me, the “ vile squeaking" of the mouth- But it is oftener merely sustained Othello. Think, my lord !~By hear'n, he echoes me rocky valley, has been swelled by the As if there were some monster in his general echo to a pitch which must thought, awaken you, if you be not deaf to a Too hideous to be shown. Tiou dost report of your own errors. Briefly mean something : and roundly,—your tragedies, Gen- I heard thee say but now,—Thou liked'st tlemen Dramatists, are unanimously not that condemned. When Cassio left my wife; What did'st Mark: I say they are condemned, not like ? as tragedies; as interlocutory poems, And when I told thee-he was of my counsel some of them may perhaps be admir- In my whole course of wooing, thou cry'd'st ed. This, this is the distinction And did'st contract and purse thy brow to " Indeed!” which I would force upon your minds; this is the truth which I would As if thou then had'st shut up in thy brain gether burn into your memories; this is the Some horrible conceit: If thou dost love point to which I have repeatedly in the course of these letters endeavour- Show me thy thought. ed to drag your attention; being convinced, that until you perceive, There is very little of what can be acknowledge, and avoid this confu- called poetry, in this; and still less sion of languages, this wrong-headed in his running dialogue, which has and preposterous substitution of frequently, not so much as the outside poetry for dramatic phraseology, you of poetry,-regular metre: will never produce an effective, legi- Iago. My noble lord. timate tragedy. What precedent Othello. What dost thou say, Iago ? have you for this ?-not Shakspeare, Iago. Did Michael Cassio, when you I'll be sworn! He, I believe it will woo'd my lady, be allowed, was something of a poet: Know of your love? Oth. He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask? Since once I sat upon a promontory, Iago. But for a satisfaction of my thought; And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's No further harm. back, Oth. Why of thy thought, Iago ? Uttering such dulcet and harmonious brcath, Lugo. I did not think he had been acThat the rude sea grew civil at her song; quainted with her. And certain stars shot madly from their Oth. O, yes; and went between us very spheres, oft. To hear the sea-maid's music. Iago. Indeed ? Oth. Indeed! ay, indeed ;-discernist Write me such poetry as this in- thou aught in that ? deed; and perhaps I shall forgive it Is he not honest ? in your Dramas. Yet, inimitable as lago. Honest, my lord ? it is, where do you find him using Oth. Honest! ay, honest. such language in his tragedies ? Iago. My lord, for aught I know. Never. There, if it is poetry at all, Oth. What dost thou think? it is poetry of quite a different kind; Iugo. Think, my lord ! it is the poetry of action and passion; This is a specimen of what may be it is the terrible and the grand; the denominated, pure dramatism, withmagna sonans ; something of the out any commixture of poetry. It is 'Tis now the very witching time of night, a model for running dialogue, enerWhen church-yards yawn, and hell itself getic, forcible, and wakeful; there breathes out is nothing of your perpetual attempt Contagion to this world. Now could I at pretty thoughts, or soft suavity, drink hot blood, about it; but there is something betAnd do such bitter business as the day ter,--spirit, nature, and action. In Would quake to look on. a word: it gives the performers a 409 1823.] A fourth Letter to the Dramatists of the Day. something to do, as well as to say: ject, will, I hope, excuse my dwelland there is an air of reality about it, ing on it strenuously. In compariwhich even in the closet affects us son with this, meagreness of plot, or to agitation. insignificance of fable, is of small acThere have been many reasons as- count in the Drama. There may be signed by critics for the decay of our little interest of story, yet the play Drama; such as, large theatres, the may act well by the mere force of the basket, late dinner-hours, and seve- language; but if the phrase of the ral others equally important: this stage be supplanted by the mellione, however, this gross, bare-faced fluous monotony of ultra-poesy, I perversion of style, this staring abuse would as soon hear it read in a of dramatic language, which is suf- dressing-gown and slippers, as reficient to confound the genius of a cited in a toga and buskins. Shakspeare, could such a man be When I say that our living drasupposed blind enough to indulge in matists are guilty of an abuse of drait, this open secret of the degeneracy matical language, I mean that they of the modern stage, has totally apply a mode of phrase good in itself eluded their penetration. Yet, sure and suitable to excellent purposes, ly, it is no very wonderful fetch of where they ought to employ another sagacity to discover, that the lan- more appropriate to the stage.* Is guage of Drama must be adapted to there, or is there not, a language action; and surely there is very little peculiar, appropriate, and essential argument requisite to prove, that to the Drama? "There is one indubithis self-evident principle has been tably for Epopée; a lofty, full, regizutterly neglected by our living dra- lar, stately grandiloquence. There matists. Is any thing necessary, is one for Lyrics: a daring, flighty, more than simply to recall to the reckless, toppling style, where the reader's mind, what he must fre- Muse seems to tread upon the highest quently have observed, though, per- and most dangerous pinnacles of the haps, he never reflected on the Hill, and escapes only by the lightflagrant misapplication of language ness and spring of her footsteps. merely poetical to the purposes of Every division of literature has its tragedy? or if not always poetical, corresponding language (though not, mostly so? And is it too much to perhaps, as strikingly definable as assert, that if this be not the only the preceding), arising from an obcause of our dramatic degeneracy, it vious congeniality between certain is at least the principal and predo- subjects of thought, and certain minant one? This I am sure of; modes of expression. No one would that many of the other causes above- write an Epithalamium to the grave mentioned partake much more of the cadence of an Elegy, or fill a Renature of effects than efficients. Let quiem with the cheerful imagery and any dramatist produce such another bounding sallies of a “ Hark fortragedy as Macbeth or Othello, and ward !” The Eclogues, Georgics, if the beau-monde do not dine an and Æneid of Virgil, though all writhour earlier on the nights of its per- ten in hexameter, are, totally difformance, I'm no prophet: if our ferent in style one from each other; lords and commoners, with their vir- the imagery, cadence, and choice of tuous dames and daughters, do not words, are in each of these works quickly displace the bloods and Co- adapted to the subject. And I ques rinthians, the idle 'prentices, flash- tion not, but that if the same judicimen, nymphs of the pillow, and all ous author had written a Drama, he other persons of dubious morality, would have chosen 4 fourth style as who now occupy the seats in our remote from the sweetness of his theatrical synagogues, I'll never set Pastorals, the sobriety of his Georup an oracle. gics, and the majesty of his Epics, The vital importance of this sub- as sweetness, sobriety, and majesty ) To any one who compared the examples given in my last letter, and read the observations upon them, the sense in which I use the word “ language must be obvious: to prevent mistake, however, by language I mean to include sentiment, imagery, measure, cadence, as well as choice of words. of style are distinct among them- of poetry which is accommodated to selves. Milton's l’Allegro and. Il action. This is what logicians call Penseroso, are written both in the the essential difference which distinsame measure as to feet, but are guishes the species Drama from the nevertheless very different in cadence genus Poetry. So indispensable is and other respects of language ; yet this quality, that if it were demanded, perhaps even to this great poet we What is the first requisite for effecmight fairly object the quick return tive Drama? I should answer, Aeof the rhymes as unsuitable to the tion : what the second ? Action : what solemnity of the latter subject. In the third ? Action :-ås Demosthenes the same way, Drama has its con- said in a somewhat different sense of genial language, and all other re- Oratory. If you wish for any better maining varieties of metrical elo- authority for this, than my dictum, quence are foreign to, if not wholly (which is, by the bye, a mere coninconsistent with it. But I do not clusion drawn from the palpable naask even this manifest inapplicabi- ture and intention of Drama), read lity of certain modes of diction to SHAKSPEARE. It is particularly in certain subjects, to be granted me; this respect that Shakspeare, by the I merely demand whether there be involuntary force of natural genius, not a certain language more appli- transcends not only the dramatists of cable to a given subject than any the succeeding age, but those of his other known species? Whether the own; not only those of his own, but indissoluble connexion between the those of all antiquity ;-his lancharacter of the subject and the cha- guage is essentially dramatic. The racter of the language expressing it imagery it presents, the sentiments appropriately, does not point out a it delivers, its measure, its cadence, peculiar style as more adapted to a the choice and collocation of the given thesis, than any other existing? words composing it, all converge to Who does not acknowledge the su- the same point, all contribute to the periority of the Miltonic verse over same end,--they are all instinct with the Spenserian stanza for Heroic pur- action. This principle is never lost sight poses? Is the conscience of any of; his speeches look like swarms of man so lawless as to deny this tribute living animalculæ breathing on the to truth? Such a man would de- paper. By no very exorbitant draft scribe the Acts of Achilles in Hudi- on his understanding, he saw that brastic verse, and the Battle of the the essence of Drama was action, and Angels in the hitch of Chevy Chase. with this as his moving principle, he But, indeed, if it be allowed that produced tragedies, irregular in many Drama is distinct from every other particulars, but never deficient in species of literature ; and that the this. To speak boldly, yet justly:genius or nature of the language considering Drama as the representashould be proportional and agreeable tion of active life, it is perfectly rito the subject it undertakes to con- diculous to compare Sophocles with vey (both which are as indubitable Shakspeare. There may with some as axioms can be), it follows with be a doubt, which was the greater geometrical necessity that Drama has genius or the better poet, but as to its peculiar language, and therefore the spirit of dramatism extant in no one can deny it if he would. their works, as to which of them best This principle of composition is so represented real life, (i. e. was the plain, so very elementary, that it best dramatist), the difference is just is almost an insult to your under- this:-Shakspeare (where he intends standing, my insisting on it so grave it) represents nothing but life, and ly. Yet plain as it is, not one of you Sophocles does not represent life at seems to apprehend it; at all events, all. Only think of a messenger (in you don't observe it in your works. a great hurry too!) occupying fifty You all appear to think that poetry lines in telling that a dead body, over cast into persons cons.itutes Drama. which he was set as a watch, had You all appear to forget that the true been privately disenhumed!* “Think language of the Drama is that species of that Master Brook !" Why Othel Vide the ANTIGONE. lo's defence is not more of an oration than this of the Greek watchman: the whys and the wherefores are as philosophically discussed as if Plato himself bore the lanthorn and the rattle. Tell me that Shakspeare was a "barbarian" if you will, and that Sophocles was a semi-deity; but let no one dare to assert that the Goth was not a better dramatist than the God, or I'll tell him to his beard, he doesn't deserve to wear one. In my last letter I distinguished our national Drama into three separate schools, branding each with a name indicative of its character, viz. the Dramatic proper, the Rhetóric, and the Poetic pure. By examples, both of dialogue and monologue, from the works of these schools respectively, I demonstrated the propriety of this division, and the applicability of these several names; that is, I think I did. My purpose in this, Gentlemen, was to set before you, at one view, the different methods pursued by our writers for the accomplishment of the same object, that you might yourselves determine which was most judicious. Not that you could do so, perhaps, from these few examples, accompanied even by my serio-comic observations upon them; but from a comprehensive review in your own minds of these schools and the principles of their different methods,-springing to your survey off these examples and observations, as swans do from hillocks. By" different methods," you will understand, different methods of phrase, different modes of language; I had before contrasted your plotwork, or what is properly called the action of your pieces, with that of the dramatic school. Here I confined myself to the much more important subject of your language, for it is in this I think your deficiency is most glaring and most fatal. The object of tragic Drama, is to rouse the pas sions, awaken the feelings, and re present in a poetical manner serious life. To accomplish this object, our earlier dramatists* employed a nervous, passionate, yet colloquial mode of language: fit means for the end proposed. Action was to be represented, passion delineated; accordingly, the language made use of was that of passionate action. This, you will perceive, admits of poetry, but the poetry should be rather of the sublime than of the beautiful description, that thrown off in the heat of passion, rather than that brought out (like yours) by what we call the sweet play of the fancy. The language of this school, likewise frequently descends into plain, familiar, common dialogue; and it should do so. You stare; but I repeat, it should do so. It is no more proper for a character always to speak in trope and figure, poetry, or rigid metre, than it is for the actor always to talk at the top of his voice. Nay, besides its naturalness, it is often, in these unpoetical passages, that effect is most strikingly elicited for instance Iago. I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits. Othello. Not a jot, not a jot. You are all so agog of poetry, pretty imagery, and lusciousness of language, so fond of spinning at the eternal wheel of verse, that you never give yourselves an opportunity of making such a hit as this. But to advert to the Rhetoric school.-The tragedists of our "middle ages" of literature, pursued a different method from that of their predecessors. A classical mania, perhaps originating with Dryden (the rhyming playwright!)† had infected all ranks of society. The dramatists were bitten by the same gad-fly as the rest; for nervous they became pompous; for impassioned, vociferous; for colloquial, rhetorical. To represent real life devolved wholly on Punch; the woodenfisted choleric little gentleman had I am not quite sure I should here speak in the plural number: no dramatist that I know of, Greek, Roman, Briton, or other, but Shakspeare alone, seems to have had the true knack of dramatic language, or to have caught the pure essence of dramatic spirit. + Dryden once asked permission of Milton to put his (risum teneatis ?)—PARADISE LOST into rhyme! "Ay," said the blind Bard, "you may tag my verses if you will." After such a rebuke, it requires nothing less than the testimony of an ALEXANDER's FEAST, to prove that the Translator of Virgil had one spark of poetry in his whole composition. His plays are vile things. no assistance from his wooden-witted brother Thespians, Addison, Young, Rowe, &c. The language of Cato, Busiris, Jane Shore, &c. is little more that of real life, than a clock is a human being, or its vibrations. pulsations, or its strokes words. The success consequent upon this method of procedure was worthy of it: Zanga shows his dingy physiognomy once in five years, and then retires to his shelf with the moths and spiders, where he lies embalmed in cobwebs and smothered in dust, till the end of the lustrum. Yet this mode of language was not wholly inapplicable to the stage; it was oratory to be sure, but the rostrum and the pulpit are, like Thespian boards, stages for one performer. We were kept awake at all events, by the din of rhetoric and the longwinded tantaras of inflated declamation. Nay, the grandeur of the tragic style was in some measure preserved, the hurly of the stage was kept up, if not by the passionate energy of the speakers, by the sonorous phraseology they were employed to disembogue. The feelings were rarely excited, but we had fine declamation instead; if our hearts did not tingle, our ears did. And though there was little resemblance between the original and the copy, we had human life exhibited on stilts if not on neats-leather. Now the grand feature of the present, poetic, third, last, and worst school of Drama is, that it has not one lineament whatsoever to distinguish it from the common face of poetry, not one characteristic which could be mistaken, by the most cloudy perception, for Drama,not even its noise! It purls away very plentifully, line after line, sentence after sentence, period after period, without stop, stay, let, or impediment; and whilst we sit gaping for murder, fury, terror, blood, poison, and tears, fills up the mouth of expectation with a flood of poetry. Never was the quotation more apposite : Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum. What then! you say, Was not your own Shakspeare " something of a poet?" Must we write unpoetically to write dramatically? Would you" freeze the genial current of the soul?" Is eloquence proscribed? Is fluency prohibited? Are we to be purposely dry and didactic? Must interrogation and reply be as categorically put and caught, as Q and A in a catechism? Is our blank verse to be blank prose? Is Tragedy to walk the stage on her belly? And Melpomene to come before the audience in a grogram gown and a linseywoolsey petticoat? Is it this you want?-Poh! I say the language of the Drama must be accommodated to action; that the sentiments and imagery it involves must not only please but agitate; that its cadence, accentuation, and flow, must be, (respectively,) ever-varying, emphatic, and precipitous; that its words must knock at our hearts; and that its beauties must not be evanescent, recherchés, insubstantial and semi-perceptible, but prominent, bold, striking, and palpable. In a word: poetry is the accident, not the essence of dramatic language. And the rationale of this is: that Drama, representing life, must approach to human converse, to natural question and answer; for, where there is such an extreme departure from familiar dialogue, it is no longer a Drama but a poem. Dramatic language is, in fact, a heterogeneous mixture of common dialogue (a little raised), heroics, and poetry pure, just as human conversation, its prototype, is, in a lower degree, according as the speakers are influenced by equanimity, magnanimity, passion, pathos, &c. The proportion in which these three phraseologies are to be compounded in order to form dramatic language, it is impossible to define theoretically, further than by the general rule,-that common dialogue should always appear in the result: it would also be useless were it possible; for to him who has dramatic genius, the mere observation, that there is such a proportion to be preserved, is sufficient; to him who has it not, all rules are given in vain. JOHN LACY. |