The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-09 00:00:00

SHAKSPEARE IN FRANCE.

The reception of M. Ponsard, as member of the French
Academy took place yesterday at the Institute, in presence
of a most distinguished auditory. The new member, as is
usual on such occasions, pronounced the eulogium of the
academician to whose seat he has succeeded, M. Baour
Lormian, the author of some dramatic works which have
now sunk into oblivion. The new member in the course of
his address seized on the opportunity of displaying his de-
cided leaning towards the ecole classique, and spoke in tho
following terms of Shakspeare as the representative of
the romantic school :—" There was a time when we were
so jealous of the glories of our country that we immolated
to them as barbarous all foreign celebrities. Such conduct
was patriotism, but narrowly so. At present we take plea-
sure in humiliating our own chefs d'ceuvre at the feet of
the English, and even of the German poets. In the last
century laughter would have been excited by comparing
Shakspeare to Moliere, and not very long since one was
considered of little mind in comparing the latter to the
former. And yet who can lee superior to 3loliere ? It has
been the fashion to proclaim that the dramas of the divine
Williams (sic) embraced humanity under every aspect,
whereas our classical writers only represented individuals.
Goethe discovered in " Hamlet" a thousand things which
Shakspeare, fortunately for himself, had never thought
of; everything has been adored in him, even to his
bombast and his indecencies ; the peculiarities of his
style had been copied, as had been those of Racine.
That fanaticism has now somewhat calmed down, and
there remains for it a just and well-founded admira-
tion. Shakapeare is admitted to be an exceedingly
great genius, of the family of Homer, Dante, Corneille,
and Moliere; that he is eloquent, pathetic, and full cf
passion, but only when he is simple and true; that he has
sublime touches, accompanied by exaggeration and bom-
bast ; profound observation, by the side of puerile plati-
tude ; that he abounds in graceful pictures, but also in ob-
scenity ; that his dramas, often terrible, are full of power
and grandeur, but full at the same time of extravagances,
to such ass extent, in fact, that it has never been possible
to play them, such as they were written, before a French
public. It is admitted that he did not possess a real comic
verve, and that his pleasantries are marked by buffoonery
rather than by natural gaiety. The world no longer shuts
its eyes to his defects, but it accepts them without impa-
tience because they are natural and belong to his country
and his age—because they do not betray any intention of
giving offence—because Shakspeare is himself spontaneous
and original without knowing it and without willing it,
which is the only manner of being original. For my part,
I cannot really believe that those persons who admire
his follies and transform them into proofs of pro-
fundity understand his real beauties—l doubt that they
who do not know how to love Racine can have any affec-
tion for Shakspeare. Gentlemen, I spoke just now of the
fashion. Let us suppose that for 2ilo years Shakspeare
was in possession of our theatre and of our veneration ;
let us suppose (hat his reign was uncontested, that he had
numerous imitators who for two centuries copied invari-
ably what is easy of imitation, and the only thing that is
always imitated—that which is bad ; suppose that all the
lectures on literature, all the lessons of our professors,
had taught us, to satiety, to feel respect for his eccentrici-
ties, which were established as rules, and which were
imposed on us as a despotic authority—imagine then
Racine making his appearance as an innovator, with
his language always pure, harmonious, noble without
turgidity, natural without triviality, with the severe
majesty of his tragedies, in which is evolved regularly
the action of the, piece, single, logical, clear and proba-
ble. What surprise ! what novelty ! what enthusiasm
for the revolutionary Racine ! what pity for this
old, this obsolete, this bonhomie Shakspeare !" M.
Nisard, who replied to the new member, by no means co-
incided with him in his depreciatory judgment of the
merits of the great English poet. After mentioning cer-
tain, points on which he differed from the views of M. Pon-
' sera on literary subjects, M. Nisard replied to the attack
on the bard of Avon thus :—" Another point on which I
should be somewhat more liberal than you is relative to
Shakspere. Of all that you have expressed so brilliantly
I would guard what tends to his glory, and I would put
aside the restrictions to his fame, not as unjust, but be-
cause the truth does no longer require them. Time has
elevated Shakspere above criticism, probably because it
bee raised him above eulogium. The very words ' beau-
ties' and 'defects' belong to a relative language out of the
pale of which special terms must be sought for, if it is de-
sired to deuce the charm, or to characterise the imper-
fections of these astonishing works. Shakspere has had
the same destiny as Homer. After that famous quarrel
of the ancients and the moderns in which admirers
and opponents—Boileau as well as Perrault—committed
the mistake of representing the; author of the Iliad as a
literary man working regularly at his; desk, the Homer
who remains is a Homer transfigured, presi ling over .the
great choir of men of genius, and naked, in the midst of
personages whose costume indicates their nation and their
age, as the matter related not to the inhabitant of a
country nor to tho contemporary of an epoch, but to the
genius itself of poetry. Like Homer, Shakspere appears
to us, in his turn, in a tranquil and mysterious distance,
withdrawing from the curiosity of erudition, which fa-
tigues itself in seeking out a mau where there is only one
of the most wondrous sources of creative poetry. With
Ifoinei, with Shakspere, we are placed on lofty pinnacles,
frona which the eye cannot distinguish anything of what
passes below. Ido not ask them for any account of the
faults which they may have committed—Horner in ereat-
!tehge-:fi;t model of beauty, from which has emanated the
.he of art and of its rules—and Shakespeare in not
inainted with them. Why be astonished that
v muses are imperfect ? If poetry itself has dictated
t eraes, it is a
oatiThriam:,3 hronau hand that has written them."
" ge, .
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