11.1.
mvp-aristotle-comment-30
11.1
PERIPETI΄Α.
THE peripetía, according to the definition of Ariftotle, does not only mean a fudden and violent revolution of fortune, but a revolution brought about by means, apparently likely to produce a contrary effect. Of this revolution, from happiness to mifery, the Edipus, produced here as an example by Ariftotle, is the most perfect instance of any I know, ancient or modern; the expected means of his vindication affording the cleareft proof of his guilt. As for the contrary example, though we have the out-line of the story, the tragedy being loft, we are ignorant with what art the incidents were arranged, to produce the peripetía as described by the critic. On the modern theatre, the tragedy which ends unhappily, has seldom, if ever, a peripetía; for the tragedies of the present day begin with tears : the change of fortune which interests us in the course of the action, arifes from tranfient gleams of hope scattered through the piece, which deepen the succeeding distress that attends their disappointment, as in Venice Preferved, Douglas, and Tancred and Sigifmunda. In this last tragedy, Thomson, in compliance with custom introduces Sigifmunda deeply afflicted with prophetic, or if you will, imaginary horror, though she has the certain profpect of the possession of a throne with the man she loves, at the conclufion
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. i i conclufion of the first act. Indeed, if inftead of deriving the catastrophe from manners and paffion, and cutting the gordian knot at last by the fword of the dying Ofmond; the distress had turned entirely on the forgery of Tancred's confent to fulfil the king's will, and that circumftance had been the hinge on which the catastrophe had turned, instead of a fubordinate circumftance in the second act: the tragedy of Tancred and Sigifmunda would have furnished a complete instance of this species of peripetía. Another reason for the want of peripetía in our tragedies that end with distress, is affigned in the last note. Probability is not violated by the most extraordinary revolution of events, but a fudden change of paffions and manners is utterly improbable. Of the unexpected reverse of fortune, from evil to good, we have innumerable instances: the most striking I recollect, is in the fourth act of the Merchant of Venice. The deliverance of Antonio arifes from Portia, just in the moment he is expected to fuffer from her confirmation of the claim of Shylock.
11.2.
mvp-aristotle-comment-31
11.4
THE DISCOVERY, AS THE NAME IMPLIES, IS A TRANSITION FROM IGNORANCE TO KNOWLEDGE.
THIS species of dramatic incident, [A] which, like the foregoing, and for the fame reason, is, among us, confined to tragedy with a happy [A] For further observations on the discovery, see note IV, chap. XIV, and notes on chap. XVI. paffim. catastrophe =
catastrophe and comedy, was a great favorite with our earlier writers, but is seldom used by modern poets; probably from the difficulty of continuing the disguise with probability as to the other persons of the drama; or in regard to the audience, without keeping a principal character, (for of such only can an interesting discovery confift,) too long in obscurity, and facrificing too much to a single surprising situation, which will lofe much of its effect after the first representation. Can any thing be more absolutely improbable than that a daughter should be disguised from her father, and a woman from her lover, by being in men's cloaths? [B] and yet this is the case of Rofalind in As You Like It, where, from Orlando's fictitious courtship of Rofalind, though in difguise, and from the likeness being observed, both by him [c] and the duke, the improbability is still rendered more striking. As to the disguising the principal character from the audience, it appears a useless refinement, and was seldom practised by the ancients. In Shakespear also, Rosalind, Imogen, Viola, Julia, the Duke in [B] There must have been a peculiar improbability attending this kind of disguise, on which fo many of the plays of Shakespear, and Beaumont and Fletcher turn, from all the female characters being performed by men, an offence against probability when in a female habit; but for a man, in his own cloaths, to act a beautiful princess (Imogen, for instance) is perfectly inconsistent with the least shadow of it. See note Iv.. chap. XIII. [C] DUKE SEN. ' I do remember in this shepherd boy • Some lively touches of my daughter's favour. ORLA. • My lord, the first time that I ever saw him, ، Methought he was a brother to your daughter.. • But, my good lord, this boy is foreft born.' Meafure
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. Measure for Measure, are all known to the spectators. Massei and Voltaire have chosen to conceal Eghistus from the theatre, as well as from his mother, in Merope; but in this they have not only deviated from the tragedy of Euripides [D] but destroyed the striking effect described by Plutarch, which was plainly derived from their relation to each other being known to the spectators. One of the best instances I know, of a principal character being concealed to the audience through the whole of the action, and yet taking his proper share in it, is in the Bondman of Maffinger. There is a very good instance of it also in the comedy of Seduction, by Mr. Holcroft.
11.3.
mvp-aristotle-comment-32
11.5
THE DISCOVERY IS MOST BEAUTIFUL WHEN ACCOMPANIED BY THE PERIPETÍA.
DACIER has laid it down as a rule, that a discovery cannot be made the principal fubject of a drama; which is strongly combated by Metaftafio. Of this fanciful opinion of Dacier, which he derives from a passage in the preceding chapter, that very passage compared with this, is, in my idea, the clearest confutation; at least, as far as the fentence of Aristotle is decisive. He there says, the tranfition of fortune;' (ἡ μεθάβασις) that is, the change from happiness to misery, or the contrary, which must be the principal object, or the catastrophe of the fable, ⚫ in complicated actions, is effected by the means of peripetía, or disco- [D] See note IV. chap. XIV. very,
، very, or both; and he here says, that is preferable which is effected by the union of both; where the catastrophe arifes from the peripetía, caused by a discovery. In the Merope of Massei and Voltaire, the discovery is not accompanied by the peripetía. On the contrary, the distress is confiderably encreased by it: I doubt much if such was the arrangement of the Crefphontes of Euripides.
11.4.
mvp-aristotle-comment-33
11.9
THE PATHOS, IS THAT PART OF THE ACTION WHICH IS EITHER FATAL OR PAINFUL; SUCH AS DEATHS EXHIBITED ON THE STAGE, OR TORTURES, OR WOUNDS, OR OTHER THINGS OF THAT NATURE.
FROM this definition of the pathos, it is manifest that the rule, fo much infifted on by the French critics, never to stain the theatre with blood, (de ne pas enfanglanter le theatre,) is neither derived from the school of Ariftotle, nor the practice of the Greek tragedians. It seems to have arifen from a precept of Horace, as I think, ill understood, [E] • Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet.' It is to the improbability, not the cruelty, that Horace objects. [F] 'INCREDULUS odi.' [E] 'Nor let Medea, in the people's fight, < Her infants murder.'- [F] Almost every tranflator gives this as the sense, 'It is both incredible and disgusting, but the literal meaning is, 'It disgusts because it is incredible.' Not, I hate to fee, and never can believe.' But, 'Not believing, I deteft to fee.' RoscoM. I do
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. I do not conceive 'coram populo' to allude to the spectators, but the chorus. This will be illustrated by comparing the management of Euripides with that of Seneca in this identical instance. In Euripides, Medea kills her children behind the scenes, and the chief person of the chorus naturally exclaims, [G] The house I'll enter, and attempt to save • The children from destruction.' In [H] Seneca, Medea kills one of her children in the prefence of the chorus, without their making any observations on it; and on the entry of Jason she snatches the other up into her chariot, and deliberately [1] [G] Παρέλθω δόμους, αρῆξαι φόνον Δοκει μὸι τέχνοις. murders [H] As Seneca was subsequent to Horace, it could not be his play that Horace means to censure: but, probably, Seneca borrowed his arrangement of the catastrophe from fome other Greek tragedy, or from the Medea of Ennius. [1] Perhaps from the perpetration of this shocking crime, the strongest possible proof may be drawn of the force of custom over the most powerful feelings of nature. The deftruction of children, by their parents was so common at Athens, that, if we may judge of Menander, by Terence, even on the comic stage, the question, whether a child shall be reared or expofed, was treated as a common domestic confideration. An author, well acquainted with human life, though not inclinable to fee it on the faireft fide, has fome just observations on the commiffion of this crime in modern times, which he imputes to the fear of shame and disgrace, and their inevitable attendant, ruin and want, overcoming natural affection. (Fable of the Bees, Remark C.) How far, in a state of civil fociety, it is justifiable to place a person in the cruel alternative, of chusing either a shameful death or a life of infamy, I shall not attempt to determine. But of this cruel alternative, the makers of law can have no idea. The father and mother, whose happiness depends on a favourite child, and who watch over its fafety with an anxiety hardly to be conceived, cannot enter into the fenfations of a wretch, who knows her new-born infant is her greatest enemy, the destroyer Dd of
murders it in the face of the chorus and all the surviving persons of the drama. Of such an arrangement, the critic may well fay, ، Quodcunque oftendis mihi SIC incredulus odi.' The Bishop of Worcester, in his note on this verse, is of the same opinion as to the impropriety with which Seneca has conducted his play, and quotes a passage from Quintilian, to shew that the Medea of Ovid • had fome of the vices here charged on Seneca.' • The Medea of Ovid," he says, ' feems to me, to shew how much that writer could have excel- • led, if he had chosen rather to moderate his genius than indulge it [к]." It must be observed, that though Quintilian MAY mean to speak of the inequality of this tragedy, it appears more likely, that he compares this tragedy with his other works. For if he only speaks of the fertility of his genius, and his intemperance in the general indulgence of it, while particular parts shew his power of regulating it, it is equally applicable to all his works. Apply the passage to Dryden, and let the exception be his ode on Cecilia's day, and observe if there would be any impropriety in using the exact words of Quintilian. of all her hopes, the author of her utter ruin. The same woman who, in this situation, may have acted the part of Medea, might be capable, in a happier situation, to have facrificed her life to save her infant. Justice, perhaps, however, must punish deliberate acts of this kind when, like other crimes, clearly proved; but to make a defire to escape shame, a proof of murder, is a law that would have disgraced the code of Draco. See 21 Jac. I. ch. 27. which makes the concealment of the child's death almost conclusive evidence of its being murdered by the mother. [K] Ovidii Medea, videtur mihi oftendere, quantum vir ille præftare potuit, si ingenio • suo temperare quam indulgere, maluiffet.' It
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. It is curious to observe, as a proof of candid criticism, how an ingenious man will contrive to bend an ancient writer to support his own hypothesis. Bossu, in his Essay on the Epopee, L. II. page 258. says, • Horace orders, even in tragedy, that incidents, too marvellous, such • as the change of Progne into a bird, or Cadmus into a ferpent, should • be kept from the view of the spectators.' Not mentioning a word of Medea, and even omitting the line in question, in a quotation of the passage at the bottom of the page. But in the fame book of his work, page 282, he says, ' certain actions are unfit for representation, either • from being too horrible, as a mother who kills her own children, or • the change of a human creature into a bird or a ferpent.' And here he quotes the passage of Horace entire. How little the Grecian stage was accustomed to this delicacy of the French, a perusal of its tragedies will fufficiently shew [L]. The exhibition of a dead body appears to have been a favorite spectacle with the Athenians. The death of Ajax has always been confidered as an instance of a character killing himself on the stage. But this has been lately combated by the Abbé Barthelemi in his Travels of the younger Anacharfis [M]. Several modern critics,' he says, 'have imagined, that in the tragedy • of Sophocles, Ajax kills himself with his sword, in the prefence of the spectators. They bring the authority of the scholiaft, who observes, [L] And these are now open to the English reader, through the elegant and liberal, yet accurate translations, of Mr. Potter and Mr. Francklin. [M] See his note, chap. LXXI, ' fur le lieu de la scene ou Ajax se tuoit,' Dd 2 ' that
書 A COMMENTARY ON THE ⚫ that the characters seldom kill themselves on the stage (N). I think ' that the rule has not been violated in the present instance. To fatisfy ، ، ، ، ، us of this, it is only neceffary to follow the thread of the action. ، The chorus being informed that Ajax was not in his tent [o] go out on both fides of the theatre to feek him, and bring him back [P]. The • hero appears again on the stage, and, after an affecting soliloquy, he throws himself on the point of a sword, whose hilt he had previously fixed in the ground [2]. The chorus return [R], and while they are complaining of the ill success of their search, they hear the cries of Tecmessa, who had found the body of her husband [s], and they advance to see the dreadful spectacle (T). It is not therefore on the stage that Ajax kills himself.' I do not know if I am influenced by a partiality to my own opinion, but I think the circumftances mentioned by M. Barthelemi, as the support of his hypothefis, are a confirmation of mine. And that Sophocles, meaning to exhibit the death of Ajax on the fstage, was obliged to violate a fundamental rule of the Grecian drama, and send off the chorus merely to avoid the improbability of such an act being performed, coram populo;' before the people of Salamis, who formed the chorus. To obviate, however, the charge of prejudice, either in favor of my own opinion or the custom of the British theatre, whose blood and blank [N] Schol. Sophoc. in Ajac. v. 826.' [o] Ajac. Soph. v. 805.' [P] Ibid. v. 824.' [Q] 'Ibid. v. 826.' [R] Ibid. v. 877. [s] Ibid. v. 900.' [T] 'Ibid. v. 924, 1022. verse
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. verse has been proverbially censured by some delicate critics, I shall appeal to the judgement of a writer who must be impartial, Metaftafio; a poet in a species of the drama, whose delicacy is even more faftidious in this than the French, and which does not allow the unhappy catastrophe. Though he does not himself approve the introduction of fuch spectacles, he cannot shut his eyes to their appearance on the Greek theatre. Among many other examples of their not adhering to the imaginary rule, 'di non infanguinar la scena,' he cites the incident before us. • Is not the stage stained with blood, when Ajax throws him- • self on a drawn sword, with the hilt fixed in the ground for that pur- ، pose? Let the critics torment themselves as much as they please, to prove that Ajax does not kill himself in the fight of the audience, they can never absolutely deny that long scenes pass, after the blow, round • his body, transfixed and visible, fince his wife Tecmessa, his brother Teucer, and all the chorus, lament over it, cover it, uncover it, and ' lift it from the ground, to which it had, in a manner, been nailed, and ' from which place it could not have before been moved, and the visible ، place of representation always continues the fame.' If Ajax does not kill himself on the stage, he must be supposed to speak his dying foliloquy behind the scene. But a confideration of the form of the ancient theatre will, I think, reconcile every apparent contradiction. We are told by Julius Pollux, that the entrance of the principal character was always from the front of the stage, which, in tragedy, [u] was the portico of a palace, while the inferior characters entered or went [u] See note v, chap. vi. out
out on the fides, not, I prefume, at right angles with the front scene as on the modern theatre, but diagonally. For in comedy, where the scene represented streets, characters frequently are produced as seen by the spectators, though not by each other (x). A thing often attempted on the modern stage, but always, from the shape of our theatre, attended with some degree of improbability. Now Ajax had fixed his sword, we will suppose, under the portico, nearly at the bottom of the stage; and, after his last speech, threw himself on it in full view of the audience; the chorus returning from each fide could not fee either the body, or Tecmessa, who, entering from the front, must necessarily find the body, round which, all the circumstances mentioned by Metastasio take place in view of the audience; or, otherwife, all must pass behind the scene, that is faid by Teucer, Tecmessa, and the chorus, from the falling on the sword, ver. 876, till the entrance of Menelaus, v. 1066, who forbids their moving the body, just, it seems, as they are going to take it up; and, particularly, orders them to let it remain as it is [v]. Whether this practice of killing on the stage, which was carried to such excess by our old writers, but which is now used with greater moderation, is really a beauty or a fault, is another question. The fud- [x] Mr. Saunders, in his Treatise on Theatres, page 70, speaking of the theatre at Imola, proposes a plan for obviating this disadvantage on the modern stage. It would be injustice to mention this work without acknowledging the information, as well as amusement, I have received from the perusal of it. [1] Οῦτος σὲ φωνῶ τόνδε τὸν νεκρὸν χεροῖν Μὴ συνκομιζεῖν, αλλ' ΕΑΝ ΟΠΩΣ ΕΧΕΙ. den,
POETIC OF ARISTOTLE. den, and sometimes, unexpected blow, as when Othello kills himself, or as when Euphrasia stabs Dionyfius in the Grecian Daughter, has, certainly, a very fine theatrical effect; and the dying agonies of a Siddons, or a Garrick, were truly affecting. But a stage, heaped with dead bodies, panting from the exertion of the preceding scene, is likely to excite other emotions than those of pity and terror. I should imagine the general stabbing scene, in [z] Titus Andronicus, if represented, would hardly be less risible than the catastrophe of Tom Thumb. [z] It has often been a subject of wonder, how this monftrous farce has held its place in all the editions of Shakespear. I cannot think he wrote a line in it, though if, as Theobald fuggefts, it appeared before Shakespear wrote for the stage, two verses in it pleased him so well, that he has twice closely imitated them. • She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd; • She is a woman, therefore may be won.' T. ANDRON. • She's beautiful, and therefore to be woo'd; She is a woman, therefore to be won.' Ift Part HEN. VI. ، Was ever woman in this humour woo'd? Was ever woman in this humour won?" RICHARD III. CHAP.
