The enduring conflict of tragedy: fidelity to origins versus the demands of the modern stage

“ From the nature of its subjects, tragedy may claim a certain preëminence in literature. If it be not truer, as is sometimes asserted, than comedy or other fiction, it has the opportunity to be more intense, more profound, more permeating in its emotional effect. As of all forms of literature, we ask for truth to life in incident, character, and word; of tragedy we ask for truth in regard to those things that affect us most deeply,—pain, disaster, failure, death. ”

“ Tragedy has always owed a double allegiance, to literature and to the theatre. A tragedy is a play, not merely a dialogue in [Pg 13] poetry or prose, but a play to be interpreted by actors before an audience in a theatre. ”

“ In such a history, even he who runs may read a record of human endeavor not alien to his interest.
Tragedy takes an abiding place among the great courses of continuous human activity dedicated to an inquiry into the meanings of life. Its imaginative and intellectual study of suffering and ruin must continue, however its form may alter, if the theatre is to be a social force of importance, if literature is to offer an intelligent, serious, and comprehensive view of life, if the two are to unite in something better than a trivial and selfish entertainment. ”

“ Every one felt a thrill of interest at beholding how another could bear a series of reverses and sufferings, which might any day be his own.
Notwithstanding all our admiration for the Greek tragedies, and firmly believing that they are framed on the true principle of dramatic composition—the neglect of which has occasioned its long-continued decline in this country—we are yet far from thinking them perfect. ”

“ The men whose deeds and passions he narrated were the patterns and examples on the one hand, on the other the warnings of his race; the gods who determined the fortunes they sang, were working still among men; the moral laws that ruled the past ruled the present too; and the history of the Hellenic race moved, under a visible providence, from its divine origin onward to an end that would be prosperous or the reverse according as later generations should continue to observe the worship and traditions of their fathers descended from heroes and gods. ”

“ Gifted by nature with an ardent imagination, impetuous feelings, deep and lasting emotions, he early saw that the modern drama, founded on, and fettered by, the strict observance of the Greek unities, and yet discarding its broken and rapid diction, its profound knowledge of the human heart, its vehement expression of passion, had departed far from the real object of the art, and could not be brought back to it but by a total change of system. He has himself told us, in his most interesting life, that when he read the tragedies of Racine and Corneille, the book fell from his hands. ”

“ Men are forever imitating, but they cannot imitate without change. In these changes, the variations due to environment—personal, theatrical, literary, social—arise the individual peculiarities, the beginnings of new species, the element of growth. The great mass of tragedies, however, differentiate themselves only feebly or slightly from the type. They are imitations that preserve all the essential characteristics of their originals. Some ideas, some plays, some traditions, have an astonishing fecundity ”

“ We have said that when the history of a nation is recorded in {390} language we call it literature, but by such literature is meant not only historical writing, but whatever takes the form of letters. The history of a nation is an enquiry into how that nation thinks as well as into what it does, and its philosophers, historians and dramatists are as much a part of its history as its statesmen and men of action. The great Greek dramatists were men living the life of their time, and it was a time when stirring things were happening. ”

“ The national religion of Greece was based upon genealogy. It carried back the mind by an unbroken ascent from living men to heroes or half-gods who had been their forefathers in the flesh, and thence to gods from whom these heroes had sprung. The strength of a chain is the strength of its weakest part; enfeeblement of belief in the heroes implied enfeeblement of belief in the gods. The decreasing vividness of faith in the heroes is the index of failing life in the Greek national religion. ”

“ Everywhere the attempt has been made to present the past from the later point of culture. Whether the memory reaches but a little way, or goes back far into the past, it is always enriched by ideas taken from religious conceptions, or national pride, from reflection or theory. Such reconstructions are significant of the nature and [Pg 2] character of the people for whom they replace the history of their youth, but they have no claim to represent the actual course of their development. ”

“ And yet not one play of Corneille is altogether adapted to the needs of the people. For several reasons:
The language. It is a fact that the form of a tragedy or a drame "dates" more quickly than that of a comedy; at least, it sooner ceases to be understood by the public. It is not so realistic, and depends less upon the observation of human nature; it is more subjective, more personal; it bears the imprint of the epoch and the nation more unmistakably. ”

“ The basis for much of modern theorizing has been Aristotle's tentative yet searching analysis of Athenian tragedy. Many of the peculiarities of Athenian tragedy—its structure without acts but with a chorus, its limitation of three actors on the stage at once, its narrow range of mythological subjects—are evidently not essential to securing tragic effect. Even the unities, whether as observed in the Greek theatre or as defined by French and Italian critics, may, after generations of debate, be safely relegated as nonessential. ”

“ This Truth extends it self to all Arts and Sciences, 'tis no difficult matter to find a proper Example in our Subject, there is no want of Tragedies, where the management is altogether opposite to that of the Ancients. According to the Rules of Aristotle, a Tragedy is the Imitation of an Allegorical and Universal Action, which by the means of Terror, and Compassion, moderates and corrects our Inclinations. ”

“ Tragedy, however, is an imitation not only of a complete action, but also of incidents arousing pity and fear. ”

“ Excepting Shakespeare's, no English tragedies of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, or, one might almost say, nineteenth century, are acted in our theatres to-day. The effect of the acted drama is consequently not only different from that of the drama when read, it is also subject to other and variable artistic standards. It aims at some effects not at all literary and at some likely to be limited by its own day and theatre. A history of tragedy must take into account the differences of the theatre of one nation from that of another, and of one period from another period. ”

“ While there have been a multitude of tragedies that have never been acted, and some that have never been intended for acting, the attempt to write tragedy for the closet rather than for the stage has resulted either in adopting the supposed conditions of the Greek or some other foreign theatre, or in breaking away from the strict limits defined by the stage and writing lyrical medleys or dramatic monologues or imaginary conversations. As soon as tragedy has left the theatre, it has reverted to old forms or developed new and strange hybrids. ”

“ This much seems fairly certain,—literary genius and theatrical experience must unite in order to produce great tragedy. From the theatre the writer must learn dramatic art, the first rule of which is to win his audience; from literature he must learn the elements that will give his work lasting value. Only after an experience with the theatre can he venture on innovations likely to be permanent. Only if he have literary genius will he depart in triumph from literary traditions. ”

“ For the reader of a play is confronted by difficulties not found in other fiction; and, in general, only a play suited to presentation on the stage is likely to secure for a reader the visualization, the impersonations, the illusion of actuality, similar to those experienced in the theatre. The fact that the drama requires the services of theatre and actors as well as author need not lessen our recognition of the responsibility and opportunities of the one or the other. ”

“ The relationships of tragedy, however, are not confined to the theatre or to literature. That tragedy, like other forms of literature, is an imitation of life, is a platitude whose meaning sometimes fails to impress us. But its truth has a witness in every writer of tragedy. However insignificant or thoughtless, he has been trying to put into his play something of life as he knows it, trying to find some relationships in the world of fact that will carry meaning and interest to his fellows. ”

“ But already in the sixteenth century there were authors who wrote tragedies of ordinary men and contemporary events; and realism has broken away from the literary tradition in every generation since. Fifth: Tragedy has generally been [Pg 11] reserved for poetry, and often for poetry of the most embellished kind; but here again realism has resorted to a bare style, and, particularly in the last century, to prose. ”

“ However strong the foreign influences, tragedy has maintained the national tradition; however great the innovations, it has never broken with the past. From Marlowe to Shelley there has been an unbroken continuity in themes, stories, types of persons, nature of emotional appeal, structure, and even in the blank verse. ”

“ English tragedy, after a long national development, had become materially modified by French influence and had assumed a fixed and restricted form. This type, recognizable early in the century, continues to prevail nearly to the end. The century had little power of innovation, little that can be called a development in the history of tragedy. The pendulum swings now toward French, now toward Elizabethan models, but its oscillations are slight and regulated. The plays thus far considered offer unimportant variations from the type, and plays after the middle of the century vary still less. ”

“ Not one of the literary forms in which the eighteenth century excelled, and not one fully representing the pseudo-classical theories, tragedy cannot be fairly judged as representing classicism versus romanticism. It merely presents a deteriorated English tradition modified and narrowed by pseudo-classical rules and theory. Yet it corrected and modified English tradition where it needed corrections and modifications, without quite denationalizing it. The admixture of comedy, prone to become gross farce, the horrors and bloodshed, and the brutal and revolting themes were rightly abandoned. ”

“ As there are within the range of any country's history, authentic or traditional, periods and characters in themselves so naturally fit and proper for transfiguration by poetry that the dramatist who should attempt to improve on the truth—the actual or imaginary truth accepted as fact with regard to them—would probably if not certainly derogate from it, so are there others which cannot be transfigured without transformation. ”

“ No one, I feel sure, is more distressed at the present condition, or, rather to speak more truly, ill condition of the Churches than your excellency; for you compare the present with the past, and take into account how great a change has come about. You are well aware that if no check is put to the swift deterioration which we are witnessing, there will soon be nothing to prevent the complete transformation of the Churches. ”

“ This, it seems to me, is the third requisite of our People's Theater:
The theater ought to be a guiding light to the intelligence. It should flood with light the terrible brain of man, which is filled with shadows and monsters, and is exceeding narrow and cramped. We have just spoken of the need of guarding against giving every product of the artist to the people; I do not wish, however, to imply that they must be spared all incentive to thought. The workingman does not as a rule think while his body is working. ”

“ The theater ought to be a source of energy: this is the second requisite. The obligation to avoid what is depressing and discouraging is altogether negative; an antidote is necessary, something to support and exalt the soul. ”

“ The Committee of Public Safety realized that the transformation of the old Théâtre-Français for the purpose of giving popular performances was only temporary. The founders of the People's Theater were right in thinking that there were obstacles, probably unsurmountable, to the establishment of a new form of dramatic art in an old building, whose material form, audiences, and traditions would always stand in the way of the development of a new art. ”

“ I dedicate the work of a free man to a free nation. ... Your scene ought to change with the others that have just changed. A theater in which there are only petty females and slaves is no longer suited to a nation of men and of citizens. There was one thing lacking to your dramatic poets; it was not genius, and not subjects, but an audience. ”

“ It will be the task of the architects of the future People's Theater to see that cheap seats are not instruments of inquisitorial torture. It will be the task of the dramatists to see that their works produce joy, and not sadness and boredom. The greatest vanity or else downright stupidity are the only excuses for offering the people the latest products of a decadent art, which produces evil effects sometimes even on the minds of the torpid. ”

“ The modern amendments, though represented by nearly universal practice, have not saved the classical tradition, and are themselves coming under question. The plays of Ibsen, which seem to have instituted the most important development in tragedy for two centuries, return to something of the simplicity of action required by Aristotle, and present the struggle of individual wills as did Shakespeare, but are in prose and deal with contemporary bourgeois life,—a combination of relationships to the tradition wholly new. ”