AN ESSAY ON THE THEATRE;
OR, A COMPARISON BETWEEN LAUGHING AND SENTIMENTAL COMEDY
by: Oliver Goldsmith
(1772) |
THE
theater, like all other amusements, has its fashions and its
prejudices: and when satiated with its excellence mankind begin
to mistake change for improvement. For some years tragedy was
the reigning entertainment; but of late it has entirely given
way to comedy, and our best efforts are now exerted in these
lighter kinds of composition. The pompous train, the swelling
phrase, and the unnatural rant, are displaced for that natural
portrait of human folly and frailty, of which all are judges,
because all have sat for the picture.
But as in describing nature it is presented
with a double face, either of mirth or sadness, our modern writers
find themselves at a loss which chiefly to copy from; and it
is now debated, whether the exhibition of human distress is likely
to afford the mind more entertainment than that of human absurdity?
Comedy is defined by Aristotle
to be a picture of the frailties of the lower part of mankind,
to distinguish it from tragedy, which is an exhibition of the
misfortunes of the great. When comedy, therefore, ascends to
produce the characters of princes or generals upon the stage,
it is out of its walks, since low life and middle life are entirely
its object. The principle question, therefore, is, whether, in
describing low or middle life, an exhibition of its follies be
not preferable to a detail of its calamities? Or, in other words,
which deserves the preference,--the weeping sentimental comedy
so much in fashion at present, or the laughing, and even low
comedy, which seems to have been last exhibited by Vanbrugh and
Cibber?
If we apply to authorities, all the great
masters of the dramatic art have but one opinion. Their rule
is, that as tragedy displays the calamities of the great, so
comedy should excite our laughter by ridiculously exhibiting
the follies of the lower part of mankind. Boileau, one of the
best modern critics, asserts that comedy will not admit of tragic
distress:--
- Le comique, ennemi des soupirs et des
pleurs,
- N'admet point dans ses vers de tragiques
douleurs.
Nor is this rule without the strongest
foundation in nature, as the distresses of the mean by no means
affect us so strongly as the calamities of the great. When tragedy
exhibits to us some great man fallen from his height, and struggling
with want and adversity, we feel his situation in the same manner
as we suppose he himself must feel, and our pity is increased
in proportion to the height from which he fell. On the contrary,
we do not so strongly sympathize with one born in humbler circumstances,
and encountering accidental distress: so that while we melt for
Belisarius, we scarcely give halfpence to the beggar who accosts
us in the street. The one has our pity, the other our contempt.
Distress, therefore, is the proper object of tragedy, since the
great excite our pity by their fall; but not equally so of comedy,
since the actors employed in it are originally so mean, that
they sink but little by their fall.
Since the first origin of the stage, tragedy
and comedy have run in distinct channels, and never till of late
encroached upon the provinces of each other. Terence,
who seems to have made the nearest approaches, always judiciously
stops short before he comes to the downright pathetic; and yet
he is even reproached by Caesar for wanting the vis comica.
All the other comic writers of antiquity aim only at rendering
folly or vice ridiculous, but never exalt their characters into
buskined pomp, or make what Voltaire
humorously calls a tradesman's tragedy.
Yet notwithstanding this weight of authority,
and the universal practice of former ages, a new species of dramatic
composition has been introduced, under the name of sentimental
comedy, in which the virtues of private life are exhibited,
rather than the vices exposed; and the distresses rather than
the faults of mankind make our interest in the piece. These comedies
have had of late great success, perhaps from their novelty, and
also from their flattering everyman in his favorite foible. In
these plays almost all the characters are good, and exceedingly
generous; they are lavish enough of their tin money on
the stage; and though they want humor, have abundance of sentiment
and feeling. If they happen to have faults or foibles, the spectator
is taught, not only to pardon, but to applaud them, in consideration
of the goodness of their hearts; so that folly, instead of being
ridiculed, is commended, and the comedy aims at touching our
passions without the power of being truly pathetic. In this manner
we are likely to lose one great source of entertainment on the
stage; for while the comic poet is invading the province of the
tragic muse, he leaves her lovely sister quite neglected. Of
this, however, he is no way solicitous, as he measures his fame
by his profits.
But it will be said, that the theater is
formed to amuse mankind, and that it matters little, if this
end be answered, by what means it is obtained. If mankind find
delight in weeping at comedy, it would be cruel to abridge them
in that or any other innocent pleasure. If those pieces are denied
by the name of comedies, yet call them by any other name and,
if they are delightful, they are good. Their success, it will
be said, is a mark of their merit, and it is only abridging our
happiness to deny us an inlet to amusement.
These objections, however, are rather specious
than solid. It is true that amusement is a great object of the
theater, and it will be allowed that these sentimental pieces
do often amuse us; but the question is, whether the true comedy
would not amuse us more? The question is, whether a character
supported throughout a piece, with its ridicule still attending,
would not give us more delight than this species of bastard tragedy,
which only is applauded because it is new?
A friend of mine, who was sitting unmoved
at one of these sentimental pieces, was asked how he could be
so indifferent? "Why, truly," says he, "as the
hero is but a tradesman, it is indifferent to me whether he be
turned out of his counting-house on Fish Street Hill, since he
will still have enough to open shop in St. Giles'."
The other objection is as ill-grounded;
for though we should give these pieces another name, it will
not mend their efficacy. It will continue a kind of mulish
production, with all the defects of its opposite parents,
and marked with sterility. If we are permitted to make comedy
weep, we have an equal right to make tragedy laugh, and to set
down in blank verse the jests and repartees of all the attendants
in a funeral procession.
But there is one argument in favor of sentimental
comedy, which will keep it on the stage, in spite of all that
can be said against it. It is, of all others, the most easily
written. Those abilities that can hammer out a novel are fully
sufficient for the production of a sentimental comedy. It is
only sufficient to raise the characters a little; to deck out
the hero with a riband, or give the heroine a title; then to
put an insipid dialogue, without character or humor, into their
mouths, give them mighty good hearts, very fine clothes, furnish
a new set of scenes, make a pathetic scene or two, with a sprinkling
of tender melancholy conversation through the whole, and there
is no doubt but all the ladies will cry and all the gentlemen
applaud.
Humor at present seems to be departing
from the stage, and it will soon happen that our comic players
will have nothing left for it but a fine coat and a song. It
depends upon the audience whether they will actually drive those
poor merry creatures from the stage, or sit at a play as gloomy
as at the Tabernacle. It is not easy to recover an art when once
lost; and it will be but a just punishment, that when, by our
being too fastidious, we have banished humor from the stage,
we should ourselves be deprived of the art of laughing.
This article is reprinted
from The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer. Oliver
Goldsmith. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1911.
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