 | Oedipus |  |
PREFACE.
The OEdipus, of which this is a new edition, was represented for the first time at the close of the year 1718, and received by the public with great indulgence. Since that time it hath constantly supported itself on the stage, and notwithstanding its defects, is still seen with pleasure; which I partly attribute to the advantage of its having been always exceedingly well acted, and partly to the pomp and pathos of the play itself.
Father Folard, a jesuit, and Mr. De la Motte, of the French academy, have since treated on the same subject, and have both avoided the errors which I had fallen into. It is not proper for me to speak of their performances; my criticisms, and even my praises, would appear equally suspicious.
Still less is it my intention to make use of my tragedy as a pretext for laying down a set of rules for poetical composition. I am convinced, that all those refined reasonings, so frequently repeated for several years past, are not worth one scene of genius; and that much more is to be learned from Polyeucte and Cinna, than from all the precepts of the Abbé D'Aubignac. Severus and Paulinus are the true masters of the art. The fight alone of a head by Raphael, will convey to a pupil more instruction in painting, than all the books written by connoisseurs upon that subject.
The principles of those arts which depend on the imagination are all easy and simple, all drawn from nature and reason. The Pradons and the Boyers were acquainted with them as well as the Corneilles and the Racines. The only difference has, and always will, consist in the application. The vilest composers had the same rules of music, as the authors of Armida and Isse. Poussin and Vignon worked upon the same principles. It appears then as useless to speak of rules in a preface to a tragedy, as it would be for a painter to preposses the public by dissertations in favour of his pictures, or for a musician to endeavour to demonstrate that his music must infallibly please.
But since Mr. De la Motte is desirous of establishing rules directly contrary to those which guided our greatest masters, it is just to defend the ancient laws; not because they are ancient, but because they are good and necessary, and might in a man of his merit meet with a formidable opponent.
Mr. De la Motte would at once proscribe the unities of action, place and time.
The French were the first amongst modern nations who revived those wise rules of the stage. Others were a long time unwilling to receive a yoke which seemed so severe: but as this restraint was just, and reason finally triumphed over all opposition, in due time they likewise submitted. At present, even in England, authors affect to acquaint us before their plays, that the action is equal in time to the representation; and in this exceed us who have been their instructors. All nations begin to look upon that æra as barbarous, when this practice was unknown
Had I nothing else to say to Mr. De la Motte, than that Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Addison, Congreve, Maffei observed the laws of the drama, it ought effectually to stop the career of every one who has an inclination to violate them: but Mr. De la Motte merits the opposition of reason rather than of authority.
What is a dramatic piece? The representation of one action. Why of one only, and not of two or three? Because the human mind cannot take in many objects at once; because the interest which is divided is soon destroyed; because we are offended at seeing, even in a picture, two different events; and finally, because nature has taught us this receipt, which ought to be as immutable as herself.
The unity of place is essential for the same reason; for one single action cannot be transacting in many places at the same time. If the personages I see are at Athens in the first act, how can they be in Persia in the second? Has Le Brun painted Alexander at Arbela and in the Indies upon the same canvass? “I should not at all wonder,” Mr. De la Motte ingeniously says, “if a nation, sensible, but not a friend to rules, should reconcile itself to see Coriolanus condemned at Rome in the first act, received by the Volsci in the third, and besieging Rome in the fourth, &c.” In the first place, I cannot conceive a sensible and enlightened people not to be a friend to rules derived from good sense, and calculated for their pleasure. Secondly, is it not manifest,
The unity of time is naturally joined to the two others; of which the following is, I think, a very striking proof. I am present at a tragedy, that is to say, at the representation of an action; the subject is the accomplishment of this one action. A conspiracy is formed against Augustus at Rome; I wish to know what is about to happen to Augustus and the conspirators. If the poet makes the action continue fifteen days, he ought to inform me of what has passed during that time; for I come there to be informed of what passes, and nothing should happen without some use. If, therefore, the events of fifteen different days be represented, there must at least be fifteen different actions, however unimportant they may be, and then it is no longer the completion of the conspiracy only (to which we ought rapidly to proceed) but a tedious history, which interests no more, because it ceases to be lively, and because all its parts are far distant from the decisive moment of which alone I am in expectation. I did not come to the theatre to hear the history of a hero, but to see one single event of his life. Besides, the spectator is at the theatre but three hours; the action therefore should continue no longer; and this rule is observed in Cinna, Andromache, Bajazet, in the OEdipus of the great Corneille, of Mr. De la Motte, and (if I may presume to mention it) in my own. If some other plays require longer time, it is a licence which their beauties only can excuse, and the greater the license is, the more it deserves to be blamed.
The unity of time is often extended to twenty-four hours, and the unity of place to the circumference of a palace.
A submission to these laws not only prevents faults, but produces real beauties; as an exact adherence to the rules of fine architecture necessarily composes a building pleasing to the eye. When the unities of time, action, and place are preserved, we must grant that it is very difficult for a play not to be simple. To this, all Racine's dramatic works owe their merit; and this is what was required by Aristotle. Mr. De la Motte, in his defence of a tragedy written by himself, prefers a great number of events to this noble simplicity, and thinks his opinion supported by the little value which was set upon Berenice, and the estimation in which the Cid still continues. The Cid, it is true, is more affecting than Berenice; but Berenice is censurable only, because it is rather an elegy than a simple tragedy; and the Cid, of which the action is truely tragical, does not owe its success to the multiplicy of events, but pleases in spite of this multiplicity; as it affects, not an account of, but in spite of, the infanta. Mr. De la Motte imagines, that we may rise superior to all these rules, by an adherence to the unity of interest, which he tells us was his own invention, and stiles a paradox. But the unity of interest, in my opinion, is nothing but the unity of action. “If many personages,” says he, “are differently interested in the same event, and all deserve that I should enter into their feelings, this creates an unity of action,
Mr. De la Motte stiles those rules, imaginary principles, and thinks we may do very well without them in our tragedies, because we neglect them in our operas: which, in my opinion, is much the same, as to conceive a design of new-modelling a regular government, by the example of an anarchy.
The opera is a spectacle as whimsical as it is magnificent; where the eyes and the ears are more gratified than the mind; where its subservience to music renders the
However though in entertainments of this nature we dispense with these three rules, yet even the operas, in which they are least violated, are certainly the best. And in many (if I am not mistaken) they are to be found; so natural and necessary are they, and contribute so much to interest the spectator. How then can Mr. De la Motte reproach our nation with levity, for condemning in one representation what we approve in another? Every person is capable of giving him an answer. I reasonably expect in a tragedy, much more perfection than in an opera; because in a tragedy my attention is not divided, my pleasure does not depend on a saraband or a minuet, but my mind alone requires to be gratified. I wonder how an author could contrive to bring together, and introduce in one place, and one day, the several parts of a single event, which my imagination with difficulty conceives, and in which my heart is imperceptibly interested. The more I consider the arduousness of this simplicity, the more it delights me; and if I afterwards want to give a reason for my pleasure, I find my opinion agrees with that of Mr. Despreaux, who says,
One place, one day, one action should engage,And till the curtain drops, possess the stage.
I have likewise, it might be urged, the authority of the great Corneille; but I have still more, his example; and the pleasure his works afford me, in proportion as he has been more or less observant of this rule.
Not contented with endeavouring to take away from the drama its essential rules, Mr. De la Motte would abolish its poetry likewise, and give us tragedies in prose.
This ingenious and prolific author, whose whole life has been employed in fabricating verses, or volumes of prose originating from them, writes against his own art, and treats it with the same contempt as he did Homer, whom nevertheless he hath condescended to translate. Neither Virgil, Tasso, Despreaux, Racine, or Pope, had ever an idea of writing against the harmony of verse; nor Lully against music; nor Newton against the mathematics. We have, though very rarely, seen men weak enough to imagine themselves superior to their profession, (which is a sure way to sink beneath it) but we never saw any who wished to debase it. Many there are who despise poetry, because they are ignorant of it. Paris abounds with people of good understandings, but born with organs insensible to all kinds of harmony, to whom music is nothing but noise, and who consider poetry only as an ingenious folly. Should such be informed, that a man of merit, the author of five or six volumes of poetry, is of their opinion, would they not conceive they had a right to look on all other poets as fools, and this as the only one who had regained his senses? For the honour, therefore, of the art, it is necessary to answer him; and I will venture to say, for the honour of a country, which owes a share of its reputation amongst foreigners, to its perfection in this art.
Mr. De la Motte affirms that rhyme is a barbarous practice lately invented.
All nations, however, upon earth, except the ancient Greeks and Romans, have rhymed and still continue to rhyme. So natural to man is the recurrence of the same sounds, that even amongst savages we find the use of rhyme established in the same manner as at Rome, Paris, London and Madrid. There is in Montagne's works, a French translation of an American song in rhyme. And Mr. Addison, in one of his Spectators, has given us a translation of a Lapland ode composed likewise in rhyme, and full of fine sentiments.
The Greeks, “quibus dedit ore rotundo musa loqui,” born under a happier sky, and favoured by nature with organs more delicate than the inhabitans of other countries, formed a language, all the syllables of which, by their length or shortness, could express the slow or impetuous movements of the soul.
From this variety of syllables and intonations resulted an harmony both in their poetry and prose, which the ancient Italians felt and imitated; but which no other nation since them hath been able to acquire. However, whether it consists of rhyme or cadenced syllables, poetry (though Mr. De la Motte inveighs against it) hath always been, and always will be, cultivated by the whole world.
Even history was always written in verse by the Greeks before the time of Herodotus; a custom borrowed from the ancient Egyptians, who in good sense, policy, and learning, excelled all other nations upon earth. Nothing could be more rational than this custom; for the end of history is to transmit the memory of those few great men
When employed on such subjects, poetry might be thought to want in general either precision or harmony; but since these two great excellencies, so seemingly incompatible, have been united by Virgil; since Despreaux and Racine have written like him; how can a man conversant with all three, and who knows they are translated into almost every language in Europe, depreciate thus a talent, which has reflected so much honour even on himself? I place Despreaux and Racine on an equality with Virgil, as to the merit of versification, because had the author of the Æneid been born at Paris, he would like them have written in rhyme; and had these two Frenchmen lived in the time of Augustus, they would have made the same use which Virgil did of the measure of Latin verse. When Mr. De la Motte therefore calls versification a ridiculous and mechanical labour, his charge of ridiculous must be applied not only to all our own great poets, but all those of antiquity: for Virgil and Horace submitted themselves to a labour as mechanical as that of our own authors. A happy arrangement of dactyls and spondees was altogether as troublesome as our rhymes and hemistichs. Indeed this task must have been very laborious, since the Æneid, after eleven years spent on its composition, still remained imperfect.
Mr. De la Motte asserts, that a scene of a tragedy, turned into prose, loses nothing of its elegance or force. To prove it, he gives as a specimen the first scene of Mithridates, and no one can bear to read it. He does not recollect, that the great merit of verse consists in its being as natural and correct as prose. The overcoming this extreme difficulty is what delights people of correct taste. Reduce it into prose, it has no longer any merit or pleasure.
But our neighbours, says he, do not make use of rhyme in their tragedies; true: but they are written in verse, because harmony is agreeable to all people upon earth. All that remains then is to know whether our verses ought to be in rhyme or not. Both Corneille and Racine made use of rhyme. If we therefore wish to strike out a new path, it proceeds, perhaps, rather from an inability of treading in the steps of these great men, than from a desire of novelty. The Italians and the English can do without rhyme, on account of the inversions of their languages, and because their poetry admits a thousand liberties which ours will not. Every language has its genius determined by the particular construction of its phrases, by the frequency of its vowels and consonants, its inversions, its auxiliary verbs, &c. The genius of our language is perspicuity and elegance. We allow no licence in our poetry, which, like our prose, must follow the precise order of our ideas. The recurrence therefore of the same sounds is essentially necessary, that our poetry may not be confounded with our prose. The following verses are universally known.
Où me cacher? Fuyons dans la nuit infernale.Mais que dis-je? Mon père y tient l'urne fatale:
Le sort, dit-on, l'a mise en ses sevères mains;
Minos juge aux enfers tous les pâles humaines.
Read them thus:
Où me cacher? Fuyons dans la nuit infernale.Mais que dis-je? Mon pere y tient l'urne funeste:
La sort dit-on l'a mise en ses sevères mains;
Minos juge aux enfers tous les pâles mortels.
How poetical soever this passage may be, will it afford the same pleasure when thus deprived of the charms of rhyme? The English and Italians would both say after the manner of the Greeks and Romans, Les pales humains Minos aux enfers juge, and gracefully run the sense into the next line. We perceive likewise from their manner of repeating verse, the long and short syllables, which still preserve the harmony, without the assistance of rhyme. But why should we, who have none of these advantages, wish to relinquish those which we possess from the nature of our language?
Our poets, that is to say our Corneilles, Racines, and Despreaux, are compared by Mr. De la Motte to the makers of acrostics, to one who by sleight of hand causes millet seed to pass through the eye of a needle; and he adds, that all these puerilities have no other merit than that of surmounting a difficulty. This is pretty much the case with bad verses, I acknowledge; they differ from bad prose only in the rhyme, and rhyme alone can never constitute the merit of the poet, or give pleasure to the reader. It is not the dactyls and spondees only, which delight us in Homer and Virgil, but all mankind are struck with the enchanting harmony arising from that difficult measure. He who labours to overcome an obstacle, for the mere merit of overcoming it, is a fool: but he who from those very obstacles draws forth beauties which please universally, must be endowed with uncommon sense, and stands almost alone. Fine paintings,
I might here take the liberty of disputing some other points with Mr. De la Motte, but this would, perhaps, look too much like a personal attack, and make me incur the suspicion of malignity, which I am as far from entertaining, as I am from agreeing with him in opinion. I had much rather take advantage of the judicious and fine reflections scattered over his work, than engage in the refutation of some of them, which seem not so well-founded as others. It is sufficient for me to have attempted the defence of an art which I am fond of, and which he himself ought to have defended.
I shall only, by Mr. De la Faye's permission, add a word, with respect to the Ode in Favour of Harmony, where he combats the system of Mr. De la Motte, in some beautiful verses, which are answered by him in prose. Mr. De la Faye has collected together almost all the arguments which I have adduced, in the following stanza, full of harmony and imagination.
By this constraint of rigorous kind,Which seems to check bold fancy's flight,
Is gain'd that happy strength of mind
Which wafts her to the loftiest height.
As quickened by compressive force
The waters quit their lower sphere,
Thro' narrow channels urge their course,
Impetuous spring and play in air;
Thus rules with stricter mandates fraught,
And form'd to curb excentric thought,
And stamp the true poetic art.
I never met with a comparison more just, more elegant, or more happily expressed. Mr. De la Motte, who should have answered these verses by imitating them, examines whether the pipes make the water rise, or whether the height from which it falls fixes the degree of its elevation. “Then where shall we find,” says he, “this extraordinary elevation of thought in poetry more than in prose? &c.”
I apprehend Mr. De la Motte is mistaken as a naturalist; since it is certain, that without the constraint of these pipes, the water, from whatever height it fell, would not rise at all: but is he not mikaken still more as a poet? How happened he not to consider, that as the constraint of the measure produces an harmony in verse agreeable to the ear, so these narrow channels, in which the enclosed water flows, produce a jet d'eau pleasing to the eye. Is not the simile as just as it is beautiful? Mr. De la Faye has certainly taken a better method than myself. He has acted like the philosopher, who only answered the sophist that denied the existence of motion by walking before him. Mr. De la Motte denies the harmony of verse, Mr. De la Faye sends him harmonious verses; and this ought to instruct me to put an end to my prose.
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