Hence all the phantoms created by ancient philosophy. [48], Johnson geht schließlich sogar so weit, die völlige Illusion als Hindernis für den Genuss eines Bühnenstückes zu sehen. (Hrsg. Herodotus is a Homer. The romantic stage would make a piquant, savoury, diversified dish of that which, on the classic stage, is a drug divided into two pills. THEORIE UND PRAXIS: DIE ANWENDUNG DER NEUEN DRAMENKONZEPTION La Préface de Cromwell. Almost all of them have confined themselves to reproducing on a larger scale the simple and ominous profile drawn by Bossuet from his Catholic and monarchical standpoint, from his episcopal pulpit supported by the throne of Louis XIV. It is the girdle which holds up the garment and gives it all its folds. This is what will soon be demonstrated by another school of criticism, powerful, outspoken, well-informed,—a school of the century which is beginning to put forth vigorous shoots under the dead and withered branches of the old school. In the drama, as it may be conceived at least, if not executed, all things are connected and follow one another as in real life. They vied with one another in scrutinizing, commenting, disputing. Even the vulgar and the trivial should have an accent of their own. That is why it is especially adapted to the perspective of the stage. Retrouvez toutes les subtilités de cette préface dans un commentaire original et complet pour approfondir votre réflexion sur le texte. But it is not our place to reply to them. V.3. As for himself, he prefers reasons to authorities; he has always cared more for arms than for coats-of-arms. Taste, then, is coquetry. V.2.2.3. [...] En effet, n'eût-il pas été ridicule dans Les Sept devant Thèbes, que les jeunes filles qui en font le Chœur, se fussent trouvées tantôt devant le Palais de leur Roi et tantôt dans le camp des Ennemis, sans qu'on les eût vues changer de place?“[4], Aufgrund dieser Selbstverständlichkeit und Allgegenwärtigkeit der Einheit des Ortes wäre es schlichtweg lächerlich gewesen eine Regel diesbezüglich zu formulieren. Corneille saw that he was doomed; the lion was muzzled, or, as was said at the time, the crow (Corneille) was plucked. Like the lake, the drama reflects the sky; like the stream, it reflects its banks; but it alone has tempests and measureless depths. Stacks. Constant war demzufolge gezwungen, um die Einheit der Zeit zu wahren, sowohl die Anzahl der Personen erheblich zu verringern (zwölf Figuren werden z.B. That which the rhapsodists formerly sang, the actors declaim—that is the whole difference. VIII.1. Johnsons Präambel mag noch viele weitere Dramentheoretiker des 18. In truth, in the new poetry, while the sublime represents the soul as it is, purified by Christian morality, the grotesque plays the part of the human beast. and then—copy! It will be seen that here the latitude is ample and unique; this is, in truth, the decisive hour, the turning-point in Cromwell's life. Let us hold to the facts marshalled above; let us supplement them, too, by an important observation, namely that we have in no wise pretended to assign exclusive limits to the three epochs of poetry, but simply to set forth their predominant characteristics. Werke. In our opinion a most novel book might be written upon the employment of the grotesque in the arts. Boileau. In: Constant, Benjamin de. V.6.1. It is plain that it is not on familiar ground, because it is not in its natural surroundings. EXKURS: DAS ADJEKTIV ROMANTIQUE, IV. v. Arthur Sherbo). Entstanden Ende des 18. In this tableau of the stage, each figure must be held down to its most prominent, most individual, most precisely defined characteristic. These few instructive lines contain the everlasting tactics of envious routine against growing talent—tactics which are still followed in our own day, and which, for example, added such a curious page to the youthful essays of Lord Byron. to despatch the Duc de Guise elsewhere than in that château of Blois where his ambition roused a popular assemblage to frenzy? Disgusted by the stiffness, the ostentation, the pomposo, of this alleged dramatic poetry, they have concluded that the elements of our poetic language were incompatible with the natural and the true. His drama does not leave London; it begins on June 25, 1657, at three in the morning, and ends on the 26th at noon. La préface de Cromwell: introduction, texte et notes by Hugo, Victor, 1802-1885. S. 23-59, [21] Stendhal. The chiefs of these nascent states are still shepherds, it is true, but shepherds of nations; the pastoral staff has already assumed the shape of a sceptre. Christianity leads poetry to the truth. a talent that had not some shadow with its brilliancy, some smoke with its flame? The poet—let us insist on this point—should take counsel therefore only of nature, truth, and inspiration which is itself both truth and nature. SAMUEL JOHNSON. Here we cannot help but admire the way in which Scudéri, the bully of this tragic-comedy, forced to the wall, blackguards and maltreats him, how pitilessly he unmasks his classical artillery, how he shows the author of Le Cid "what the episodes should be, according to Aristotle, who tells us in the tenth and sixteenth chapters of his Poetics"; how he crushes Corneille, in the name of the same Aristotle "in the eleventh chapter of his Art of Poetry, wherein we find the condemnation of Le Cid"; in the name of Plato, "in the tenth book of his Republic"; in the name of Marcellinus, "as may be seen in the twenty-seventh book"; in the name of "the tragedies of Niobe and Jephthah"; in the name of the "Ajax of Sophocles"; in the name of "the example of Euripides"; in the name of "Heinsius, chapter six of the Constitution of Tragedy; and the younger Scaliger in his poems"; and finally, in the name of the Canonists and Jurisconsults, under the title "Nuptials." V.4. It will ask itself if the narrow and relative sense of the artist should prevail over the infinite, absolute sense of the Creator; if it is for man to correct God; if a mutilated nature will be the more beautiful for the mutilation; if art has the right to duplicate, so to speak, man, life, creation; if things will progress better when their muscles and their vigour have been taken from them; if, in short, to be incomplete is the best way to be harmonious. The Furies reply to Clytemnestra's bleeding shade with inarticulate roars. Was it an inward revolution caused by the silence or the murmurs of the populace, discomposed to see their regicide ascend the throne? Even among the simplest popular legends there are none which do not somewhere, with an admirable instinct, solve this mystery of modern art. Meanwhile, it decorates coats-of-arms, and draws upon knights' shields the symbolic hieroglyphs of feudalism. Paradise Lost is a drama before it is an epic. ", "Oh! Dies wird erreicht, indem Nebenhandlungen nur dann zugelassen werden, wenn sie der Haupthandlung dienen und eng mit ihr verknüpft sind. Let us take the hammer to theories and poetic systems. With the permission of history, not of Aristotle, the author constructed his drama thus; and because, when the interest is the same, he prefers a compact subject to a widely diffused one. Everything that exists in the world—in history, in life, in man—should be and can be reflected therein, but under the magic wand of art. "At last!" But these rules are not written in the treatises on poetry. Poetry reflects these momentous events; from ideas it proceeds to things. They will lay aside—and it is M. de Chateaubriand who speaks—"the paltry criticism of defects for the noble and fruitful criticism of beauties." PRIMÄRLITERATUR VICTOR HUGOS WEGBEREITER (Cinquième Promenade). HUGO. But can we demand of the bird that he fly under the receiver of an air-pump? In vain does the rust eat into it and tarnish it. Instead of one personality, like that with which the abstract drama of the old school is content, there will be twenty, forty, fifty,—who knows how many?—of every size and of every degree of importance. Moreover, however great the cedar and the palm may be, it is not with the sap one sucks from them that one can become great one's self. But let us be careful not to confound unity with simplicity of plot. If genuine talent could abdicate its own nature in this matter, and thus lay aside its original personality, to transform itself into another, it would lose everything by playing this rôle of its own double. 1993. Kampfszenen, (Selbst)Morde (der der Phèdre Racines stellt hier eine Ausnahme dar) und Duelle (z.B. IV.4.4.2.1. This muse, far from spurning, as the true French classic school does, the trivial and degrading things of life, eagerly seeks them out and brings them together. But this form is a form of bronze which encases the thought in its metre, beneath which the drama is indestructible, which engraves it more deeply on the actor's mind, warns him of what he omits and of what he adds, prevents him from changing his rôle, from substituting himself for the author, makes each word sacred, and causes what the poet has said to remain vivid a long while in the hearer's memory. V.7. Then came imitators of the second rank, who, having neither roots in the earth, nor genius in their souls, had to confine themselves to imitation. Their branches became entangled in those of the near-by tree, but their roots were buried deep in the soil of art. Every plot has its proper duration as well as its appropriate place. Curious contradiction! Do not stone that which gives you shade. One last observation, which completes our demonstration of the epic character of this epoch: in the subjects which it treats, no less than in the forms it adopts, tragedy simply re-echoes the epic. Is it not because the modern imagination does not fear to picture the ghastly forms of vampires, ogres, ghouls, snake-charmers and jinns prowling about graveyards, that it can give to its fairies that incorporeal shape, that purity of essence, of which the heathen nymphs fall so far short? In that case there are two sorts of models, those which are made according to the rules, and, prior to them, those according to which the rules were made. SEKUNDÄRLITERATUR, „Romantik und Klassik stehen sich in Frankreich gegenüber wie Revolution und Ancien Régime.“[1]. Ajax defies Jupiter, Achilles is the peer of Mars. But this second childhood is not like the first; it is as melancholy as the other is joyous. S. 9, [31] Rey, Pierre-Louis. The epic, which at this period imposes its form on everything, the epic weighs heavily upon it and stifles it. "The Cid speaks in verse? Hugo, Victor, 1802-1885. imprint. ​Let us repeat, verse on the stage should lay aside all self-love, all exigence, all coquetry. 1996. The stage is immense. Cromwell, the anonymous author of the play, pretends to be displeased; we see him put out a hand toward the ​sceptre, then draw it back; by a devious path he draws near the throne from which he has swept the legitimate dynasty. Religion takes on a definite shape; prayer is governed by rites; dogma sets bounds to worship. In fact, the precept which makes it a rule sometimes to disregard rules, is a mystery of the art which it is not easy to make men understand who are absolutely without taste and whom a sort of abnormality of mind renders insensible to those things which ordinarily impress men.". Q UELQUES RÉFLEXIONS SUR LA TRAGÉDIE DE „W ALLSTEIN “ ET SUR LE THÉÂTRE ALLEMAND (1807) The time for it has come, and it would be strange if, in this age, liberty, like the light, should penetrate everywhere except to the one place where freedom is most natural—the domain of thought. It is the same with lyric poetry. À propos de la collection LePetitLitteraire.fr : So verzichtet Constant gänzlich darauf, die bei Schiller verwendete vulgäre Sprache der Attentäter nachzuahmen – wohl auch, um die bienséance zu wahren. The idea, when steeped in verse, suddenly assumes a more incisive, more brilliant quality. In: Wallstein. It is for genius to overcome, not for treatises or poetry to evade them. Als Ergebnis dieser Kürzungen und Vereinfachungen stehen 2712 Constantsche Verse 7625 Schillerschen gegenüber.[55]. Extrait de la Préface de Cromwell. Her object seems to be to deliver patents of nobility to all these roturiers of the drama; and each of these patents under the great seal is a speech. Wenn also der Zuschauer dies alles problemlos für die Rezeption des ersten Aktes zustande bringe, so sei es doch verwunderlich, dass er sich im Folgenden nicht vorstellen könne, im Laufe des Stücks seien hundert Jahre vergangen. We have now reached the poetic culmination of modern times. Campistron. Creations of its fantasy are the Scaramouches, Crispins and Harlequins, grinning silhouettes of man, types altogether unknown to serious-minded antiquity, although they originated in classic Italy. Very good. In the Homeric poems one is conscious of a clinging reminiscence of lyric poetry and of a beginning of dramatic poetry. People saw them swarming and heard them buzzing in that seat of putrefaction. Here Scudéri waxes indignant at such a display of pride, and reminds the "thrice great author of Le Cid of the modest words in which Tasso, the greatest man of his age, began his apology for the finest of his works against the bitterest and most unjust censure perhaps that will ever be pronounced. C ROMWELL (1827) IV.4. He is far, however, from presuming to put forth his first dramatic essay as an emanation of these ideas, which, on the contrary, are themselves, it may be, simply results of its execution. We are constructing no system here—God protect us from systems! Thus we see that the only two poets of modern times who are of Shakespeare's stature follow him in unity of design. The ode and the epic ​contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both. Les temps antiques (l’homme) PN1663 .H8 … [16], Die bekanntesten Regeln der doctrine classique stellen wohl die drei Einheiten dar. Kapitel V.4.4.) II.1. Comme lui, la muse moderne verra les choses d’un coup d’œil plus haut et plus large. Quoi de plus invraisemblable et de plus absurde en effet que ce vestibule 1, ce péristyle 2, cette antichambre 3, lieu banal où nos tragédies ont la complaisance de venir se dérouler, où arrivent, on ne sait comment, les. Diese Idee von péril erscheint bei der Betrachtung des weiteren Verlaufs der Entstehung des romantischen Dramas nicht unbegründet. The rhapsodists mark the transition from the lyric to the epic poets, as do the romancists that from the lyric to the dramatic poets. To be commonplace is the failing of short-sighted, short-breathed poets. In his work the verse surrounds the idea, becomes of its very essence, compresses and develops it at once, imparts to it a more slender, more definite, more complete form, and gives us, in some sort, an extract thereof. He moulded it in verse, because he preferred to do so. VI.2.2. he will ask at the first word. Er räumt ein, dass die zeitliche Distanz nicht der üblichen entspräche, die geographische diesen Mangel jedoch ausgleiche: „Quelques lecteurs pourront s'étonner qu'on ait osé mettre sur la scène une histoire si récente [...] je ne conseillerais pas à un auteur de prendre pour sujet d'une tragédie une action aussi moderne que celle-ci [...] L'éloignement des pays répare en quelque sorte la trop grande proximité des temps, car le peuple ne met guère de différence entre ce qui est [...] à mille ans de lui, et ce qui en est à mille lieus.“[10]. und darüber hinaus die Forderung der Nachahmung, gr. "—"Nature demands that he speak his own language; he can't speak anything but Spanish.". It finds its way in everywhere; for just as the most commonplace have their occasional moments of sublimity, so the most exalted frequently pay tribute to the trivial and ridiculous. [51] Der Vergleich der nach der klassischen Regelpoetik konzipierten Dramen mit den Shakespeareschen mögen diese Feststellung untermauern: „The work of a correct regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planned, varied with shades, and scented with flowers; the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses; filling the mind with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity.“[52]. It is difficult for a romantic theatre to maintain itself otherwise. Scit genius, natale comes qui temperat astrum. And then, if twenty-four hours can be comprised in two, it is a logical consequence that four hours may contain forty-eight. how boldly it brings into relief all the strange forms which the preceding age had timidly wrapped in swaddling-clothes! He is not one of those who speak, as the Castilian poet says, "through the mouths of their wounds. If his drama is worthless, what is the use of upholding it? Der Vergleich mit einem Gemälde solle dies verdeutlichen: Bei der Betrachtung einer gemalten Landschaft erwarte der Betrachter nicht, dass der dargestellte Baum ihm Schatten spende bzw. He has never given much thought to the fortune of his works, and he is but little appalled by dread of the literary what will people say. Such are, substantially, but without the more elaborate development which would make the evidence in their favour more complete, the present ideas of the author of this book concerning the drama. Racine et Shakespeare. Da unter Napoleon die Rezeption nicht-französischer Schriften verboten war, ist es wenig verwunderlich, dass sich nun französische Autoren durch ausländische Schriften, die bereits den Geist der europäischen Romantik atmen, inspirieren lassen. Its history and its religion are mingled on its stage. It fastens upon religion a thousand original superstitions, upon poetry a thousand picturesque fancies. then take us there! An attack upon or defence of his book is of less importance to him than to anybody else. Woe to the poet whose verse does not speak out! It is as if a god should turn valet. „[...] they [Einheiten von Zeit und Ort] have given more trouble to the poet, than pleasure to the auditor.“[47]. A language does not become fixed. This type is the grotesque; its new form is comedy. (Hrsg. DER ERFOLG DER P RÉFACE DE C ROMWELL der abgebildete Brunnen Erfrischung verschaffe. V.9. It has not, to attract the interest of political disputants, the advantage of the veto of the official censorship, nor even, to win for it at the outset the literary sympathy of men of taste, the honour of having been formally rejected by an infallible reading committee. Tartuffe is not handsome, Pourceaugnac is not noble, but Pourceaugnac and Tartuffe are admirable flashes of art. In vain, therefore, should we seek to petrify the mobile physiognomy of our idiom in a fixed form. Thus Elizabeth will swear and talk Latin.