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SHAKSPEARE AND HIS TIMES.

VOLTAIRE was the first person in France who spoke of Shakspeare's genius; and although he spoke of him merely as a barbarian genius, the French public were of opinion that Voltaire had said too much in his favor. Indeed, they thought it nothing less than profanation to apply the words genius and glory to dramas which they considered as crude as they were coarse.

At the present day, all controversy regarding Shakspeare's genius and glory has come to an end. No one ventures any longer to dispute them; but a greater question has arisen, namely, whether Shakspeare's dramatic system is not far superior to that of Voltaire.

This question I do not presume to decide. I merely say that it is now open for discussion. We have been led to it by the onward progress of ideas. I shall endeavor to point out the causes which have brought it about; but at present I insist merely upon the fact itself, and deduce from it one simple consequence, that literary criticism has changed its ground, and can no longer remain restricted to the limits within which it was formerly confined.

Literature does not escape from the revolutions of the human mind; it is compelled to follow it in its courseto transport itself beneath the horizon under which it is conveyed; to gain elevation and extension with the ideas

which occupy its notice, and to consider the questions which it discusses under the new aspects and novel circumstances in which they are placed by the new state of thought and of society.

My readers will not, therefore, be surprised that, in order properly to appreciate Shakspeare, I find it necessary to make some preliminary researches into the nature of dramatic poetry and the civilization of modern peoples, especially of England. If we did not begin with these general considerations, it would be impossible to keep pace with the confused, perhaps, but active and urgent ideas, which such a subject originates in all minds.

A theatrical performance is a popular festival; that it should be so is required by the very nature of dramatic poetry. Its power rests upon the effects of sympathyof that mysterious force which causes laughter to beget laughter; which bids tears to flow at the sight of tears, and which, in spite of the diversity of dispositions, conditions, and characters, produces the same impression on all upon whom it simultaneously acts. For the proper development of these effects, a crowd must be assembled ; those ideas and feelings which would pass languidly from one man to another, traverse the serried ranks of a multitude with the rapidity of lightning; and it is only when large masses of men are collected together that we observe the action of that moral electricity which the dramatic poet calls into such powerful operation.

Dramatic poetry, therefore, could originate only among the people. At its birth it was destined to promote their pleasures; in their festivities it once performed an active part; and with the first songs of Thespis the chorus of the spectators invariably united.

But the people are not slow to perceive that the pleas

ures with which they can supply themselves are neither the best, nor the only pleasures which they are capable of enjoying. To those classes which spend their days in toil, complete repose seems to be the first and almost the sole condition of pleasure. A momentary suspension of the efforts or privations of daily life, an interval of movement and liberty, a relative abundance; this is all that the people seek to derive from those festivities which they are able to provide for themselves-these are all the enjoyments which it is in their power to procure. And yet these men are born to experience nobler and keener delights; they are possessed of faculties which the monotony of their existence has allowed to lie dormant in inactivity. If these faculties be awakened by a powerful voice; if an animated narrative, or a stirring scene stimulate these drowsy imaginations, these torpid sensibilities, they will gain an activity which they could never have imparted to themselves, but which they will rejoice to receive; and then will arise, without the co-operation of the multitude, but in its presence and for its amusement, new games and new pleasures which will speedily become necessities.

To such festivities as these the dramatic poet invites the assembled people. He undertakes to divert them, but the amusement which he supplies is one of which they would have been ignorant without his assistance. Eschylus relates to his fellow-citizens the victories of Salamis, the anxieties of Atossa, and the grief of Xerxes. He charms the people of Athens, but it is by raising them to a level with emotions and ideas which Eschylus alone could exalt to so high a point; and he communicates to the multitude impressions which they are capable of feeling, but which Eschylus alone is able to awaken. Such is the nature of dramatic poetry; for the people it calls its

creations into being, to the people it addresses itself; but it is in order to ennoble their character, to extend and vivify their moral existence, to reveal to them faculties which they unconsciously possess, and to procure for them enjoyments which they eagerly seize, but which they would not even seek after, if a sublime art did not reveal to them their existence by making them minister to their gratification.

And this work the dramatic poet must necessarily pursue; he must elevate and civilize, as it were, the crowd that he summons to hear his performance. How can he act upon the assembled multitude, except by an appeal to the most general and elevated characteristics of their nature? It is only by going out of the narrow circle of common life and individual interests that the imagination becomes exalted and the heart enlarged, that pleasures become disinterested and the affections generous, and that men can sympathize in those common emotions the expression of which causes the theatre to resound with transports of delight. Religion has, therefore, universally been the source and furnished the primitive materials of dramatic art; at its origin, it celebrated, among the Greeks, the adventures of Bacchus, and, in Northern Europe, the mysteries of Christ. This arises from the fact that, of all human affections, piety most powerfully unites men in common feelings, because it most thoroughly detaches them from themselves; it is also less dependent for its development upon the progress of civilization, as it is powerful and pure even in the most backward state of society. From its very beginning, dramatic poetry has invoked the aid of piety, because, of all the sentiments to which it could address itself, piety was the noblest and the most universal.

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