Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (tr John Black) | Page 2

Unity--Influence of these rules on French Tragedy--Manner of treating Mythological and Historical Materials--Idea of Tragical Dignity-- Observation of Conventional Rules--False System of Expositions.
LECTURE XIX.
Use at first made of the Spanish Theatre by the French--General Character of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire--Review of the principal Works of Corneille and of Racine--Thomas Corneille and Crebillon.
LECTURE XX.
Voltaire--Tragedies on Greek Subjects: _Oedipe_, _Merope_, _Oreste_-- Tragedies on Roman Subjects: _Brute_, _Mort de C��sar_, _Catiline_, _Le Triumvirat_--Earlier Pieces: _Zaire_, _Alzire_, _Mahomet_, _Semiramis_, And Tancred.
LECTURE XXI.
French Comedy--Moli��re--Criticism of his Works--Scarron, Boursault, Regnard; Comedies in the Time of the Regency; Marivaux and Destouches; Piron and Gresset--Later Attempts--The Heroic Opera: Quinault--Operettes and Vaudevilles--Diderot's attempted Change of the Theatre--The Weeping Drama--Beaumarchais--Melo-Dramas--Merits and Defects of the Histrionic Art.
LECTURE XXII.
Comparison of the English and Spanish Theatres--Spirit of the Romantic Drama--Shakspeare--His Age and the Circumstances of his Life.
LECTURE XXIII.
Ignorance or Learning of Shakspeare--Costume as observed by Shakspeare, and how far necessary, or may be dispensed with, in the Drama--Shakspeare the greatest drawer of Character--Vindication of the genuineness of his pathos--Play on Words--Moral Delicacy--Irony-Mixture of the Tragic and Comic--The part of the Fool or Clown--Shakspeare's Language and Versification.
LECTURE XXIV.
Criticisms on Shakspeare's Comedies.
LECTURE XXV.
Criticisms on Shakspeare's Tragedies.
LECTURE XXVI.
Criticisms on Shakspeare's Historical Dramas.
LECTURE XXVII.
Two Periods of the English Theatre: the first the most important--The first Conformation of the Stage, and its Advantages--State of the Histrionic Art in Shakspeare's Time--Antiquities of Dramatic Literature-- Lilly, Marlow, Heywood--Ben Jonson; Criticism of his Works--Masques-- Beaumont and Fletcher--General Characterization of these Poets, and Remarks on some of their Pieces--Massinger and other Contemporaries of Charles I.
LECTURE XXVIII.
Closing of the Stage by the Puritans--Revival of the Stage under Charles II.--Depravity of Taste and Morals--Dryden, Otway, and others-- Characterization of the Comic Poets from Wycherley and Congreve to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century--Tragedies of the same Period--Rowe-- Addison's _Cato_--Later Pieces--Familiar Tragedy: Lillo--Garrick-- Latest State.
LECTURE XXIX.
Spanish Theatre--Its three Periods: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon-- Spirit of the Spanish Poetry in general--Influence of the National History on it--Form, and various Species of the Spanish Drama--Decline since the beginning of the Eighteenth Century.
LECTURE XXX.
Origin of the German Theatre--Hans Sachs--Gryphius--The Age of Gottsched-- Wretched Imitation of the French--Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller--Review of their Works--Their Influence on Chivalrous Dramas, Affecting Dramas, and Family Pictures--Prospect for Futurity.

PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR.
The Lectures of A. W. SCHLEGEL on Dramatic Poetry have obtained high celebrity on the Continent, and been much alluded to of late in several publications in this country. The boldness of his attacks on rules which are considered as sacred by the French critics, and on works of which the French nation in general have long been proud, called forth a more than ordinary degree of indignation against his work in France. It was amusing enough to observe the hostility carried on against him in the Parisian Journals. The writers in these Journals found it much easier to condemn M. SCHLEGEL than to refute him: they allowed that what he said was very ingenious, and had a great appearance of truth; but still they said it was not truth. They never, however, as far as I could observe, thought proper to grapple with him, to point out anything unfounded in his premises, or illogical in the conclusions which he drew from them; they generally confined themselves to mere assertions, or to minute and unimportant observations by which the real question was in no manner affected.
In this country the work will no doubt meet with a very different reception. Here we have no want of scholars to appreciate the value of his views of the ancient drama; and it will be no disadvantage to him, in our eyes, that he has been unsparing in his attack on the literature of our enemies. It will hardly fail to astonish us, however, to find a stranger better acquainted with the brightest poetical ornament of this country than any of ourselves; and that the admiration of the English nation for Shakspeare should first obtain a truly enlightened interpreter in a critic of Germany.
It is not for me, however, to enlarge on the merits of a work which has already obtained so high a reputation. I shall better consult my own advantage in giving a short extract from the animated account of M. SCHLEGEL'S Lectures in the late work on Germany by Madame de Sta?l:--
"W. SCHLEGEL has given a course of Dramatic Literature at Vienna, which comprises every thing remarkable that has been composed for the theatre, from the time of the Grecians to our own days. It is not a barren nomenclature of the works of the various authors: he seizes the spirit of their different sorts of literature with all the imagination of a poet. We are sensible that to produce such consequences extraordinary studies are required: but learning is not perceived in this work, except by his perfect knowledge of the _chefs-d'oeuvre_