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LECTURES ON DRAMATIC ART AND LITERATURE ANCIENT AND MODERN (selections) 1

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Spirit of True Criticism"

. . . The history of the fine arts informs us what has been, and the theory teaches what ought to be accomplished by them. But without some intermediate and connecting link both would remain independent and separate from oI1e another and, each by itself, inadequate and defective. This connecting link is furnished by criticism, which both elucidates the history of the arts and makes the theory fruitful. The comparing together, and judging of the existing productions of the human mind, necessarily throws light upon the conditions which are indispensable to the creation of original and masterly works of art.

Ordinarily, indeed, men entertain a very erroneous notion of criticism, and understand by it nothing more than a certain shrewdness in detecting and exposing the faults of a work of art. As I have devoted the greater part of my life to this pursuit, I may be excused if, by way of preface, I seek to lay before my auditors my own ideas of the true genius of criticism.

We see numbers of men, and even whole nations, so fettered by the conventions of education and habits of life that, even in the appreciation of the fine arts, they cannot shake them off. Nothing to them appears natural, appropriate, or beautiful, which is alien to their own language, manners, and social relations. With this exclusive mode of seeing and feeling, it is no doubt possible to attain, by means of cultivation, to great nicety of discrimination within the narrow circle to which it limits and circumscribes them. But no man can be a true critic or connoisseur without universality of mind, without that flexibility which enables him, by renouncing all personal. predilections and blind habits, to adapt himself to the peculiarities of other ages and nations-to feel them, as it were, from their proper central point, and, what ennobles human nature, to recognize and duly appreciate whatever is beautiful and grand under the external accessories which were necessary to its embodying, even though occasionally they may seem to disguise and distort it. There is

lTranslated by John Black and "revised according to the latest German edition" by A. J. W. Morrison (London molm's Librarv!' J246).

IFrom Lecture I.

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no monopoly of poetry for particular ages and nations; and consequently that despotism in taste, which would seek to invest with un.iver~al authority t~e rules wh~ch at first, perhaps, were but arbItrarily. a~van~ed, IS but a vam and empty pretension. PoetlJ:" taken.m Its 'widest acceptation as the power of creating wh.at IS be~utlful and representing it to the eye or the ear, is a umversal gift of heaven, being shared to a certain extent even by those whom we call barbarians and savages. Internal excellence is alone decisive, and where this exists we must not allow o~rselves to be repelled by' the extern~l appearance. Everything must be traced up to the root of human nature: if it has sprung from thence, it has an undoubted worth of its own' but if, without pos~essi~g a living g~rm, it is merely externaU; attached thereto, It WIll never thrive nor acquire a proper growth. Ma?y producti?ns which appear at first sight dazzling phenomena m the province of the fine arts, and which as a whole have been honored with the appellation of works of a gold~n age, resemble the mimic gardens of children: impatient to WItness the work of their hands. they break off here and there branches and flowers, and plant them in the earth; everything at first assumes a noble appearance: the childish gardener struts proudly up. and down among his showy beds till the rootless plants begin to droop and hang their withered leaves an~ blossoms, and nothing soon remains but the bare twigs, while the dark forest, on which no art or care was ever bestowed and which towered up towards heaven long before human remembrance, bears every blast unshaken and fills the solitary beholder with religious awe ....

])efinition of the Drama!

... What is.dramatic? To many the answer will seem very easy: where varIOUS persons are introduced conversing together, and the poet does not speak in his own person. This is, however, ~erely the first external foundation of the form, and that is dialogue. But the characters may express thoughts and sentiments without operating any change on each other and so leave the minds of both in e,,:actly the same state in which they were at the c?mmencement; III such a case, however interesting ~he conversation may be, it cannot be said to possess a dramatic interest. I shall make this clear by alluding to a more tranquil

'From Lecture II.

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LITERARY CRITicISM

species of dialogue, not adapted for the stage, the philosophic. When, in Plato, Socrates asks the conceited sophist Hippias what is the meaning of the beautiful, the latter is at once ready with a superficial answer, but is afterwards compelled by the ironical objections of Socrates to give up his former definition, and to grope about him for other ideas, till, ashamed at last and irritated at the superiority of the sage who has convicted him of his ignorance, he is forced to quit the field: this dialogue is not merely philosophically instructive, but arrests the attention like a drama in miniature. And justly, therefore, has this lively movement in the thoughts, this stretch of expectation for the issue, in a word, the dramatic cast of the dialogues of Plato, been always celebrated.

I .' From this we may conceive wherein consists the great charm of dramatic poetry. Action is the true enjoyment of life, nay, life itself, Mere passive enjoyme-nts may lull us irito a state of listless complacency, but even then, if possessed of the least internal activity, we cannot avoid being soon wearied. The great bulk of mankind merely from their situation in life, or from their incapacity for extraordinary exertions, are confined within a narrow circle of insignificant operations. Their days flow on in succession under the sleepy rule of custom, their life advances by an insensible progress, and the bursting torrent of the first passions of youth soon settles into a stagnant marsh. From the discontent which this occasions they are compelled to have recourse to all sorts of diversions, which uniformly consist in a species of occupation that may be renounced at pleasure, and thoughia struggle with difficulties, yet with difficulties that are easily surmounted. But of all diversions the theater is undoubtedly the most entertaining. Here we may see others act even when we cannot act to any great purpose ourselves. The highest object of human activity is man, and in the drama we see men, measuring their powers with each other as intellectual

. ...,.

and moral beings, either as friends or foes, influencing each

other by their opinions, sentiments, and passions, and decisively determining their reciprocal relations and circumstances. The art of the poet consists in separating from the fable whatever does not essentially belong to it, whatever, inthe daily necessities ?f _real life and the petty occupations to which they give rise, mterrupts the progress of important actions, and concentrating within a narrow space a number of events calculated to attract

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AUGUST WILHELM VON SCHLEGEL

the minds of the hearers and to fill them with attention and ~xpectation. In this manner he gives us a renovated picture of life; a compendium of whatever is moving and progressive in human existence. . . ."'

Source of Pleasure Derived from Tragedy"

... ~nward libert~ and external necessity are two poles of the tragic world. It IS only by contrast with its opposite that each of these ideas is brought into full manifestation. As the feeling of an internal power of self-determination elevates the man above the unlimited dominion of impulse and the instincts of nature, in. a wor~, absolve~ him from nature's guardianship; so the necessity, which alongside of her he must-recognize is no mere natural necessity, but one lying beyond the world of sense in the abyss of infinitude; consequently, it exhibits itself as the, unfathomable power of destiny. Hence this power extends also to the world of gods: for the Grecian gods are mere powers of nature; and although immeasurably higher than mor.tal m~n, ye~, compared with infinitude, they are on an equal. footmg With himself In Homer and in the tragedians, the gods are introduced in a manner altogether different. In the form:r their appearance is arbitrary and accidental, and cornmumcate to the epic poem no higher jnterest than the charm of the wonderful. But in tragedy ,the gods either come forward as the servants of destiny, and mediate executors of its decrees' ~r else appr?ve themselves godlike only by asserting thei; hberty of action, and entering upon the same struggles with fate which man himself has to encounter.

This is the essence of the tragical in the sense of the ancients.

We are accustomed to give to all terrible or sorrowful events the appellation.of tragic, and it is certain that such events are selected In preference. by tragedy, though a melancholy conclusion is by no means indispensably necessary; and several ancient tragedies, viz., the Eumenides, Philoctetes, and in some degre.e also the .Oe_dipus Colonus, without mentioning many of the pieces of Euripides, have a happy and cheerful termination.

But. why does tragedy select subjects so awfully repugnant to the WIshes and wants of our sensuous na.turei': This question has often bee? asked, and seldom satisfactorily answered. Some have said that the pleasure of such representations arises from

4From Lecture v.

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LITERARY CRITICISM

the comparison we make between the calmness and tranquillity of our own situation, and the storms and perplexities to which the victims of passion are exposed. But when we take a warm interest in the persons of a tragedy, we cease to think of ourselves; and when this is not the case, it is the best of all proofs that we take but a feeble interest in the exhibited story, and that the tragedy has failed in its effect. Others again have had recourse to a supposed feeling for moral improvement, which is gratified by the view of poetical justice in the reward of the good and the punishment of the wicked. But he for whom the aspect of such dreadful examples could really be wholesome must be conscious of a base feeling of depression very far removed from genuine morality, and would experience humiliation rather than elevation of mind. Besides, poetical justice is by no means indispensable to a good tragedy; it may end with the suffering of the just and the triumph of the wicked, if only the balance be preserved in the spectator's own consciousness by the prospect of futurity. Little does it mend the matter to say with Aristotle that the object of tragedy is to purify the passions by pity and terror. In the first place commentators have never been able to agree as to the meaning of this proposition, and have had recourse to the most forced explanations of it. Look, for instance, into the Dramaturgie of Lessing. Lessing gives a new explanation of his own, and fancies he has found in Aristotle a poetical Euclid. But mathematical demonstrations are liable to no misconception, and geometrical evidence may well be supposed inapplicable to the theory of the fine arts. Supposing, however, that tragedy does operate this moral cure in us, still she does so by the painful feelings of terror and compassion: and it remains to be proved how it is that we take a pleasure in subjecting ourselves to such an operation.

Others have been pleased to say that we are attracted to theatrical representations from the want of some violent agitation to rouse us out of the torpor of our everyday life. Such a craving does exist; I have already acknowledged the existence of this want, when speaking of the attractions of the drama; but to it we must equally attribute the fights of wild beasts among the Romans, nay, even the combats of the gladiators. But must we, less indurated, and more inclined to tender feelings, require demigods and heroes to descend, like so many desperate gladiators, into the bloody arena of the t:agic stage, in order to agitate

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AUGUST WILHELM VON SCHLEGEL 179

our nerves by the spectacle of their sufferings? No: it is not the sight of suffering which constitutes the charm of a tragedy, or even of the games of the circus, or of the fight of wild beasts. In the latter we see a display of activity, strength, and courage; splendid' qualities these, and related to the mental and moral powers of man. The satisfaction, therefore, which we d~rive from the representation, in a good tragedy, of powerful SItuations and overwhelming sorrows, must be ascribed either to the feeling of the dignity of human nature excited in us by such grand instances of it as are therein displayed, or to the t~ace of a higher order of things impressed on the apparently Irregular course of events and mysteriously revealed in them, or perhaps to both these causes conjointly.

The true reason, therefore, why tragedy need not 'shun even the harshest subject is that a spiritual and invisible power can only be measured by the opposition which it encounters from some external force capable of being appreciated by the senses. The moral freedom of man, therefore, can only be displayed in a conflict with his sensuous impulses: so long as no higher call summons it to action, it is either actually dormant within him, or appears to slumber, since otherwise it does but mechanically fulfill its part as a mere power of nature. ·It is only amidst difficulties and struggles that the moral part of man's nature avouches itself. If, therefore, we must explain the distinctive aim of tragedy by way of theory, we would give it thus: that.to establish the claims of the mind to a divine origin, its earthly existence must be disregarded as vain and insignificant, all sorrows endured and all difficulties overcome. .

The Chorus"

. .. I come now to another peculiarity which distinguishes the tragedy of the ancients from ours, I mean the Chorus. \Ve must consider it as a personified reflection on the action which is going on; the incorporation into the representation itself of the sentiments of the poet, as the spokesman of the whole human race. This is its general poetical character; and that is all that here concerns us, and that character is by no means affected by the circumstance that the Chorus had a local origin in the feasts of Bacchus, and that, moreover, it always retained among the Greeks a peculiar national signification; publicity being ,I .•

~FroU1 Lecture v.

according to their republican notions, essential to the completeness of every important transaction. If in their compositions they reverted to the heroic ages, in which monarchical polity was yet in force, they nevertheless gave a certain republican cast to the families of their heroes, by carrying on the action in presence either of the elders of the people, or of other persons who represented some correspondent rank or position in the social body. This publicity does not, it is true, quite correspond with Homer's picture of the manners of the heroic age; but both costume and mythology were handled by dramatic poetry with the same spirit of independence and conscious liberty.

These thoughts, then, and these modes of feeling led to the introduction of the Chorus, which, in order not to interfere with the appearance of reality which the whole ought to possess, must adjust itself to the ever-varying requisitions of the exhibited stories. Whatever it might be and do in each particular piece, it represented in general, first the common mind of the nation, and then the general sympathy of all mankind. In a word, the Chorus is the ideal spectator." It mitigates the impression of a heart-rending or moving story, while it conveys to the actual spectator a lyrical and musical expression of his own emotions, and elevates him to the region of contemplation.

The Unities 7

Voltaire wishes to derive the U ni ty of Place and Time from the Unity of Action, but his reasoning is shallow in the extreme. "For the same reason," he says, "the Unity of Place is essential, because no one action can go on in several places at once." But still, as we have already seen, several persons necessarily take part in the one principal action, since it consists of a plurality of subordinate actions, and what should hinder these from proceeding in different places at.the same time? Is not the same war frequently carried on simultaneously in Europe and India; and must not the historian recount alike in his narrative the events which take place on both these scenes?

"The Unity of Time," he adds, "is naturally connected with the two first. If the poet represents a conspiracy, and extends the action to fourteen days, he must account to me for all that takes place in these fourteen days. " Yes, for all that belongs to the matter in hand; all the rest, being extraneous to it, he passes

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l.,

~Cf. Nietzsche, below, p. 52I.

?From Lecture XVII.

AUGUST WILHELM VON SCHLEGEL

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over in silence, as every good storyteller would, and no person ever thinks of the omission. "If, therefore, he places before me the events of fourteen days, this gives-at least fourteen different actions, however small they may be." No doubt, if the poet were so unskillful as to wind off the fourteen days one after another with visible precision, if day and night are just-so often to come and go, ar:d the characters to go to bed and to get up again just so manr times. Bu~ the clever poet thrusts into the background all t~e mterva~s which are connected with no perceptible prog-i ress m the action, and in his picture annihilates all the pauses, of absolute standstill, and contrives, though with a rapid touch, to convey an accurate idea of the period supposed to haveelapsed. But why is the privilege of adopting a much widerspace between the two extremes of the piece than the material time of the representation important to the dramatist and even indis~ensabl: to him in .many subjects? 'The exa~ple of a conspIracy. given by Voltaire comes in here very opportunely.

A conspiracy.plotted and executed in two hours is in the first place, an incredible thing. Moreover, with reference to the, c~aracters of the personages of the piece, such a plot is very different fr~m. one in which the conceived purpose, however ~angerous, IS SIlently persevered in by an the parties for a considerable time. Though the poet does not admit this lapse of time into his exhibition immediately, in the midst of the characters, ~s in a mirror, he gives us as it were a perspective view of it. In this sort. of perspective Shakespeare is the greatest master I know: a smgle word frequently opens to view an almost interminable vista of antecedent states of mind. Confined within the r:arrow limits of time, the poet is in many subjects obliged to mutilate the action by beginning close to the last decisive stroke or else he is.u?der the necessity of unsuitably hurrying on its p=ogres.s: on either supposition he must reduce within petty dimensions the grand picture of a strong purpose which is no ffi?mer:tary eb~llition, but a firm resolve undau'ntedly maintam.ed m the .mIdst of all.external vicissitudes till the time is ripe for. Its execution. It is no longer what Shakespeare has so often painted, and what he has described in the following lines:-

Between the acting of a dreadful thing, And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:

The genius, and the mortal instruments

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And then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection."

But why are the Greek and romantic poets so different in their' practice with respect to place and time? The spirit of our criticism will not allow us to follow the practice of many critics, who so summarily pronounce the latter to be barbarians. On the contrary, we conceive that they lived in very cultivated times and were themselves highly cultivated men. As to the ancients, besides the structure of their stage, which, as we have already said, led naturally to the seeming continuity of time and the absence of change of scene, their observance of this practice-was also favored by the nature of the materials on which the Grecian dramatist had to work. These materials were mythology, and, consequently, a fiction which, under thehandling of preceding poets, had collected into continuous and perspicuous masses what in reality was detached and scattered about in various ways. Moreover, the heroic age which they painted was at once extremely simple in its manners, and marvelous in its incidents; and hence everything of itself went straight to the mark of a tragic resolution ..

But the principal cause of the difference lies in the plastic spirit of the antique and the picturesque spirit of the romantic poetry. Sculpture directs our attention exclusively to the group which it sets before us; it divests it as far as possible from all external accompaniments, and, where they cannot be dispensed with, it indicates them as slightly as possible. Painting, on the other hand, delights in exhibiting, along with the principal figures, all the details of the surrounding locality and all secondary circumstances, and to open a prospect into a boundless distance in the background; and light and shade with perspective are its peculiar charms. Hence the dramatic, and especially the tragic, art of the ancients annihilates in some measure the external circumstances of space and time; while, by their changes, the romantic drama adorns its more varied pictures. Or, to express myself in" other terms, the principle of the antique poetry is ideal; that of the romantic is mystical: the former subjects space and time. to the internal free-agency of the mind; the latter honors these incomprehensible essences as supernatural powers, in which there is somewhat of indwelling divinity.

'Julius Caesar, n, i, 63-69.

AUGUST WILHELM VON SCHLEGEL 183

National Drama 9

'.' . In ~omedy,. Lessing has already pointed out the difficulty of tntroduc~ng national manners which are not provincial, inasmuch as WIth us the tone of social life is not modeled after a common central standard. If we wish pure co~edies I would strongly recommend the use of rhyme; with the mor~ artifici~l form they might, perhaps, gradually assume also a peculiarity of substance.

To me, however, it appears that this is not the most urgent wan~: l~t us first bring to perfection the serious and higher species, 10 a manner worthy of the German character. Now here, it. appears to me that our taste inclines altogether to the romantic. What most attracts the multitude in our half-sentimental, half-humorous dramas, which one moment transport us to Peru and the next to Kamchatka and soon after into the times of chivalry, while the sentiments are all modern and lachrymose, is invariably a certain sprinkling of the romantic which we. recognize even in the most insipid magical -operas:

The true SIgnificance of this species was lost with us before it was properly found; the fancy has passed with the inventors of such chimeras, and the views of the plays are sometimes wiser than those of their authors. In a hundred playbills the name ;'romantic" is profaned by being lavished on rude and monstrous abortions; .let us, th~refore, be permitted to .elevate it, by criticism ~nd history, agam to its true import. We have lately endeavored III many ways to revive the remains of our old national poetry. These may afford-the poet a foundation for the wonderful festival play; but the most dignified species of the romantic is the historical.

In t~is field the most glorious laurels may yet be reaped by dramatic poets who are willing to emulate Goethe and Schiller. ?nly let o~r historical drama be in reality and thoroughly natlO.nal; let It not attach itself to the life and adventures of single knights and petty princes who exercised no influence on the for~nes .of the whole nation. Let it, at the same time, be truly historical, drawn from a profound knowledge, and transporting us back to th~ great olden time. In this mirror let the poet enable us to see, while we take deep shame to ourselves for what we are, what the Germans were in former times, and what they must be

8From Lecture xxx.

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again. Let him impress it strongly on our hearts, that, if we do

not consider the lessons of history better than we have hitherto done, we Germans-we, formerly the greatest and most illustrious nation of Europe, whose freely elected prince was will- I ingly acknowledged the head of all Christendom-are in danger of dis~ppearing altogethe: from .the ~ist of inde~endent nations.] The higher ranks, by their predilection for foreign manners, by' their fondness for exotic literature, which, transplanted from its! natural climate into hothouses, can only yield a miserable fruit,! have long alienated themselves from the body of the people ; still' longer even, for three centuries at least, has internal dissension! wasted our noblest energies in civil wars, whose ruinous conse.; quences are now first beginning to disclose themselves. May all who have an opportunity of influencing the public mind exert' themselves to extinguish at last the old misunderstandings, and to rally, as round a consecrated banner, all the well-disposed ob-' jects of reverence, which, unfortunately, have been too long I deserted, but by faithful attachment to which our forefathers ac- ' quired so much happiness and renown, and to let them feel their: indestructible unity as Germans! What a glorious picture is: furnished by our history, from the most remote times, the wars' with the Romans, down to the establishment of the German:

Empire! Then the chivalrous and brilliant era of the House of Hohenstaufen! and lastly, of greater political importance and' more nearly concerning ourselves, the House ,of Hapsburg, with' its many princes and heroes. What a field for a poet who; j like Shakespeare, could discern the poetical aspect of the great' events of the world! But, alas, so little interest do we Germans take in events truly important to our nation, that its greatest achievements still lack even a fitting historical record.

,LITERARY CRITICISM

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FRIEDRICH von SCHLEGEL

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FRIEDRICH VqN SC~~EG~L'S !-IFE AND IDEAS parallel in many reo spects the career of his brother, August Wilhelm (I 72 f.). Like him he studied and' interpreted world literature from Greece and India to his contemporary Germany; like other critics of his age, he profoundly admired the Greeks, but his hellenism was romantic' and

'.' .', ,- r ' ••• .,. • • _~ ,_, L.' ~

his contributions to the Athenaeum, edited by himself and his brother,

helped to found the romantic schooL But Friedrich was at the same time more brilliant and less stable than his illustrious brother. His erotic novel Lucinde, based on the doctrine of complete moral freedom, shocked his generation; and later his mysticism carried him and his wife, Dorothea, the daughter /of Mendelssohn, into the Catholic

church. . ..

The mature views of Friedrich Schlegel are expressed in his Lectures on tilt History of Literature, Ancient and Modern, which, however, is not a history in the ordinary sense. As he says, it is not "replete with quotations and biographical notices;"! It is a philosophical interpretation of "the intellectual life of a nation," as.seen, of course, through his own romantic eyes. After outlining his platform in the opening lecture, the "Influence of Literature on the Mode of Life and the Moral Dignity of -Nations," he traces the literary spirit through Greece, Rome, the Germanic and Romance nations, down to contemporary Germany.

Friedrich Schlegel clearly anticipates the later sociological interpretation of literature, as illustrated in the selection on Homer--see p. 188 ff. Some of his assertions sound almost modern. But he shows his kinship with Schiller and Lessing in his theory of nationality in literature, for this nationalism does not exclude a tolerantly cosmopolitan view.! Like the other romanticists, he deprecates the neoclassic subserviency to rules, particularly the French enslavement to the classical "unities"; he searches for the indigenous rules and unities of each age and country. Shakespeare, for example, has his own unity:

ISee 1815 Preface.

~Cf. Longfellow's similar views in Kavanagh,