The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1890-05-18
Observation-Disclosures DRAMA.


The Shakespearean drama broad
beautiful, human, and in the truest
sense artistic-waved across the face OF
| England aud left no trace. The French
classic drama-pOm oous, artificial and
| unreal-plowed its narrow furrow
straight through the literature of two
centuries and five great peoples. Not
only in France, but in England. in Ger
many. in Spain and in Italy. the new
school was recognized as supreme, It's
yoke was voluntarily assumed. As Its
influence spread there sprang up a
spirit OF Journalism which blinded men 5
eyes to the beauties OF the Shakespeatean
type OF drama. Voltaire. as every one
knows, thought Shakespeare un saltim'
banque qui a des saillies hepreuses.
ct qui fait des confessions. Ry-
mer compared the author of
"Othellor to an African baooon. and
this was no passing phase of criticism
There are men now living who can re-
call the time when. even in England,
Shakespeare was regarded by the ma
| iorlty of critics ard thinkers as want
ing artn: as a genius, indeed, but still
ignorant of those laws of correct taste
which no cultivator of polite letters
could well afford TO be without. Even
those who openly worshlped at his
shrine seemed to have an uneasy sense
that something was irregular about his
canonization; that il he had looked a
little more carefully after his unities,
and not killed SO many people on the
stage in full view of the audience. his
pre-eminence in literature would nave
been much easier to demonstrate.
Such was the state of dramatic liter
ature in France and England, down to
the opening of the present century. II
was then that curious movement known
as romanticism began to make Its APP
pearance. For the Latin races, roman
ticism meant the opening OF their eyes
to the significance of Germanic art.
And what could it mean for the Ger
manic nationsY Precisely the same
thing. England and Germany had been
Gallicized. a thick scale of Journalism
had oversl. cad the minds of all who
had come under French influence.
Romanticsm, which was for France
revelation of what she had never felt
before, was, therefore, for Germany
and England simply return TO the old
North IN ways of thinking and feel
ing. la philosophy in religion, in art,
it was renaissance of the native
Germanic spirit of liberty so long en-
tombed in the Latin sarc0phagus OF dis
cipline. Ia the drama, with which we
are here especially concerned, it took
the form of a revolt from the restrlc'
tions Of the law of the three unities
and the formal rules of versiiicatIon.
Ia France the elder Dumas battered at
the gates OF casscism with his power
fvl dramas, consisting of three bank
walls and a human passion;" Victor
Hugo. in the preface to Cromwell,
blew the mighty horn which brought
temple and tower to the ground. In
Germany, Leasing early protested
against the dictatlon of the French
school, and the genius of Goethe
and Schiller replaced the lifeless
model OF the earlier dramatist5 by
living works of genius. But did
a new school arise out of this sudden
upheaval of the dramatic crust? No.
Not one new principle of dramatic
effectiveness or combination was dis
covered. The whole romantic move
ment, so far as the drama was concern
ed, was simply a revival. 1t was moth.
ing more nor less than an emergence OF
the Shakespearean conception which
had so long lain dormant beneath the
surface. Shakespeare was the inspira-
ton of Goethe and of Victor Hugo
Without him they could not have been
dramatists such as we know them.
They did nothing which Shakespeare
had not already done men may add,
without prejud ce TO the two most
brilliant genlu.es Of modern times, bet
ter than they coald possibly hope to do
it.-Professor Alfred Hennequin, in
Arena for May.