Part 12 (1/2)

Hill's career may remind us both of the din of the critics over Voltaire and Shakespeare, and also of the virtual compromise and amalgamation that had taken place on the stage between French and English traditions. English tragedy, after a long national development, had become materially modified by French influence and had a.s.sumed 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. Home's famous ”Douglas” (1757), that thrilled every heart and in the opinion of the judicious redeemed the stage anew from barbarism, fails now to distinguish itself from its fellows, unless by its touches of melancholy, medievalism, and nature, that hint of romanticism. Here, as so often, a much suffering woman is beset by villany and jealousy. Home's other tragedies and those of Glover, Hoole, Brown, Murphy, and c.u.mberland offer even less of novelty, except that toward the end of the century refinement in sentiments and morals becomes increasingly attenuated. Miss Hannah More best represents this feminization of the type. Her ”Percy” (1777), a very successful play, is devoted to the sentiment:--

”Will it content me that her person's pure?

No, if her alien heart doats on another, She is unchaste.”

”The Fatal Falsehood” (1779) presents in a domestic guise the usual plot of rivals in love and an intriguing villain, with the addition of a love-sick lady who runs mad. ”The curtain falls to soft music.” The century has one marked innovation in the realistic plays of Lillo and Moore, and after 1780 there are signs of the romanticism stirring elsewhere in literature; but in the main the new tragedies are hopelessly commonplace representatives of an extremely conventionalized form.

Yet tragedy was by no means neglected in literature or on the stage.

Several hundred tragedies were published during the century and many of them went through several editions. Three or four were brought out every year in the theatres, and many of these maintained themselves for a time as stock plays. Most men of letters essayed tragedy,--Addison, Johnson, Young, Thomson, Gay, the laureates Cibber, Rowe, Whitehead, Pye, and a host of minor celebrities. Besides the tragedies acted, there were almost as many not acted but printed. Closet dramas, common in the Elizabethan period, grew more numerous after the Restoration. Whether the writer scorned or was scorned by the manager, an appeal to the reading public was always easy and apparently sometimes profitable. Tragedies were bought and read; a popular play might start with an edition of five thousand and run through a number of editions. Even after the novel had supplanted the drama among readers, there was no diminution of printed plays. The non-acted plays, however, offer nothing of importance for the history of the drama.

The majority are unactable; others follow the usual formulas; a few Greek plays, alterations of Shakespeare, and sacred dramas have some interest as curiosities. The increase in the number of these plays does indicate a growing separation between the drama and the theatre. Plays were no longer written by a set of dramatists who made a profession; they were written by any one who had literary pretensions. Only a few new plays were required; the supply greatly exceeded the demand. The theatrical monopoly maintained by the two patented theatres offered no great encouragement to dramatists, and the number who wrote without any acquaintance or knowledge of the stage increased. Literary fame rather than success in the theatre was perhaps the greater incentive in the case of tragedy. Whatever the incentive, individual ambition resulted in no individuality of expression. The popular ballad of tradition is scarcely less expressive of personality than the average eighteenth century tragedy. Even the plays of temporary importance have no flavor of their own.[37]

The features of this type have often been mentioned in connection with particular plays, but it may be convenient to collect them in a composite picture. In structure and technic French models are mainly followed. Very long speeches, indeed, are rare, bloodshed and violence are permitted on the stage, and there is a good deal of incident; but bloodshed and horrors after the Elizabethan style no longer appear. Comedy also has disappeared, and is tabooed even in adaptations of Shakespeare or of Restoration plays.

Comedy is reserved for the farce which is always performed after a tragedy.

Each tragedy concerns itself with a single plot, involving only from six to ten persons, and observing the unities, even after Johnson's salutary condemnation of them. There are few changes of scene, ordinarily none within an act. With the disappearance of other medieval characteristics there has also departed the medieval freedom in respect to the suitability of an action for the stage. The range of incidents possible for presentation is very limited; exposition is largely by narrative; supernatural elements, common in Lee, are unusual; the ghost at last rests in peace. Madness, however, is still retained, especially in the case of the long-suffering heroine. Battles, armies, stage spectacles of all kinds, are restricted, though the scenes may be elaborate, and processions, sacrifices, even music and songs are permissible. The first essential for the action is a love story, the second some kind of historical setting. The fatal or hazardous loves of princes and queens are the themes; Eastern, cla.s.sic, or early English courts are the scenes.

The love story itself often keeps to the form customary in the heroic plays. Two rivals in love, two heroines, major and minor, a tyrant, an intriguing minister, and the accompanying confidants appear again and again to a.s.sist in similar stories of jealousy, ambition, and villany. The old Elizabethan motives continue, as ”Rape” and ”The Fate of Villany,” the t.i.tles of two plays acted in 1729-30, may witness, but usually they are refined and tamed. Incest and rape are averted; the tyrant in love with the heroine only threatens; the villain who pursues casts suspicion on her virtue but abstains from violence; the two brothers, or the son and the father, in love with the same lady sometimes find renunciation possible.

Unjustified jealousy is perhaps the leading motive, and there are many feeble imitations of ”Oth.e.l.lo.” A secret marriage, a long-lost son, and marriages, either for revenge or in order to save a lover, are common elements in the plot. Hero and heroine are examples of virtue. Their difficulties or ruin are sometimes due to one fatal error duly emphasized, or they may be due wholly to the machinations of the villain. In the latter case, poetic justice is usually regarded and the good are saved.

The villain is the most constant reminder of Elizabethan tragedy. He has all the traits of the stage Machiavellis of Marlowe and Kyd, and sometimes imitates Iago. He is wholly black at heart, but he is apparently frank and honest; his revenge or ambition works by most devious intrigue; he confides his schemes to the audience in long soliloquies, yet his accomplished hypocrisy long baffles the rest of the _dramatis personae_. As in late Elizabethan and Restoration plays, he is often a prime minister. A collection of these villains' speeches would ill.u.s.trate the conventionalized character of eighteenth century tragedy and the tendency of stage types to perpetuate themselves in theatrical tradition. A few lines from two may be sufficient. The first is the opening soliloquy of Seyfert in ”The Heroine of the Cave,” a play of some popularity acted in 1774.

”Revenge, thou art the deity I adore!-- From thy auspicious shrine I hope a cure For the corroding pain that rends my heart.

The vain Alberti being thus preferr'd By fair Constantia, pa.s.seth all enduring!

Colredo I have rouz'd--another wooer-- And in his name are such reflections dropp'd, As 'twixt the two a duel must provoke-- My purpose is, whoe'er the conqu'ror be, To reap advantage for my private views,” etc.

The second is the opening soliloquy of Bertrand in Miss Hannah More's ”Fatal Falsehood” (1779).

”What fools are serious melancholy villains!

I play a surer game, and screen my heart With easy looks and undesigning smiles; And while my actions spring from sober thought, They still appear th' effect of wild caprice, And I, the thoughtless slave of giddy chance.

What but this frankness has engag'd the promise Of young Orlando, to confide in me That secret grief which preys upon his heart?

'Tis dangerous, indiscreet hypocrisy To seem too good: I am the _careless_ Bertrand, The honest, undesigning, plain, blunt man:” etc.

The continuance of the stage villain is worthy of some note beyond its evidence of conventionalization. It calls attention to the fact that English tragedy has always been largely concerned with evil persons. Though the utterly bad were condemned as tragic figures by Aristotle, and the overthrow of the wicked as a tragic theme has ever since been held in some contempt by theorizers; yet from the time of Marlowe, or even earlier, English tragedy has told the stories of evil-doers with careers of cruelty or l.u.s.t, or of machinators who have turned to bitterness and disaster the lives of the pure and the good. Of the first cla.s.s are the tyrants, usurpers, l.u.s.tful monarchs, and b.l.o.o.d.y avengers; of the second, the Machiavellian prime ministers, the hypocritical counselors, and the traitorous friends; and the two are often united as in Barabas or Richard III. English authors, actors, and audiences have delighted in a visible representative of the devil upon the stage, in an impersonation of the source of evil. Given grandeur of ambition, the evil one becomes the protagonist; given mere revenge and hatred as motives, he is still the main opponent of the hero. Perhaps the highest kind of tragic feeling is not aroused either by the fall of the depraved or by the ruin of the n.o.ble through trickery and cunning, yet ”Richard III” and ”Macbeth” deal with the one theme, and ”Oth.e.l.lo” and ”Lear” with the other. Shakespeare's tragedies, indeed, represent other conflicts than this between good and evil, and in the representation of that conflict they are not confined by theological or dramatic formulas. Such formulas were just what eighteenth century writers enjoyed, and in attacking the problem of evil they clung to one of the most artificial if also one of the most typical persons in literature, the Elizabethan stage machinator. The conflict of bad and good, a natural if not inevitable motive of a drama descending from medieval times, found its expression in the excessively amiable hero and heroine and the utterly black villain, stage types that have maintained themselves in fiction as well as the drama through Scott and d.i.c.kens down to the present day. The stage villain, a theory of poetic justice that refused to punish the good except for some distinctly emphasized fault, and a faith in the potency of moral precepts, these are the devil, providence, and salvation of a theatrical theology, which, along with conventional technic, narrowed plots, and some refinement in moral taste, distinguish the eighteenth century type of tragedy.

The bird, caged and clipped, no longer sang. There was no poetry left in tragedy, and no human nature. Was there anything, then, in this type that showed advance over the preceding centuries, or anything that offered promise for future development? Not one of the literary forms in which the eighteenth century excelled, and not one fully representing the pseudo-cla.s.sical theories, tragedy cannot be fairly judged as representing cla.s.sicism _versus_ romanticism. It merely presents a deteriorated English tradition modified and narrowed by pseudo-cla.s.sical rules and theory. Yet it corrected and modified English tradition where it needed corrections and modifications, without quite denationalizing it. The admixture of comedy, p.r.o.ne to become gross farce, the horrors and bloodshed, and the brutal and revolting themes were rightly abandoned. In structure there was a more positive reformation. Stage illusion and precision of effect may be aided by an observance of the unities, and the limitation of the action to a single plot, a few persons, and a few scenes,--Shakespeare and encomiasts of his art to the contrary notwithstanding. It must be added that in practice the unities are likely to result in a counter-balancing defect, in a concentration of incident improbable and artificial, as often in eighteenth century tragedies, and even in Ibsen. The pseudo-cla.s.sicists erred mainly in taking their rules as masters instead of as guides. Yet eighteenth century tragedy deserves this meed of praise that it sought for literary form, which preceding tragedy had largely lacked; and its attempts to secure this offered useful lessons for the future. But here the usefulness of its dramatic art ends. In the limitation of what could be acted and of what belonged to the species, it was suicidal. French tragedy in its effort to imitate Greek failed to take advantage of the resources of modern theatres; and English tragedy, halting between English and French precedents, simply confined itself to well-worn theatrical customs. There are not only no new subjects or characters, there are no new situations, surprises, or catastrophes, no new methods of exposition or dialogue. Some of the worst of the old conventions survived, as the soliloquies, which continue long, frequent, and undisguised, but it would be hard to find even a bit of stage business that was new. Eighteenth century tragedy made no adequate demands of its splendid theatres and great actors.[38]

The only daring departure from the prevailing type, and the most important contribution to the general development of European tragedy in the eighteenth century, came in the success of ”George Barnwell, or the London Merchant” (1731). This was the first tragedy of George Lillo, a London jeweler, who had hitherto had no known theatrical or literary connections, save for one unsuccessful play. It was followed within a few years by another domestic tragedy, ”Fatal Curiosity,” two tragedies of the regular type, ”The Christian Hero” and the posthumous ”Elmerick,” and by adaptations of ”Pericles” and ”Arden of Feversham.” The two domestic tragedies differ somewhat in both form and purpose. ”The London Merchant,”

in prose, tells the story of Barnwell's downfall through the courtesan Millwood, his murder of his uncle at her instigation, and the final execution of both criminals. Barnwell's repentance is much dwelt upon, and the moral lesson is enforced in every line. ”The Fatal Curiosity,” in blank verse, tells of a frightful murder of a son by a father at the instigation of the mother. From the innocent ”curiosity” of the long-lost son in concealing his ident.i.ty from his parents, there is traced the chain of circ.u.mstances which finally drive the poverty-stricken and wretched couple to the murder of the stranger. The play is thus nearer to Greek than modern ideas of tragedy, in that it represents destiny as something separate from character, and it links itself with the German species of _SchicksalstraG.o.die_, which indeed it directly influenced. ”The London Merchant,” on the contrary, seeks the causes and effects of crime in a crude and popular presentation of character that always makes the most of human will and sentiment.

Daring and important as was Lillo's innovation, it was by no means without progenitors and near kinsmen. The relations of his plays to Elizabethan domestic tragedies are evident. Like ”Arden of Feversham,” which Lillo may have been copying, ”The London Merchant” presents a murder, portrays a monstrous woman, and ends with an execution. Like the Elizabethan plays, Lillo's are bald, detailed, and moralizing. The very pleas that he advances in his dedication for realism and liberty had been advanced in ”Arden” and the ”Warning for Fair Women.” Moreover, while since 1660 no tragedies had dealt solely with middle-cla.s.s society, there had been much chafing against the restrictions that limited tragedy to princes; and from English writers as well as Corneille had come forecasts of the sweeping democracy of Lillo's creed:--

”What I would infer is this, I think, evident truth; that tragedy is so far from losing its dignity, by being accommodated to the circ.u.mstances of the generality of mankind, that it is more truly august in proportion to the extent of its influence, and the numbers that are properly affected by it. As it is more truly great to be the instrument of good to many, who stand in need of our a.s.sistance, than to a very small part of that number.”[39]

Southerne, Otway, and Rowe had won great success for domestic themes, and their examples were naturally cited in the prologue which introduced ”The Merchant.” Comedy might also have been summoned to support. After the scourging from Collier it had joined in the general movement at the beginning of the century toward sentiment and moralizing. Sentimental comedy, seeking both pathos and a moral, may be said to begin in England at least as early as Colley Cibber's ”Careless Husband” (1704) and Steele's ”Tender Husband” (1705). Steele's ”Conscious Lovers” (1722) shows the species in full development. More general but not less important encouragements for realism in tragedy came from the realistic tendencies manifest in the literature of the preceding generation, notably in the novels of Defoe, and from the moralistic tendencies everywhere manifest in both fiction and drama. Lillo was one with his time, though out with truth and art, in thinking ”the more extensively useful the moral of any tragedy is, the more excellent that piece must be of its kind.”[40] The ascendancy of the middle cla.s.s in letters, their expanding social life, their attachment to a conventional morality and a utilitarian art, and their delight in sentimentality, all help to explain the appearance of ”George Barnwell.” Lillo was writing for a generation that had ”The Fair Penitent”

and was waiting for ”Pamela.”

Lillo's work, however, was none the less that of a pioneer. ”The Fatal Curiosity” had a special influence, beginning forty years after its appearance, in the German tragedies of destiny; and ”The London Merchant,”

soon after its publication, became of importance in both France and Germany. In France its welcome was prepared by the growth of a species of sentimental comedy paralleling the English, and it was translated in time (1748) to serve as an example and stimulant to Diderot's plays and theories. Even before the publication of his ”Le Fils Naturel”[41] (1757), and ”Le Pere de Famille”[42] (1758), Lessing's ”Miss Sara Sampson” (1755) had appeared directly modeled on ”The London Merchant.” Through Diderot and Lessing and, a little later, through German translations of Lillo's plays, domestic tragedy continued its leavening work in the German drama. By that time, sentimental comedy and domestic tragedy were returning from France and Germany to influence the English drama.