Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (tr John Black)

Lectures on Dramatic Art and
Literature (tr John Black) [with
accents]

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Title: Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature
Author: August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

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DRAMATIC ART ***

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"Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every
variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness
to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go
amiss and the world frown upon me, it would he a taste for reading....
Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can
hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his
hands a most perverse selection of Books. You place him in contact
with the best society in every period of history,--with the wisest, the
wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have
adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a
contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him."--SIR
JOHN HERSCHEL. _Address on the opening of the Eton Library_,
1833.
LECTURES ON DRAMATIC ART AND LITERATURE
BY AUGUST WILHELM SCHLEGEL.

CONTENTS.
Preface of the Translator.
Author's Preface.
Memoir of the Life of Augustus William Schlegel.

LECTURE I.
Introduction--Spirit of True Criticism--Difference of Taste between the
Ancients and Moderns--Classical and Romantic Poetry and
Art--Division of Dramatic Literature; the Ancients, their Imitators, and
the Romantic Poets.
LECTURE II.
Definition of the Drama--View of the Theatres of all
Nations--Theatrical Effect--Importance of the Stage--Principal Species
of the Drama.
LECTURE III.
Essence of Tragedy and Comedy--Earnestness and Sport--How far it is
possible to become acquainted with the Ancients without knowing
Original Languages--Winkelmann.
LECTURE IV.
Structure of the Stage among the Greeks--Their Acting--Use of
Masks--False comparison of Ancient Tragedy to the Opera--Tragical
Lyric Poetry.
LECTURE V.
Essence of the Greek Tragedies--Ideality of the Representation--Idea of
Fate--Source of the Pleasure derived from Tragical
Representations--Import of the Chorus--The materials of Greek
Tragedy derived from Mythology-- Comparison with the Plastic Arts.
LECTURE VI.
Progress of the Tragic Art among the Greeks--Various styles of Tragic
Art --Aeschylus--Connexion in a Trilogy of Aeschylus--His remaining
Works.
LECTURE VII.
Life and Political Character of Sophocles--Character of his different
Tragedies.
LECTURE VIII.
Euripides--His Merits and Defects--Decline of Tragic Poetry through
him.
LECTURE IX.
Comparison between the Choephorae of Aeschylus, the Electra of
Sophocles, and that of Euripides.
LECTURE X.
Character of the remaining Works of Euripides--The Satirical Drama--

Alexandrian Tragic Poets.
LECTURE XI.
The Old Comedy proved to be completely a contrast to
Tragedy--Parody-- Ideality of Comedy the reverse of that of
Tragedy--Mirthful Caprice-- Allegoric and Political Signification--The
Chorus and its Parabases.
LECTURE XII.
Aristophanes--His Character as an Artist--Description and Character of
his remaining Works--A Scene, translated from the _Acharnae_, by
way of Appendix.
LECTURE XIII.
Whether the Middle Comedy was a distinct species--Origin of the New
Comedy--A mixed species--Its prosaic character--Whether versification
is essential to Comedy--Subordinate kinds--Pieces of Character, and of
Intrigue--The Comic of observation, of self-consciousness, and
arbitrary Comic--Morality of Comedy.
LECTURE XIV.
Plautus and Terence as Imitators of the Greeks, here examined and
characterized in the absence of the Originals they copied--Motives of
the Athenian Comedy from Manners and Society--Portrait-Statues of
two Comedians.
LECTURE XV.
Roman Theatre--Native kinds: Atellane Fables, Mimes, Comoedia
Togata-- Greek Tragedy transplanted to Rome--Tragic Authors of a
former Epoch, and of the Augustan Age--Idea of a National Roman
Tragedy--Causes of the want of success of the Romans in
Tragedy--Seneca.
LECTURE XVI.
The Italians--Pastoral Dramas of Tasso and Guarini--Small progress in
Tragedy--Metastasio and Alfieri--Character of