform method of the ancients, found the most manifold
elaboration. The purpose of every colloquy scene is to bring into prominence
from the assertions and counter-assertions, a result which impels the action
further. While the ancient dialogue was a strife, which usually exercised no
immediate influence on the soul of the participants, the modern dialogue
understands how to persuade, demonstrate, bring over to the speaker’s point
of view. The arguments of the hero and his adversary are not, as in the Greek
tragedy, rhetorical word-contests; but they grow out of the character and
spirit of the persons contending; and the hearer is carefully instructed how
far they are to express real feeling and conviction, and how far they shall
mislead.
The aggressor must arrange the grounds of his attack exactly according to
the personal character of his antagonist, or he must draw his motives truly
from the depths of his own being. But in order that what has a purpose, or what
is true, may be fully conceived by the hearer, there is needed a certain trend
of speech and reply on the stage, not in the regular course, conformable to
custom, as among the Greeks or old Spanish, but essentially different from the
way in which we undertake to convince any one in real life. To the character on
the stage, time is limited; he has no arguments to bring forward in a
continuously progressive order of effects; he has to explain impressively for
his hearer, what is most effective for the time and situation. In reality, such
a conflict of opinions may be in many parts, and may rest upon numerous grounds
and opposing grounds; the victory may long hang doubtful; possibly an
insignificant, subordinate reason may finally determine the outcome; but this
is not, as a rule, possible on the stage, as it is not effective.
Therefore, it is the duty of the poet to gather up these contrasts in a few
utterances, and to express their inner significance with continuous,
progressive force. In our plays, the reasonings of one strike like waves
against the soul of the other, broken at first by resistance, then rising
higher, till, perhaps, at last they rise above the resistance itself. It
happens according to an old law of composition, that frequently the third such
wave-beat gives the decision; for if the proposition and counter-proposition
have each made two excursions, by these two stages the hearer is sufficiently
prepared for the decision; he has received a strong impulse, and has been
rendered capable of conveniently comparing the weight of the reasons with the
strength of the character on which they are to work. Such dialogue scenes have
been finely elaborated with great attractiveness on our stage, since
Lessing’s time. They correspond much to the joy of the Germans in a rational
discussion of a matter of business. Celebrated rôles of our stage are indebted
for their success to them alone, – Marinelli, Carlos in Clavigo,
Wrangel in Wallenstein.
Since the poet must so fashion the dialogue scene that the progress which it
makes for the action becomes impressed upon the hearer, the technique of these
scenes will be different according to the position in which they find the
participants, and in which they leave them. The matter will be simplest when
the intruder overcomes the one whom he attacks; then two or three approaches
and separations occur, till the victory of one, or if the attacked person is
more tractable, there is a gradual coming over. A scene of such persuasion, of
simple structure, is the dialogue in the beginning of Brutus and Cassius’
relations; Cassius presses, Brutus yields to his demands. The dialogue has a
short introduction, three parts, and a conclusion. The middle part is of
special beauty and great finish. Introduction, Cassius says, in effect, “You
seem unfriendly toward me, Brutus.” Brutus, “Not from coldness.” The
parts: 1. Cassius, “Much is hoped from you” (frequently interrupted with
assurances that Brutus can trust him, and from cries without, calling attention
to Caesar). 2. “What is Caesar more than we?” 3. “Our wills shall make us
free.” Conclusion, Brutus, “I will consider it.”
But if the speakers separate without coming to terms, their position with
reference to each other must not remain unchanged during the scene. It is
intolerable to the audience to perceive such lack of progress in the action. In
such a case, the trend of one or both must be broken, enough so, that in
another place in the action they apparently agree, and after this point of
apparent agreement again turn away from each other with energy. The inner
emotions through which these changes of relation are affected, must be not only
genuine but adapted to produce what follows, not mere conflicting whims
arranged for the sake of a scenic effect but of no service to the action or the
characters.
By unconnected talk, it is possible to bring into the field numerous reasons
and counter-reasons, and to give the lines a sharper turn; but on the whole,
the structure remains in form, as was indicated in the comparison with a
roaring wave; a gradual movement upward to the climax, result, a short close.
This is illustrated in the great quarrel scene between Egmont and Orange,
indeed the best wrought part of the drama. It is composed of four parts, before
which there is an introduction, and after which there is a conclusion.
Introduction, Orange: “The queen regent will depart.” Egmont: “She will
not.” First part, Orange: “And if another comes?” Egmont: “He will do
as his predecessor did.” Second part, Orange: “This time, he will seize our
heads.” Egmont: “That is impossible.” Third part, Orange: “Alba is
under way; let us go into our province.” Egmont: “Then we are rebels.”
Here there is a turn; from this point, Egmont is the aggressor. Fourth part,
Egmont: “You are acting irresponsibly.” Orange: “Only with foresight.”
Orange: “I will go and deplore you as lost.” The last uniting of these
disputants into a harmonious spirit forms a fine contrast to Egmont’s
previous violence.
The scenes between two persons have received special significance in the new
drama, scenes in which two persons seem decidedly to cherish one opinion, love
scenes. They have not originated in the ephemeral taste, or passing tenderness
of poets and spectators, but through an original mental characteristic of the
Germans. Ever since the earliest times, love-making, the approach of the young
hero to a young maiden, has been specially charming to German poetry. It has
been the ruling poetic inclination of the people to surround the relations of
lovers before marriage, with a dignity and a nobility of which the ancient
world knew nothing. In no direction has the contrast of the Germans with
ancient peoples shown itself more markedly; through all the art of the middle
ages, even to the present, this significant feature is noticeable. Even in the
serious drama, it prevails with a higher justification. This most attractive
and lovely relation of all the earth, is brought into connection with the dark
and awful, as complementary contrast, for the highest degree of tragic
effect.
During the poet’s work, indeed, these scenes are not the most convenient
part of his creation; and everyone will not succeed in them. It is not a
useless work to compare with each other the greatest love scenes in our
possession, the three scenes with Romeo at the masked ball, the balcony scene,
before and after the marriage night, and Gretchen in the garden. In the first
Romeo scene, the poet has set the most difficult task for the actor’s art; in
it, the speech of the beginning passion is wonderfully abrupt and brief; from
behind the polite play of words, which was current in Shakespeare’s time, the
growing feeling appears only in lightning flashes. Indeed, the poet perceived
into what difficulties a fuller speech would plunge him. The first balcony
scene has always been considered a masterpiece of the poetic art; but when one
analyzes the exalted beauty of its verses, one is astonished to find how
eloquently, and with what unrestrained enjoyment, the spirits of the lovers are
able to sport with their passionate feeling. Beautiful words, delicate
comparisons, are so massed that we sometimes almost feel the art to be artful.
For the third, the morning scene, the idea of the old minnesongs, and
popular songs, – the song of the watchmen, – are made use of in a most
charming manner.
Goethe, also, in his most beautiful love scene has made poetic use of
popular reminiscences; he has composed the declaration of love, in his own
manner, out of little lyric and epic moments, which – though not entirely
favorable for a great effect, – he interrupts through the incisive contrast,
Martha and Mephistopheles. This circumstance, also, reminds us that the
dramatist was a great lyric poet, in that Faust retires for the most part, and
the scenes are not much other than soliloquies of Gretchen. But each of the
three little parts of which the picture is composed is of wonderful beauty.
To the enthusiastic Schiller, on the other hand, while he was writing
iambics, success in this kind of scenes was not accorded. He succeeded best in
The Bride of Messina. But in William Tell, the scene between
Rudenz and Bertha is without life; and even in Wallenstein, when such a
scene was quite necessary, he has through the absence of Countess Terzky put a
damper on it; Thekla must keep the loved one from the camp and from the
astrologer’s room, till finally by herself for a brief time, she can utter
the significant warning.
The brilliant examples of Shakespeare and Goethe show, also, the danger of
these scenes. This, too, must be discussed. The utterance of lyric emotions on
the stage, if it is at all continued, will, in spite of all poetic art,
certainly weary the hearer; it becomes the dramatic poet’s profitable task
then, to invent a little occurrence in which the ardent feeling of the loving
pair can express itself by mutual participation in a moment of the action; in
this way he possesses the dramatic thread on which to string his pearls. The
sweet love chatter which has no purpose beyond itself, he will rightly avoid;
and where it is inevitable, he will replace with the beauty of poetry what he,
as a conscientious man, must take from the length of such scenes.
The entrance of a third person into the dialogue gives it a different
character. As through the third man the stage picture receives a middle point,
and the setting up of a group, so the third man often becomes, in import, an
arbitrator or judge before whom the two parties lay the reasons they have at
heart. These reasons of the two parties are, in such a case, arranged directly
for him, according to his disposition, and thereby take on the nature of
something that is known. The course of the scene becomes slower; between speech
and response, a judgment enters which must, also, present itself to the hearer
with some significance. Or the third player is himself a party and associate of
one side. In this case, the utterances of one party will become more rapid,
must break out with more feeling, because from the interested hearer, greater
intensity of attention is exacted, while he must put the character and import
of two persons in one scale.
Finally, the third and most infrequent case is that each of the three sets
up his will against the other two. Such scenes are sometimes serviceable as the
last notes of a relieved suspense. They have but a brief service to render; for
the three speakers utter themselves really in monologues: thus the scene with
Margaret in Richard III., where one character gives the melody, both the
other characters in contrasts give the accompaniment. But such scenes with
three players rarely gain significance in greater elaboration, except when at
least one of the players goes over to the point of view of another in simulated
play.
Scenes which collect more than three persons for active participation in the
action, the so-called ensemble scenes, have become an indispensable
element in our drama. They were unknown to the old tragedy; a part of their
service was replaced by a union of a solo actor and the chorus. They do not
comprise, in the newer drama, specially, the highest tragic effects, although a
greater part of the most animated action is executed in them. For it is a truth
not sufficiently regarded, that what originates from many, or consists of many
things, excites and holds attention less than what receives its vividness or
comes alive from the soul of the chief figures. The interest in the dramatic
life of the subordinate characters is less, and the remaining of many
participants on the stage may easily distract the eye or the curiosity, rather
than attract and arouse. On the whole, the nature of these scenes is that by
good management on the part of the poet, they keep the audience busily occupied
and relieve the suspense created by the chief heroes; or they help to call
forth such a suspense in the souls of the chief figures. They have, therefore,
the character of preparatory, or of closing scenes.
It hardly need be mentioned that their peculiarities do not always become
apparent when more than three persons are on the stage. For when a few chief
rôles alone, or almost exclusively, present the action, accessory figures may
be desirable in considerable number. A council scene or parade scene may easily
collect a multitude of actors on the stage, without their coming forward
actively in the action.
The first direction for the construction of the ensemble scene is,
the whole company must be occupied in a manner characteristic of the persons
and as the action demands. They are like invited guests, for whose mental
activity the poet must, as invisible host, have incessant care. During the
progress of the action, he must perceive clearly the effects which the
individual processes, speech, response, produce on each of the participants in
the play.
It is evident that one person must not express in the presence of another
person on the stage, what this one is not to hear; the usual device of an
aside must be used only in extreme cases, and for a few words. But there
is a greater difficulty. A rôle must also not express anything to which
another person present is to give an answer which, according to his character,
is necessary, but which would be useless and clogging to the action. In order
to be just to all characters in a scene full of persons, the poet must have
unrestricted mastery of his heroes, and a clear vision for stage pictures. For
every individual rôle influences the mood and bearing of every other, and has
a tendency, besides, to limit the freedom of expression of the others. In such
scenes, therefore, the art of the poet will specially show itself by setting
the characters in contrast, through sharp little strokes. And it is well to
observe that suitably to occupy all of the collected persons is rendered
difficult by the nature of our stage, which incloses the actors by its curtains
as in a hall; and if the poet does not take definite precautions, as it is
often impossible to do, this makes the separation of individuals difficult.
But further, the more numerous the actors invited into a scene, the less
space individuals have to express themselves in their own way. The poet must
also see to it that the respective parts of the action are not broken up into
fragments by the greater number of participants and made to move forward
monotonously in little waves; and as he arranges the persons in groups, he must
likewise arrange the action of the scene so that the movement of subordinate
rôles does not excessively limit the movement of the leading characters. Hence
the value of the principle: the greater the number of persons in a scene, the
stronger must be the organization of the structure. The chief parts must then
be so much the more prominent, now the individual leading moods in contrast
with the majority, now the cooperation of the whole stand in the foreground.
Since with a greater number of players, the individual is easily concealed,
those places in the ensemble scene are specially difficult in which the
effect of any thing done is made to appear upon individual participants. When
in such a case, a single brief word thrown in does not suffice to inform the
spectator, some contrivance is needed which, without appearing to do so,
separates the individual from the group and brings him to the front. It is
entirely impracticable in such a case suddenly to interrupt the dramatic
movement of the majority, and convert all the others into silent and inactive
spectators of the private revelations of an individual.
The more rapidly the action moves forward in concerted play, the more
difficult the isolation of the individual becomes. When the action has attained
a certain height and momentum, it is not always possible even with the greatest
art, to afford the chief actor room for a desirable exhibition of his inmost
mood. Hence for such scenes, the value of the third law: the poet will not have
his persons say all that is characteristic of them, and that would be necessary
in itself for their rôles. For here arises an inner opposition between the
requisites of single rôles and the advantage of the whole. Every person on the
stage demands a share for himself in the progress of the action, so far as his
associated relation with the other characters of the scene allows it. The poet
is under the necessity, however, of limiting this share. Even chief characters
must sometimes accompany with dumb play, when in real life opportunity would be
given to engage in the conversation. On the other hand, a long silence is
embarrassing to a player, the subordinate character becomes wearied and sinks
into a stage walker, the chief character feels keenly the wrong which is done
to his part; far less, he feels its higher necessity. It does not always
suffice for the right aggregate effect, that the poet have regard to the
activity of the rôles not standing entirely in the foreground, and by means of
a few words, or by means of a not unknown employment, afford to the actor a
certain direction for his dumb play, and at the same time a transition to the
place where he shall again participate in the action. There are extreme cases
where the same thing is valuable in a scene, that is allowed in a great
painting showing numerous figures in vigorous action and complication. Just as
in the picture, the swing of the chief lines is so important that the right
foreshortening of an arm or a foot must be sacrificed to it, so in the strong
current of a scene rich in figures, the representation necessary for individual
characters must be given up for the sake of the course, and the aggregate
effect of the scene. In order that the poet may be able to practice
attractively such offered deceptions, his understanding must be clear that in
themselves they are blemishes.
It is really to the advantage of a piece, to limit the number of players as
much as possible. Every additional rôle makes the setting more difficult, and
renders the repetition of the piece inconvenient, in case of the illness or
withdrawal of an actor. These external considerations alone will determine the
poet to weigh well, in composing his ensemble scenes, what figures are
absolutely indispensable. Here comes an internal consideration: the greater the
number of accessory persons in a scene, so much the more time it claims.
The ensemble scenes are, of course, an essential help to give to the
piece color and brilliancy. They can hardly be spared in using historical
subjects. But they must be used in such pieces with moderation, because more
than the others they make success depend on the skill of the manager, and
because in them, the elaborate representation of the inner life of the chief
figures, a minute portrayal of the mental processes, which claim the highest
dramatic interest, is much more difficult. The second half of the piece will
demand them most urgently, because here the activity of the counter-players
comes forward more powerfully, tolerated, however, without injury, only when in
this division of the action, the ardent sympathy of the spectators has already
been immovably fixed with the chief characters. Here, too, the poet must take
care not to keep the inner life of the hero too long concealed.
One of the most beautiful ensemble scenes of Shakespeare is the
banquet scene in Pompey’s galley, in Antony and Cleopatra. It contains
no chief part of the action, and is essentially a situation scene, a thing not
occurring frequently in the tragic part of the action in Shakespeare. But it
receives a certain significance, because it is at the close of the second act,
and also stands in a place demanding eminence, especially in this piece, in
which the preceding political explanations make a variegated and animated
picture very desirable. The abundance of little characterizing traits which are
united in this scene, their close condensation, above all, the technical
arrangement, are admirable. The scene is introduced by a short conversation
among servants, as is frequently the case in Shakespeare, in order to provide
for the setting of the tables and the arrangement of the furniture on the
stage. The scene itself is in three parts. The first part presents the haughty
utterances of the reconciled triumvirs, and the pedantry of the drunken
simpleton, Lepidus, to whom the servants have already referred; the second, in
terrible contrast, is the secret interview of Pompey and Menas; the third,
introduced by the bearing out of the drunken Lepidus, is the climax of the wild
Bacchanalia and rampant drunkenness. The connecting of the three parts, as
Menas draws Pompey aside, as Pompey again in the company of Lepidus, resuming,
continues the carouse, is quite worthy of notice. Not a word in the whole scene
is without its use and significance; the poet perceives every moment the
condition of the individual figures, and of the accessory persons; each takes
hold of the action effectively; for the manager, as well as for the rôles, the
whole is adapted in a masterly way. From the first news of Antony across the
Nile, – through which the image of Cleopatra is introduced even into this
scene, – and the simple remark of Lepidus, “You have strange serpents
there,” through which an impression is made on the mind of the hearer, that
prepares for Cleopatra’s death by a serpent’s sting, to the last words of
Antony, “Good; give me your hand, sir,” in which the intoxicated man
involuntarily recognizes the superiority of Augustus Caesar, and even to the
following drunken speeches of Pompey and Enobarbus, everything is like fine
chiseled work on a firmly articulated metal frame.
A comparison of this scene with the close of the banquet act in The
Piccolomini, is instructive. The internal similarity is so great that one
is obliged to think Schiller had the Shakespearean performance before his eyes.
Here also, a poetic power is to be admired, which can conduct a great number of
figures with absolute certainty; and here is a great wealth of significant
forces, and a powerful climax in the structure. But what is characteristic of
Schiller, these forces are partly of an episodical nature; the whole is planned
more broadly and extensively. This last has its justification. For the scene
stands at the end, not of the second, but of the fourth act, and it contains an
essential part of the action, the acquisition of the portentous signature; it
would have had a still greater place if the banquet did not fill the entire
act. The connection of parts is exactly as in Shakespeare. [21] First comes an
introductory conversation between servants, which is spun out in
disproportionate dimensions; the description of the drinking cup has no right
to take our attention, because the cup itself has nothing further to do with
the action, and the numerous side lights which fall from this description upon
the general situation are no longer strong enough. Then comes an action, also
in three parts: first, Terzky’s endeavor to get the signature from accessory
persons; second, in sharp contrast with the first, the brief conversation of
the Piccolomini; third, the decision, as a strife of the drunken Illo with Max.
Here the union of the individual parts of the scene is very careful. Octavio,
through Buttler’s cautious investigation, quietly calls attention away from
the excited group of generals toward his son; through the search for the
wanting name, attention is completely turned to Max. Hereupon the intoxicated
Illo turns first with great significance to Octavio before his collision with
Max. The uniting and separating of the different groups, the bringing into
prominence the Piccolomini, the excited side-play of the accessory characters,
even to the powerful close, are very beautiful.
Besides, we possess two powerful mass scenes of Schiller, the greatest out
of the greatest time of our poetic art; the Rütli scene, and the first act of
Demetrius. Both are models which the beginner in dramatic work may not
imitate, but may study carefully, in their sublime beauty. Whatever must be
said against the dramatic construction of William Tell, upon single
scenes there rests a charm, which continually carries one away with new
admiration. In the Rütli scene, the dramatic movement is a moderately
restrained one, the execution broad, splendid, full of beautiful local color.
First, there is an introduction, the mood. It consists of three parts: arrival
of the under forester, interview of Melchthal and Stauffacher, greeting of the
cantons. Let it be noted that the poet has avoided wearying by a triple
emphasizing of the entrance of the three cantons. Two chief figures here bring
themselves into powerful contrast with the subordinate figures, and form a
little climax for the introduction; and distraction through several forces of
equal impulse, is avoided. With the entrance of the Urians, through whose horn
the descent from the mountain, and the discourse of those present is
sufficiently emphasized, the action begins. This action runs along in five
parts. First, appointment for public meeting, with short speeches and hearty
participation of the subordinate persons; second, after this, Stauffacher’s
magnificent representation of the nature and aim of the confederation; third,
after this powerful address of the individual, excited conflict of opinions and
parties concerning the position of the confederation with reference to the
emperor; fourth, high degree of opposition, even to an outbreaking strife over
the means of release from the despotism of the governors, and disagreement over
the conclusions. Finally, fifth, the solemn oath. After such a conclusion of
the action, there is the dying away of the mood which takes its tone from the
surrounding nature, and the rising sun. With this rich organization, the beauty
in the relations of the single parts is especially attractive. The middle point
of this whole group of dramatic incidents or forces, Stauffacher’s address,
comes out as climax; after this as contrast, the restless commotion in the
masses, the dawning satisfaction, and the lofty exaltation. Not less beautiful
is the treatment of the numerous accessory figures, the independent seizing
upon the action by single little rôles, which in their significance for the
scene stand near each other with a certain republican equality of
justification.
The greatest model for political action is the opening scene in
Demetrius, the Polish parliament. The subject of this drama makes the
communication of many presupposed conditions necessary; the peculiar adventures
of the boy, Demetrius, demanded a vigorous use of peculiar colors, in order to
bring that strange world poetically near. Schiller, with the bold majesty
peculiar to himself, made the epic narrative the center of a richly adorned
spectacular scene, and surrounded the long recital of the individual, with the
impassioned movements of the masses. After a short introduction follows, with
the entrance of Demetrius, a scene in four parts, (1) the narrative of
Demetrius, (2) the short, condensed repetition of the same by the archbishop,
and the first waves which are thereby excited in the gathering, (3) the
entreaty of Demetrius for support, and the increase of the agitation, (4)
counter argument and protest of Sapieha. The scene ends with tumult and a
sudden breaking off. By means of a slight dramatic force, it is connected with
the following dialogue between Demetrius and the king. The excitement of the
subordinate characters is brief but violent, the leaders of opinion few; except
Demetrius, there is only one raising strong opposition, from all the mass. It
is perceived and felt that the masses have been given their mood in advance;
the narrative of Demetrius, in its elegant elaboration forms the chief part of
the scene, as was befitting for the first act.
Goethe has left us no mass scene of great dramatic effect unless we are to
consider some short scenes in Götz as such. The populace scenes in
Egmont lack in powerful commotion; the beautiful promenade in
Faust is composed of little dramatic pictures; the student scene in
Auerbach’s cellar proposes no tragic effect, and presents to the actor of
Faust, the disadvantage that it leaves him idle, unoccupied on the stage.
The action scenes in which great masses work, demand the special support of
the manager. If our stages have already, in the chorus personnel of the opera,
a tolerable number of players, and these are accustomed to render service as
stage-walkers, yet the number of persons who can be collected on the stage is
often so small as to be lost sight of, when compared with the multitude which
in real life participate in a populace scene, in a fight, in a great uproar.
The auditor, therefore, easily feels the emptiness and scantiness as he sits
before the little crowd that is led in. It is also a disadvantage that the
modern stage is little adapted to the disposition of great masses. Now, of
course, the external arrangement of such scenes is for the most part in the
hands of the manager; but it is the poet’s task through his art, to make it
easy for the manager to produce the appearance of a lively multitude on the
stage.
Since the entrance and exit of a great number of persons requires
considerable time and distracts attention, this must be attracted and retained
by suggestive little contrivances, and through the distribution of the masses
in groups.
The space of the stage must be so arranged, that the comparatively small
number of really available players can not be overlooked, – by shifting
side-scenes, good perspective, an arrangement along the sides that shall
suggest to the fancy greater invisible multitudes which make themselves
noticeable by signs and calls to each other behind the scenes.
Brilliant spectacular pageants, such as Iffland arranged for The Maid of
Orleans, the composer of a tragedy will deny himself with right; he will
avoid as much as possible, the opportunity for this.
On the other hand, mass effects in which the multitude surges in violent
commotion, populace-scenes, great council assemblies, camps, battles, are
sometimes desirable.
For populace scenes, the beautiful treatment of Shakespeare has become a
model often patterned after, – short, forcible speeches of individual
figures, almost always in prose, interrupting and enlivening cries of the
crowd, which receives its incitement from individual leaders. By means of a
populace-scene on the stage, other effects may be produced, not the highest
dramatic effects, but yet significant, which till the present time have been
little esteemed by our poets. Since we should not give up verse in populace
scenes, another treatment of the crowd is offered than that which Shakespeare
loved. Now the introduction of the old chorus is impossible. The new animation
which Schiller attempted, dare not find imitation, in spite of the fulness of
poetic beauty which is so enchanting in the choruses of the Bride of
Messina. But between the chief actors and a great number of subordinate
actors, there is still another, dramatic, animated, concerted play conceivable,
which connects the leader with the multitude as well as places him over against
it. Not only short cries, but also speeches which require several verses,
receive an increased power through the concert recitation of several with well
practiced inflection and in measured time. With the multitude introduced in
this way, the poet will be put in a position to give it a more worthy share in
the action; in the change from single voices to three, or four, and to the
whole together, between the clear tenor and powerful bass, he will be able to
produce numerous shades, modulations, and colors. With this concert speech of
great masses, he must take care that the meaning of the sentence, and the
weight and energy of the expression correspond; that the words are easily
understood and without discord; that the individual parts of the sentence form
a pleasing contrast.
It is not true that this treatment puts on the stage an artificial instead
of a varied and natural movement; for the usual manner of arranging populace
scenes is an accepted artistic one, which transforms the course of the action
according to a scheme. The way proposed here is only more effective. In making
use of it, the poet may conceal his art, and by alternating in the use of the
concert speech and counter-speech, produce variety. The sonorous speech in many
voices is adapted not only to animated quarrels and discussions, it is
available for every mood which effervesces in a popular tumult. On our stage up
to the present time, the practice of concert speech has been unaccountably
neglected; it is often only an unintelligible scream. The poet will do well,
therefore, to indicate specifically in the stage copies of his plays, how the
voice groups are to be divided. In order to indicate this properly, he must
have first felt the effects distinctly in advance.
Battle scenes are in bad repute on the German stage, and are avoided by the
poet with foresight. The reason is, again, that our theaters do such things
badly. Shakespeare has an undeniable fondness for martial movements of masses.
He has not at all lessened them in his later pieces; and since he occasionally
speaks with little respect of the means by which fights are represented in his
theater, one is justified in believing that he would willingly have kept away
from them if his audiences had not liked them so well. But upon such a
martial-spirited people, who passionately cultivated all manner of physical
exercise, such an impression was possible only when in these scenes a certain
art and technique were evident, and when the conventionalities of the stage did
not make them deplorable. Scenes like the fight of Coriolanus and Aufidius,
Macbeth and Macduff, the camp scenes in Richard III. and Julius
Caesar, have such weight and significance that it is evident with what
confidence Shakespeare trusted in their effects. In more recent times, on the
English stage, these martial scenes have been embellished with a profusion of
accessories, and their effects wonderfully enhanced; the audience has been only
too much occupied with them. If in Germany there is too little of this
occurring, this negligence can afford the poet no grounds to keep himself
anxiously free from battle scenes. There are accessory effects which can render
him acceptable service. He must take a little pains, himself, to find out how
they may be best arranged, and see to it that the stage does its duty.
CHAPTER IV. THE CHARACTERS.
I. THE PEOPLE AND POETS.
The fashioning of the dramatic characters, among the Germanic peoples, shows
more distinctly than the construction of the dramatic action the progress which
the human race has made since the appearance of dramatic art among the Greeks.
Not only the natural disposition of our people, but its altitude above the
historic periods of a world spread out to full view, and the consequent
development of an historic sense, declare and explain this difference. Since it
has been the task of the new drama, by means of the poetic and histrionic arts
to represent upon the stage the appearance of an individual life, even to
illusion, the delineation of character has won a significance for the art,
which was unknown to the ancient world.
The poetic power of the dramatic poet displays itself most immediately in
the invention of dramatic characters. In the construction of the action, in the
adaptation to the stage, other characteristics help him: a true culture, manly
traits of character, good training, experience; but when the capability for a
sharp defining of characters is small, a work, perhaps correct from the point
of view of the stage, may be created, but never one of real significance. If,
on the other hand, peculiar power of invention makes the individual rôles
attractive, a good hope may be cherished, even if the coõperation of the
figures for a collective picture is quite lacking. Right here, then, in this
part of artistic creation, less help is gained from instruction than in any
other part. The poetics of the Greek thinkers, as we have received it, contains
only a few lines on the characters. In our time, too, the technique is able to
set up nothing but a few bare directions, which do not essentially advance the
creating poet. What the rules for work can give, the poet carries, on the
whole, securely in his own breast; and what he does not possess, they are not
able to give.
The poet’s characterization rests on the old peculiarity of man, to
perceive in every living being a complete personality, in which a soul like
that of the observer’s is supposed as animating principle; and beyond this,
what is peculiar to this being, what is characteristic of it, is received as
affording enjoyment. With this tendency, long before his power of poetic
creation becomes an art, man transforms all that surrounds him into
personalities, to which, with busied imagination, he attributes much of the
character peculiar to human beings. In thunder and lightning, he perceives the
form of a god, traversing the concave heaven in a war chariot, and scattering
fiery darts; the clouds are changed into celestial cows and sheep, from which a
divine figure pours the milk upon the earth. Also the creatures which inhabit
the earth with man, he perceives as possessed with a personality similar to
that of man himself – thus bears, foxes, wolves. Every one of us imputes to
the dog and to the cat ideas and emotions which are familiar to us; and only
because such a conception is everywhere a necessity and a pleasure, are animals
so domesticated. This tendency to personify expresses itself incessantly: in
intercourse with our fellow men, daily; at our first meeting with a stranger;
from the few vital expressions which come to us from him; from single words,
from the tone of his voice, from the expression of his countenance, we form the
picture of his complete personality; we do this especially by completing with
lightning rapidity the imperfect impressions, from the stock of our phantasy,
according to their similarity with previous impressions, or what has been
previously observed. Later observation of the same person may modify the image
which has fallen upon the soul, may give it a richer and deeper development;
but already, at the first impression, however small the number of
characteristic traits may be, we perceive these as a logical, strictly computed
whole, in which we recognize what is peculiar to this man, upon the background
of what is common to all men. This creating of a form is common to all men, to
all times; it works in every one of us with the necessity and the rapidity of
an original power; it is to each one a stronger or a weaker capability; it is
to each a rapturous necessity.
Upon this fact rests the efficacy of dramatic characterization. The
inventive power of the poet produces the artistic appearance of a rich
individual life, because he has so put together a few vital expressions of a
person – comparatively few – that the person, understood and felt by him as
a unity, is intelligible to the actor and to the spectator as a characteristic
being. Even in the case of the chief heroes of a drama, the number of vital
expressions which the poet, limited in time and space, is able to give, the
aggregate number of characterizing traits, is much too small; while in the case
of accessory figures, perhaps two or three indications, a few words, must
produce the appearance of an independent, highly characteristic life. How is
this possible? For this reason: the poet understands the secret of suggesting;
of inciting the hearer, through his work, to follow the poet’s processes and
create after him. For the power to understand and enjoy a character is attained
only by the self-activity of the receptive spectator, meeting the creating
artist helpfully and vigorously. What the poet and the actor actually give is,
in itself, only single strokes; but out of these grows an apparently richly
gotten-up picture, in which we divine and suppose a fulness of characteristic
life, because the poet and the actor compel the excited imagination of the
hearer to coõperate with them, creating for itself.
The method of fashioning characters, by different poets, is of the greatest
variety. It varies with different times and different peoples. The method of
the Latin races is very different from that of the Germanic races. With the
early Germans, the enjoyment has always, from the first, been greater in the
invention of characterizing details; with the Latins, the joy has been greater
in compactly uniting, for a special purpose, the men represented, in an
artistically interwoven action. The modern German reaches more deeply into his
artistic product; he seeks to put upon exhibition a richer inner life; what is
peculiar, indeed what is specially rare, has the greatest charm for him. But
the Latin perceives what is restricted to the individual, specially from the
point of view of convenience and adaptability to purpose; he makes society the
center, not the inner life of the hero, as the German does; he is glad to set
over against each other, persons fully developed, often with only hasty
outlines of character. It is their diverse tendencies that make them
interesting to each other in the counter-play. Where the special task is the
accurate representation of a character, as in Molière, and where
characteristic details elicit special admiration, these characters, the miser
and the hypocrite, are inwardly most nearly complete; they are exhibited with a
monotony at last wearisome, in different social relations; in spite of the
excellence in delineation on our stage, they become more and more foreign to
us, because the highest dramatic life is lacking to them – the processes of
coming into being, the growth of character. We prefer to recognize on the stage
how one becomes a miser, rather than see how he is one.
What fills the soul of a German, then, and makes a subject of value, what
stimulates to creative activity, is especially the peculiar transformations of
character in the chief persons; the characters blossom first in his creating
mind; for these he invents the action; from them beams the color, the warmth,
the light, upon the accessory figures: the Latin has been more strongly
attracted by the combinations of the action, the subordination of individual
elements to the dominion of the whole, suspense, intrigue. This contrast is
old, but it comes down to the present time. It is more difficult for the German
to construct an action for his clearly conceived characters; for the Latin, the
threads interlace easily and spiritedly into an artistic web. This peculiarity
occasions a difference in the productiveness and the value of the dramas. The
literature of the Latins has little that can be compared with the highest
products of the German mind; but frequently, in the condition of our people, no
piece available for the stage comes from their weaker talents. Single scenes,
single characters, command attention and admiration; but they lack, as a whole,
in neat elaboration and power to excite feeling. Mediocrity succeeds better
outside of Germany; and where neither the poetic idea nor the characters lay
claim to poetic value, the shrewd invention of intrigue, the artistic
combination of persons for animated life, is found entertaining. While with the
Germans, that which is most highly dramatic, – the working out of the
perceptions and feelings in the soul, into a deed, – comes to light more
seldom, yet once in a while, in irresistible power and beauty in art, with the
Latins is found more frequently and more productive the second characteristic
of dramatic creation, – the invention of the counter-play, the effective
representation of the conflict which the environment of the hero wages against
his weaknesses.
But further, in the work of every individual poet, the method of
characterization is diverse; very different is the wealth of figures, and the
pains and distinctness with which their essential nature is presented to the
hearer. Here Shakespeare is the deepest and richest of creative geniuses, not
without a peculiarity, however, which often challenges our admiration. We are
inclined to accept it, and we learn it from many sources, that his audience did
not consist entirely of the most intelligent and cultured people of old
England; we are also justified in supposing that he would give to his
characters a simple texture, and accurately expose their relation to the idea
of the drama, from all sides. This does not always occur. The spectator, in the
case of Shakespeare’s heroes, does not remain in uncertainty as to the chief
motive of their actions; indeed the full power of his poetic greatness is
evident just in this, that he understands, as no other poet does, how to
express the mental processes of the chief characters, from the first rising
perception to the climax of passion, with extremely affecting power and truth.
The propelling counter-players in his dramas, Iago and Shylock, for instance,
do not fail to make the spectator a confidant in what they wish. And it may be
well said that the characters of Shakespeare, whose passion beats in the
highest waves, allow the spectator to look into the depths of their hearts,
more than the characters of any other poet. But this depth is sometimes
unfathomable to the eyes of the histrionic artist, as well as to the sight of
the audience; and his characters are by no means always so transparent and
simple as they appear at a casual glance. Indeed, many of them have something
about them peculiarly enigmatical, and difficult to understand, which
perpetually allures toward an interpretation, but is never entirely
comprehended.
Not only such persons as Hamlet, Richard III., Iago, in whom peculiar
thoughtfulness, or an essential characteristic not easily understood, and
single real or apparent contradictions are striking, come into this list, but
such as, with superficial observation, stride away down the straight street,
stage fashion.
Let the judgments be tested which for a hundred years have been pronounced
in Germany on the characters in Julius Caesar, and the glad approval
with which our contemporaries accept the noble effects of this piece. To the
warm-hearted youth, Brutus is the noble, patriotic hero. An honest commentator
sees in Caesar, the great, the immovable character, superior to all; a
politician by profession rejoices in the ironical, inconsiderate severity with
which, from the introduction forward, the poet has treated Brutus and Cassius
as impractical fools, and their conspiracy as a silly venture of incapable
aristocrats. The actor of judgment, at length, finds in the same Caesar whom
his commentator has held up to him as a pattern of the possessor of power, a
hero inwardly wounded to death, a soul in which the illusion of greatness has
devoured the very joints and marrow. Who is right? Each of them. And yet each
of them has the notion that the characters are not entirely a mixture of
incongruous elements, artfully composed, or in any way untrue. Each of them
feels distinctly that they are excellently created, live on the stage most
effectively; and the actor himself feels this most strongly, even if the secret
of Shakespeare’s poetic power should not be entirely understood.
Shakespeare’s art of character building represents to an unusual extent
and perfection, what is peculiar to the Germanic method of creation, as opposed
to that of the old world, and that of those peoples of culture, not pervaded
with German life. What is German is the fulness, and affectionate fervor which
forms every single figure carefully, accurately, according to the needs of each
individual masterpiece of art, but considers the entire life of the figure,
lying outside of the piece, and seeks to seize upon its peculiarity. While the
German conveniently casts upon the pictures of reality, the variegated threads
spun by his teeming fancy, he conceives the real foundations of his characters,
the actual counterpart, with philanthropic regard, and with the most exact
understanding of its combined contents. This thoughtfulness, this fond devotion
to the individual, and again the perfect freedom which has intercourse, for a
purpose, with this image as with an esteemed friend, have, since the old times,
given a peculiarly rich import to the successful figures in German dramatic
art; therefore, there is in them, a wealth of single traits, a spiritual charm,
a many-sidedness, through which the compactness, necessary to dramatic
characters, is not destroyed, but in its effects, is greatly enhanced.
The Brutus of Shakespeare is a high-minded gentleman, but he has been reared
an aristocrat; he is accustomed to read and to think; he has the enthusiasm to
venture great things, but not the circumspection and prudence to put them
through. Caesar is a majestic hero who has passed a victorious, a great life,
and who has proved his own excellence in a time of selfishness and pretentious
weakness; but with the lofty position, which he has given himself above the
heads of his contemporaries, ambition has come upon him, simulation and secret
fear. The fearless man who has risked his life a hundred times and feared
nothing but the appearance of being afraid, is secretly superstitious,
variable, exposed to the influence of weaker men. The poet does not hide this;
he lets his characters, in every place, say exactly what occurs to them in such
a business; but he treats their nature as in itself intelligible, and explains
nothing; not because it has become distinct to him through cool calculation,
but because it has arisen with a natural force from all the presupposed
conditions.
To the admirer of Shakespeare, this greatness of his poetical vision
presents here and there difficulties. In the first part of Julius
Caesar, Casca comes prominently into the foreground; in the following
action of the piece, not a word is heard about him; he and the other
conspirators are apparently of less consequence to Shakespeare than to the
audience. But he who observes more carefully, sees the reason for this, and
perceives that this figure which he made so benevolently prominent at first,
the poet throws aside immediately without ado. Indeed, he indicates this in the
judgment which, by way of exception this time, Brutus and Cassius let fall
concerning Casca. To him and to the piece, the man is an insignificant tool.
In many subordinate rôles, the great poet stands strikingly silent; with
simple strokes, he moves them forward in their embarrassment. The understanding
of their nature, which we occasionally seek, does not at last remain doubtful,
but it is clear only by streaks of light falling upon it from without. Anne’s
changes of mind, in Richard III., in the celebrated scene at the bier,
are, in a manner, concealed. No other poet would dare venture these; and the
rôle, otherwise brief and scanty, would have been one of the most difficult.
The same thing holds good of many figures which, composed of good and evil,
appear to help forward the action. In the case of such rôles, the poet trusts
much to the actor. Through suitable representation, the artist is able to
transform many apparent and real harshnesses into new beauty. Indeed, one often
has the feeling, that the poet omitted some explanatory accompaniments, because
he wrote for a definite actor, whose personality was specially adapted to fill
the rôle. In other cases, a man is distinctly seen, who, more than any other
dramatic author, is accustomed as actor and spectator to observe men in the
better society, and who understands how to conceal or let peep through, the
characteristic weaknesses which are behind the forms of good manners. In this
style, most of his courtiers are fashioned. Through such silence, through such
abrupt transitions, he affords the actor more gaps to fill than any other
dramatist does. Sometimes his words are merely like the punctured background of
embroidery; but everything lies in them exactly indicated, felt to be adapted
to the highest stage effects. Then the spectator, surprised by good acting,
beholds a rich, well-rounded life, where in reading, he saw only barren
flatness. It once in a while happens to a poet, that he really does too little
for a character. Thus the little rôle of Cordelia, even with good acting, does
not come into the proportion which it should bear toward the rest of the piece.
Much in some characters appears strange to us, and in need of explanation,
which was transparent and easily understood by the writer’s contemporaries,
as a reflection of their life and their culture.
What is greatest in this part, however, is, as has already been said, the
tremendous impelling force which operates in his chief characters. The power
with which they storm upward toward their fate, as far as the climax of the
drama, is irresistible – in almost every one a vigorous life and strong
energy of passion. And when they have attained the height, from which by an
overpowering might they are drawn downward in confusion, the suspense has been
relieved for a moment in a portentous deed; then come in several passages,
finished situations and individual portrayals, the most sublime that the new
drama has produced. The dagger scene and banquet scene in Macbeth, the
bridal night in Romeo and Juliet, the hovel scene in Lear, the
visit to the mother in Hamlet, Coriolanus at the altar of Aufidius, are
examples. Sometimes, the interest of the poet in the characters appears to
become less from this moment; even in Hamlet, in which the graveyard
scene – however celebrated its melancholy observations are – and the close
decline, when compared to the tension of the first half. In Coriolanus,
the two most beautiful scenes lie in the second half of the play; in
Othello, the most powerful. This last piece, however, has other
technical peculiarities.
If Shakespeare’s art of characterization was sometimes dark and difficult
for the actors of his time, it is natural that we perceive his peculiarities
very clearly. For no greater contrast is conceivable than his treatment of
characters, and that of the German tragic poets, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller.
While in Shakespeare we are reminded through the reservedness of many accessory
characters, that he still stood near the epic time of the middle ages, our
dramatic characters have, even to superfluity, the qualities of a period of
lyric culture, a continual, broad and agreeable presentation of internal
conditions upon which the heroes reflect with an introspection sometimes
dismal; and they use sentences which doubtless make clear the shifting point of
view of the characters in relation to the moral order of things. In the German
dramas, there is nothing dark, and, Kleist excepted, nothing violent.
Of all the great German poets, Lessing has best understood how to represent
his characters in the surge of intense dramatic excitement. Among his
contemporaries in art, the poetic power of the individual is most esteemed
according to his characters; and in just this matter of characterization,
Lessing is great and admirable; the wealth of details, the effect of telling,
vital expressions,, which surprise by their beauty as well as by their truth,
is, in his works, in the limited circle of his tragic figures, greater than in
Goethe, more frequent than in Schiller. The number of his dramatic types is not
great. About the tender, noble, resolute maiden, Sara, Emilia, Minna, Recha,
and her vacillating lover, Melfort, Prince, Tellheim, Templer, the serving
confidants range themselves; the dignified father, the rival, the intriguer,
are all written according to the craft of the troops of players of that time.
And yet in these very types, the multiformity of the variations is wonderful.
He is a master in the representation of such passions as express themselves in
the life of the middle classes, where the struggle toward beauty and nobility
of soul stands so marvellously near crude desire. And how conveniently all is
thought out for the actor! No one else has so worked out of his very soul for
him; what seems in reading, so restless and theatrically excited, comes into
its right proportion only through representation on the stage.
Only at single moments, his dialectic of passion fails to give the
impression of truth, because he over-refines it and yields to a pleasure in
hair-splitting quibbles. In a few places, his reflections expand to where they
do not belong; and sometimes in the midst of a profound poetic invention, there
is an artificial stroke which cools instead of strengthening the impression.
Besides much in Nathan the Wise, there is an example of this in Sara
Sampson, III. 3, the passage in which Sara discusses passionately with
herself whether she shall receive her father’s letter. This stroke is
specially to be made use of as a brief detail in characterization; for this
purpose, also, it is to be treated as a suggestion; in broad elaboration, it
would be painful.
For a long time yet, Lessing’s pieces will be a fine school for the German
actor; and they will still preserve the fond respect of the artist on our
stage, if only a more manly culture shall make the spectator more sensitive to
the weakness of the return action in Minna von Barnhelm, and Emilia
Galotti. For the great man erred in this, that violent passion suffices to
make a poetic character dramatic, since it depends much more on the relation in
which the passion stands to power of will. His passion creates sorrow and
excites sometimes in the spectator a protesting pity. Still his chief
characters vacillate – though this is not his badge, but that of his time –
driven hither and thither by strong emotion; and when they are brought to
commit an ominous deed, this often lacks the highest justification. The tragic
development in Sara Sampson rests upon this: Melfort perpetrates the
indignity of appointing a rendezvous between his former mistress and Miss Sara;
in Emilia Galotti, the maiden is stabbed by her father, out of
caution.
The freedom and the nobility with which the poetic characters of the last
century express their spiritual moods, is not accompanied with a corresponding
mastery of performance; only too frequently a time is perceived in which the
character, even the best, was not firmly drawn out, and hardened to steel by a
strong public opinion, by the strong, certain import which public political
life gives one. Arbitrariness in the moral point of view, and sensitive
uncertainty, disturb the highest artistic effects of even the power of genius.
The reproach has often been made against Goethe’s plays that here is only
indicated the progress that was introduced with dramatic effects by him and
Schiller.
In the characterizing details of his rôles, Goethe is not more abundant
than Lessing, – Weislingen, Clavigo, Egmont, are dramatically even more
scanty than Melfort, Prince, Tellheim; – his figures have nothing of the
violently pulsating life, of the restless, feverish element, which vibrates in
the emotions of Lessing’s characters; nothing artificial disturbs; the
inexhaustible charm of his spirit ennobles even what is lacking. In the first
place, Goethe and Schiller have opened up to the Germans the historical drama,
the more elevated style of treating characters, which is indispensable to great
tragic effects, even if Goethe did not attain these effects particularly by the
power of his characters, not by the action, but by the unsurpassable beauty and
sublimity with which he made the spirit of his heroes ring out in words. There
especially, where from his dramatic persons the hearty sincerity of lyric
feeling could ring through, is seen, in little traits, a magic of poetry which
no other German has even approximately attained. Thus operates the rôle of
Gretchen.
It is not by chance that such supreme beauty in Goethe’s female characters
is effective; the men do not, as a rule, drive forward; they are driven;
indeed, they sometimes claim a sympathy on the stage, which they do not merit,
and appear as good friends of the poet himself; and their good qualities are
known only to him, because they do not turn their good side to the society into
which he has invited them. What makes Faust our greatest poetic
masterpiece is not its fulness of dramatic life, least of all, in the rôle of
Faust himself. If, however, the impelling force of Goethe’s heroes is not
powerful enough to make sublime effects and mighty conflicts possible, their
dramatic movement in single scenes is compact, skilful and adapted to the
stage; and the connection of the dialogue is admirable. For the greatest beauty
of Goethe’s plays is the scenes which have their course between two persons.
Lessing understands how to occupy three persons on the stage, with great
effect, in passionate counter-play; but Schiller directs a great number with
firmness, and superior certainty. Schiller’s method of delineating character
in his youth is very different from the method of his riper years. He shows
great progress, but not entirely without loss. What a transformation from his
conception of beautiful souls which in The Robbers he erected into
something monstrous, and later into the heroic, and at last in
Demetrius, into the firm compactness of character similar to that of
Shakespeare’s persons!
During more than half a century, the splendor and nobility of Schiller’s
characters have ruled the German stage; and the weak imitators of his style
have not long understood that the fulness of his diction produced so great an
effect only because beneath it there lies a wealth of dramatic life, covered as
by a plating of gold. This dramatic life of his persons is already very
striking in his earliest plays. In Love and Intrigue, it won such
significant expression, that in this direction in later works, an advance is
not always visible. To verse and the more elevated style, he has added at least
pithy brevity, an expression of passion suitable to the stage, and many a
consideration for the actor. His expression of feelings and perceptions becomes
continually fuller in speech and more eloquent. His characters, also, –
specially the fully elaborated ones, – have that peculiar quality of his
time, impressively to enunciate to the hearer their thought and feeling at many
moments in the action. And they do it in the manner of highly cultured and
contemplative men; for a beautiful, and often a finished picture, depends for
them on passionate feeling; and the mood which sounds forth from their souls is
followed by a meditation, an observation, – as we all know, often of highest
beauty, – through which the moral grounds of the excited feeling is made
clear, and the confusion, the embarrassment of the situation, through an
elevation to a higher standpoint, appears for the moment cleared away. It is
evident that such a method of dramatic creation, of the representation of
strong passion, is in general not favorable, and will certainly in some future
period cease to appear among our successors. But it is just as certain that it
perfectly repeats the manner of feeling and perceiving which was peculiar to
the cultured Germans at the end of the last century, as no other poetic method
does, and that upon it rests a part of the effect which Schiller’s dramas
produce to-day upon the people; certainly only a part, for the greatness of the
poet lies in this, that he who accords to his characters so many resting
places, even in excited movements, knows how to keep these in extreme tension;
almost all have a strong, inspired, inner life, a content with which they stand
securely against the outer world. In this embarrassment, they sometimes give
the impression of somnambulists, to whom a disturbance from the outer world
becomes fatal; thus the Maid, Wallenstein, Max, Thekla; or who at least need a
strong shock to their inner life, to be brought to a deed, like Tell, even
Caesar and Manuel. Therefore, the impassioned agitation of Schiller’s chief
characters, is in the last analysis, not always dramatic; but this imperfection
is often covered by the rich detail and beautiful characterization with which
he equips the accessory figures. Finally, the greatest advance which German art
has made through him, is that in a powerful tragic material, he makes his
persons participants in an action which has for its background, not the
relations of private life, but the highest interests of man, of the state, of
faith. His beauty and power will always be dangerous to young poets and actors,
because the inner life of his characters streams forth richly in speech. In
this, he does so much that there remains, often, little for the actor to do;
his plays need less from the stage than those of any other poet.
II. THE CHARACTERS IN THE MATERIAL, AND ON THE STAGE.
Both the rights and the duty of the poet compel him, during his labor, to an
incessant conflict with the pictures which history, the epic, and his own life
offer him.
It is undeniable that ardor and the charm of invention, are frequently first
given to the German poet by his characters. Such a method of creation appears
irreconcilable with the old fundamental law for the forming of the action, that
the action must be the first, the characters second. If pleasure in the
characteristic nature of the hero can cause the poet to compose an action for
it, the action stands under the dominion of the character, is fashioned through
it, is invented for it. The contradiction is only an apparent one; for to the
creating genius, the disposition and character of a hero do not appear as they
do to the historian, who at the end of his work draws the results of a life, or
as they appear to a reader of history, who from the impressions of different
adventures and deeds, gradually paints for himself the portrait of a man. The
creative power comes into the ardent mind of the poet more in such a way, that
it brings out vividly and with charm, the character of a hero, in single
moments of its relations to other men. These moments in which the character
becomes a living thing, are in the work of the epic poet, situations; in the
work of the dramatist, actions in which the hero proceeds with some commotion;
they are the foundations of the action, not yet connected and full of life; in
them, already the idea of the piece lies, probably not yet clarified and
separate. But it is always a presumption of this first beginning of poetic
work, that the character becomes a living, animated thing under the compulsion
of some part of the action. Only under such a presumption is a poetic
conception of it possible.
But the process of idealization begins in this way: the outlines of the
historic character, or character otherwise deemed of worth, fashion themselves
according to the demands of the situation which has appeared in the soul of the
poet. The trait of character which is useful to the invented moments of the
action, becomes a fundamental trait of the being, to which all the remaining
characteristic peculiarities are subordinated as supplementary adjuncts.
Suppose the poet is to grasp the character of Emperor Charles V.; he is able to
perceive him poetically only when he makes him pass through a definite action.
The emperor at the parliament of Worms, or standing over against the captive
king, Francis, or in the scene in which the Landgrave of Hesse prostrates
himself at Halle, or at the moment when he receives the news of the threatened
incursion of the elector Moritz, – the emperor under the pressure of each of
these situations, is every time quite a different person; he retains all the
features of the historical Charles; but his expression becomes a peculiar one,
and so dominates the entire picture that it cannot pass for a historic
portrait. Yet the transformation quickly goes further. To the first poetic
vision others are joined; there is a struggle to become a whole, it contains
beginning and end. And each new member of the action, which develops itself,
forces upon the character something of color and motive, which are necessary to
its understanding. If the action is directed in this way, the real character is
fully transformed under the hand of the poet, according to the needs of his
idea. Of course the creative artist, all this time, during his entire work,
carries in his soul the features of the real person, as an accessory picture or
counter-portrait. He takes from this what he can use in details; but what he
creates from this, is brought out freely according to the demands of his
action, and with additions of its own is molten to a new mass.
A striking example is the character of Wallenstein in Schiller’s double
drama. It is no accident that the figure in the poem was fashioned so different
from that of the historical picture of the imperial general. The demands of the
action have given him his appearance. The poet is interested in the historical
Wallenstein; since the death of Gustavus Adolphus, this man has become
enchanting. He has great plans, is a magnificent egotist, and has an unclouded
conception of the political situation. Now a drama the business of which was to
portray the end of his career, had the fewest possible presupposed conditions
to represent, as the hero becomes a traitor by degrees, through his own guilt,
and under the stress of his relations. Schiller saw in his mind’s eye the
figure of Wallenstein, as from premonitions it seeks to learn its fate
(probably the first vision), then as it comes in contact with Questenberg, then
with Wrangel, then as the loyal men free themselves from him. These were the
first moments of action. Now it was conceivable that such a criminal beginning,
if the plans miscarried, would show the hero actually weaker, more
short-sighted, smaller, than the opposing powers. Therefore, in order to
preserve his greatness and maintain interest in him, a leading, fundamental
trait of character must be invented for him, which should elevate him, and
prove him free and independent, self-active before what allured him to treason,
and which should explain how an eminent and superior man could be more
short-sighted than those about him. In the real Wallenstein, there was
something of this kind to be found; he was superstitious, believed in astrology
– but not more than his contemporaries. This trait could be made poetically
useful. But as a little motive, as a thing to wonder at in his character, it
would have been of little use; it had to be ennobled, spiritually refined. So
there arose the image of a thoughtful, inspired, elevated man, who in a time of
carnage, strides over human life and human rights, his eye turned fixedly
toward the heights where he believes he sees the silent rulers of his destiny.
And the same sad, dreary playing with the inconceivably great, could exalt him
out of, and above external relations; for the same fundamental characteristic
of his being, a certain inclination to equivocal and underhand dealing, groping
attempts and a feeling about, might gradually entangle him, the freeman, in the
net of treason. Thus a dramatic movement of its own kind was found for his
inward being. But this characteristic of his being was, in its essential
nature, yet an irrational force; it held spell-bound; it placed him, for us,
near the supernatural; it remained a great anomaly. In order to work
tragically, the same characteristic must be brought into relation with the best
and most amiable feelings of his heart. That belief in the revelations of
powers incomprehensible to the hero, consecrates the friendly relations to the
Piccolomini; that this same belief is not called out, but ominously advanced,
by a secret need of something to honor, something to trust, and that this trust
in men, which Wallenstein has confidently made clear through his faith; that
this faith must destroy him, – this brings the strange figure very near to
our hearts; it gives the action inner unity; it gives the character greater
intensity. In such a way, the first-found situations, and the necessity of
bringing them into an established connection of cause and effect, and to round
them out to a dramatically effective action, have transformed the historical
character feature by feature. So his adversary, Octavio, too, has been
transformed by the tendency to give an inner connection with Wallenstein, of
course in dependence on his character. A cold intriguer, who draws together the
net over those who trust him, would not have sufficed; he must be exalted, and
be placed intellectually near the chief hero; and if he were conceived as
friend of the deluded one, who, – no matter from what sense of duty, –
surrenders the friend, so it would be to the purpose to invent a trait of
character in his life, which should weave his destiny with that of Wallenstein.
Since there was needed in this gloomy material, a warmer life, brighter colors,
a succession of gentle and touching feelings, the author created Max. This
poor, unsuspecting child of the camp, was at once the opposite of his father
and of his general. The poet cared too little, with respect to this figure,
that it stood a fresh, harmless, unspotted nature, in contradiction to its own
presupposed conditions, and to the unbridled life of a soldier, in which it had
grown up; for Schiller was not at all careful to give motive to anything, if it
only served his purpose. It satisfied him that this being, through character
and aptness, could come into a noble and sharply-cut contrast with the hero and
his opponent; and so him, and the corresponding figure of his beloved, the poet
produced with a fondness which determined even the form of the drama.
Considered on the whole, then, it was not a freak, a chance discovery of the
poet, which formed the character of Wallenstein and his counter-player. But of
course, these persons, like every poetic image, are colored by the personality
of the poet. And it is characteristic of Schiller to imbue all his heroes
visibly with the thoughts which fill his own soul. This spirited contemplation,
as well as the great, simple lines of a broad design, we perceive already as
his peculiarity. The characteristic of his age was quite otherwise. Mastery in
meditation and pondering is not, in Wallenstein, brought into equilibrium by a
decisive power of will. That he listened to the voice of the stars, which at
last becomes the voice of his own heart, would be expected. But he is
represented as dependent on his environment. The Countess Terzky directs him;
Max re-directs him; and the accident that Wrangel has disappeared, hinders,
possibly, a reverse of results. Surely it was Schiller’s purpose to make
prominent Wallenstein’s lack of resolution; but vacillation is, with us, a
disadvantage, to be used for every hero of a play, only as a sharp contrast to
a sustained power of action.
If this process of deriving the character from the internal necessity of the
action seems a result of intelligent consideration, it is hardly necessary to
confess that it does not thus perfect itself in the warm soul of the poet.
Indeed, here enters during many hours, a cool weighing, a supervision, a
supplementing, of creative invention; but the process of creation goes on
still, in essentials, with a natural force in which the same thought is
unconsciously active with the poet, the same thought which we in presence of
the completed masterpiece, recognize through reflection as the indwelling law
of intellectual production. Not only is the transformation of historical
characters according to the demands of the action, specially shown to be
different in different authors; but the same poetic mind does not always appear
equally free and unembarrassed before all its heroes. It is possible that a
strong poetic power may seek, for some purpose, to represent with special care,
single historical traits in the life of a hero. In the completed work, then,
this care is recognized in a peculiar wealth of appropriate features, which are
valuable for purposes of characterization. Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. shows a
fuller portraiture than any other heroic figure of that poet’s plays. This
figure is entirely transformed in essentials, to conform to the needs of the
action, and is separated by a wide gulf, from the historic Henry. But what is
valuable for portraiture in the sketching, as well as the numerous
considerations which the poet had for real history, in constructing the action,
give to the drama a strange coloring. However numerous the traits in this
richly endowed character are, it will seldom appear to an actor as the most
remunerative rôle to study.
For similar reasons, the introduction and use of historical heroes whose
portraits have become specially popular, for example Luther, and Frederick the
Great, is very difficult. The temptation is too strong to bring out such
well-known traits of the historical figure as are not essential to the action
of the play, and therefore appear accidental. This addition to a single figure
taken from reality, gives it in the midst of persons, the product of unfettered
invention, a remarkable, a painfully pretentious, a repulsive appearance. The
desire to present the most accurate reflection of the real being, will too
strongly allure the actor to petty delineation. Even the spectator wants an
accurate portrait, and is perhaps surprised if the other characters and the
action are less effective, because he is so strongly reminded of an esteemed
friend in history.
The requirement is easily given that the dramatic character must be true;
that especially the life forces must be in unison with each other, and must be
felt as belonging together, and that the characters must exactly correspond to
the whole of the action, in respect to coloring and spiritual import. But such
a rule, so generally expressed, will, in many cases, afford the beginning poet
no aid, where the discord between the ultimate demands of his art, and of the
historian’s art, and even of many a poetic truth, prepares secret
difficulties.
It is understood that the poet will faithfully preserve the deliverances of
history, where they are of service to him and cause no derangement. For our
time, so advanced in historical culture and in the knowledge of the earlier
relations of civilization, keeps an eye upon the historical culture of its
dramatists. The poet must have care that he do not give his heoes too little of
the import of their own time, and that a modern perception and feeling in the
characters do not appear to the educated spectator in contradiction to the
well-known embarrassments and peculiarities of the life of the soul in older
times. The young poets easily lend to their heroes a knowledge of their own
times, a certain skill in philosophizing upon the most important occurrences,
and in finding such points of view for their deeds as are current in historical
works of modern times. It is uncomfortable to hear an old emperor of the
Franconian or Hohenstaufen line express the tendencies of his time, so
self-consciously, so for a purpose, so very shrewdly as, for instance, Stenzel
and Raumer have represented. But not less dangerous is the opposite temptation
into which poets come through the effort vividly to set forth the peculiarities
of the past. The remarkable, that which deflects from our own nature toward
older times, easily seems to them as characteristic and effective for their
purpose. Then the poet is in danger of smothering the immediate interest which
we take in the easily intelligible, the universally human, and in still greater
danger of building the course of his action upon singularities of that past, on
the transitory, which in art gives the impression of the accidental and
arbitrary.
And yet there often remains, in an historical piece, an inevitable
opposition between the dramatically arranged characters and the dramatically
arranged action. At this dangerous point, it is profitable to tarry a little.
Since it is a duty of the poet who uses historical material, to give special
attention to what we call the color and costume of the time, and since not only
the characters but the action, too, is taken from a distant age, there will
certainly be, in the idea of the piece and of the action, in the motives and
situations, much that is not universally human and intelligible to every one,
but that is explained through what is remarkable and characteristic of that
time. When, for instance, the murder of a king is committed by ambitious
heroes, as in Macbeth or Richard, where the intriguer attacks his
rival with poison or dagger, where the wife of a prince is thrown into water
because she springs from the middle class, – in these and innumerable other
cases, the embarrassment and the destiny of the heroes must be derived from the
represented event, from the peculiarities and customs of their times.
If these figures belong to a time which has here been called the epic, in
which man’s inward freedom has been in reality little developed, in which the
dependence of the individual upon the example of others, upon custom and usage,
is much greater, in which man’s inner being is not poorer in strong feeling,
but is much poorer in the ability to express it by means of speech, – then
the characters of the drama can not at all represent, in the essential thing,
such an embarrassment. For since upon the stage, the effect is produced not by
deeds, not by beautiful discourse, but by the exhibition of mental processes,
through which feeling and volition are concentrated into a deed, the dramatic
chief characters must show a degree of freedom of will, a refinement and a
dialectic of passion, which stand in the most essential contrast with the
actual embarrassment and naïveté of their old prototypes in reality.
Now the artist would, of course, be easily forgiven for endowing his people
with a fuller, stronger, and richer life than they had in the real world, if
only this richer fulness did not give the impression of untruth, because
individual conditions presupposed for the action, do not tolerate a character
so constructed. For the action which is derived from history or from legend,
and which everywhere betrays the social features, the degree of culture, the
peculiarities of its time, the poet cannot always so easily imbue with a deeper
import as he can individual characters. The poet may, for example, put into the
mouth of an oriental the finest thoughts, the tenderest feelings of the
sweetest passion, and yet so color the character that it contains the beautiful
appearance of poetic truth. But now, perhaps the action makes it necessary that
this same character have the women of his harem drowned in sacks, or have them
beheaded. Then the contradiction between action and character crops out
inevitably. This is, indeed, a difficulty of dramatic creation which cannot
always be met, even by the greatest talent in that direction. Then it requires
all art to conceal from the spectator the latent contradiction between the
material and the vital needs of the action. For this reason, all love scenes in
historic pieces present peculiar difficulties. Here, where we demand the most
direct expression of a lovely passion, it is a difficult task to give at the
same time the local color. The poet is most likely to succeed if, as in the
case of Goethe and Gretchen, he can, in such a situation, paint peculiarities
of character in a stronger color, and even approach the borders of genre
painting. The quiet struggle of the poet with the assumptions of his
subject-matter, which are undramatic and yet not to be dispensed with, occurs
in almost every action taken from heroic legend or the older histories.
In the epic material which the heroic legends of the great civilized races
offer, the action is already artistically arranged, even if according to other
than dramatic requirements. The life and adventures of heroes appear complete,
determined by momentous deeds; usually, the sequence of events in which they
appear acting or enduring, forms a chain of considerable length; but it is
possible to detach single links for the use of the drama. The heroes themselves
float indistinctly in great outlines, while single characteristic peculiarities
are powerfully developed. They stand upon the heights of their nationality, and
display a power and greatness as sublime and peculiar as the creative phantasy
of a people can invent; and the momentous results of their lives are frequently
just what the dramatic poet seeks, love and hate, selfish desire, conflict and
destruction.
Such materials are further consecrated through the fondest recollections of
a people; they were once the pride, joy, entertainment of millions. After their
transformation through a creative popular spirit, which lasted for centuries,
they were still flexible enough to afford to the invention of the dramatic poet
opportunity for the intensification of character, as well as for alterations in
the connection of the action. Many of them have come to us with the elaboration
which they underwent in a great epic; the most of them, in their essential
contents, are not, even according to our culture, entirely strange to us. What
is here said is more or less applicable to the great cycles of Greek legends,
of the legendary traditions which are interwoven with the earliest history of
the Romans, of the heroic tales of the Germans, and Latins of the Middle
Ages.
Indeed, upon a closer inspection, the characters of the epic tradition
differ much from the persons necessary to the drama. It is true, the heroes of
Homer and of the Nibelungen Lied are quite distinct personalities. A
glance into the interior of a human soul, into the surging feeling, is not
entirely forbidden to epic poets; indeed they often derive the fate of the hero
from his character; they derive his ominous deeds from his passions. In the
poetry of early times, the knowledge of the human heart, and the sane judgment
which might explain a man’s destiny from his virtues, faults, and passions,
are admirable. Not so well developed is the capability of representing the
details of mental processes. The life of the persons expresses itself in little
anecdotal traits which are often perceived with a surprising fineness: what
lies before, the quiet labor within, what follows after such a deed, the quiet
effect on the soul, is passed over or quickly disposed of.
How a man asserts himself among strangers, is victorious, or perishes in a
strife with stronger powers which stand against him, – to relate this is the
chief charm; also, describing high festivals, duels, battles, adventures of
travel. The expression of feeling is most animated where the suffering man
rebels against the unendurable; but here, too, the expression becomes rigid,
relatively unanimated, in frequently recurring forms, complaints, prayer to the
gods, perhaps so that the speaker holds up another’s fate in contrast with
his own, or mirrors his situation in an elaborate picture. The speech of the
hero is almost always scanty, simple, monotonous, with the same recurring notes
of feeling. Thus the soliloquies of Odysseus and of Penelope are made in the
poem, in which the peculiar life is most richly represented, and with the best
individual traits. Where the inner connection of events rests upon the secret
plots and the peculiar passion of a single person, also where a momentous
action is developed from the inward being of a character, the analysis of the
passion is scarcely at hand. Kriemhild’s plan to take revenge for the murder
of her husband, all the emotions of soul of this most enchanting person, who
lives so powerfully in the poet’s heart, – how brief, and concealed they
are in the narrative! It is characteristic that in these German poems, the
lyric accompaniments, monologues, complaints, genial observations, are much
less numerous than in the Odyssey; on the other hand, every peculiarity
of the chief characters, which determines their friendship or hostility to
others, is elaborated with special vividness and beauty.
But as soon as one conceives of these powerful, shadowy forms of legend as
human beings, and represented to human beings by human beings on the stage,
they lose the dignity and magnitude of outline, with which the busied
imagination has clothed them. Their speeches, which within epic narrative
produce the most powerful effects, are in the iambics of the stage,
circumscribed, heavy, commonplace. Their deeds seem to us crude, barbarous,
dreary, indeed quite impossible; they seem sometimes like the old water sprites
and goblins of ancient folk-lore, with no human and rational soul. The first
work of the poet must be a transformation and intensifying of characters, by
which they may become human and intelligible to us. We know how attractive such
labor was to the Greeks.
Their relation to the material in their old heroic tales was peculiarly
favorable. It was bound to the life of their present by a thousand threads, by
local traditions, divine service, and the plastic arts. The more liberal
culture of their times allowed important changes to be made; allowed what was
transferred to them to be treated with the utmost freedom as raw material. And
yet, the history of the Attic tragedy is the history of an inward warfare,
which great poets waged with a realm of material that so much the more
violently resisted the fundamental laws of dramatic creation, as the actor’s
art developed, and the demand of the audience for a richer fulness of character
increased.
Euripides is our most instructive example of how the Greek tragedy was
disorganized by the internal opposition between its field of material and the
greater requisites which the art of representation gradually brought into
operation. None of his great predecessors understands better than he, how to
imbue the persons of the epic legend with burning, soul-devouring passion. None
has ventured to bring dramatic characters so realistically near the sensibility
and the understanding of his audience; none has done so much to aid the
actor’s art. Everywhere in his pieces, it is perceived distinctly that the
actor and the needs of the stage have won significance.
But the treatment of his rôles, effective from the actor’s point of view,
an advance in itself, the undeniable right of the acting drama, yet contributed
in this way to depreciate his pieces. What was wild and barbarous in the action
must strike as repulsive, if persons like the Athenians of the poet’s own
time, were made to think and feel and act like ungovernable Scythians. His
Electra is an oppressed woman from a noble house, who in need, has married a
poor but worthy peasant, and perceives with astonishment that beneath his
tunic, a brave heart beats; but we can scarcely believe her assurance that she
is the daughter of the dead Agamemnon. When in Iphigenia in Aulis,
mother and daughter, entreating aid, place their hands on the chins of Achilles
and Agamemnon, and taking an oath, according to the custom of their people,
seek to soften these men; and when Achilles refuses his hand to Clytemnestra,
who greets him, – this imitative invention was in itself an excellent
histrionic motive; but it stood in striking contrast to the customary movement
of the masked and draped persons; and while this advance of the actor’s art
no doubt powerfully enhanced the effects of the scenes, in the eyes of the
audience, it reduced Iphigenia at the same time to an oppressed Athenian woman,
and made the proposed slaughtering of her more strange and untrue.
In many other cases, the poet yields so far to the desire of his player of
pathos parts, for great song effects, that suddenly and without motive, he
interrupts the intelligible and agreeable course of his action, by illuminating
some old heroic trait, by ragings, by child murder and the like. With this
intrusion of opera-like and spectacular effects, the causative connection of
events becomes a subordinate matter, the tragic momentum is lost, the persons
become vessels for different kinds of feeling; and sportive and sophistical,
they are freed from any pressure from their past lives. In almost every piece,
it can be felt that the poet finds his material from old legends, torn into
fragments like a rotten web, through a well justified climax of stage effects,
and entirely unserviceable for the establishing of a unified dramatic action.
If pieces from other contemporaries had been preserved for us, we should
probably recognize how others have struggled to secure a reconciliation between
the given material and the vital requisites of their art. It must be repeated:
what detracts from the poetic greatness of Euripides is not specially the lack
of morale, of the manners and habits of the time, so peculiar to him;
but it is the natural and inevitable disorganization which must come into the
material used in a drama, but not essentially dramatic. Of course, the repeated
use of the same material contributed to bring the disadvantage to light; for
the later poets, who came upon great dramatic treatment of almost all the
legends, had pressing occasion to win their audiences by something new,
something charming, and they found this in setting a new and higher task for
the art of the actor; but this adequate advance hastened the destruction of the
action, and thereby, of the rôles.
We Germans are far more unfavorable to the epic legend; it is for us a world
in ruins. Even where our science has spread knowledge of it, throughout broad
circles, as of Homer and The Nibelungen, the knowledge and the enjoyment
of it are the prerogative of the learned. Our stage has become much more
realistic than that of the Greeks, and demands in the characters far richer
individual traits, an import not painfully wounding to our sensibilities. If
upon our stage, Tristan had married one woman to conceal his relations with
another woman, the actor of his part would incur the danger of being pelted
with apples from the gallery, as a low-lived monster; and the bridal night of
Brunhild, so effectively portrayed in the epic, will always awaken on the stage
a dangerous mood in the minds of the spectators. To us Germans, history has
become a more important source of dramatic subjects than the legend. For a
majority of the younger poets, the history of the Middle Ages is the magic
fountain from which they draw their plays. And yet, in the life of our German
ancestors, there lies something difficult to understand, something that hides
the heroes of the Middle Ages as with a mist, – indeed still more the
circumstances of the people, – and that makes a princely scion in the time of
Otto the Great, less transparent than a Roman prince in the time of the Second
Punic War. The lack of independence of the man is far greater; every individual
is more strongly influenced by the views and customs of the circle in which he
moves. The impressions that fall upon the soul from without, are quickly
covered with a new tissue, given a new shape, receive a new color, by the
exercise of an active imagination. Indeed, the activity of sense is incisive,
energetic; but the life of nature, the person’s own life and the impulse from
others, are conceived far less according to an intelligible consistency of
appearances, than transformed according to the intellectual demands. The
egotism of the individual easily rears itself, and assumes the attitude of
battle; just as ready is its submission to a superior force. The original
simplicity of a child may be combined in the same man with effective cunning
and with vices which we are accustomed to consider the outgrowth of a corrupt
civilization. And this combination as well as the union of the – apparently
– strongest contradictions in feeling and way of dealing, are found in the
leaders of the people as well as among ordinary men and women. It is evident
that in this way, the judgment concerning characters, their worth or
worthlessness, their individual actions, concerning moods and motives of
actions, is rendered difficult. We are to judge the man according to the
civilization and moral feeling of his time, and judge his time according to the
civilization and morals of our own.
Let it be tried to make a mental picture of the average morality among the
people in any one of the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages, and it will be
perceived how difficult this is. Could we judge from the penalties which the
oldest popular justice inflicted upon all kinds of abominable crimes, or from
the horrible practices at the Court of the Merovingians? There was still almost
nothing of what we call public opinion, and we can say with positiveness that
the historians give us the impression of men who merit confidence. When a royal
scion arose in repeated rebellion against his father, to what extent was he
justified or pardoned because of the notions of his time, or his own inmost
motives? Even in the case of events which seem very clear and are received by
us in a dazzling light, we perceive a lack in our comprehension, not only
because we know too little of that time, but also because we do not always
understand what has come down to us, as the dramatic poet must understand it,
in its causative connections and in its origin in the germ of a human life.
Whoever would not more carefully investigate the real relations and the
historical character of his hero, but would only make use of his name, in order
to provide some events of his time, with bold observations on the stage,
according to the report of a convenient historical work, would avoid every
difficulty. But he would, in fact, hardly find a dramatic material. For this
noble mass of dramatic material is embedded in the rock of history, and almost
always only where the private, familiar life of the heroic character begins;
there one must know how to look for it.
If one really takes pains to become acquainted as well as possible with the
heroes of the distant past, one discovers in their nature something very
undramatic. For as it is characteristic of those epic poems, it is
characteristic also of historical life, that the inward struggle of man, his
feelings, his thoughts, the existence of his will, have found from the hero
himself no expression; nor have they found expression from an observer. The
people, its poets, its historians, see the man sharply and well at the moment
of his deed; they perceive – at least the Germans – with great penetration,
what is characteristic of the expressions of his life, as connected with
emotion, with exaltation, with caprice, with disinclination. But only the
moments in which his life turns toward the external, are attractive,
enchanting, intelligible, to that time. Even speech has but a meager expression
for the inner processes up to the deed; even passionate excitement is best
enjoyed in the effect which it has upon others, and in the light which it
throws upon the environment. For the intellectual conditions, and the reaction
which the occurrences have upon the sensibilities and character of the man,
every technique of representation fails, interest fails. Even the depiction of
apparent characteristic peculiarities, as well as a full elaboration of the
occurrence, is not frequent in the narrative; a comparatively dry rehearsal of
events is interrupted more or less by anecdotes, in which a single vital trait
of importance to a contemporary, comes to view, – here a striking word, there
a mighty deed. Preferably in such legends, remain the recollections which the
people preserve of their leader and his deeds. We know that till after the
Reformation, indeed, till after the middle of the last century, this same
notion was not infrequent among educated people, and that it has not
disappeared yet from among our people.
The poverty of dramatic life makes difficult to the poet the understanding
and the portrayal of every hero. But in the temper of our ancestors, there was
something very peculiar, something which made their character at times quite
mysterious. Already in the most ancient heroic times, they evince in character,
in speech, in poetry, in customs, the inclination to make prevalent a peculiar
subtle introspection and interpretation. Not the things themselves, but what
they signify, was the chief thing to the ancestors of our thinkers. The images
of the external world press multitudinously into the soul of the old Germans,
who are more versatile, quicker to recognize, endowed with greater receptivity,
than any other people on earth. But not in the beautiful, quiet, clear manner
of the Greeks, nor with the sure, practical, limited one-sidedness of the
Romans, did what was received mirror itself again in speech and action; they
worked it over slowly and quietly; and what flowed from them had a strong
subjective coloring, and an addition from their own spirit, which we might, in
the earliest times, call lyric.
Therefore the oldest poetry of the Germans stands in most striking contrast
to the epic of the Greeks; its chief affair is not the rich, full narrative of
the action, but a sharp relief of single, brilliant traits, the connecting of
the force to an elaborate image, a representation in short, abrupt waves, upon
which is recognized the excited mind of the narrator. So in the characters, the
defiant self-seeking, combined with a surrender to ideal perceptions, has given
to the Germans since prehistoric time, a striking imprint, and has made
themselves, rather than their physical power and martial rage, a terror to the
Romans. No other popular morality has conceived of woman so chastely and nobly;
no pagan faith has overcome the fear of death, as the German faith has; for to
die on the battlefield is the German hero’s honor and joy. Through this
prominence of spirit and courage, of ideal perception and feeling, the
characters of German heroes very early receive in life, as in the epic, a less
simple composition, an original, sometimes a wonderful stamp, which lends them,
now a remarkable greatness and depth, now an adventurous and unreasonable
appearance.
Let no one compare the poetic value of delineation, but the foundations of
character, in the heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey, with the
heroes in the Nibelungen Lied. To the bravest Greek, death remained a
terror; the danger of battle weighed him down; it was not dishonorable to him,
in one sense, to slay a sleeping or unarmed foe; it was by no means the least
renown prudently to avoid the danger of conflict, and strike from behind an
unsuspecting victim. The German hero, on the contrary, the same one who from
fidelity to his commander performs the most atrocious act which a German can,
and cunningly hits an unarmed man from behind, – just such a one can avoid
death and destruction for himself, for his lord and for his posterity, if he
only announces at the right time that danger is at hand. Supernatural beings
have prophesied destruction for him and his friends, if the momentous journey
is continued; yet he thrusts back into the stream the boats which make a return
possible; again, at the king’s court, where death threatens him, a word to
the benevolent king, an honest answer to a serious question, may divert the
worst from him, but he keeps silent. Still more: he and his friends deride and
enrage his embittered enemies; and with the certain prospect of death, they
playfully challenge and incite to bloody strife.
To the Greek, to every other people of antiquity, possibly with the
exception of the Gauls, such a kind of heroism would appear thoroughly
unearthly and unreasonable; but it was true German, the wild, dark expression,
the character of a nation in which to the individual, his honor and his pride
were of more account than his life. Not otherwise is this consideration with
historical heroes. The ideals which rule their lives, however unreasonable they
were long before the development of chivalry, the duty of honor, of fidelity,
the feeling of manly pride and of one’s own dignity, contempt for death, and
love for individual men, often had a strength and power which we can scarcely
appreciate, and do not always recognize as the governing motive.
Thus swings the soul of the German in the ancient times, in a bondage which
to us is often no longer recognizable; pious surrender and longing,
superstition, and fidelity to duty, a secret magic word, or secret oath,
advanced his resolution to deeds which we try vainly to explain on reasonable
grounds taken from our civilization.
And into such a disposition eventuated, in the Middle Ages, the great cycle
of moods, laws, and fantastic reveries, which surged in with Christendom. While
on one side, the incisive contrast in which the gentle faith of renunciation
stood to the rude inclinations of a victorious, war-like people, the
contradiction between duty and inclination, between external and internal life,
increased greatly, it corresponded on the other side in a striking manner, to
the necessity of giving one’s self entirely to great ideas, which the German
had long practiced. When instead of Wuotan and the slain Ase-god, the Father of
the Christians and his only begotten Son came; when in place of the
battle-virgins the hosts of The Holy One came, the life after death received a
new consecration and a more sincere significance. And to the old powers, which
in quietness had controlled human volition, to the magic word, to the
approaching animal, to the drinking-bout, to the premonitions of heathen
priests, and the prophesies of wise women, came the demands of the new church,
its blessing and its curse, its vows and its shrifts, the priests and the
monks. Following close on rude, reckless dissipation, came passionate
repentance, and the strictest asceticism. Near the houses of beautiful women,
were reared the cloisters of the nuns. How, since the dominion of the Christian
faith, characters have been drawn in their deepest principles; how perception
and motives of action have become more manifold, more profound and artistic, is
shown, for instance, by the numerous figures from the time of the Saxon
Emperor, where pious devotion was practiced by the most distinguished persons,
and men and women were driven hither and thither, now by efforts to win the
world for themselves, now by the penitent wish to reconcile heaven to
themselves.
Any one who has ever felt the difficulty of understanding the men of the
Middle Ages, who were formed by the thoughtful nature of the Germans and by the
old church, will complete these brief suggestions in every direction.
Here, therefore, a former example is repeated, but from another point of
view. What was working in the soul of Henry IV. as he stood in the penitent’s
frock by the castle wall of Canossa? In order that the poet may answer this
question by a noble art effect, he will first let the historian tell what he
knows about it; and he will learn with astonishment how different the
conception of the situation, how uncertain and scanty the received account, and
how troublesome and difficult it is to sound the heart of his hero.
That he did not go to the pope with inward contrition, this haughty powerful
man, who hated, in the Romish priest, his most dangerous opponent, is easy to
comprehend. That he had long revolved, in his rebellious mind the bitter
necessity of this step, and had not put on the penitent’s garment without a
grim mental reservation, is to be assumed. But he came just as little as a
crafty politician, who humiliated himself by a cool calculation, because he
perceived a false step of his opponent, and saw growing from this surrender,
the fruits of future victory. For Henry was a Christian of the Middle Ages.
However intensely he hated Gregory, the curse of the church certainly had in it
something uncomfortable, something frightful; to his God, and to the heaven of
the Christian, there was no other way than through the church. Gregory sat on
the bridge to heaven; and if he forbade, the angels, the new battle-virgins of
the Christian, would not lead the dead warrior before the throne of the Father,
but would thrust him into the abyss of the old dragon. The pope writes that the
emperor has wept much, and besought his mercy, and that the attendants of the
pope have with sobs and tears witnessed the emperor’s penance. Was the
emperor firm in the faith that the pope had the right thus to torment him? This
influence of the ecclesiastical conscience upon worldly aims, this adventurous
and uncertain mingling of opposites, now pride, higher thought, enduring,
imperturbable power, which we consider almost superhuman, and again a
lamentable emptiness and weakness, which seems contemptible to us, – this
offers the poet no easily accomplished task. Of course he is master of his
subject; he can transform the historical character at will, according to the
needs of his work. It is possible that the real Henry stood before the wall of
Canossa, like an ungoverned and vicious knave, who was to undergo a severe
chastising. What did the poet care for that? But just as binding as possible,
is his duty to fathom to its deepest recesses the real nature of the emperor.
Not only the sad penitent, but the cold politician, will become falsities under
such an examination. The poet has to form the character of the prince out of
component parts, for which he does not find in his own mind the corresponding
intuitions, and which he has to convert into intuitions and warm perceptions
through reflection. There are few princes of the Middle Ages who do not appear,
in the essential occurrences of their lives, and measured by the standard of
our civilization and habits, either as short-sighted dunces, or conscienceless
scoundrels – not seldom as both. The historian performs his difficult task in
his unpretentious manner; he seeks to understand the connections of their time,
and tells us honestly where his understanding ceases. The poet draws these
adventurous persons imperatively into the clear light of our day; he fills
their being with warm life; he endows them with modern speech, with a good
share of reason and of the culture of our times; and he forgets that the action
in which he has them move, is taken from a former age and can not be so much
transformed, and that it accords extremely ill with the higher human endowments
given his characters.
The historical materials from the dim past, and from the little known
periods of our national existence, allure our young poets, as once the epic
materials allured Euripides: they mislead to the spectacular, as the epic did
to declamation. Now their figures are not for this reason to be laid aside as
useless; but the poet will ask whether the transformation which he is bound to
undertake with every character of former times, is not possibly so great that
all similarity to the historical person disappears, and whether the
irrepressible presumptions of the action are not inconsistent with his free
creation of character. This will certainly be sometimes the case.
Not less worthy of note is the conflict which the poet must wage in his
rôles, with what as nature, he has to idealize. His task is to give greater
expression to greater passion; as an adjunct in this, he has the actor, – the
passionate emphasis of the voice, of figure, of pantomime, of gesture. Despite
all this abundant means, he may almost never, and just in the more exalted
moments of passion, use the corresponding appearances of real life without
great changes, however strongly and beautifully and effectively, in powerful
natures, a natural passion expresses itself, and however great an impression it
may make on the accidental observer. On the stage, the appearance is to have
its effect in the distance. Even in a little theater, a comparatively large
auditorium is to be filled with the expression of passion. Just the finest
accents, but of real feeling in the voice, glance, even in carriage, are, on
account of the distance, not at all so distinct to the audience and enchanting
as they are in real life. And further, it is the task of the drama to make such
laboring of passion intelligible and impressive at every moment; for it is not
the passion itself which produces the effect, but the dramatic portrayal of it
by means of speech and action; it must always be the endeavor of the characters
on the stage to turn their inward being toward the spectator. The poet must
then make choice for effects. The transient thoughts that flit through the mind
of the impassioned one, conclusions arrived at with the rapidity of lightning,
the varying emotions of the soul in great numbers, which now less distinctly,
now more animatedly, come into view, – to all these in their disordered
fulness, their rapid course, art can not often afford even imperfect
expression. For every idea, for every strong emotion, there is needed a certain
number of words and gestures; their union by means of transition or sharp
contrast demands a purposed play; every single moment presents itself more
broadly, a careful progressive rise must take place, – in order that the
highest effect be attained. Thus dramatic art must constantly listen to nature,
but must by no means copy; nay, it must mingle with the single features which
nature affords, something else that nature does not offer, and this as well in
the speeches as in the acting. For poetic composition, one of the most ready
helps is the wit of comparison, the color of the picture. This oldest ornament
of speech comes by natural necessity, everywhere, into the discourse of men,
where the soul, in a lofty mood freely raises her wing. To the inspired orator,
as to the poet, to every people, to every civilization, comparison and imagery
are the immediate expressions of excited feeling, of powerful, spirited
creation. But now it is the duty of the poet to represent with the greatest
freedom and elevation the greatest embarrassment of his persons in their
passions. It will also be inevitable that his characters, even in the moments
of highest passion, evince far more of this inward creative power of speech, of
unrestrained power and mastery of language, expression, and gesture, than they
ever do in natural circumstances. This freedom of soul is necessary to them,
and the spectator demands it. And yet here lies the great danger to the poet,
that his style may seem too artificial for the passion. Our greatest poets have
often used poetic means and devices with such lavishness in moments of intense
passion, as to offend good taste. It is well known that Shakespeare yields too
often to the inclination of his time, and in his pathetic passages makes use of
mythological comparisons and splendid imagery; on this account, there often
appears in the language of his characters a bombast which we have to forget in
the multitude of beautiful significant features, idealized from nature. The
great poets stand nearer German culture; but even in their works, – among
ohers Schiller’s, – a fine rhetoric intrudes upon pathos, which is not
propitious to an unbiased apprehension.
If in every expression of passion, there is perceptible a contradiction
between nature and art, this occurs most in the case of the most secret and
genuine feelings. Here again, the love scene must be once more recalled. In
real life, the expression of this sweet passion which presses from one soul to
another, is so tender, is in so few words, is so modest, that in art it brings
one into despair. A quick gleam from the eye, a soft tone of the voice, may
express more to the loved one than all speech. Just the immediate expression of
tender feeling needs words only as an accessory; the moments of the so-called
declaration of love, frequently almost without words and with action scarcely
visible, will escape the notice of one standing at a distance. Only through
numerous devices can the highest skill of the poet and the actor replace for
the spectator the eloquent silence and the beautiful secret vibrations of
passion. Right here, indeed, poets and actors must use an abundance of speech
and action which is improbable in nature. The actor may, of course, enhance and
supplement the language of the poet, through tone and gesture; but that he
secure these enhancing effects, the language of the poet must lead him, and to
a high degree in conformity with a purpose, furnish the motive for the effects
of the actor’s art; and therefore the actor requires also the creative
activity of the poet, which gives, not an imitation of reality, but something
quite different, – the artistic.
In the face of these difficulties which the expression of higher passion
offers, if one dared to advise the poet, the best advice would be, to remain as
exact and true to life as his talents would allow, to compress the single
moments to a strong climax, and to expand as little as possible the
embellishments of reflection, comparison, imagery. For while these give fulness
to the lines, they too easily cover up desultoriness and poverty of invention.
If everywhere, constant and exact observation of nature is indispensable to the
dramatic poet, it is most indispensable in the delineation of violent emotion;
but the poet must know most surely that he is here least of all to imitate
nature.
Another difficulty arises for the poet through the inner contrast into which
his art of creation comes, with the art of his colleague, the actor. The poet
does not perceive the perturbations of his characters as the reader perceives
the words of the drama, nor as the actor apprehends his rôle. Character,
scene, every force, is presented to him in the mighty rapture of creation, in
such a way that the significance of each for the whole is perfectly clear;
while all that has gone before, all that comes after, vibrate as if in a gentle
harmony in his mind. What reveals, the real life of his characters, what holds
spellbound in the action, the effect of the scenes, – he perceives as
alluring, and powerfully so, perhaps, long before they have found expression in
words. The expression which he creates for them, often gives back but
imperfectly to his own apprehension, the beauty and might with which they were
endowed in his mind. While he is concerned in embodying in words the spiritual
essence of his persons, and in creating for them an outward form, the effect of
the words which he writes being only imperfectly clear, he accustoms himself
but gradually to their sound; moreover, the enclosed space of the stage, the
external appearance of his persons, the effect of a gesture, of a tone of
voice, he feels only incidentally, now more, now less distinctly. On the whole,
he who creates through speech, stands nearer to the demands of the reader or
the hearer, than to the demands of the actor, especially if he himself is not
proficient in the actor’s art. The effects which he produces, then,
correspond now more to the requirements of the reader, now more to those of the
actor.
But the poet of greater feeling and perception must give a full and strong
impression through speech; and the effects which one soul produces on another
are brought about thus: its internal power breaks forth in a number of
speech-waves, which rise higher and mightier, and beat upon the receptive mind.
This demands a certain time, and with briefer, or more powerful treatment, a
certain breadth of elaboration. The actor, on the other hand, with his art,
requires the stream of convincing, seductive speech. Indeed, he needs the
strong expression of passion, not always through speech. His aim is to attain
something through other means, the effectiveness of which the poet does not
apprehend so clearly. By means of a gesture of fright, of hatred, of contempt,
he may often express more than the poet can with the most effective words.
Impatient, he will always feel the temptation to make use of the best means of
his own art. The laws of stage effects are for him and the audience sometimes
different from those which are found in the soul of the creating poet. In the
struggle of passion, a word, a glance, is often specially adapted to bring out
the strongest pantomime effects for the actor; all the subsequent mental
processes expressed in his speech, however poetically true in themselves, will
appear to him and to his audience only as a lengthening. In this way, much is
unnecessary in acting which is fully justified in writing and reading.
That the actor, for his part, has the task of carefully following the poet,
and as much as possible working out the poet’s purposed effects, even with
self-renunciation, is a matter of course. But not seldom his right is greater
than that of the poet’s lines, for the reason that his equipment, voice,
invention, technique, even his nerves, place restrictions upon him which the
poet does not find cogent. But with this right which the actor has, in view of
his labor, the poet will have the more difficulties to overcome the further he
keeps aloof from the stage, and the less distinct to him in single moments of
his creative activity is his stage-picture of the characters. He will also be
obliged to make clear to himself through observation and reflection, how he may
plan and present his characters rightly to the actor for the best stage
effects. He must not, however, always conform to the actor’s art. And since
it is his duty, at his desk, to be as much as possible the guardian of the
histrionic artist, he must study most earnestly the essential laws of
histrionic art.
III. MINOR RULES.
The same laws which have been enumerated for the action, apply also to the
characters of the stage. These, too, must possess dramatic unity, probability,
importance and magnitude, and be fitted for a strong and progressive expression
of dramatic life.
The persons of the drama must exhibit only that side of human nature, by
which the action is advanced and given motive. No miser, no hypocrite, is
always miserly, always hypocritical; no scoundrel betrays his degraded soul in
every act he performs; no one always acts consistently; the thoughts which
contend with each other in the human mind, are of infinite variety; the
directions in which spirit, mind, volition, express themselves, are infinitely
different. But the drama, like every form of art, has no right to select with
freedom from the sum of all the things which characterize a man’s life, and
combine them; only what serves the idea and the action belongs to art. But only
such selected impulses in the character as belong together and are easily
intelligible, will serve the action. Richard III. of England was a bloody and
unscrupulous despot; but he was not such always nor toward everyone; he was,
besides, a politic prince; and it is possible, according to history, that his
reign appears, in some directions, a blessing to England. If a poet sets
himself the task of showing the bloody rigor and falseness of a highly endowed,
misanthropic hero-nature, embodied in this character, it is understood that the
traits of moderation and perhaps of benevolence, which are found to some extent
in the life of this prince, the poet dare accept, only so far as they support
the fundamental trait of character needed for this idea. And as the number of
characterizing moments which he can introduce at all, is, in proportion to the
reality, exceedingly small, every individual trait bears an entirely different
relation to the aggregate than it bears in reality. But whatever is necessary
in the chief figures is of value in the accessory figures. It is understood
that the texture of their souls must be so much the more easily understood, the
less the space which the poet has left for them. The dramatic poet will
scarcely commit great mistakes in this. Even to unskilled talent, the one side
from which it has to illuminate its figures, is accustomed to be very
distinct.
The first law, that of unity, admits of still another application to the
characters: The drama must have only one chief hero, about whom all the
persons, however great their number, arrange themselves in different
gradations. The drama has a thoroughly monarchic arrangement; the unity of its
action is essentially dependent on this, that the action is perfected about one
dominant character. But also for a sure effect, the first condition is that the
interest of the spectator must be directed mostly toward one person, and he
must learn as early as possible who is to occupy his attention before all other
characters. Since the highest dramatic processes of but few persons can be
exhibited in broad elaboration, the number of great rôles is limited to a few;
and it is a common experience that nothing is more painful to the hearer than
the uncertainty as to what interest he should give to each of these important
persons. It is also one practical advantage of the piece to direct its effects
toward a single middle point.
Whoever deviates from this fundamental law must do so with the keen
perception that he surrenders a great advantage; and if his subject matter
makes this surrender necessary, he must, in doubt, ask himself whether the
uncertainty thus arising in the effects, will be counterbalanced by other
dramatic advantages.
Our drama has for a long time entertained one exception. Where the relations
of two lovers form the essentials of an action, these persons, bound by
spiritual ties, are looked upon as enjoying equal privileges, and are conceived
as a unit. Thus in Romeo and Juliet, Love and Intrigue, The
Piccolomini, also in Troilus and Cressida. But even in this case,
the poet will do well to accord to one of the two the chief part in the action;
and where this is not possible, he should base the inner development of the two
upon corresponding motives. In Shakespeare, Romeo is the leading character in
the first half of the play; in the second half, Juliet leads. In Antony and
Cleopatra, Antony is the leading character up to his death.
But while in Shakespeare, Lessing, Goethe, the chief hero is unmistakable,
Schiller, not to the advantage of his construction, has a peculiar inclination
toward double heroes; this appears as early as The Robbers; and in his
later years, after his acquaintance with the ancient drama, they become still
more striking, – Carlos and Posa; Mary and Elizabeth; the hostile brothers,
Max and Wallenstein; Tell, the Swiss, and Rudenz. This inclination is easily
explained. Schiller’s pathetic strain had only been strengthened by his
acquaintance with Greek tragedy; not seldom in his dramas, it comes into
contradiction with a greater poetic quality, dramatic energy. So under his
hand, there were disjoined two tendencies of his own nature, which were
transferred to two separate persons, one of whom received the pathetic part,
the other the leading part of the action, the second sometimes also receiving a
share in the pathos. How this division rendered less prominent the first hero,
who was the pathetic character, has already been explained.
Another error the poet finds it more difficult to avoid. The share of the
persons in the advancement of the action must be so arranged that what they do
shall have its logical basis in an easily understood trait of character, and
not in a subtlety of judgment, or in a peculiarity which seems accidental.
Above all, a decided advancement of the action must not proceed from the
marvellous in a character, which has no motive, or from such weaknesses as in
the eyes of our observant audiences lessen the enrapturing impression. Thus the
catastrophe in Emilia Galotti, is, according to our notion, no longer
tragic in a high degree, because from Emilia and her father, we demand a more
virile courage. That the daughter fears being debauched, and the father,
instead of seeking an escape from the castle for himself and his daughter,
dagger in hand, despairs because the reputation of the daughter is already
injured by the abduction, – this wounds our sensibilities, however
beautifully the character of Odoardo is fashioned for this catastrophe. In
Lessing’s time, the ideas of the public regarding the power and arbitrariness
of royal rulers were so vivid, that the situation had a far different effect
than it has now. And yet with such assumptions, he could have motived the
murder of the daughter more powerfully. The spectator must be thoroughly
convinced that any escape for the Galotti from the castle, is impossible. The
father must seek it with the last accession of power, he must thwart the prince
by violence. For there remains still the greater disadvantage, that it was much
more to Odoardo’s advantage to kill the rascally prince, than his own
innocent daughter. That would have been more according to custom, and humanly
truer. Of course this tragedy could not bear such an ending. And this is an
evidence that what is worthy of consideration in the piece, lies deeper than
the catastrophe. The German atmosphere in which the strong spirit of Lessing
struggled, still renders the creation of great tragic effect difficult. The
brave Germans, like noble Romans of the imperial time, thought, “Death makes
free?” [22]
When it is unavoidable to represent the hero, in an essential respect
shortsighted and limited in the face of his surroundings, the oppressive burden
must be lightened by the complementary side of his personality, which turns
toward him an increased degree of respect and sympathy. This is successfully
done in Goetz von Berlichingen and Wallenstein; it was tried, but
did not succeed in Egmont.
The Greek author of The Poetics prescribed that the characters of the
heroes, in order to awaken interest must be composed of good and evil; the law
is still valid to-day, and applicable to the changed conditions of our stage.
The figures, and all the material from which the German stage makes,
preferably, its poetical characters, are from real life. Where the poet deems
figures from legend worthy of use, he attempts more or less successfully to
endow them with a more liberal humanity and a richer life, which invites to the
idealization of historical characters or persons in the real world. And the
poet will be able to use every character for his drama, that makes the
representation of strong dramatic processes possible. Absolute and unchangeable
goodness or evil are hereby excluded for chief characters. Art, in itself, lays
no further restriction upon him; for a character which allows the most
powerfully dramatic processes to be richly represented in itself, will be an
artistic picture, whatever may be its relation to the moral import, or to the
social views of the hearer.
The choice of the poet is also limited, especially through his own manly
character, taste, morality, habits, and also through his regard for the ideal
listener, – the public. It must be of great consequence to him, to inspire
his audience with admiration for his hero, and to change his audience to fellow
players, following the variations and mental processes which he brings to view.
In order to maintain this sympathy, he is compelled to choose personages which
not only enrapture by the importance, magnitude, and power of their characters,
but win to themselves the sentiment and taste of the audience.
The poet must also understand the secret of ennobling and beautifying for
his contemporaries the frightful, horrible, the base and repulsive in a
character, by means of the combination which he gives it. The question for the
German stage, how much dare the poet venture, is no longer doubtful since
Shakespeare’s time. The magic of his creative power works, perhaps, on
everyone who himself attempts to poetize, most powerfully through the
completeness which he gave to his villains. Richard III. and Iago are models,
showing how beautifully the poet can fashion malevolence and wickedness. The
strong vital energy, and the ironical freedom in which they play with life,
attaches to them a most significant element which compels an unwilling
admiration. Both are scoundrels with no addition of a qualifying circumstance.
But in the self-consciousness of superior natures, they control those about
them with an almost superhuman power and security. On close inspection, they
appear to be very differently constituted. Richard is the son of a wild time
full of terror, where duty passed for naught, and ambition ventured everything.
The incongruity between an iron spirit and a deformed body, became for him the
foundation of a cold misanthropy. He is a practical man, and a prince, who does
only such evil as is useful to him, and is merciless with a wild caprice. Iago
is far more a devil. It is his joy to act wickedly; he perpetrates wickedness
with most sincere delight. He gives to himself and to others as his motive for
destroying the Moor, that Othello has preferred another officer to him, and has
been intimate with his wife. All this is untrue; and so far as it contains any
truth, it is not the ultimate ground of his treachery. His chief tendency is
the ardent desired of a creative power to make attacks, to stir up quarrels,
especially for his own use and advantage. He was more difficult, therefore, to
be made worthy of the drama than was the prince, the general, to whom
environment, and his great purpose gave a certain importance and greatness; and
therefore Shakespeare endowed him more copiously with humor, the beautifying
mood of the soul, which has the single advantage of throwing upon even the
hateful and low a charming light.
The basis of humor is the unrestricted freedom of a well-endowed mind, which
displays its superior power to those about it in sportive caprice. The epic
poet who in his own breast, bears inclination and disposition for these
effects, may exhibit them in a twofold manner in the creatures of his art: he
can make these humorists, or he can exercise his own humor on them. The tragic
poet, who speaks only through his heroes, may of course, do only the first,
because he communicates his humor to them. This modern intellectual inclination
continually produces on the hearer a mighty, at the same time an enchanting and
a liberating influence. For the serious drama, its employment has a difficulty.
The conditions of humor are intellectual liberty, quiet, deliberation; the
condition of the dramatic hero is embarrassment, storm, strong excitement. The
secure and comfortable playing with events is unfavorable to the advance of an
excited action; it almost inevitably draws out into a situation the scene into
which it intrudes. Where, therefore, humor enters with a chief character, in
order that this character may be raised above others, it must have other
characteristics which prevent it from quietly delaying. It must have strong
impelling force, and beyond this, a powerfully forward-moving action.
Now, it is possible so to guide the humor of the drama that it does not
exclude violent commotions of the soul, so that an unobstructed view of one’s
own and another’s fate is enhanced, through a corresponding capability of the
character to express greater passion. But this is not to be learned.
And the union of a profound intellect with the confidence of a secure power
and with superior fancy, is a gift which has hardly been conferred upon an
author of serious dramas in Germany. When one receives such a gift, he uses it
without care, without pains, with certainty; he makes himself laws, and rules,
and compels his admiring contemporaries to follow him. He who has not this gift
strives for it in vain, and tries in vain to paint into his scenes something of
that embellishing brilliancy with which genius floods everything.
It was explained above, how in our drama, the characters must give motive to
the progress of the action, and how the fate which rules them must not be
anything else than the course of events brought about by the personality of
these characters, – a course which must be conceived every moment by the
hearer as reasonable and probable, however surprising individual moments may
come to him. Right here the poet evinces his power if he knows how to fashion
his characters deep and great, and conduct his action with elevated thought,
and if he does not offer as a beautiful invention what lies upon the beaten
track of ordinary understanding, and what is next to a shallow judgment. And
with a purpose, it may be emphatically repeated, that every drama must be a
firmly connected structure in which the connection between cause and effect
form the iron clasps, and that what is irrational can, as such, have no
important place at all in the modern drama.
But now mention must be made of an accessory motive for the advancement of
the action, a motive which was not mentioned in the former section. In
individual cases, the characters may receive as a fellow-player, a shadow,
which is not gladly welcomed on our stage – the mischance. When what is being
developed has been, in its essentials, grounded in the impelling personality of
the characters, then it may become comprehensible that in the action, a single
man is not able to guide with certainty the connection of events. When in
King Lear, the villain, Edmund; when in Antigone, the despot,
Creon, recall the death sentences which they have pronounced, it appears as an
accident that these same sentences have been executed so quickly and in such an
unexpected manner. When in Wallenstein, the hero will abrogate the
treaty which he has concluded with Wrangel, it is strongly emphasized with what
incomprehensible suddenness the Swede has disappeared. When in Romeo and
Juliet, the news of Juliet’s death reaches Romeo before the message of
Friar Laurence, the accident appears of decisive importance in the course of
the piece. But this intrusion of a circumstance not counted upon, however
striking it may be, is at bottom no motive forcing itself in from without; it
is only the result of a characteristic deed of the hero.
The characters have caused a portentous decision to depend on a course of
events which they can no longer govern. The trap had already fallen, which
Edmund had set for the death of Cordelia; Creon had caused Antigone to be
locked up in the burial vault; whether the defiant woman awaited starvation or
chose a death for herself – of this he had no longer the direction;
Wallenstein has given his fate into the hands of an enemy; that Wrangel had
good grounds to make the resolve of the waverer irrevocable, was evident. Romeo
and Juliet have come into the condition, that the possibility of their saving
their lives depends on a frightful, criminal, and extremely venturesome
measure, which the priest had thought of in his anguish. In this and similar
cases, the accident enters only because the characters under overpowering
pressure have already lost the power of choice. For the poet and his piece, it
is no longer accident, that is, not something extraneous which bursts asunder
the joints of the action; but it is a motive like every other, deduced from the
peculiarities of the characters; in its ultimate analysis, it is a necessary
consequence of preceding events. This not ineffective means is to be used with
prudence, and is to be grounded in the nature of the characters and in the
actual situation.
For guiding the characters through individual acts, a few technical rules
are to be observed, as has already been said. They will be brought forward, in
this place, briefly, once more. Every single person of the drama is to show the
fundamental traits of his character, as distinctly, as quickly, and as
attractively as possible; and where an artistic effect lies in a concealed play
of single rôles, the audience must be, to a certain extent, the confidant of
the poet. The later a new characteristic trait enters the action, the more
carefully must the motive for it be laid in the beginning, in order that the
spectator may enjoy to the full extent the pleasure of the surprise, and
perceive that it corresponds exactly to the constitution of the character.
Brief touches are the rule, where the chief characters have to present
themselves at the beginning of the play. As a matter of course, the significant
single characteristics are not to be introduced in an anecdotal manner, but to
be interwoven with the action, except that little episodes, or a modest
painting of a situation, are thus allowed. The scenes at the beginning, which
give color to the piece, which prepare the moods, must also at the same time
present the ground texture of the hero. Shakespeare manages this with wonderful
skill. Before his heroes are entangled in the difficulties of a tragic action,
he likes to let them, while still unembarrassed in the introduction scenes,
express the trend of their character most distinctly and characteristically;
Hamlet, Othello, Romeo, Brutus, Richard III., illustrate.
It is not an accident that Goethe’s heroes, – Faust, both parts,
Iphigenia, even Götz, – are introduced in soliloquy, or in quiet
conversation like Tasso, Clavigo. Egmont enters first in the second act.
Lessing follows the old custom of his stage, of introducing his heroes by means
of their intimates; but Schiller again lays great stress on the characteristic
representation of unembarrassed heroes. In the trilogy of Wallenstein,
the nature of the hero is first presented in rich mirrorings in The
Camp, and in the first act of The Piccolomini; but Wallenstein
himself appears, introduced by the astrologer, in the circle of his family and
friends, out of which during the entire play, he is seldom removed.
It has already been said that new rôles in the second half of the drama,
the return action, require a peculiar treatment. The spectator is inclined to
consider with mistrust the leading of the rôles through new persons. The poet
must take care not to distract or make impatient. Therefore the characters of
the second part require a richer endowment, attractive presentation, most
effective detailed delineation, in compact treatment. Excellent examples of
elaboration are, besides those already named, Deveroux and Macdonald in
Wallenstein, while Buttler, in the same piece, serves as model of a
character whose active participation is saved for the last part, – not towed
as a dead weight through the first, but interwoven with its internal
changes.
Finally, the unpracticed playwright must take care, when it is necessary to
have another person talk about his hero, to attach no great value to such
exposition of the character; and will only, when it is entirely to the purpose,
allow the hero to express a judgment concerning himself; but all that others
say of a person, or what he says of himself, has little weight in comparison
with what is seen coming into being, growing in counter-play with others, in
the connections of the action. Indeed, the effect may be fatal if the zealous
poet commends his heroes as sublime, as joyous, as shrewd, while in the piece,
in spite of the poet’s wish, it is not accorded them to show these
qualities.
The conducting of characters through the scenes must occur with strict
regard to the tableaux, or grouping, and the demands of scenic representation.
For even in the conducting of a scene, the actor, as opposed to the poet, makes
his demands prevail, and the poet does well to heed them. He stands in a
delicate relation with his actor, which places obligations on both sides. In
the essential thing, the aim of both is the same. Both exercise their creative
power upon the same material; the poet as a silent guide, the actor as an
executive power. And the poet will soon learn that the German actor, on the
whole, adapts himself with a ready fervor and zeal to the effects of the poet,
and seldom burdens him with claims, through which he thinks to place his own
art in the foreground to the disadvantage of the poetry. Since, indeed, the
individual actor has in his eye the effects of his rôle, and the poet thinks
of the aggregate effect, in many cases there may be in the rehearsal of the
piece, a division of interests. The poet will not always accord to his
associate the better right, – if it is necessary to temper an effect, or to
suppress a single character in single moments of an action. Experience teaches
that the actor, in such a contradiction of the conceptions on either side,
readily falls into line as soon as he receives the notion that the poet
understands his own art. For the artist is accustomed to labor as a participant
in a greater whole, and when he will give attention, right well perceives the
highest demands of the piece. The claims which he puts forward with right, –
good rôles, strong effects, economy of his strength, a convenient arrangement
of scenes, – must be as much a matter of concern to the poet as to him.
These requirements may be traced back to two great principles, to the
proposition which may be stated: The stage effect must be clear to the poet
while he is composing; and to the short but very imperative proposition: The
poet must know how to create great dramatic effects for his characters. In
every individual scene, specially in scenes where groups appear, the poet must
keep well in mind the general appearance of the stage; he must perceive with
distinctness the positions of the persons, their movements toward and away from
each other as they occur gradually on the stage. If more frequently than the
character and the dignity of the rôle allow, he compels the actor to turn
toward this or the other person, in order to facilitate subordinate rôles, or
correct them; if he delays the motive, the transitions from one arrangement
into another, from one side of the stage to another, as he presumes it to come
at a later moment of the scene; if he forces the actor into a position which
does not allow him to complete his movements unrestrained and effectively, or
to come into the proposed combination with a fellow actor; if he does not
remember which of his rôles every time begins the play, and which continues
it; further, if he leaves one of the chief characters unoccupied for a long
time on the stage, or if he attributes too much to the power of the actor, –
the final result of this and similar difficulties is a representation too weak
and fragmentary of the course on the stage, of the dramatic action which the
poet may have perceived clear and effective in its course through his mind. In
all such cases, the claims of the actor must be respected. And the poet will
also, on this ground, give special attention to the claims of stage custom. For
this, there is no better means of learning than to go with an actor through a
new rôle which is to be practiced, and carefully watch the rehearsal under a
competent stage director.
The old requirement that a poet must adapt his characters to the special
line of work of the actors, appears more awkward than it really is. Well
established principles once current for the government of chief rôles, have
been abandoned by our stage; having once received an artist into the circle of
prescriptions and prohibitions, they made it impossible for an “intriguer”
to play a rôle outside of the first rank; and they separated the
bon-vivant from the “youthful hero,” by a wide chasm, almost
impassable. Meantime, there remains so much of the custom as is useful for the
actor and the stage director, in order to draw individual talent towards its
special province, and to facilitate the setting of new rôles. Every actor
rejoices in a certain stock of dramatic means which he has developed within his
branch: the quality of his voice, accent of speech, physical bearing, postures,
control of facial muscles. Within his accustomed limits, he moves with
comparative security; beyond them, he is uncertain. If now the poet lays claim
to the accustomed readiness of different specialties in the same rôle, the
setting will be difficult, and the result, perhaps, doubtful. There is, for
instance, an Italian party-leader of the fifteenth century, as to outsiders,
sharp, sly, concealed, an unscrupulous scoundrel; in his family, warm in
feeling, dignified, honored and honorable, – no improbable mixture; – his
image on the stage would strike one very differently, when the character player
or the older and dignified hero father represented him; probably in any
setting, the one side of his nature would fall short.
This is no infrequent case. The advantage of correct setting according to
special capability of actors, the dangers of an inappropriate setting, can be
observed in witnessing any new piece. The poet will never allow himself to be
guided by such a prudent respect for the greater sureness of his results, when
the formation of an unusual stage character is of importance to him. He is only
to know what is most convenient for himself and his actors.
And when at last it is required of the poet that he fashion his characters
effectively for the actor, this claim contains the highest requirement which
can be placed upon the dramatic poet. To create effectively for the actor,
means, indeed, nothing else than to create dramatically, in the best sense of
the word. Body and soul, the actor is prepared to transform himself into
conscious, creative activity, in order to body forth the most secret thought,
feeling, sentiment, of will and deed. Let the poet see to it that he knows how
to use worthily and perfectly this mighty stock of means for his artistic
effects. And the secret of his art, – the first thing given a place in these
pages and the last, – is only this: Let him delineate exactly and truly, even
to details, however strongly feeling breaks forth from the private life as
desire and deed, and however strong impressions are made from without upon the
soul of the hero. Let him describe this with poetic fulness, from a soul which
sees exactly, sharply, comprehensively, each single moment of the process, and
finds special joy in portraying it in beautiful single effects. Let him thus
labor, and he will set his actors the greatest tasks, and will worthily and
completely make use of their noblest powers.
Again it must be said, no technique teaches how one must begin, in order to
write in this way.
CHAPTER V. VERSE AND COLOR.
The century in which the romance has become the prevailing species of
poetry, will no longer consider verse an indispensable element of poetics.
There are many dramas of a high order, favorite pieces upon our stage, composed
in prose. At least in dramatic subjects from modern times, it is claimed, prose
is the most appropriate expression of such thoughts and sentiments as can be
placed on the stage, from a well-known real life. But the serious drama hardly
concludes to abandon the advantages which verse affords, in order to win those
of prose.
It is true, prose flows along more rapidly, more easily, indeed, in many
respects more dramatically. It is easier in it, to discriminate the different
characters; it offers, from the construction of the sentence to the qualities
of voice and tones, the greatest wealth of colors and shades; everything is
less constrained; it adapts itself quickly to every frame of mind; it can give
to light prattle or to humorous delight a spirit which is very difficult to
verse; it admits of greater disquiet, stronger contrasts, more violent
movement. But these advantages are fully counterbalanced by the exalted mood of
the hearer which verse produces and maintains. While prose easily incurs the
risk of reducing the work of art to copies of ordinary reality, speech in verse
elevates the nature of the characters into the noble. Every moment the
perception and feeling of the hearer are kept alive to the fact that he is in
the presence of a work of art which bears him away from reality, and sets him
in another world, the relations of which the human mind has ordered with
perfect freedom. Moreover, the limitation which is placed on logical
discussion, and sometimes on the brevity and incisiveness of expression, is no
very perceptible loss. To poetical representation, the sharpness and fineness
of proof-processes are not so important as the operation on the mind, as the
brilliance of imaginative expression, of simile and antithesis, which verse
favors. In the rhythmic ring of the verse, feeling and vision raised above
reality, float as if transfigured, in the hearer’s soul; and it must be said
that these advantages can be very serviceable, specially to subjects from
modern times; for in these, the exaltation above the common frame of mind of
every-day life, is most necessary. How this can be done, not only The Prince
of Homburg shows, but the treatment which Goethe gave the undramatic
material of The Natural Daughter, though the verse of this drama is not
written conveniently for the actor.
The iambic pentameter has been our established verse since Goethe and
Schiller. A preponderating trochaic accent of German words makes this verse
peculiarly convenient. Of course, it is rather brief in relation to the little
logical units of the sentence, the coupling of which in pairs makes up the
essence of the verse-line. In its ten or eleven syllables, we cannot compress
the fulness of meaning which it has, for example, in the terse English speech;
and the poet thus inclined toward a rich, sonorous expression, falls easily
into the temptation of extending part of a sentence into a line and a half or
two lines, which it would be better to extend in an uninterrupted, and thus
finer flow of words. But the pentameter has the advantage of the greatest
possible fluency and flexibility; it can adapt itself more than any other kind
of verse to changing moods, and follow every variation of the soul in time and
movement.
The remaining kinds of verse which have been used in the drama, suffer the
disadvantage of having too marked a peculiarity of sound, and more than a
little limit characterization by speech, which is necessary to the drama.
The German trochaic tetrameter, which among many other measures for
instance, Immermann used effectively in the catastrophe of his Alexis,
flows like all trochaic verse, too uniformly with the natural accent of our
language. The sharp time-beats which its feet make in the speech, and the long
elevated course, give to it in the German language, a restlessness, a surging,
a dark tone-color which would be appropriate only for high tragic moods. The
iambic hexameter, the caesura of which stands in the middle of the third foot,
the tragic measure of the Greeks, has, so far, been used but little in Germany.
From its translations from the Greek, it acquired the reputation of stiffness
and rigidity which do not essentially belong to it; it has a vigorous movement
and is capable of many variations. Its sonorousness is majestic, and full for
rich expression which moves forward in long undulations, and is splendidly
adapted to its use. It has only this disadvantage, that its chief division,
which even in the drama must be made after the fifth syllable, gives to the
parts of the verse very uneven length. Against five syllables stand seven, or
eight if there is a feminine ending. A second caesura intrudes so easily into
the second half verse, that the line is divided into three parts. This
aftertone of the longer half makes a masculine ending of the verse desirable;
and the foretone of the masculine ending contributes to give weight, sometimes,
hardness. The Alexandrine, an iambic hexameter, the caesura of which lies after
the third arsis, and divides the line into two equal parts, cuts the discourse
too markedly in the German drama. In French, its effect is entirely different,
because in this language the verse accent is much more covered and broken up in
a greater number of ways, not only through the capricious and movable word
accent, but through the free rhythmic swing of spoken discourse through a
mingling and prolongation of words, which we cannot imitate; and this rests on
a greater prominence of the element of sound, sonorousness, with which the
creative power of the speaker knows how to play in an original manner. Finally,
there is another iambic verse in the German, specially adapted to a vigorous
movement, yet little used, – the hexameter of The Nibelungen, in the
new language an iambic hexameter, the fourth foot of which may be not only an
iambus, but an anapest, and always has the caesura of the verse after the first
thesis. What is characteristic and specially adapted to the German language, is
the position of the caesura so far along in the verse, which, deviating from
all ancient measures, as a rule, shows a greater number of syllables in the
first half. If the verses of this measure are not joined in strophes, but are
used with slight variations in construction as continuous long verses, with a
line frequently passing over into the next as a single sentence, then this
measure is excellent and effective for the expression even of impassioned
progress. It is possible that its nature, which, perhaps, corresponds best to
the rhythmic relations of the German language, avails for animated narrative,
and wins some significance for one species of comedy. To the elevated drama,
rhyme, which in this measure, two long verses cannot dispense with as a
connecting element, will always seem too harmonious and sportive, however well
it may be modified through a rapid transition of voice, from one line to
another.
For the modern drama, further, likeness of tone-color and uniformity of
measure is indispensable. Our speech, and the receptivity of the hearer are, so
far as the relations of sound are concerned, little developed. The differences
in the sounds of the verses are conceived more as disturbing interruptions than
as stimulating aids. But further, interest in the intellectual import of the
discourse and in the dramatic movement of the characters, has come to the front
to such an extent, that even for this reason, every verse unit which, in its
contrast with what has preceded, calls attention to itself, will be counted a
distraction.
This is also the ground that should easily exclude prose passages from
between poetic passages in our drama; for by means of them, the contrast in
color becomes still stronger. Inserted prose always gives to scenes something
of the barren imitation of reality; and this disadvantage is increased, because
prose serves the poet as a means of expressing moods for which the dignified
sonorousness of verse appears too excellent.
The iambic pentameter has a fluency for the German poet, whose soul has
accustomed itself in its soarings, to think and feel most easily during the
process of composition. But its being made the vehicle of dramatic expression
is still difficult for the German poet, and the poets are not numerous who have
perfectly succeeded in it. And so distinctly this verse expresses the poet’s
quality, which is here called dramatic, that the reader of a new piece is able
to perceive from a few verses of animated dialogue, whether this dramatic power
of the poet is developed or not. Of course, it is always much easier for the
Germans to feel the possibly dramatic than to express this inner life in a
becoming manner in verse.
Before iambic verse is available for the stage, the poet must be in a
position to make it correct, euphonious, and without too great effort; chief
caesura and secondary caesura, arsis, thesis, masculine endings, feminine
endings, must come out according to well-known laws, regularly and in pleasing
variations.
If the poet has gained the technique of versification and succeeded in
writing musical verse with pleasing flow and pithy substance, his verse is
certainly not right undramatic; and the more difficult labor begins. Now the
poet must acquire another art of rhythmic feeling, which shall occasion, in
place of regularity, to place apparent irregularities, to disturb the uniform
flow in manifold ways, which means, to imbue with strong dramatic life.
Previously it was said, that in French, the Alexandrine was animated and
varied by the introduction of irregular modulations and cadences. The dramatic
speech of the Germans does not allow the actors, like the French, unlimited
play with words, through a rapidly changing rate of utterance, sharp accent,
through a prolongation or tossing of the sounds, which proceed almost
independently of their meaning, when representing single words. On the other
hand, there is given to the German in an unusual degree, the capability of
expressing the movements of his mind, in the structure of his verse, through
the connecting and separating of sentences, through bringing into relief, or
transposing single words. The rhythmic movement of the excited soul comes more
into relief among the Germans, in the logical connection and division of
sentences, than among the Latin races in the sonorous swing of their
recitation.
In the iambus of the drama, this life enters by interrupting the symmetrical
structure of the verse, checking it, turning it this way and that into the
infinite shadings which are produced by the movements of the characters. The
verse must accommodate itself obediently to every mood of the soul; it must
seek to correspond to each, not only through its rhythm but through the logical
connection of sentences which it combines. For quiet feeling and fine mental
action, which move forward in repose and dignity or with vivid animation, he
must use his purest form, his most beautiful euphony, and even flow of
eloquence. In Goethe, the dramatic iambus glides thus in quiet beauty. If
feeling rises higher, if the more excited mood flows out in more adorned,
long-breathed lines, then the verse must rush in long waves, now dying out in
preponderating feminine endings, now terminating more frequently in powerful
masculine endings. This is, as a rule, Schiller’s verse. The excitement
becomes stronger; single waves of speech break over one verse, and fill a part
of the next; then short impulses of passion throng and break up the form of
single verses; but above all this eddying, the rhythmic current of a longer
passage is quietly and steadily moving. So in Lessing. But the expression of
excitement becomes stormier and wilder; the rhythmic course of the verse seems
wholly disordered; now and again a sentence from the end of one verse rings
over into the beginning of the next; here and there a part of a verse is torn
from its connections, and attached to what has preceded or what follows; speech
and counter-speech break the grammatical connections; the first word of a
sentence, and the last, – two important places, – are separated from others
and become independent members of a sentence; the verse remains imperfect;
instead of the quiet restful alternations of strong and weak endings, there is
a long series of verses with the masculine ending; the caesura is hardly to be
recognized; even in those unaccented syllables or groups, over which, in the
regular course, the rhythm would flow swiftly, massive, heavy words throng
together, and the parts of the verse tumble against each other as in chaos.
This is the dramatic verse, as it produces the most powerful effects in the
best passages of Kleist, in spite of all the poet’s mannerisms; thus it
whirls and eddies away more magnificently, more finished, in the passionate
scenes of Shakespeare.
As soon as the poet has learned to use his verse in such a manner, he has
imbued it with a dramatic life. But he must always keep in mind one dramatic
rule: Dramatic verse is not to be read or recited quietly, but to be pronounced
in character. For this purpose, it is necessary that the logical connection of
sentences be made perfectly clear, through conjunctions and prepositions; and
further, that the expression of sentiment correspond to the character of the
speaker, not break off in unintelligible brevity, nor be prolonged to
prolixity; finally, that uneuphonious combinations of sounds and indistinct
words are to be carefully avoided. Spoken speech yields its thought, sometimes
with more ease, sometimes with more difficulty. A dissonance which the reader
hardly notices, when pronounced, distracts and offends in a marked degree.
Every obscurity in the connection of sentences makes the actor and the hearer
uncertain, and leads to false conceptions. But even for accurate expression in
fine and spirited explication, the reader is more penetrating and receptive
than the easily distracted and more busily occupied spectator. On the other
hand, the actor may make many things clearer. The reader in a comparatively
more quiet mood, follows the short sentences of a broken speech, the inner
relations of which are not made plain by the usual particles of logical
sentence sequences; but he follows with an effort which easily becomes
exhaustion. To the actor, on the contrary, such passages are the most welcome
as the foundation of his creative work. By means of an accent, a glance, a
gesture, he knows how to render quickly intelligible to the hearer, the last
connection, the omitted ideas necessary to completeness; and the soul which he
puts into the words, the passion which streams forth from him, become a guide
which fills out and completes for the hearer the import of the suppressed and
fragmentary speech, and produces perhaps a powerful unity. It happens that in
reading, long passages of verse give the impression of the artificial, of
something vainly sought for; but this on the stage changes into a picture of
intense passion. Now, it is possible that the actor has done his best with it;
for his art is specially powerful where the poet has left a blank in the
thought. But just so often the poetic art has the best right; and the fault is
in the reader, because his power of following and thinking along with the poet,
is not so active as it should be. It is easy to recognize this peculiarity of
style in Lessing. The frequent interruptions in the discourse, the short
sentences, the questions and chance remarks, the animated dialectic processes
which his persons pass through, appear in reading as artificial unrest. But,
with a few exceptions, they are so accurate, so profoundly conceived, that this
poet, just on this account, is the favorite with actors. Still more striking is
the same peculiarity in Kleist, but not always sound, and not always true. In
the restlessness, feverishness, excitement of his language, the inner life of
his characters, which struggles violently, sometimes helplessly for expression,
finds its corresponding reflection.
But a useless interruption of the discourse is not infrequent, –
unnecessarily invented animation, purposeless questions, a misunderstanding
that requires no explanation. For the most part, he has a practical purpose in
this; he wishes to make very prominent individual ideas which appear of
importance to him. But that seems to him important sometimes, which can really
claim no significance; and the frequent recurrence of little leaps aside from
the direct line of the action, disturb not only the reader but the hearer.
The effect of verse can be increased, in the German drama, by parallelisms,
as well of single verses as of groups, especially in dialogue scenes; where
proposition and denial come into sharp opposition, such a rotation of verses is
an excellent means of indicating the contrast.
The expansion which the rhythmic sweep of the Greek drama had, the Germans
cannot imitate. Owing to the character of our speech, we are in a position to
set over against one another in our dramatic composition, every four verses as
a unit, so that the hearer will distinctly perceive coincidence and contrast of
accent. In a recitation, which makes the logical side less prominent, and
brings out the euphony which allows the voice stronger variations, one may set
a longer series of verses effectively over against another. If the Greeks, by
means of their art in recitation, could combine ten trimeters into a unit, and
in the reply to this, could repeat the same accent and cadence, there is
nothing incomprehensible to us in it. Possibly, in the older times of Greek
tragedy, there were a number of recitation melodies, or refrains, which were
specially invented for each piece, or were already known to the hearers, and
which without elevating the speaking tones of the recitation to a song, bound a
longer group of verses into a unit.
This method of delivery is not to be used by us. Even in using the customary
rotation verses, which beat, one against one, two against two, three against
three, a limit is set. For our kind of dramatic composition rebels against any
artifice which restrains the movements of characters and their sentiments. The
pleasure from the rhetoric of such counter-speeches is less than the danger
that the truth of representation may be lessened by artistic limitation. The
poet will, therefore, do well to modify this little effect, and take from it
the severity and appearance of artificiality; this may be done by interspersing
parallel propositions in verse, with irregularly placed verses.
In the soul of the poet, at the same time with the foundation of the
characters and the beginnings of the action, the color begins to flash. This
peculiar adjunct of every subject matter is more developed among us moderns
than in earlier times; for historical culture has greatly enhanced our sense
for, and interest in what deviates from our own life. Character and action are
conceived by the poet in the peculiar circumstances which the time, the place,
the relations of the civilization in the time of the real hero, his manner of
speech and of dealing, his costume, and the forms of intercourse, – have in
contrast with our own time and life. Whatever of the original clings to the
material of a play carries the poet back in his artistic work, to the speech of
his hero, to his surroundings, even down to his costume, the scenery and stage
properties. These peculiarities the poet idealizes. He perceives them as
determined by the idea of the piece. A good color is an important matter. It
works at the beginning of the piece, at once stimulating and enchanting to the
hearer; it remains to the end a charming ingredient, which may sometimes serve
to cover weaknesses in the action.
These embellishing colors do not develop in every poet with equal vividness;
they do not come to light with the same energy in every subject. But they never
entirely fail where characters and human circumstances are depicted. They are
indispensable to the epic and the romance, as they are to the drama. Color is
of the most importance in historical themes; it helps here to characterize the
heroes. The dramatic character itself, must, in its feeling and its volition,
have an import which brings it much nearer a cultured man of the present, than
its original in reality corresponds to our conception of it. But it is the
color which gracefully covers for the hearer the inner contradiction between
the man in history and the hero in the drama; the hero and his action it
clothes with the beautiful appearance of a strange being, alluring to the
imagination.
The newer stage rightly takes pains, therefore, to express in the costume
which it gives to the actors, the time in which the piece is laid, the social
position, and many peculiarities of the characters presented. We are now
separated by about a century from the time when Caesar came upon the German
stage with dagger and wig, and Semiramis adorned her riding coat with much
strange tinsel, and her hair with many jewels and striking trimmings, in order
to give herself a foreign appearance. Now, on many prominent stages, imitation
of historical costume has gone very far; but in the majority of cases, it
remains far behind the demands which the audience, in its average historical
knowledge, is justified in demanding with respect to scenic equipment. It is
clear that it is not the duty of the stage to imitate antiquarian
peculiarities; but it is just as clear that it must avoid shocking a multitude
of its patrons by forcing its heroes into a costume which, perhaps, nowhere and
never, certainly not in this century, was possible. If the poet must keep aloof
the antiquarian enthusiasm of the over-zealous from the clothing of his heroes,
because the unusual, the unaccustomed in accessory does not advance, but rather
disorders his piece, he will oftener have occasion, in for instance, a
Hohenstaufen drama, to forbid a Spanish mantle, and to refuse to put upon a
Saxon emperor a glittering lead armor, which changes his Ottos and Henrys into
gold-beetles, and proves by their intolerable brilliancy that they were never
struck by a blow from a sword.
The same holds true with the scenery and stage properties. A rococo table in
a scene from the fifteenth century, or a Greek pillared hall where King Romulus
walks, have already been long painful to the spectator. In order to make such
remissnesses difficult for individual directors and actors, the poet will do
well, in pieces from ancient or remote times, to prescribe exactly upon a page
devoted to that purpose, not only the scenic apparatus but the costumes.
But the most important means for his use in giving color to his piece, is
the language. It is true, the iambus has a certain tone color and modifies the
characteristic expression more than prose. But it admits of a great wealth of
light and shade; it allows even to words a slight tint in dialect.
In subjects from remote times, a language must be invented, possessing a
color corresponding to the period. This is a beautiful, delightful labor, which
the creating poet must undertake right joyfully. This work will be most
advanced by a careful reading of the written monuments received from the
hero’s time. This strange speech works suggestively on the mind of the poet,
by its peculiar accents, its syntactical structure, its popular forms of
expression. And with pen in hand, the poet arranges what appears useful to him
for powerful expression, – striking imagery, telling comparison, proverbial
dialect. Among every foreign people whose literature is accessible, such work
is beneficial, and most advantageous with respect to any nation’s own earlier
times. Our language had in former periods, as the Sclavonic has still, a far
greater proportion of figurative expressions, suggestive to the power of
imagination. The sense of the words had not been evaporated through a long
scientific labor; everywhere there attached to them something of the first
mental expression, from the popular mind where they originated. The number of
proverbs is large, as also is the number of terse forms and Biblical phrases,
which the reflections of our time replace. Such ingredients the creating artist
may hold firmly in mind; upon their melody his talent amplifies almost
involuntarily, the ground tone and moods of the speech of the drama.
With such an inspection of the written works of old times, there remain
connected with the poet, still others, – little traits of character,
anecdotes, many striking things which may complete and illuminate his
pictures.
What he has thus found, he must not use pedantically nor insert in his
speeches like arabesques; each item may signify something to him; but the
suggestion which he receives from it, is of highest value.
This mood which he has given his soul does not forsake him; even while he is
conducting his hero through the scenes, it will suggest to him, not only the
right kind of language, but the cooperation of persons, the way they behave
toward each other, forms of intercourse, customs and usages of the time.
All this is true of the characters and their movements in the scenes. For at
every point in the drama, in every sentiment, in every act, that which in the
material of the play struck us as characteristic, clings to what is humanly
exalted in the ideal figures as embellishing additions. It is seldom necessary
to warn the poet that he is not to do too much with these colors toward scenic
effects; for his highest task is, of course, to have his heroes speak our
language of passion, and exhibit what is characteristic in them, in such vital
expressions as are intelligible to every period, because, in every time they
are possible and conceivable.
Thus the color of the piece is visible in the endowment of language, in the
characters, in the details of the action. What the poet communicates to his
play by color, is as little an imitation of reality, as his heroes are, – it
is free creation. But this accessory helps so much the more to conjure up a
picture in the imagination of the hearer, which has the beautiful appearance of
historic truth, the more earnestly the poet has taken it upon himself to master
the real circumstances of that old time, if he does not lack the power of
reproducing what he perceived to be attractive.
CHAPTER VI. THE POET AND HIS WORK.
Great is the wealth of beauty in the poetry of past peoples and times,
specially in the century of our great poets who form the judgment and excite
the imagination of the poet of the present. This immeasurable wealth of the
products of art is perhaps the greatest blessing for a future in which the
popular energy works most powerfully, taking up what has affinity for it and
casting off what resists it. But during a time of weak rest of the national
spirit, this inheritance was a disadvantage for the creative activity of the
poets, because it favored a lack of distinctive style. Only a few years ago, in
Germany, it was almost an accident whether an Athenian or a Roman, Calderon or
Shakespeare, whether Goethe or Schiller, Scribe or Dumas, attracted the soul of
the young poet into the magic circle of their style and their forms.
The poet of the present begins, furthermore, as a beneficiary who richly
receives, and is thereby incited to his own creative activity. He has, usually,
no life occupation which binds him to a particular, definite field of poetry.
It is again almost by chance, what species of poetical composition attracts
him. He may let his sentiments ring out in lyrics; he may write a romance; at
last the theater entices him, – the brilliance of the author’s evening, the
applause of the audience, the power of the received tragic impressions. There
are few German poets who have not first commended themselves to the public, in
a volume of lyrics, then tried their luck on the stage, and finally contented
themselves with the more quiet success of a romance. Without any doubt, their
poetic talent showed greatest capability in one of these directions. But as
external relations laid no restrictions on them, and now one, now another field
attracted more strongly, the circle in which their power moved with greatest
freedom, did not come into fullest completion. The great secret of a rich
creative activity is limitation to a single branch of the beautiful art. This
the Hellenes knew very well. Whoever wrote tragedies, let comedy alone. Whoever
used hexameter, avoided the iambus.
But the poet, also, to whom the creation of dramatic figures is a necessity,
lives, if he does not stride upon the boards as an actor or director, apart
from the theater. He may write or not. External pressure, a mighty lever to
move talent, is almost entirely wanting. The theater has become the daily
pleasure of the peaceful citizen, and collects not the worst, but not the most
pretentious social element. In this large expansion, it has lost some of the
dignity and loftiness which the poet might wish for the drama of serious style.
There are brought on the stage, buffoonery, opera, comedy, forms and theories
of life of different centuries. All is sought which can please, the newest, the
most singular; and, again, what affords the great multitude most pleasure,
thrusts all else aside.
The resources of material for the poet have become almost boundless, – the
Greek and the Roman worlds, the Middle Ages. Sacred writings and poetry of the
Jews and Christians, even the people of the Orient, history, legends of the
present, open their treasures to the searcher. But this offers the
disadvantage, that with such infinite material, a choice becomes difficult, and
is almost an accident, and that none of these sources is in a condition to
attract the German exclusively, or preferably. Finally, for the German, as it
appears, the time has not yet come when the dramatic life of the people,
itself, flows out richly and unimpeded. Gladly would we see in the appearances
of the newest present the beginnings of a new development of national
character, beginnings which do not yet contribute to art. That it is still so
difficult for the dramatic poet to raise himself from the epic and lyric
conception of character and of situations, is no accident.
But the poet must labor for the stage. Only in connection with the actor’s
art does he produce the best results which are possible to his poetry. The
reading drama is fundamentally only a makeshift of a time in which the full
power of dramatic creation has not yet appeared among a people, or has
disappeared again. The species is an old one. Already among the Greeks pieces
were written for recitation, and still more of the Latin recitation pieces have
been transmitted to us. Among the Germans, the reading drama, from the early
comedies of nun Hroswith, through the stylistic attempts of the first
humanists, even to the greatest poem of our language, has a long history.
Infinitely varied is the poetical worth of these works. But the employment of
poetic form for dramatic effects, which renounce the claim of being the highest
of their species, is considered, on the whole, a limitation, against which art
itself and the interested reader protests.
In the pages of this book, the attempt has been made to show that the
technical work of the dramatic composer is not entirely easy and free from
pains. This kind of poetry demands more from the poet than any other. It
demands a peculiar, but rarely found capability for representing the mental
processes of men of significant and unusual power of action; a nature well
tempered with passion and clearness of vision; a developed and certain poetic
endowment, and a knowledge of men, as well as what in real life, is called
character; an accurate knowledge of the stage and its needs must be added. And
yet it is striking, that of the many who make incursions into this field of
creative work, the most are only dilettanti friends of the beautiful; but just
these choose the most exacting labor, and such a one as promises them the very
least success. It is indeed serious work to write a romance which merits the
name of work of art; but every educated person with constructive skill and
knowledge of men, who has not attempted anything as a poet, may offer something
readable, wherein single significant impressions of real life, what he has
seen, what he has felt, are spiritedly interwoven. Why does the most capricious
muse of all muses, so unapproachable, so ill-mannered toward everybody who does
not wholly belong to her, – why does she attract cultured men, very capable
men? What enemy of their life guides just such warm-hearted friends, who busy
themselves with poetry during their hours of leisure from active duties, into a
poetical field, in which the closest combination of an always rare constructive
energy, with an unusual, firm, secure mastery of the forms of art, is the
assumed condition of lasting success? Does a secret longing of man for what is
most lacking in him, possibly, lead him astray? And does the dilettanti, just
for this reason, seek to develop the drama in himself, because it is denied
him, with all his poetic visions, to animate creatively his restless fluttering
feelings in the body of any other form of art? Undeniably, the attempts of such
persons to labor for the stage, are vain and hopeless. But for the poet who has
been equipped for all his life with dramatic power, we wish, before all other
possessions, a firm and patient heart. He must, however, bring to his
employment still another means of advancement; he must feel quickly and
joyfully what is charming in a subject, and yet have the deliberation to carry
it within his breast till it is natural. Before he ascends the stage as
creative genius, he must for a long time make himself intimate with the chief
laws of creation; for he must understand how to prove whether a subject is
useful, in the essentials. Even in this, judgment must from the first moment
watch over his warm heart, where the charm of composition arises; a play which
has failed, means to him, on the average, a year of his life lost.
The imagination of different poets does not seize upon material with equal
rapidity; the beginner’s seeking soul hovers lightly about any summit which
offers itself, and the nest is built beneath the first budding branch. He who
is warned by experience, becomes critical and tests too long. Often it is not
an accident that suggests a subject to the soul, but the mood and impressions
of the soul’s own life, which attract the fancy in a definite direction. For
the soul works secretly upon a piece before it finds hero and chief scenes; and
what it demands from the material is that this may offer the possibility of
certain scenic effects.
The difficulties which the various subjects and materials offer, have been
made sufficiently prominent. But he who finds it difficult to decide, may
consider that it depends on the power of his talents whether, in most events,
they are changed into a useful action. A positive poetic power needs only a few
moments out of legend, history, narrative, only one strong and momentous
contrast, out of which to form an action.
If the dramatic poet of old times found these traits in the legend shortly
before the destruction of the hero of the epic, it may yet be asked whether, in
historical dramas, it is just as necessary to make the chief heroes of this
sort the central figures in an action, that this may have its movements about
them, their adventures, and their overthrow. How difficult and perilous it is
to make use artistically of an historical life, has already been discussed. Let
it not be objected that the greater historical interest which the heroes
awaken, and the patriotic enthusiasm which the poet and the spectator alike
bring to them, make them specially adapted to the drama. The old German history
offers comparatively few heroic figures whose remembrance is dear through a
great interest, in the present time. What to our people are the emperors of the
Saxon, Frankish, Staufen, or Hapsburg houses? The purposes for which they
conquered and died are perhaps condemned by the convictions of the present
time; the struggles of their life have remained with no occurrences easily
understood by us; for the popular mind, they are dead and buried. But further,
the conscientious poet, before the not numerous historical heroes who still
live in the memory of the people, will recognize new restrictions which narrow
the freshness of his creative power. Just this patriotic sympathy which he
brings with him, and expects from the hearer, lessens the superior freedom with
which, as poet, he must hover over every character, and misleads him into
special kinds of presentation or a sort of portrait sketching. If once, to one
German poet, the dramatic figure of the great Elector has been successful,
Luther, Maria Theresa, “Old Fritz,” have only so much the more frequently
failed.
But it is not at all necessary to make historical kings and generals, the
heroes of an historical drama, which can be constructed advantageously on only
a little period of their historical life. Much more agreeably and profitably
may be exhibited the reaction which their lives have had upon the lives of
others. How well has Schiller done this in Don Carlos, in Mary
Stuart! The Phillip of the former play is a brilliant example, showing how
an historical character is to be used as a partner in a play.
With the life of well-known historical heroes a multitude of figures is
connected, of whom single characteristic traits have been reported; and these
successfully incite free invention. These accessory figures of history, whose
life and its events the poet has at his free disposal, are specially
convenient. One treasonous act and its punishment, one passionate deed of
hatred and its consequences, one scene from a great family quarrel, one defiant
struggle or sly play against a superior power, give him an abundant material.
And such traits and such incidents are found on every page of our history, as
in the history of all civilized nations.
Whoever is conscious of his own power chooses his pictures confidently,
rather from the materials not yet arranged for art, but found in the real life
of the past, and of modern times, than from such stock as is offered him from
the other species of poetry. For the serious drama, material taken from
romances and modern novels is not of much account. If Shakespeare used material
from novels, his sources were, in our sense of the word, only short anecdotes,
in which, of course, an artistic consistency and a powerful conclusion are
already present. In the elaborated epic narrative of the present, the fancy of
the poet shows its power frequently, just in effects which are intrinsically
hostile to the dramatist; and the embellished and agreeable elaboration of the
men and the situations in the romance, may rather dull than sharpen the
imagination of the dramatist. He will hardly do wrong to the property of
another if he draws his material from this circle of invention. For if he is an
artist, very little will pass from the creation of another over into his
drama.
The tragic poet is able, of course, to invent his action without using any
material already at hand. But indeed, this happens less often, and with more
difficulty than one would suppose. Among the great dramas of our stage, just as
it once was in ancient times, there are few which are not constructed from
already used material. For it is a characteristic of the power of imagination,
that it perceives more vividly and exactly the movements in the life of men, if
it can attach itself to a particular figure and its adventures. The image which
imagination discovers for itself is not so easily made firm and powerful, that
there is inclination to put upon it steady and assiduous labor.
And yet one conviction the poet may keep in his quiet soul, that no material
is entirely good, little wholly bad. From this side also, there is no perfect
work of art. Every subject has its inherent difficulties and disadvantages
which the art of the poet is so far able to overcome, that the whole gives the
impression of beauty and greatness. These weaknesses are to be recognized, but
only by the practiced eye; and every work of art gives the critic, from this
point of view, occasion for the exercise of his functions. He who judges must
be on the lookout, that in the face of this deficiency, he understands whether
the poet has done his duty, whether he has used all the means of his art, to
master or to conceal.
In the joyful consciousness that he is beginning a gallant work, the poet
must sternly take his position over against what has become dear to him, and
test it, so soon as his soul begins to move about the accumulated material to
beautify it. He will have to make the idea distinct, and eliminate everything
accidental that clings to it from reality.
To the first charm that becomes ardent in his soul, belong characteristic
utterances of the hero in single moments of his inner agitation or powerful
activity. In order to increase the number of the pictures of such moments, and
in order to intensify the characters, he will earnestly seek to understand the
real life and surroundings of his hero. He will, therefore, contemplating a
historical drama, make good studies, and this labor will have rich reward; for
from it appear to him a great number of visions and pictures which may be
readily joined in imagination to the growing work. The grateful soul of the
German has, for just such characterizing details, a very sensitive feeling; and
the poet will therefore have need to be on his guard that historic costume, the
historic marvellous and infrequent do not assume too much importance.
If he has in this way extended, as much as possible, the world of his
artistic vision, then let him throw aside his books, and wrestle for the
freedom which is necessary to him, in order to have free play upon the
accumulated material. But let him hold fast in his mind, as a restraint upon
his directing power, four rules: a short course to the action, few persons, few
changes, and even in the first plan, strong relief to the important parts of
the action.
He may write out his plans or not; on the whole, this is not of much
account. Elaborate written explanations have this advantage, that they make
single purposes distinct through reflection; but they have the disadvantage,
that they easily clog the imagination, and render more difficult the necessary
transformation and elimination. One sheet is enough to contain a perfect
outline.
Before the poet begins his elaboration, the characters of his heroes and
their positions relative to one another, must be clearly fixed in mind, in all
essentials; and so the results of each single scene. Then during the labor, the
scenes take shape easily, as does their dramatic course.
Of course, this serious labor before beginning to write does not exclude
minor changes in the characters; for the creative skill of the poet does not
stand still. He intends to direct his characters, and they impel him. It is a
joyful process which he notices in himself as the conceived characters, through
his creative power and under the logical force of events, become living beings.
A new invention attaches to one already expressed – and suddenly there flames
up a beautiful and great effect. And while the goal and resting-place by the
way are fixed in his clear gaze, the surging feeling labors over the effects,
exciting and exalting the poet himself. It is a strong inner excitement,
cheering and strengthening the favorably endowed poet; for above the most
violent agitation, through the fancy which in the most passionate parts of his
action excites his nerves almost to convulsion and reddens his cheeks, the
spirit hovers in perfect clearness, ruling, choosing freely, and ordering and
arranging systematically.
The labor of the same poet is different at different moments. Many of these
appear to him brilliant; their previously perceived effects move his spirit
animatedly; what has been written down appears only as a weak copy of a glowing
inner picture, whose magic color has vanished; other moments develop perhaps,
slowly, not without effort; the fancy is sluggish, the nerve-tension not strong
enough; and sometimes it seems as if the creative power rebels against the
situation. Such scenes, however, are not always, the worst.
The force of creative energy, too, is quite varying. One is rapid in the
labor of writing down what is composed; to another, forms take shape slowly,
and do not express themselves fluently on paper. The more rapid workers do not
always have the advantage. Their danger is that they often fix the images too
soon, before the work of fancy has reached the needed maturity. It is often
possible for the poet to say to himself, that the inner unconscious labor is
done, and to recognize the moment when the details of the effects have been
rightly completed. The maturing of the pictures, however, is an important
matter; and it is a peculiarity of creative power, that, as we might say, it is
in operation at hours in which the poet is not consciously at his work.
Not unimportant is the order of sequence in which the poet writes out his
piece. For one, the well trained imagination works out scenes and acts in
regular succession; for another, it seizes on, now this, now that part of a
great effect. What has been written comes to exercise a controlling influence
on what is to be written. As soon as conception and vision and feeling are
recorded in words, they stand face to face with the poet as an outsider giving
direction; they suggest the new, and their color and their effects change what
may come later. Whoever works in the regular order will have the advantage that
mood develops from mood, situation from situation, in regular course. He will
not always avoid making the way over which he would guide his characters,
deviate a little and gradually, under his hands. It appears that Schiller has
so worked. Whoever, on the other hand, sets before himself what the sportive
fancy has vividly illuminated, will probably supervise more securely the
aggregate effect and movement of his masterpiece; he will, however, now here,
now there, during his labor, have to make changes in motives and in individual
traits. This was, at least in single cases, the work of Goethe.
When the piece has been completed beyond the catastrophe, and the heart is
exalted with gladness on account of the finished work, then the reaction which
prevails everywhere after a highly excited frame of mind, begins. The soul of
the poet is still very warm, the aggregate of beauty which he has created, and
enjoyed while creating, the inner image which he has of its effects, he
embodies still unconfused in the written work. It appears to him, according to
the mood of the hour, either a failure or a vast success; on the whole, if in a
normal state of mind, he will feel an inclination to trust to the power which
his work attests. But his work is not yet finished, at least if he is a German.
If the poet writes to have his work put on the boards, he does not, as has been
said, yet feel, every moment, the impressions which the forces of his piece
produce on the stage. Dramatic power works unequally also in this direction;
and it is pleasant to notice the oscillations, in themselves. They may be
perceived in the works of even great poets. One scene is distinguished by a
vivid conception of the scenic action, the discourse is broken, the effects
more exactly harmonized by transitions; at another time, it flows more
agreeably for the reader than for the actor. And however rightly the poet may
have perceived the sum of scenic effects, in detail, the sense of the words and
the effect which, from the writing-table, they produce on the receptive mind,
have had more of his attention than their sound, and their mediation with the
spectator through the actor. But not only does the actor’s right prevail
touching a piece, requiring here greater prominence of one effect, there a
modification; but the audience is, to the poet, an ideal body demanding a
definite treatment. As the power of imagination was greater in the hearer in
the time of Shakespeare, the enjoyment of spoken words greater, but the
comprehension of connections slower, so the audience of to-day has a soul with
definite qualities. It has already taken up much, its comprehension of the
connections is quick, its demands for powerful movement are great, its
preference for definite kinds of situations is inordinately developed.
The poet will therefore be compelled to adapt his work to the actor’s art
and the demands of the public. This business, the stage term of which is
“adapting” (aptiren), the poet is able only in rare cases to achieve
alone.
In the land of dramatic poetry, the cutting out of passages is wrongly in
bad repute; it is rather (since for a time, the creative work of the German
poet is accustomed to begin with a weak development of the sense of form) the
greatest benefit which can be conferred upon his piece, an indispensable
prerequisite to presentation on the stage, the one means of insuring success.
Further, it is frequently a right which the actor’s art must enforce against
the poet; omissions are the invisible helpers which adjust the demands of the
spectator and the claims of the poet; whoever with quiet enjoyment perceives
clearly, at his work-table, the poetical beauty of a piece, thinks, not
willingly, how the effects will be changed in the light of the stage. Even
worthy authors who have chosen the most serviceable calling of explaining to
their contemporaries the beauties of the greatest poets, look down with
contempt on a tradesman’s custom of the stage, which unmercifully mangles the
most beautiful poetry. Only from the brush of a careful manager do the
beautiful forms in the masterpieces of Schiller and Shakespeare come forward in
the right proportion for the stage. Of course, every theater does not have a
technical director, who with delicacy and understanding arranges the pieces so
as to adapt them to the stage. Very adverse is the rude hand that cuts into the
dramatic beauty, because it may present an inconvenience or does not conform to
the taste of an exacting audience. But the misuse of an indispensable means
should not bring that means into ill-repute; and if one would depreciate the
complaints of the poets, over the misuse of their works, according to their
justification, one would in most cases do them wrong.
Now in this adapting of a piece, much is merely of personal opinion; the
justification of many single omissions is sometimes doubtful. The direction of
a theater, which has, as a matter of course, the effect on a particular stage
in mind, will have greater regard to the personality of its actors than will be
welcome to the poet before the presentation. To an able actor who is specially
esteemed by the audience, the director will sometimes allow to remain what is
unnecessary; when he expects some good result from it, he may take an accessory
effect from a rôle whose setting must be imperfect, if he is convinced that
the actor is unable to bring it out.
The author of a work must not, therefore, leave the cutting down of his play
entirely to strangers. He can accomplish it himself if he has had long
experience with the stage; but otherwise he will need the aid of other hands.
He must reserve to himself the last judgment in the matter; and he will not
usually allow the management to abridge his piece without his approval. But he
will, with self-denial, listen to the opinions of men who have had greater
experience, and have an inclination to yield to them where his artistic
conscience does not make concessions impossible for him. But since his judgment
is hardly unembarrassed, he must, at the first intrusion of a benevolent
criticism into his soul, wind about through uncertainty and inner struggles, to
the great exercise of his judgment. The first disturbance in the pleasant peace
of a poetic mind, which is just rejoicing in a completed work, is perhaps
painful for a weak soul; but it is as wholesome as a draft of fresh air in the
sultry summer. The poet is to respect and love his work so long as he bears it
about as an ideal, and works upon it; the completed work must be dismissed. It
must be as if strange to him, in order that he may gain freedom for new
work.
And yet the poet must attempt the first adaptation, while his work is still
on his desk. It is an unfriendly business, but it is necessary. Perhaps while
he has been writing, he has perceived that some parts are necessary. Many moods
which have been dear to him, he has more broadly elaborated than a slight
warning of his conscience now approves. Nay, it is possible that his work,
after the completion of his labor, in the moment when he considers it done, is
still a quite chaotic mass of correct and artistic effects, and of episodical
or injuriously uneven finish.
Now the time has come when he may repair what he slighted in his former
labor. He must go through scene by scene, testing; in each he must investigate
the course of individual rôles, the posing, the proposed movements of the
persons; he must try to make the picture of the scene vivid at each moment on
the stage; he must hit upon the exact position of the entrances and exits
through which his persons come upon the stage and leave; he must consider,
also, the scenery and the properties, whether they hinder or whether they aid
as much as possible.
Not less carefully let him examine the current of the scene itself. Perhaps
in this process he will discover prolixities; for to one writing, an accessory
trait of character may easily seem too important; or the rôle of a favorite
has come to the front in a way to disturb the aggregate effect; or the
presentations of speeches and responses are too frequent. Let him inexorably
expunge what does not conduce to the worth of the scenic structure, however
beautiful it may be in itself. Let him go further and test the connection of
the scenes of an act, the one aggregate effect. Let him exert his whole art to
avoid the change of scenery within acts, and fully, when by such a change the
act will be twice broken. At the first glance, the probable seems impossible to
him, but it must be possible.
And if he considers the acts concluded, their combination of scenes
satisfactory, then let him compare the climax of effects in the single acts,
and see that the power of the second part corresponds also to the first. Let
him raise the climax by an effort of his best poetic power, and let him have a
sharp eye upon the act of the return. For if the hearers should not be
satisfied with the catastrophe, the fault lies frequently in the previous
act.
The time within which the action must complete itself will be determined for
the modern poet by the custom of his contemporaries. We read with astonishment
of the capacity of the Athenians to endure for almost an entire day, the
greatest and most thrilling tragic effects. Even Shakespeare’s pieces are not
much longer than our audience might be accustomed to, were they given
unabridged, in a small auditorium where more rapid speaking is possible; they
would not require, on the average, more than four hours. The German unwillingly
tolerates now in a closed theater, a play which takes much longer than three
hours. This is a circumstance in no way to be disregarded; for in the time
which extends beyond this, however exciting the action may be, there are
disturbances by the withdrawal of single spectators; and it is not possible to
hinder the restlessness of the remaining ones. But such a limitation is for
this reason a disadvantage, that in view of a great subject and great
elaboration, three hours is a very short time; especially on our stage, where
from the time of a five-act play, during the four intervals between acts, fully
a half hour is lost. Of all the German poets, it was notoriously most difficult
for Schiller to complete his play within the stage time; and although his
verses flow rapidly, his plays, unabridged, would take more time on the whole
than the audience would be willing to give.
A five act play, which after its arrangement for the stage contains an
average of five hundred lines to the act, exceeds the allotted time. As a rule,
not more than two thousand lines should be considered the regular length of a
stage piece, a limit which is conditioned by the character of the piece, the
average rate of utterance, compactness, or lighter flow of the verse; also
through this, whether the action of the piece itself demands many divisions,
pauses, movements of masses, pantomimic activity; lastly, through the stage
upon which it is played; for the size and acoustics of the house and habits of
the place exercise an essential influence.
Of course, most of the stage pieces of our great poets are considerably
longer; [23] but the poet would now vainly appeal to their example. For their
works all hail from a time in which the present stage usage was not yet
adopted, or was less compulsory. And finally, in our time, patrons take the
liberty of old friends, to chose the time of their departure, with no respect
to the convenience of others. He who would now be at home on the stage, must
submit to a usage which cannot at once be changed. The poet will then estimate
his piece according to the number of verses; and if this, as may be feared,
extends beyond the stage time, he must once more examine it with reference to
what may be omitted.
When he has ended this severe labor of self-criticism, improving his piece
as much as possible, then he may begin to think of preparing it for the public
eye. For this work, an experienced theater friend is indispensable. The poet
will seek such a one in the director or manager of a great stage. To him he
will send his work in manuscript. Now begins a new examination, discussion,
abridgement, till the wording is satisfactory for the presentation on the
stage. If the poet has accepted the changes necessary to make his piece conform
to its purpose, it is usually put at an early date on the boards, in the
theater in connection with which he has confidently ventured his fortune. If it
is possible for him to witness this performance, it will be very advantageous
to him, not so much, however, because he at once perceives the disadvantages
and defects of his work (for to young poets, self-knowledge comes seldom so
quickly), as because, to the experienced director of a stage, many weaknesses
and redundancies of a piece first become apparent on its being performed.
It is true that a poet’s first connection with the stage is not free from
discomfort. His anxiety about the reception of the piece creeps close about his
brave heart. The abbreviated parts always cause pain; and the striding on the
half-dark stage becomes painful on account of the secret uncertainty, and his
consideration of the imperfect rendering of the actor. But this connection has
also something that is refreshing and instructive: the trials, the apprehension
of the real stage pictures, the acquaintance with the customs and arrangements
of the theater. And with a tolerable success of the play, the remembrance of
the occasion remains, perhaps, a worthy possession of the poet in his later
life.
Here a warning. The young poet is to take part for a few times in the
rehearsal and in the presentation. He is to make himself acquainted with the
details of the arrangement, the control of the entire combination, the wishes
of the actors. But he is not to make a hobby of his pieces. He is not to
persist in these too warmly; he is not to seek the applause of new men too
zealously. And, further, he is not to play the director, and is to mingle in
the rehearsal only where it is positively urged. He is no actor, and he may
scarcely, in the rush of rehearsal, correct what an actor is failing in. Let
him notice what strikes him; and let him discuss this later with the actor. The
place of the poet is in the test of reading. Let him so arrange his work that
if he has voice and practice, he himself may first read it aloud, and in a
second rehearsal hear the actors read their rôles. The good influence which he
may exercise, will be best assured in this way.
The great independence of different provinces has hindered in Germany the
success of a piece on the stage in a capital city, from being a criterion of
its success on the other stages of the country. A German play must have the
good fortune of meeting success in eight or ten of the great theaters in
different parts of Germany, before its course upon the rest may be assured.
While the reputation of a piece which comes from the stronghold of Vienna
determines, to a certain degree, its fate at the other theaters of the empire,
the Berlin court theater has a still smaller circle in which it gives prestige.
What pleases in Dresden displeases perhaps in Leipsic, and a success in Hanover
insures no success in Brunswick. Meantime, the connection of the German
theaters reaches so far, that the success of a piece on one or two respectable
stages calls the attention of the others to it. Lack of attention to what is
available everywhere is, in general, not the greatest reproach which at present
can be cast upon the German stage.
If a piece stood the test of a first appearance, there were formerly two
ways of making its use more extensive. The first was to print the piece and
send copies to different theaters; the other was to commit the manuscript to an
agent to be pushed.
Now, the Society of Dramatic Authors and Composition at Leipsic, by its
director, represents the rights and interests of its members among the
different theaters; it takes charge of the business of getting a piece on the
stage, supervises its appearance on the boards, attends to the collection of
the compensation (honoraria) and percentages. Whoever has to do with
theaters, as a young writer, cannot now dispense with the support of this
society; and it is to his interest to become a member.
But besides this, it is desirable for a young author to come into close
relations with the theaters themselves, their distinguished managers, leaders,
and professors. In this way he becomes acquainted with theatrical life, its
demands and its needs. Therefore, with his first piece let him take a middle
course. If his manuscript is printed (let him not use too small type and make
the prompter weep over it), let him give it for the majority of theaters to the
director of the Society; let him reserve to himself, however, the transmission
to and intercourse with some theaters from which he can expect particular
demands. Besides, it is desirable to send copies of his work to individual
prominent actors at famous theaters. He needs the warm devotion and generous
sympathy of the actors; it will be friendly, too, for him to facilitate the
study of their rôles. A connection thus begun with the highly esteemed talent
of the stage will not only be useful to the author; it can win to him men of
prominence, ardent admirers of the beautiful, perhaps helpful and faithful
friends. To the German poet there is greater need of fresh suggestions,
stimulating intercourse with cultivated actors, than any thing else; for, in
this way he attains most easily what too generally is lacking, an accurate
knowledge of what is effective on the stage. Even Lessing learned this by
experience.
If the poet has done all this, on the reasonable success of his piece, he
will soon, through a somewhat extensive correspondence, be initiated into the
secrets of stage life.
And finally, when the young dramatist has in this way sent the child of his
dreams out into the world, he will have sufficient opportunity to develop
within himself something besides knowledge of the stage. It will be his duty to
endure brilliant successes without haughtiness and conceit, and to accept
sorrowful defeats without losing courage. He will have plenty of occasion to
test and fashion his self-consciousness; and in the airy realm of the stage, in
face of the actors, the authors of the day, and the spectators, to make
something of himself worth more than being a technically educated poet – a
steadfast man, who not only perceives the beautiful in his dreams, but who
shall be honestly determined unceasingly to represent it in his own life.
NOTES.
NOTE 1, page 18. – Even Aristotle comprehended most thoroughly this
first part of the poet’s work, the fashioning and developing of the poetic
idea. If, in comparison with history, he makes poetry the more significant and
philosophical, because poetry represents what is common to all men, while
history gives an account of the incidental, or special detail; and because
history presents what has happened, while poetry shows how it could have
happened, yet we moderns, impressed with the weight and grandeur of historical
ideas, must reject his comparative estimate of the two fundamentally different
kinds of composition; we shall, however, concede the fine distinction in his
definition. He indicates, in a sentence immediately following this and often
misunderstood, the process of idealization. He says, IX., 4: “That which in
poetry is common to humanity, is produced in this way, – the speeches and
actions of the characters are made to appear probable and necessary; and that
which is humanly universal poetry works out from the raw material and then
gives to the characters appropriate names,” – whether using those already
at hand in the raw material or inventing new ones. (Buckley’s translation is
as follows: But universal consists indeed in relating or performing
certain things which happen to a man of a certain description, either probably
or necessarily, to which the aim of poetry is directed in giving names.)
Aristotle was of the opinion, too, that a poet would do well at the beginning
of his work to place before himself the material which had attracted him, in a
formula stripped of all incidentals, or non-essentials; and he develops this
idea more fully in another place, XVII., 6, 7: “The Iphigenia and the Orestes
of the drama are not at all the same as those in the material which came to the
poet. For the poet who composed the play it is almost an accident that they
bear these names. Only when the poet has raised his actions and his characters
above the incidental, the real, that which has actually happened, and in place
of this has put a meaning, a significance which will be generally received,
which appears to us probable and necessary, – only then is he again to make
use of color and tone, names and circumstances, from the raw material.”
Therefore it is also possible that dramas which have been taken from very
different realms of material, express, fundamentally, the same meaning, or, as
we put it, represent the same poetical idea. This is the thought in the
passages cited.
NOTE 2, page 22. – The few technical terms used in this book must
be received by the reader without prejudice and without confusion. In their
common use for the last century several of them have passed through many
changes of meaning. What is here called action, the material already
arranged for the drama (in Aristotle, myth; in the Latin writers,
fable), Lessing sometimes still calls fable, while the raw
material, the praxis or the pragma of Aristotle, he calls
action. But Lessing also sometimes uses the word action more
correctly, giving it the meaning which it has here.
NOTE 3, page 28. – As is well known, unity of place is not demanded
by Aristotle; and concerning the uninterrupted continuity of time he says only
that tragedy should try as far as possible to limit its action to one course of
the sun. Among the Greeks, as may be shown, it was only Sophocles and his
school who, in the practice of their art, adhered to what we call the unity of
place and of time. And with good reason. The rapid, condensed action of
Sophocles, with its regular structure, needed so very short a part of the story
or tradition that the events underlying it could frequently occur in the same
brief space of a few hours which the representation on the stage required. If
Sophocles avoided such a change of scene, as, for example, occurs in
Aeschylus’s Eumenides, he had a peculiar reason. We know that he
thought much of scenic decoration; he had introduced a more artistic decoration
of the background; and for his theatrical day he positively needed for the four
pieces four great curtains, which with the gigantic proportions of the scene at
the Acropolis occasioned an immense outlay. A change of the entire background
during the representation was not allowable; and the mere transposition of the
periakte, if these had been introduced at all in the time of Sophocles,
would be to the taste of an ancient stage director as imperfect an arrangement
as the change of side curtains, without the change of background, would be to
us. It may not be so well known that Shakespeare, who treats time and space
with so much freedom, because the fixed architecture of his stage spared him
from indicating, or made it easy for him to indicate the change of scenes,
presented his pieces on a stage which was the unornamented successor of the
Attic proscenium. This proscenium had been gradually transformed by slight
changes into the Roman theater, the mystery-platform of the middle ages, and
the scaffold of Hans Sachs. On the other hand, the same classical period of the
French theater, which so rigidly and anxiously sought to revive the Greek
traditions, has bequeathed us the deep, camera-like structure of our stage,
which had its origin in the needs of the ballet and the opera.
NOTE 4, page 31. – The details of the novel, and what Shakespeare
changed in it, may be here passed over.
NOTE 5, page 46. – It is a poor expedient of our stage directors to
neutralize or render harmless the weakest of these groups, the Attinghausen
family, by cutting their rôles as much as possible, and then depreciating them
still more by committing them to weak actors. The injury is by this means all
the more striking. This play of Schiller’s should either be so presented as
to produce most completely the effects intended by the author, in which case
the three barren rôles, Freiherr, Rudenz, Bertha, must be endowed with
sufficient force, – our actors can thus express their gratitude to the poet
who has done so much for them; or else, the Tell action only should be
presented as it may be most easily made effective on our stage, and the three
rôles should be entirely stricken out, – a thing that is possible with very
slight changes.
NOTE 6, page 47. – Even in the time of the Greeks the word,
episode, had a little history. In the earliest period of the drama it denoted
the transition from one choral song to the following: then, after the
introduction of actors, first, the short speeches, messenger-scenes, dialogues,
and so forth, which comprised the transitions and motives for the new moods of
the chorus. After the extension of these recited parts the word remained, in
the developed drama, as an old designation of any part of the drama which stood
between two choral songs. In this meaning it nearly corresponds to our act, or
more accurately, to our elaborated scene. In the workshop of the Greek poet it
became a designation of that part of the action which the poet with free
invention inserted as a richer furnishing, as a means of animating his old
mythological material; for instance, in Antigone, that scene between
Antigone, Ismene, and Creon, in which the innocent Ismene declares herself an
accomplice of her sister. In this signification, an episode might fill the
entire interval between two choral songs; but as a rule it was shorter. Its
places were generally in the rising action, only occasionally in the return
action – our second, and fourth act. Because with this meaning it denoted
little portions of the action, which might indeed have originated in the most
vital necessities of the drama, but which were not indispensable for the
connection of the events: and because since Euripides, poets have sought more
and more frequently for effect-scenes which stood in very loose connection with
the idea and the action, – there came to be attached to the word this
secondary meaning of an unmotived and arbitrary insertion. In The
Poetics the word is used in all of the three meanings: in XII., 5, it is a
stage-manager’s term; in XVII., 8-10, it is a technical expression of the
poet; in X., 3, it has its secondary significance.
NOTE 7, page 72. – The structure of the drama is disturbed by this
irregularity in the ordering of the action, which appears like a relapse into
the old customs of the English popular theater. The action offered in the
material and the idea was as follows: Act I. Antony at Cleopatra’s, and his
separation from her. Act II. Reconciliation with Caesar, and restoration to
power. Act III. Return to the Egyptian woman, with climax. Act IV. Sacrifice of
principle, flight, and last struggle. Act V. Catastrophe of Antony and of
Cleopatra. But the deviation of Shakespeare’s play from the regular structure
is for a more profound reason. The inner life of the debauched Antony possessed
no great wealth, and in its new infatuation offered the poet little that was
attractive. But his darling dramatic figure, Cleopatra, in the development of
which he had evinced his consummate, masterly art, was not a character adapted
to great dramatic emotion and excitement; the various scenes in which she
appears full of passionate demeanor without passion, resemble brilliant
variations of the same theme. In her relations with Antony she is portrayed
just often enough and from the most diverse points of view to present a rich
picture of the vixenish coquette. The return of Antony gave the poet no new
task with respect to her. On the other hand, the exaltation of this character
in a desperate situation, under the fear of death, was a fascinating subject
for him, and to a certain extent rightly so; for herein was an opportunity for
a most peculiar, gradual intensification. Shakespeare, then, sacrificed to
these scenes a part of the action. He threw together the climax and the return
action, indicating them in little scenes, and accorded to the catastrophe two
acts. For the aggregate effect of the play, this is a disadvantage. We are
indebted to him, however, for the scene of Cleopatra’s death in the monument,
– of all that is extraordinary in Shakespeare, perhaps the most astonishing.
That the accessory persons, Octavianus and his sister, just at the summit of
the action, were more important to the poet than his chief person, is perhaps
due to the fact that to the poet in advanced life, any single person with his
joy and his sorrow must seem small and insignificant, while the poet was
contemplating, prophetically and reverentially, the historical and established
order of things.
NOTE 8, page 83. – The scene is, however, by no means to be
omitted, – as indeed happens. Moreover, an abbreviation must make prominent
the contrast with the first, the imperial hardness of the tyrant, the lurking
hostility of the mother, and Richard’s deception by a woman whom he despises.
If our stage directors would not endure more, they might tolerate the
following: Of the lines in the passage beginning,
Stay, madam, I must speak a word with you,
and extending to the end of the scene, to Richard’s words,
Bear her my true-love’s kiss; and so farewell,
numbered consecutively from 198 to 436, Globe Edition, the following lines
might remain: 198-201; 203-206; 251-256; 257; 293-298; 300; 301; 310, 311;
320-325; 328; 330; 340-357; 407-418; 420; 422-424; 433-436.
NOTE 9, page 101. – Both of these expressions of the craft are
still occasionally misunderstood. Peripeteia does not always denote the
last part of the action from the climax downward, which in Aristotle is called
Katabasis; but it is only what is here called “tragic force,” – a
single scene-effect, sometimes only a part of a scene. The chapter on the
Anagnorisis, however, one of the most instructive in the Poetics,
because it affords a glimpse into the craftsman’s method of poetic work, once
appeared to the publishers as not authentic.
NOTE 10, page 147. – That the choruses did not, as a rule, rush in
and off again, but claimed a good share of the time, may be inferred from the
fact that in Sophocles sometimes a brief chorus fills up the time which the
player needs to go behind the scenes to change his costume, or to pass from his
door to the side-entrance, through which he must enter in a new rôle. Thirteen
lines and two strophes of a little chorus suffice for the deuteragonist
whose exit, as Jocasta, has been made through the back-door, to change costume
and reappear upon the stage as shepherd from the field side. Upon the stage of
the Acropolis this was no little distance.
NOTE 11, page 147. – That a favorite order of presentation was from
the gloomy, the horrible, to the brighter and more cheerful, we may infer from
the circumstance that Antigone and Electra were first pieces of
the day. This is known from Antigone not only by the first choral-song,
the first beautiful strophe of which is a morning song, but also from the
character of the action which gives to the great rôle of the pathos actor only
the first half of the piece, and thus lays the center of gravity toward the
beginning. In the most beautiful poem it would not have been advisable to
entrust to the so-little-esteemed third actor (who, nevertheless, is sometimes
shown a preference by Sophocles) the closing effects of the last piece, so
important in securing the decision of the judges. In the prologue of
Electra, also, the rising sun and the festal Bacchic costume are
mentioned. The beautiful, broadly elaborated situation in the prologue of
King Oedipus and the structure of Ajax, the center of gravity of
which lies in the first half, and which distinctly reveals the early morning,
seem to point to these as first pieces. The Trachinian Women probably
entered the contest as a middle piece; Oedipus at Colonos, with its
magnificent conclusion, and Philoctetes with its splendid pathos rôle
and reconciling conclusion, as closing pieces. The conjectures which are based
upon the technical character of the pieces, have at least more probability than
conjectures which are drawn from a comparison or collation of dramas which have
been preserved, with such as have not been.
NOTE 12, page 148. – Six pieces of Sophocles contain an average of
about 1,118 verses, exclusive of the speeches and songs of the chorus. Only
Oedipus at Colonos is longer. If, again, the number of verses of each of
the three players is on the average about equal, the tragedies of a day,
together with a burlesque of the length of The Cyclops (about 500 verses
for three players) would give to each player a total of about 1,300 verses. But
the task of the first player was already, on account of the affecting pathos
scenes and on account of the songs, disproportionately greater. Besides, much
more must be expected from him. If in the three pieces of Sophocles in which
the hero suffers from a disease inflicted by the gods (Ajax, The
Trachinian Women, Philoctetes) the parts of the first player are
summed up, (Ajax, Teucros, Heracles, Lichas, Philoctetes) there will be about
1,440 verses; and with the burlesque, there will be about 1,600 verses: and
there is the effort required to carry through six rôles and sing about six
songs. There is no doubt that, in the composition of his tetralogies, Sophocles
gave attention to the pauses for rest for his three players. Each last tragedy
demanded the most powerful effort; and it must also, as a rule, have demanded
most from the first actor. That The Trachinian Women was not a third
piece may be inferred from the fact that in it the second actor had the chief
rôle.
NOTE 13, page 153. – In the extant plays of Sophocles, the
assignment of rôles among the three actors is as follows, Protagonist,
Deuteragonist, Tritagonist, being indicated by the numbers 1, 2, 3,
respectively:
King Oedipus: 1, Oedipus. 2, Priest, Jocasta, Shepherd, Messenger of
the catastrophe. 3, Creon, Tiresias, Messenger.
Oedipus at Colonos: 1, Oedipus, Messenger of the catastrophe. 2,
Antigone, +Theseus (in the climax scene). 3, Colonians, Ismene, Theseus (in the
other scenes), Creon, Polynices.
Antigone: 1, Antigone, Tiresias, Messenger of the catastrophe. 2,
Ismene, Watchman, Haemon, +Eurydice, Servant. 3, Creon.
The Trachinian Women: 1, +Maid-servant, Lichas, Heracles. 2,
Deianeira, Nurse (as messenger of the catastrophe), Old man. 3, Hyllos,
Messenger.
Ajax: 1, Ajax, Teucros. 2, Odysseus, Tecmessa. 3, Athene, Messenger,
Menelaus, Agamemnon.
Philoctetes: 1, Philoctetes. 2, Neoptolemos. 3, Odysseus, Merchant,
Heracles.
Electra: 1, Electra. 2, Warden, Chrysothemis, Aegisthos. 3, Orestes,
Clytemnestra.
The rôles marked + are uncertain. Besides the three actors, the Attic stage
always had several accessory players for dumb-show rôles: thus in
Electra, Pylades; in The Trachinian Women, the especially
distinguished rôle of Iole in which perhaps Sophocles would present to the
public a young actor whom he esteemed. It is probable that these accessory
players sometimes relieved the actors of less important subordinate rôles, –
for example, in Antigone, Eurydice, which is treated very briefly; and
in The Trachinian Women, the maid-servant of the prologue. How else
could they test their voices and their powers? Such aid as was rendered by
characters disguised from the audience by masks, was not reckoned playing. The
accessory actors were also needed as representatives of the three players upon
the stage, if the presence of a mask was desirable in a scene, and the player
of this scene must at the same time assume another rôle; then the accessory
player figured in like costume and the required mask, as a rule without saying
any lines; but sometimes single lines must be given him. Thus Ismene, in the
second half of Oedipus at Colonos, is represented by an accessory
player, while the player himself represents Theseus and Polynices. This piece
has the peculiarity that at least at the climax, one scene of Theseus is
presented by the second actor, the player of Antigone, while the remaining
scenes of this rôle are presented by the third actor. If the player had
practiced the voice, and so forth, this substitution for a single scene did not
offer special difficulty. It is possible, however, that the player of the rôle
of Antigone, also gave the first Theseus scene. Antigone has gone into the
grove in the background, in order to watch her father; she may very
conveniently appear again as Theseus, while a stage-walker goes up and down in
her mask. If even in this play, a fourth actor had taken part, in any rôle of
importance, some account would have come to us of what even at that time would
have been a striking innovation.
NOTE 14, page 155. – Upon our stage every play has one first hero,
but more chief rôles; not frequently is one of these more ample and of deeper
interest than that of the first hero, as, for example, the rôle of Falstaff in
Henry IV.
NOTE 15, page 156. – The presuppositions of The Trachinian
Women are, so far as Deianeira is concerned, very simple; but Heracles is
the first hero, and his preparation for being received among the gods was the
master-stroke of the play.
NOTE 16, page 156. – It is impossible just in Sophocles, from the
extant names of lost plays and from scattered verses, to come to any conclusion
as to the contents of the plays. What one might think from the tradition to be
the contents of the play, could often prove to be only the contents of the
prologue.
NOTE 17, page 178. – Prologue: Neoptolemos, Odysseus. Chorus and
Neoptolemos in Antiphone—
Ascent
of
Action, |
1. Messenger scene with recognition, |
Philoctetes, Neoptolemos. |
| 2. Messenger scene, |
The same, and Merchant. |
| 3. Recognition scene (of the bow), |
Philoctetes, Neoptolemos. |
Choral song –
Climax, |
1. Double pathos scene, |
Philoctetes, Neoptolemos. |
| Tragic Force, |
2. Dialogue scene, |
The same, Odysseus. |
Chorus and Philoctetes in Antiphone—
Falling Action
and
Catastrophe, |
1. Dialogue scene, |
Neoptolemos, Odysseus. |
| 2. Dialogue scene, |
Philoctetes, Neoptolemos;
afterward Odysseus. |
3. Announcement and
conclusion, |
Philoctetes, Neoptolemos, Heracles. |
NOTE 18, page 183. – The “balcony scene” belongs, on our stage,
at the end of the first act, not in the second; but this makes the first act
disproportionately long. It is a disadvantage that our (German) division of
plays often makes a break in the action where a rapid movement is demanded, or
only a very short interruption is allowed.
NOTE 19, page 208. – Let this structure be represented by means of
lines. (See page 115.)
- A DRAMA, such as did not lie in Schiller’s plan. Idea: A perfidious
general endeavors to make the army desert its commander, but is deserted by
his soldiers and put to death.
- Exciting force: inciting to treason.
- Rising action: certain stipulations with the enemy.
- Climax: apparent success; the subtly sought signature of the
generals.
- Return action: the conscience of the army is awakened.
- Catastrophe: death of the general.
- SCHILLER’S Wallenstein without The Piccoloinini. Idea:
Through excessive power, intrigues of opponents, and his own proud heart, a
general is betrayed into treason; he seeks to make the army desert its
commander, etc.
In this a, b, c, rising action to climax; inner struggles and temptations.
- Questenberg in camp, and separation from emperor.
- Testing the generals; banquet scene.
- Climax: the first act of treason; for example, the treating with
Wrangel.
(c–d) Attempts to mislead the army.
- Return action: the conscience of the soldiers is awakened.
- Catastrophe: death of Wallenstein.
- THE DOUBLE DRAMAS.
- The Piccolomini, indicated by the dotted lines.
- Wallenstein’s Death, indicated by plain lines.
aa. The two exciting forces, a', the generals and Questenberg,
for the combined action; a2, Max’s and Thekla’s arrival
for The Piccolomini.
cc. The two climaxes, c, release of Max from Octavio, at the
same time, catastrophe of The Piccolomini; c2,
Wallenstein and Wrangel, at the same time the exciting force of
Wallenstein’s Death.
ee. The two concluding catastrophes, e', of the lovers, and
e2, of Wallenstein. Further, b, the love scene between Max
and Thekla is the climax of The Piccolomini; f and g are the
scenes interwoven from Wallenstein’s Death: audience of
Questenberg, and banquet, the second and fourth acts of The
Piccolomini; h, d, and e' are scenes interwoven from The
Piccolomini and Wallenstein’s Death: Octavio’s intrigue,
the departure of Max, the announcement of his death, together with
Thekla’s flight, – the second, third, and fourth acts, d, is the
scene of the cuirassiers, at the same time the climax of the second
drama.
NOTE 20, page 212. – In printing our plays, it frequently happens
that within acts, only those scenes are set off and numbered which demand a
shifting of scenery. The correct method, however, would be to count and number
the scenes within an act according to their order of succession; and where a
change of scenery is necessary, and must be indicated, add to the current scene
number the word “change,” and indicate the character of the new stage
setting.
NOTE 21, page 237. – The act is in two parts. The first preparatory
part contains three short dramatic components: the entrance of Max, the
submitting of the forged documents by the intriguers, Buttler’s connection
with them. At this point the great conclusion begins, introduced by the
conversation of the servants. The carousing generals must not be seen during
the entire act in the middle and back ground: the stage presents to better
advantage an ante-room of the banquet hall, separated from this by pillars and
a rear wall, so that the company, previous to its entrance at the close, is
seen only indistinctly and only an occasional convenient call and movement of
groups are noticed. In Wallenstein, Schiller was still a careless stage
director; but from the date of that play he became more careful in stage
arrangement. Among the peculiarities of clear portrayal in this scene, belongs
the unfeeling degradation of Max. It is wonderfully repeated by Kleist in
The Prince of Hamburg. Shakespeare does not characterize dreamers by
their silence, but by their distracted and yet profound speeches.
NOTE 22, page 308. – Of course Emilia Galotti must be
represented in the costume of the time, 1772. The piece demands another
consideration in acting. From the third act, the curtain must not be dropped
for pauses between acts; and these should be very short.
NOTE 23, page 361. – Twenty of our great dramas have the following
lengths in verses:
- Don Carlos: 5,471
- Maria Stuart: 3,927
- Wallenstein’s Death: 3,865
- Nathan the Wise: 3,847
- Hamlet: 3,715
- Richard III: 3,603
- Torquato Tasso: 3,453
- Maid of Orleans: 3,394
- William Tell: 3,286
- King Lear: 3,255
- Othello: 3,133
- Coriolanus: 3,124
- Romeo and Juliet: 2,979
- Bride of Messina: 2,845
- The Piccolomini: 2,669
- Merchant of Venice: 2,600
- Julius Caesar: 2,590
- Iphigenia: 2,174
- Macbeth: 2,116
- Prince of Homburg: 1,854
These figures do not pretend to absolute correctness, since the incomplete
verses are to be deducted; and the prose passages, in which Shakespeare is
especially rich, admit of only a rough estimate. The prose plays, Emilia
Galotti, Clavigo, Egmont, Love and Intrigue,
correspond more nearly to the length of the plays of our own time. Of the
dramas in verse, enumerated above, only the last three can be presented entire,
without that abbreviation which is necessary on other grounds.
It would require six hours to play all of Don Carlos, which in length
exceeds all bounds.
Since Wallenstein’s Camp together with the lyric lines has 1,105
rapid verses, the three parts of the dramatic poem, Wallenstein, contain
7,639 verses; and their representation on the stage, the same day, would
require about the same time as the Oberammergau Passion Play. No single
chief rôle is so comprehensive that it would place an excessive burden upon an
actor to carry it through in a single day.
Fiction Writing Tips Article Index Page
.jpeg "How to Write Poetry by Ethel Maude Colson")
