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

both--Comedies of
Ariosto, Aretin, Porta--Improvisatore Masks--Goldoni--Gozzi--Latest
state.
LECTURE XVII.
Antiquities of the French Stage--Influence of Aristotle and the
Imitation of the Ancients--Investigation of the Three Unities--What is
Unity of Action?--Unity of Time--Was it observed by the
Greeks?--Unity of Place as connected with it.

LECTURE XVIII.
Mischief resulting to the French Stage from too narrow Interpretation
of the Rules of 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 César_,
_Catiline_, _Le Triumvirat_--Earlier Pieces: _Zaire_, _Alzire_,
_Mahomet_, _Semiramis_, And Tancred.
LECTURE XXI.
French Comedy--Molière--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
Staël:--
"W. SCHLEGEL has given a