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CHAPTER V.

We know that it was flung in the face of the English dramatists that they did not regard the rules, which for three hundred years were spoken of in Europe with as much reverence as the Ten Commandments, and were obeyed with incomparably more zeal. It may be worth while, then, to take "Cato" for our excuse, and under the shield of his good name to examine these rules, and see what it was that moulded the drama of parts of continental Europe from the revival of letters down to a time within the memory of men still living. To do this it is not necessary to go into the history of the miracle-plays and mysteries which abounded in the Middle Ages, under slightly varying forms, in Italy, France, Spain, England, and Germany; we may turn at once to the early attempts to revive the drama at the time of the Renaissance, for all testimony seems to show that the drama revived as a wholly independent thing amid the general resuscitation of literary interests. Indeed, the fact that then plays were first written more with a desire to have a full showing in the various departments of intellectual work than from an intense feeling seeking dramatic expression-just as some people buy the books which they think they ought to care for, and not the books they want this fact, I say, poisoned the stream at its fountain-head.

I quote from Mr. Symonds's "Renaissance in Italy"

some interesting and acute remarks on the conditions necessary for the full and natural development of the drama. He says: "Three conditions, enjoyed by Greece and England, but denied to Italy, seem necessary for the poetry of a nation to reach this final stage of artistic development. The first is a free and sympathetic public, not made up of courtiers and scholars, but of men of all classes a public representative of the whole nation, with whom the playwright shall feel himself in close rapport. The second is a centre of social life-an Athens, Paris, or London-where the heart of the nation beats and where its brain is ever active. The third is the perturbation of the race in some great effort, like the Persian war, or the struggle of the Reformation, which unites the people in a common consciousness of heroism. Taken in combination, these three conditions explain the appearance of a drama fitted to express the very life and soul of a puissant nation, with the temper of the times impressed upon it, but with a truth and breadth that renders it the heritage of every race and age. A national drama is the image created for itself in art by a people which has arrived at knowledge of its power, at the enjoyment of its faculties, after a period of successful action. Concentrated in a capital, gifted with a common instrument of self-expression, it projects itself in tragedies and comedies that bear the name of individual poets, but are, in reality, the spirit of the race made vocal." *

But the Italians saw great tragedies in antiquity, and so sat down to compose great tragedies for modern times. Let us not laugh at them; we see the same error about us, unless, indeed, we happen to be committing it ourselves. When we hear or say that the "Nibelungen Lied"

* "Renaissance in Italy," v. 112. See also his "Greek Poets" (Amer. ed.), ii. 1 et seq.

or the "Chanson de Roland" is quite as fine as the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," we are making our bow to antiquity, and attempting to show that we are as good as the Greeks, and that our early writers are as good as theirs. We are using old-fashioned standards of measurement—or at least misusing them.

The first regular Italian tragedy was Trissino's "Sofonisba," which was finished in 1515, and six times printed before its first performance in 1562.* Trissino was an eager advocate of the improvement of Italian literature, but he saw only one way of accomplishing his object—i. e., by copying the ancients. He wrote an epic poem, “Italia Liberata," in blank verse, in which he turned his back on the method adopted by Ariosto and subsequently followed by Tasso, and tried his best to imitate Homer. This was a complete failure; but his "Sofonisba," although it really had no success on the stage, did have an influence on dramatic literature. It is to be noticed that it was printed six times before it was acted this statement suffices to show the difference between a real drama and a literary drama, just as now a certain number of English poets write plays in book-form and fancy they are improving the English stage, forgetting that fitness for representation is the only true test of a play, as readableness is of a novel. Certainly, if the English drama is to be revived, this will be done by plays on the boards, not by books on the shelves.

In his "Sofonisba," Trissinot followed very closely

*So Mr. Symonds. Elsewhere it is stated that it was performed in 1515, but not repeated until 1562. It has been acted in Italy within a few years.

Trissino was not alone; Rucellai wrote his "Rosmunda " in generous rivalry. Symonds ("Renaissance in Italy," v. 236) says: "These two dearest friends, when they were together in a room, would jump upon a bench and declaim pieces of their tragedies, calling upon the audience to decide

*

what we took to be the practice of the ancients. I have already spoken of the enormous influence of Aristotle; it was now about to appear in a new quarter. Trissino wrote an "Ars Poetica," made up out of Aristotle and Horace, and applied these rules with the utmost rigor in this play. The rules, or the three unities, as they were afterwards called, were the unity of action-which different writers took to mean a number of different things, as we shall presently see-unity of time, which demanded that the action should take place within twenty-four hours; and unity of place, which was taken to mean that the scene should not be transferred beyond the palace, temple, or dwelling where the action was supposed to occur. The only one of these rules which commanded universal assent was the unity of time, for the unity of place was interpreted in various ways, sometimes being taken as forbidding change of scene within the limits of an act. All of these rules were followed in their literal sense by Trissino in his "Sofonisba," and they were introduced into France by Mairet, who wrote a "Sophonisba," which was produced at Rouen in 1629. Before this the French plays had coquetted with the unities, and many of them were closely modelled on those of Seneca; but the “Sophonisba," coming with all the authority of Italy behind it, firmly established the rules on the French stage. All between them on the merits of their plays." The "Rosmunda" was acted at about the same time with the "Sofonisba." It is not now easy to detect which was the better. The "Rosmunda " is unmistakably a dull play. The author, lest his characters should break some rule by action, keeps them apart, declaiming to echo-like confidants.

Speron Sperone, Giraldi, Dolce, while they studied Greek originals, all agreed that Seneca had much improved on the Greek methods. Their plays contained no tragic solemnity, no lyric beauty-nothing but mangled plots and cold declamation.

* Vide Simpson's "Dramatic Unities," p. 8.

the great French tragedies, down to Victor Hugo's "Cromwell" and "Hernani," were written in obedience to them. Even Voltaire was one of their warmest defenders.

*

The history of the growth and decay of the unities is full of interest, as illustrative of the general course of pseudo-classicism in literature. Their value was one of the most important of the tenets of this school, and it was, in France at least, one of the longest-lived. As was just stated, they were not absolutely novel in France; when they were firmly planted there, the ground had been already prepared for their reception. Mellin de St. Gelais. had translated Trissino's "Sofonisba," with the dialogue in prose and the chorus alone in verse, and this rendering had been acted before Henry II., at Blois, in 1559. There had been, too, other versions of this play. Moreover, the dramatists of the Pleiad, cir. 1550, in their transcripts of ancient tragedies, had observed the unities, more, doubtless, from imitation than from deliberate effort. There were other dramatists whose influence lay in the opposite direction; the most important of whom was Hardy (1560-1631), who wrote six or eight hundred plays-for authorities differ. Fontenelle says that this statement will cease to surprise any one who reads them. Hardy nobly disregarded the unities in many of his dramas, in this following the Spanish rather than the classic or the Italian stage. For, as Lope de Vega said, before he wrote he locked up with six keys the "Ars Poetica," and turned Terence and Plautus out of his study. The medi

* Vide Ebert, "Entwickelungsgeschichte der franz. Tragödie," p. 138.

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