nction between birth is so long large a portion of the genuite form rigidly te er the infinitel ter, and conse offers to the once perceive of presenting sand of hues other single - among this ife, in all of the serious ain that the ents exist in dation. Ia amatic proy balanced which one Essary preks, of the s, the only en tragedy Every work her than a dramatis vertical ice of one dramatic literature, which ascends back for more than two | The substitution of dialogue and action in the place of thousand years. The only specimen of their plays (nataks) mere recitation, the transition from the heroic narrative to hitherto is the delightful Sacontala, which, notwithstanding the heroic drama, the making himself, in short, a dramatic the colouring of a foreign climate, bears, in its general Homer; such appears to have been the grand original constructure, so striking a resemblance to our romantic drama ception, such the leading idea of schylus in his great that we might be inclined to suspect we owe this resem- literary invention. The highly-wrought poetical and marblance to the predilection for Shakspeare entertained by tial enthusiasm of his countrymen sufficiently assured him Jones (Sir William), the English translator, if his fidelity of success in bringing his compositions before them; to were not attested by other learned orientalists. In the effect which, like every man on the like occasion who with golden times of India, the representation of this natak great inventive power combines great knowledge of actual served to delight the splendid imperial court of Delhi; but life, he availed himself of such already existing medium as it would appear that, from the misery of numberless op- could with least violence be converted to his purpose. The pressions, the dramatic art in that country is now entirely festivals of Bacchus, as then celebrated, offered the fairest at an end. The Chinese, again, have their standing na- opening for his new experiment; he laid hold on the tional drama, stationary perhaps in every sense of the word; serious part of the celebration, the mixture of the dithyand I doubt not that, in the establishment of arbitrary rambic chant with recitation, and modified that primitive rules, and the delicate observance of insignificant points of species of tragedy into the heroic drama or regular tragedy, decorum, they leave the most correct Europeans very far according to the subsequent acceptation of the term. behind them. When the new European stage, in the fifteenth century, had its origin in the allegorical and spiritual pieces called moralities and mysteries, this origin was not owing to the influence of the antient dramatists, who did not come into circulation till some time afterwards: in those rude beginnings lay the germ of the romantic drama as a peculiar invention.' There are, however, three grand characteristics of tragedy as conceived by Eschylus, that distinguish it widely from the serious drama of modern times. These are, 1. The religious tone which pervades it throughout; 2. The ideal nature of the whole representation; 3. The large part in the composition still assigned to the lyric muse. three matters we shall endeavour to place in a clear light before the reader, as upon a knowledge of them mainly depends the capability to form something like an accurate notion of the distinctive character of Grecian tragedy. These Fate, In this summary we shall not enter into any further examination either of the antient or the existing oriental drama. Notwithstanding the great extent and fertility, the vast population and industry of those remoter Asiatic re- First, as regards the religious complexion of the Athegions, the spirit of their social institutions, to whatever nian drama. Modern readers, familiarised from their inmoral causes originally owing, seems to doom them (ex- fancy with the names, attributes, and images of the antient ternal influences apart) to a perpetual stationariness, ex- deities, merely as presenting an inexhaustible storehouse of cluding them as it were from the history of general civiliz-graceful poetic ornament, almost inevitably forget, in turnation, which is essentially the history of progress. To the ing to peruse any original work of the antients, that, how European races and nations it is plain that the destinies of much soever their philosophers, their poets, or their priests, human improvement, in all quarters of the earth, are chiefly might regard their principal divinities in a purely symbolical committed; so that there is no impropriety, and little view, yet that to the minds of the people at large they were incompleteness, in confining our view to the nations of real and awful existences, having will, passions, and various Europe, while taking a general survey of that important kinds and degrees of dominion over the fortunes and the department of the belles-lettres and the fine arts which has happiness of man. This important fact has not hitherto held and must continue to hold so conspicuous a place been sufficiently taken notice of in modern accounts of the among those things which, in the long stream of human antient drama. All the deities, male or female, celestial or history, have appeared successively as results and as causes infernal, were objects of fear and propitiation only the of social amelioration. inexorable Fates were unappeasable by god or man. indeed, was the only omnipotence recognised in the mytho logical system of the Greeks; for Jupiter himself, the ruler of the celestial deities, the sovereign of Olympus, was regarded neither as eternal nor as infinite in power. Nowhere have poetry and her sister arts been so thoroughly devoted to the service of religion as they were in antient Greece. Thus we find the drama itself lying in embryo in the worship of Bacchus; and when in its maturity it lost the direct character of a religious rite, we still find the sacred character impressed on tragedy even more solemnly than upon any of the other productions of Athenian genius not primarily devoted to religious objects. So long, indeed, as the personages of a long established faith (and here we speak solely with reference to the purposes of art), whether the gods and heroes of the heathen world, or the mysterious persons of the godhead, the angels, devils, and saints of the Christian system,-so long, we say, as these awful personages can furnish fresh materials to an epic or dramatic poet of powers equal to such a class of subjects, the grand and successful performances of a Dante, a Tasso, and a Milton, show us, not less strikingly than those of a Homer or an Eschylus, that these are the most attractive themes for the exercise of the loftiest poetic genius, and those which it han lles with the most powerful effect. We know that European civilization is now running at least its second course. We know that its former, and, as far as we have any historical indications, its first career began in Greece; and that in the small state of Athens especially, owing chiefly, it should seem, to the very high degree of civil freedom and equality which it acquired and long maintained, that early civilization, in all its nobler features, took a more vigorous and various development than it reached not only in any of the other Grecian states, but in the gigantic empire of Rome itself in its most polished days. The Roman drama in particular, for reasons which we shall indicate below, remained to the last little more than a faint imitation of the Athenian; so that it is not only primarily, but almost exclusively, the Grecian theatre, or, more strictly speaking, that of Athens, which we have to consider in treating generally of the antient drama. Eschylus, the true father of the Attic drama (so far at muse. consisted of several considerable additions to his soles, as in the Grecian music, the solemn choral song had no other instrumental accompaniment than a single flute, which could not impair the distinctness of the words. The choruses and lyrical songs in general form the portion most difficult to understand of the antient tragedy, and must also have been the most difficult to contemporary auditors. They abound with the most involved constructions, the most unusual expressions, and the boldest images and allusions. Such labour and art would hardly have been lavished upon them by the poets merely to be lost in the delivery. Such a display of ornament without aim is very unlike the mode of thinking of the Greeks. In the syllabic measure of their tragedy there generally prevails a highly-finished regularity, which, however, by no means appears a stiff symmetrical uniformity. Besides the infinite variety of the lyrical strophes, they have also a measure to denote the mental transition from the dialogue to the lyric, the anapast; and two for the dialogue itself, of which the one by far the most general, the iambic trimeter, denoted the regular progress of the action, and the other, the trochaic tetrameter, was expressive of sudden passion. Indeed, the simplicity of the Greek tragedy, of which so much has been said, attaches only to the plan; for the richest variety of poetical ornament is observable in the execution. It must be remembered, too, that the utmost accuracy in the delivery of the different modes of versification was expected from the player, as the delicacy of the Grecian ear would not excuse, even in an orator, the false quantity of a single syllable. we may see in the antient statues of Melpomene, raised his figure considerably above the middle standard. The female parts, too, were played by men, as the voice and other qualities of women would have conveyed an inadequate idea of the energy of tragic heroines. The forms of the masks* and the whole appearance of the tragic figures, we may easily suppose, were sufficiently beautiful and dignified. We should do well to have the antient sculpture always present to our minds; and the most accurate conception, perhaps, that we can possibly have, is to imagine them so many statues in the grand style, endowed with life and motion. But as in sculpture they were fond of dispensing as much as possible with dress, for the sake of exhibiting the more essential beauty of the figure; on the stage they would endeavour, from an opposite principle, to clothe as much as they could well do, both from a regard to decency, and because the actual forms of the body would not correspond sufficiently with the beauty of the countenance. They would also exhibit their divinities, which in sculpture we always observe either entirely naked or only half covered, in a complete dress. They had recourse to a number of means for giving a suitable strength to the forms of the limbs, and thus restoring proportion to the increased height of the player. The great breadth of the theatre, in proportion to its depth, must have given to the grouping of the figures the simple and distinct order of the bas-relief. We moderns prefer on the stage, as everywhere else, groups of a more picturesque description, more crowded, partly covered by 'Modern critics,' says Schlegel, have never known what themselves, and stretching out into distance; but the an- to make of the chorus.' This has arisen from the error by tients were so little fond of foreshortening, that even in which criticism has been almost universally pervaded, viz., their painting they generally avoided it. The gestures ac- the viewing a production of art not in relation to the mancompanied the rhythmus of the declamation, and were in-ners and the circumstances which surrounded its author, tended to display the utmost beauty and harmony. The but to those existing around the critic himself. A very poetical conception required a certain degree of repose in moderate degree of attention to the circumstances amidst the action, and that the whole should be kept in masses, which the Athenian drama took its birth is sufficient to so as to exhibit a succession of plastic attitudes; and it is remove everything like astonishment at the share which not improbable that the actor remained for some time mo- the lyrical element preserved in its composition. Among tionless in the same position. But we are not to suppose the most poetical people that has ever existed everything from this that the Greeks were contented with a cold and of the nature of a spectacle demanded the aid of song. The spiritless representation of the passions. How could we warlike march, the religious and the convivial procession, reconcile such a supposition with the fact that whole lines the nuptial ceremony, the feast and the funeral, would to of their tragedies are frequently devoted to inarticulate ex- them have been utterly spiritless and unmeaning without clamations of pain, to which we have nothing correspondent this accompaniment. The epic form, too, under which in any of our modern languages? It has often been con- their greater and more national compositions present themjectured that the delivery of their dialogue must have re- selves to us in their earlier times, had, for a long period sembled the modern recitative. For this conjecture there before the rise of the dramatic art among them, been is no other foundation than that the Greek, like almost rivalled by the lyric; and many old subjects of high heroic all the southern languages, must have been pronounced song had been embodied under a new shape in grand choral with a greater musical inflexion of the voice than our lan- compositions, which, observes Mr. Thirlwall (Hist. of Greece, guages of the north. In other respects I conceive that chap. xii.) uniting the attractions of music and action with their tragic declamation must have been altogether unlike those of a lofty poetry, formed the favourite entertainment recitative, much more measured, and far removed from its of the Dorian cities. This appears to have been the germ learned and artificial modulation. The antient tragedy has out of which, by the introduction of a new element, the also been frequently compared to the opera, because it was recitation of a performer who assumed a character, and peraccompanied with music and dancing. But this betrays haps from the first shifted his mask so as to exhibit the entire ignorance of the spirit of classical antiquity. Their outlines of a simple story in a few scenes parted by the indancing and music had nothing in common with ours but tervening song of the chorus, Thespis and his successors the name. In tragedy the chief object was the poetry, and gradually unfolded the Attic tragedy. every other thing was strictly subordinate to it; whereas in the opera the poetry is merely an accessary, the means of connecting the different parts together, and is almost buried under its associates." We must therefore dissent from the view taken by Schlegel himself of the origin and objects of the dramatic chorus of the Greeks. In considering this, as well as some other characteristics of the Grecian theatre, he has laboured under somewhat of the disability which we have mentioned above as attaching to the critics of latter ages in general. He has judged of the Athenian dramatists too exclusively from their remaining productions, without sufficient regard to all that existed immediately before and around them. character of masks. (See the Onomasticon of Julius Pollux.) In the marble Writings, we must recollect, were exceedingly scarce. It In the syllabic composition, which then at least prevailed We have obtained a knowledge of these from the imitations in stone which have come down to us. They display both beauty and variety. That great variety must have taken place in the tragical department (in the comic we can have no doubt about the matter) is evident from the rich store of technical expressions in the Greek language for every gradation of the age and masks, however, we can neither see the thinness of the mass from which the real masks were executed, the still more delicate colouring, nor the exquisite mechanism of the joinings. The abundance of excellent workmen possessed by Athens in everything which had reference to the plastic arts will warrant the conjecture that they were in this respect inimitable. Those who have seen the masks of wax in the grand style, which in some degree contain the whole head, lately contrived at the Roman carnival, may form to themselves a pretty good idea of the theatrical masks of the antients. They imitate life even to its movements in a most masterly manner; and at such a distance as was by oral recitation that the greatest and most favourite productions of the epic and the lyric poets were chiefly circulated, and transmitted with more or less completeness to the memories of the multitude; so that, inasmuch as they were in all times intimately associated with vocal delivery and animated gesture, even the simply epic and lyric chants had possessed among the Greeks much more of the vivid charms of dramatic recitation than is very readily conceiv able by a modern to whom books are so easily and abundantly accessible. A modern poet writes, above all things, to be read; but the Grecian poet, even the epic poet, wrote, above all things, to be sung. In short, the union between music and poetry, among the Greeks more especially, down to the period which gave rise to the drama, was uniform and that from which the antient players were seen, the deception is most perfect They always contain the apple of the eye, as we see it in the antient masks; and the person covered sees merely through the aperture left for the iris. The antients must have gone still farther, and contrived also an iris for the masks, according to the anecdote of the singer Thamyris, who, in a piece which was probably of Sophocles, made his appearance with a blue and a black eye. Even accidental circumstances were imitated; as, for instance, the cheeks of Tyro, down which the blood had rolled from the cruel treatment of his stepmother. Owing to the mask, the head must no doubt have appeared somewhat large for the rest of the figure; but this disproportion, in tragedy at least, would be obviated by the elevation of the cothurnus.' Song had no otr ngle flute, wh words. The d the portion Es dy, and must ary auditors. T ons, the most es and allusie -en lavished delivery. S unlike the abic measure highly-finishe ears a stiff s riety of the note the menta anapast; an by far the mos ular progres ameter, wa Simplicity of en said, at of poetica must be re e delivery d ted from the not excus syllable know the the err maded a to the man intimate, but with this important condition, that sound was Such being the firmly established practical circum- We must now, in order to complete the idea which we | strip, which, forming the chord of the semicircle, extended from one end of the building to the other, but the depth of which bore little proportion to this length. This was called the logeum, or, in Latin, pulpitum, and the usual place for the dramatic action was in the middle of it. Behind this middle part the scene receded quadrangularly; still, however, with less depth than breadth: the space thus comprised was called the proscenium. The remaining part of the logeum, to the right and left of the scene, had, both in front on the verge of the orchestra, and at the back, a wall entirely plain, or at most architecturally ornamented, which rose to the level of the uppermost seat for the spectators. The decoration was so contrived that the principal object in front covered the back-ground, and the prospects of distance were given at each side, which is just the reverse of the mode adopted on the modern stage. This was done according to certain rules: on the left appeared the town to which the palace, temple, or whatever occupied the centre, belonged; on the right was the open country, landscape, mountains, sea-shore, &c. The lateral decorations were three-sided constructions turning on a pivot fixed underneath, by which means the changes of scene were partly effected. In the back decoration it is probable that many things were exhibited substantially which with us are only painted. When a palace or temple was represented, there appeared in the proscenium an altar, which answered a number of purposes in the course of the performance. The central decoration was most frequently architectural, though sometimes it was a painted landscape; and from a passage of Plato it seems clear that the Greeks must have carried theatrical perspective to very considerable perfection. The theatres of the Greeks were open to the sky, and their dramas were always acted during the day, a mode of construction and of exhibition which was highly favoured by the beauty of their climate. As regards the inconvenience which many modern critics have supposed the poets to have felt, from the necessity of always laying the scene of their pieces before houses, and thus often violating probability, it should be observed that the Greeks lived much more in the open air than we do, and transacted many things in public places which with us usually take place in houses; and the stage did not represent a street, but a space before the house and belonging to it, wherein stood an altar on which the sacrifices to the household gods were offered up. Here the women, who among the Greeks lived in so retired a manner, might appear without impropriety, even the unmarried ones. Neither was it impracticable to give a view of the interior of the houses: this was done by means of the ency-chestra, and thence, by the staircase above mentioned, made clema, which we shall presently describe. In the back wall of the scene were a large main entrance and two side ones; and as the hinder decoration was generally a palace in which the principal characters of royal descent resided, they naturally came through the great door, and the servants made their entrance from the wings. There were two other entrances; one at the end of the logeum, whence the inhabitants of the town came; the other in the orchestra below for characters who were supposed to come from a distance; they ascended the logeum by a staircase from the orchestra which was appli cable to a variety of purposes, as circumstances required. The situation of these several entrances explains many passages in the antient dramas, where the persons standing in the middle see some one advancing long before he comes near them. Beneath the seats of the spectators a stair was somewhere constructed through which the spectres of the departed, unperceived by the audience, ascended into the or their appearance on the stage. The nearest verge of the The Grecian theatres, destined, not like those of the logeum sometimes represented the sea-shore. The Greeks moderns, for a long succession of daily exhibitions, but for were well skilled also in availing themselves, for scenic effect, the celebration of a few annual festivals, were of that colos- even of what lay beyond the decorations: the frequent adsal magnitude which was indispensable to contain, as it dresses to heaven were doubtless directed to the actual skies; were, the whole body of the people, together with the con- and it was a general principle with them that everything course of strangers who flocked to these solemnities. The imitated on the stage should, if possible, consist of actual distance to which the eyes of the spectators were thus representation; and only where this could not be done were necessarily thrown from the acted scene presents another they content with a symbolical exhibition. The machinery obvious reason for and justification of the artificial expan- for the descent of gods to the earth or the withdrawing of sion, as we may term it, of the whole figure of the actor. men from it, was placed aloft behind the wall at each side of The groups on the stage, not to appear absolutely insig- the scene, and so removed from the sight of the audience. nificant, needed, if possible, to be represented larger than There were hollow places beneath the stage, and contrivlife; and besides the fundamental reason which we have ances for thunder and lightning, for the apparent fall or already stated for the constant use of the mask, that play burning of a house, &c. An upper story could be added of the actor's features which it concealed could not have to the farthermost wall of the scene, when it was necessary been perceived with any distinctness across the vast space to represent a tower having an extensive prospect, &c. The which separated him from the audience. Analogous to the encyclema was a machine semicircular within, and covered use of the mask, the buskin, &c., were certain contrivances above, which represented the objects contained in it as in a for increasing the loudness of the voice. Vitruvius tells us house: this could be thrust behind the great middle enalso of vehicles of sound distributed throughout the build- trance; and we find it to have been so used for the producing; and though of these we have no very clear account, we tion of a grand theatrical effect; the central entrance being may safely assume that the theatres of the antients were then left open to exhibit the interior to the audience. A constructed on very perfect acoustical principles. We know stage curtain is mentioned both by Greek and Roman from existing remains that all who were present at the dra- writers; indeed its Latin appellation, aulæum, is borrowed matic exhibition could be, in the literal sense of the word, from the Greeks: it seems, however, not to have been spectators: the seats for them consisted of steps rising back- in use in the earlier period of the Attic theatre; and wards round the semicircle of the orchestra, the name given when brought into use, it covered, not the whole length to the whole internal area called in a modern theatre the pit. of the logeum, but only the comparatively small front of the The lowest step of this amphitheatre was raised considerably proscenium. above the orchestra; and opposite to it was the stage, placed at an equal elevation. The sunk semicircle of the orchestra tra, in which it generally remained, and in which treeThe entrances for the chorus were beneath, in the orches contained no spectators, but served another purpose, which formed its solemn dance, moving round first in one direct we shall shortly have to mention. The stage consisted of a tion, then in the other, during the choral songs. P. C., No. 547. VOL. IX.-S In front of the orchestra, opposite to the middle of the scene, was an elevation with steps, resembling an altar, raised to the level of the stage, and called the thymele. This was the station of the chorus when it did not chant, but was taking an interest in the action. The leader of the chorus then took his or her station on the top of the thymele, to see what was passing on the stage, and to communicate with the characters. For though the choral song was common to the whole, yet when it entered into the dialogue, one of its number spoke for the rest, which accounts for the changing from the plural number to the singular, and vice versa, in addressing them from the stage. The thymele was situated precisely in the centre of the building, and all the measurements were calculated from that point. It is plain that the Grecian theatre, both in its architectural and its scenic arrangements, must have attained much higher perfection in the course of that illustrious period of Grecian art which we are accustomed to denominate, from its most characteristic and influential name, the age of Pericles, than it had reached at the termination of the dramatic career of Eschylus. The very building itself, which in the general and splendid restoration of Athens after the termination of the Persian war was reconstructed of massive stone, was originally of timber only. But as Eschylus was no less the creator of the theatre in all its essential parts than he was of the dramatic action itself, we have deemed this the fittest place in which to give some general notion of its structure and disposition. suffers, and resolves from the beginning to the end, and his sufferings and resolutions are always the same. But 'he poet has contrived in a masterly manner to introduce variety and progress into that which in itself was determi nately fixed, and given us a scale for measuring the matchless power of his sublime Titans in the objects by which he has surrounded them. We have first the silence of Prometheus while he is chained down under the harsh inspection of Strength and Force, whose threats serve only to excite a useless compassion in Vulcan, who carries them into execution; then his solitary complaints; next, the arrival of the tender ocean nymphs, whose kind but disheartening sympathy induces him to give vent to his feelings, to relate the cause of his fall, and to reveal the future, though with prudent reserve he reveals it only in part; the visit of the antient Oceanus, a kindred god of the race of the Titans, who, under pretext of a zealous attachment to his cause, advises him to submission towards Jupiter, and is on that account dismissed with proud contempt; the introduction of the raving Io, driven about from place to place, a victim of the same tyranny from which Prometheus suffers; his prophecy of the wanderings to which she is still doomed, and the fate which at last awaits her, connected in some degree with his own, as from her blood he is to receive a deliverer after the lapse of many ages; the ap pearance of Mercury as the messenger of the tyrant of the world, who, with threats, commands him to disclose the secret by which Jupiter may remain on his throne secure Excepting only The Persians,' interesting rather as an from all the malice of fate; and lastly, the yawning of the historical than as a dramatic monument, the subject of each earth before Prometheus has well declared his refusal, amid of the pieces of Eschylus that remain to us is either purely thunder and lightning, storm and earthquake, by which he mythological, or taken from those traditions of the later himself, and the rock to which he is chained, are swallowed heroic ages in which fable bears so large a part, or com- up in the abyss of the nether world. The triumph of subpounded from both those sources. In dealing with mytho-jection was never celebrated in more glorious strains; and logy (that is, as we have already requested the reader to we have difficulty in conceiving how the poet, in the Probear steadfastly in mind, with the mystical personages im- metheus Loosed,' could sustain himself on such an ele memorially fixed in the religious belief of his countrymen), vation.' Eschylus, like our own Milton, and, indeed, partly showing Milton the way, seems to have delighted to launch his imagination into that boundless and mysterious field which, according to the notions of antiquity, lay beyond and above the existence of even the greatest and the oldest of the Olympian deities. The dimness and vagueness of the prevailing ideas respecting those primaval powers of nature afforded the freest scope for the development of his most gigantic conceptions; and in that highest range of the mythological drama he found among the antients neither rival nor competitor. Above all, the opposition between inexorable fate and unconquerable will, the only effectual shield, that of invincible fortitude, presented by a finite being against all that the awful and inevitable course of universal nature can inflict, such appears to have been his favourite subject of contemplation. The sole mastery which he possessed in this sublime walk of tragedy demands that we should endeavour to present a more precise idea of his mode of applying such materials to the purposes of the drama. We shall therefore give a brief account of that one of his remaining pieces which most completely illustrates these peculiar powers of the great tragedian. This we shall do in the words of the eminent dramatic lecturer whom we have already repeatedly quoted; after first remarking that Prometheus Chained,' the tragedy in question, held a connected place between two others entitled Prometheus the Fire-bringer,' and Prometheus Loosed,' of both of which the Greek originals are lost, although a considerable fragment of the latter has come down to us in a Latin translation. This and all the other remains of Eschylus that we In this triple drama, or Orestiad, as it has sometimes The historical relation in which Eschylus stood to Sophocles enabled the latter to avail himself of the inventions of the former. The more artful construction of the dramas of Sophocles, observes Schlegel, is easily perceived; the limitation of the chorus with respect to the dialogue, the polish of the rhythmus, and the pure Attic diction; the introduction of a greater number of characters; the increase of contrivance in the fable; the multiplication of incidents; a greater degree of development; the more tranquil continuance of all the movements of the action; the greater degree of theatrical effect given to incidents of a decisive nature; and the more perfect rounding of the whole, even The Chained Prometheus,' says Schlegel, is the representation of constancy under suffering, and that the neverending suffering of a god. Exiled to a naked rock on the shore of the encircling ocean, this drama still embraces the world, the Olympus of the gods, and the earth of mortals, all scarcely yet reposing in a secure state above the dread abyss of the dark Titanian powers. The idea of a selfdevoting divinity has been mysteriously inculcated in many religions, as a confused foreboding of the true: here how ever it appears in a most alarming contrast with the consolations of revelation. For Prometheus does not suffer on an understanding with the power by whom the world is governed; on the contrary, he atones for his disobedience, which disobedience consists in nothing other than an attempt to give perfection to the human race.... There is little external action in this piece. Prometheus merely his Soph the s a dra origin an inf mere standa deities have b his ow ideal ig to the end, and the same. Ba lanner to int in itself was de easuring the m objects by wit the silence d under the hard: hreats serve who carries t plaints; next Lose kind bu vent to his fe reveal the fat only in part god of the rat Dus attachment ards Jupiter, a he tyrant of 1 s faniae ess DRA considered in a merely external view.... To characterize It was indeed this thorough yet noble harmony of all his We shall add but one concluding remark on these two great masters of the elder Grecian tragedy. The tendency of the genius of Eschylus in framing his great dramatic compositions was manifestly to embrace in the first instance a vast field of incident and invention, and reduce it to poetic order; while that of the mind of Sophocles was, to fix upon some given point of historic or mythologic interest, and, taking that as a nucleus, to expand it into poetic form. Eschylus was above all things a creator; Sophocles, a cultivator and adorner. The passion of the latter was more for the beautiful, that of the former for the sublime; but though Eschylus took the loftier and more adventurous flights, both moved in the elevated region of the ideal. 131 | DRA genius of great artists as an examination of their respective modes of treating one and the same subject; as the remarkable incident in the sanguinary annals of Pelops' line,' on which we have already had occasion to dwell, has been fated, as we shall see, to stand so prominently forward in the scrolls of modern as well as antient tragedy; and as the Electra' of Euripides remains to us among his extant pieces, we recommend it particularly to the attention of those readers who may find leisure for such examination, because, though far from being one of the finest of his remaining productions, it offers the best means of contrasting his dramatic character with the very different one of Sophocles.* We shall, perhaps, form the best idea of the old Grecian comedy by considering it as a complete contrast to the ideal tragedy. Although the old comic writers gave the names of existing persons to their characters, they did not exhibit them on the stage with all the circumstances peculiar to certain individuals; for such historical characters have always with them an allegorical signification; they represent a class; and as their features were exaggerated in the masks, so their characters were overcharged in the composition. Still this constant allusion to the nearest reality, which not only allowed the poet, in the character of the chorus, to converse with the public in a general way, but also to point at certain individual spectators, is of essential import in any view of this species of composition. As the spirit of the elder tragedy delighted in harmonious unity, the old comedy, on the contrary, flourished in a chaotic exuberance, seeking out the most glaring and diversified objects, the most strongly marked oppositions, working up the most singular, unheard of, and even impossible adventures, with the local peculiarities nearest at hand. The comic poet, indeed, as well as the tragic, transported his characters to an ideal element; not, however, to a world subjected to necessity, but to one where the caprice of an inventive wit prevails without restraint, and all the laws of reality are suspended. In characterizing the third great master of Grecian tragedy, we must take a course which we believe to be more conformable to reason, as well as more favourable to his genius than that adopted by many critics antient as well as modern, and among the latter by Schlegel himself. It is not fair, merely because Euripides necessarily treated these mythological subjects which were the common stock of the poets of his age, to force a strict parallel between himself and the tragic poets who preceded him. His mental training belonged to a later period of Athenian history and taste, and he possessed a genius essentially different from that of his predecessors, yet a genius assuredly great and rich. Sophocles, indeed, may justly be said to have belonged to the school of Eschylus; but Euripides was the founder of a dramatic school entirely new, and so was certainly more original than Sophocles, though moving, in one sense, in an inferior poetic sphere. That he not only did not pourtray mere men and women sufficiently according to the ideal standard, but that he drew down his demigods and his deities themselves to the level of human nature, seems to have been the gravest charge brought against Euripides in his own time by such as were attached exclusively to the ideal school of tragedy. But for these reproaches he was amply indemnified by the approbation and sympathy of the greater portion of the Athenian public. The great ideal representations to which they had previously been accustomed had, indeed, drawn abundantly on their admiration; but their sympathies had yet to be vividly and intimately stirred. This the habits and temper of Euripides inclined him to attempt, and this he successfully accomplished; nor need we wonder that, striking thus directly at the hearts of his auditory, he should have risen to share the public favour Of the Grecian comic writers of the old kind there is but equally with Sophocles during the later part of the career one of whom any work has descended to us, so that in of the latter, although, from the essential difference between judging of his merits we can have no aid from comparison their characteristic excellencies, there was no absolute com- with other masters. Aristophanes had many predecessors, Comedy, in the hands of its Doric founder Epicharmus, borrowed its materials chiefly from the mythical world. Nor in its maturity did it altogether relinquish that field, as appears from the titles of many of the lost pieces of Aristophanes and his contemporaries. But as a violent contrast between the materials and the form is here quite appropriate, the subjects of the old comedy were naturally drawn from the most serious concerns of public life and the state: the private and family life was only introduced occasionally, and indirectly, with a reference to the public. The chorus, besides that it was essential to the complete parody of the tragic form, also contributed to the expression of that festal gladness of which comedy was the most unrestrained effusion; for, as already observed, in all the popular and religious festivals of the Greeks, choral songs were chanted, accompanied by dancing. On some of these occasions we find in the comic chorus such a display of sublime lyrical poetry that the passages might be transferred to tragedy without alteration. It is, however, one deviation from the tragic model, that often there are several choruses in the same comedy, who at one time all sing together and in opposite positions, and at other times change with and succeed each other without any general reference. But the most remarkable peculiarity of the comic chorus is the parabasis, an address by the chorus to the spectators, in the name and under the authority of the poet, which has no immediate concern with the subject of the piece. Herein he sometimes enlarges. on his own merits, and ridicules the pretensions of his rivals; at other times he avails himself of his privileges as an Athenian citizen, to deliver proposals of a serious or a ludicrous nature for the public good. The parabasis may have owed its invention partly to the circumstance of the comic poets not having such ample materials as the tragic to fill up the intervals of the action, when the stage was empty, with affecting and inspired poetry. But this very departure from the strictness of dramatic form is consistent with the essence of the old comedy; just as an individual, while wearing a droll disguise may, in the same spirit of drollery, venture occasionally to put aside the mask. *For some remarks on the Satiric Drama, the reader is referred to the article petition between them. As nothing seems calculated to S2 |