Herder on Shakespeare. 



1821.] 



connection of scenes, history, or senti- 

 ments, or, as tlie ancients said, it was 

 as yet but chorus, between which a his- 

 tory had been introduced. Was the 

 least art or pains employed here to 

 make the fable simple? And is it 

 otherwise with most of Sophocles' 

 pieces ? His Philoctetes, liis Ajax, his 

 Banished Oedipus, &c. resemble ex- 

 ceedingly the dramatic image in the 

 middle of the Chorus. Tliere can be 

 no doubt but that such was the origin 

 and progress of the Greelc theatre. 



Now let usexamine the"conse(|ueaces 

 of this simple observation. Nothing 

 less than that, the arfijicialness of (heir 

 rules was by no means art, but nature. 

 The unity of tiieir fable was — the unity 

 of (he action befoi-e them, wliich could 

 not but be so according to the nature of 

 their times, country, religion, and man- 

 ners. The unity of place unity of 



place ; for this single, short, and solemn 

 action happened only in one place, in 

 a temple, in a palace, as it were in a 

 public square of the country. Thus at 

 first it was but mimical ly imitated, or 

 related between the parts of the chorus, 

 afterwards the entries, the scenes were 

 added; but still the whole remained 

 one scene. Where the chorus connec- 

 ted the whole together, — where, by the 

 very nature of the thing the tbeatre 

 could never remain empty, unity of 

 time and place must be a necessary 

 consequence. • What child wants to 

 have that demonstrated? All these 

 things were founded at that time in na- 

 ture, and the poet, in spite of his art, 

 could do nothing without them. 



Hence it is also evident, that the art 

 of the Greek poets took precisely the 

 contrary road from what is no\\'-a-days 

 pretended. Instead of simplifying, 

 methinks they complicated; yEschy- 

 lus the Chorus, and Sophocles /Eschy- 

 lus : and if we compare the more arti- 

 ficial pieces of tliis poet and his master- 

 piece Oedipus in Thebes with Prome- 

 theus, or with what we know of the 

 ancient Ditliyrambics, we shall be 

 astonished at the deal of art he em- 

 ploys in it. Not the art of making out 

 of many parts one whole ; but out of 

 one whole, many parts; an admirable 

 labyrinth of scenes, where his chief 

 object was to deceive the spectators in 

 the most confused point of the laby- 

 rinth with the idciiof the former whole, 

 and to unwind the skein of their emo- 

 tions as softly and gently as if they still 

 enjoyed the forujer dythyrambic emo- 

 tion. In thiji view he embellished the 



411 



scene, took care not to abolish the cho- 

 russes, made use of them as resting 

 places for the action, always kept the 

 spectator in view, in expectation, in a 

 fancied possession of tlie whole ; a thing 

 M'hich the instructive Euripides abo- 

 lished immediately after, when the the- 

 atre was scarce formed. In short, lie 

 gave the action greatness, a thing so ill 

 understood. 



Every one who can read Aristotle 

 without prejudice, and in the point 

 of view of his times, must jierceive 

 that the philosopher's genius deserv- 

 edly appreciated this art, and was 

 in almost every thing the very con- 

 trary of what our moderns have been 

 pleased to make of him. His abandoning 

 Thespis and ^Eschylus to attach him- 

 self to Sophocles, whose invention was 

 so fruitful and various ; his taking oc- 

 casion from this innovation to place in 

 it tlie essence of the new kind of po- 

 etry, his favourite system being to un- 

 fold in him a new Homer, and to com- 

 pare him advantageously with the first; 

 his omitting no circumstance, however 

 unessential, which could serve to sup- 

 poit his definition of greatness o{ ac- 

 tion : all sho\rs, that this great man 

 philosophized in the liberal manner of 

 his times ; and thought of nothing less 

 than that childish narrow-minded stufi" 

 which has been put into his mouth, 

 and made to be a paper scaftold of the 

 modern theatre. In his excellent 

 chapter concerning the essence of the 

 fable, he most undoubtedly admits and 

 acknowledges no other rules than the 

 Spectator's view, soul, illusion; and 

 he says expressly that the limits of its 

 length, much less the manner, time, or 

 i"oom of its construction, can be deter- 

 mined by no rules. Was Aristotle to 

 rise from the grave, and see the false 

 contradictory use of his rules in 

 dramas of another kind — but we had 

 better keep to a calm and quiet enquiry. 



As every thing in the world changes, 

 nature, too, which gave birth to the 

 Greek drama, must change. The 

 practical constitution of the world, the 

 manners, the state of the republic, the 

 traditions of the heroic times ; the po- 

 jnilar superstitions — even the music, 

 the expression, the degree of illusion 

 altered; consequently the stuff" for 

 fables, the occasions for composing 

 them, motives to tliat end failed. 'Tis 

 true it was still possible to call up very 

 ancient subjects, or to bon-ow foreign 

 on(!s, and to clothe them in the received 

 way ; but that produced no longer the 



same 



