Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (tr John Black) | Page 8

great
interest here when first published, some thirty years since, and have
worthily taken a permanent place in our libraries."
His collection of books, which was rather extensive, and rich in
Oriental, especially Sanscrit literature, was sold by auction in Bonn,
December, 1845. It appears by a chronological list prefixed to the
catalogue, that reckoning both his separate publications and those
contributed to periodicals, his printed works number no fewer than 126.
Besides these he left many unpublished manuscripts, which, says the
_Athenaeum_, "he bequeathed to the celebrated archaeologist, Welcker,
professor at the Royal University of Bonn, with a request that he would
cause them to be published."

DRAMATIC LITERATURE.

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.
The object of the present series of Lectures will be to combine the
theory of Dramatic Art with its history, and to bring before my auditors
at once its principles and its models.
It belongs to the general philosophical theory of poetry, and the other
fine arts, to establish the fundamental laws of the beautiful. Every art,
on the other hand, has its own special theory, designed to teach the
limits, the difficulties, and the means by which it must be regulated in
its attempt to realize those laws. For this purpose, certain scientific
investigations are indispensable to the artist, although they have but
little attraction for those whose admiration of art is confined to the
enjoyment of the actual productions of distinguished minds. The
general theory, on the other hand, seeks to analyze that essential faculty
of human nature--the sense of the beautiful, which at once calls the fine
arts into existence, and accounts for the satisfaction which arises from
the contemplation of them; and also points out the relation which
subsists between this and all other sentient and cognizant faculties of
man. To the man of thought and speculation, therefore, it is of the
highest importance, but by itself alone it is quite inadequate to guide
and direct the essays and practice of art.
Now, the history of the fine arts informs us what has been, and the
theory teaches what ought to be accomplished by them. But without
some intermediate and connecting link, both would remain independent
and separate from one and other, and each by itself, inadequate and
defective. This connecting link is furnished by criticism, which both
elucidates the history of the arts, and makes the theory fruitful. The
comparing together, and judging of the existing productions of the
human mind, necessarily throws light upon the conditions which are
indispensable to the creation of original and masterly works of art.
Ordinarily, indeed, men entertain a very erroneous notion of criticism,
and understand by it nothing more than a certain shrewdness in
detecting and exposing the faults of a work of art. As I have devoted
the greater part of my life to this pursuit, I may be excused if, by way

of preface, I seek to lay before my auditors my own ideas of the true
genius of criticism.
We see numbers of men, and even whole nations, so fettered by the
conventions of education and habits of life, that, even in the
appreciation of the fine arts, they cannot shake them off. Nothing to
them appears natural, appropriate, or beautiful, which is alien to their
own language, manners, and social relations. With this exclusive mode
of seeing and feeling, it is no doubt possible to attain, by means of
cultivation, to great nicety of discrimination within the narrow circle to
which it limits and circumscribes them. But no man can be a true critic
or connoisseur without universality of mind, without that flexibility
which enables him, by renouncing all personal predilections and blind
habits, to adapt himself to the peculiarities of other ages and nations--to
feel them, as it were, from their proper central point, and, what
ennobles human nature, to recognise and duly appreciate whatever is
beautiful and grand under the external accessories which were
necessary to its embodying, even though occasionally they may seem
to disguise and distort it. There is no monopoly of poetry for particular
ages and nations; and consequently that despotism in taste, which
would seek to invest with universal authority the rules which at first,
perhaps, were but arbitrarily advanced, is but a vain and empty
pretension. Poetry, taken in its widest acceptation, as the power of
creating what is beautiful, and representing it to the eye or the ear, is a
universal gift of Heaven, being shared to a certain extent even by those
whom we call barbarians and savages. Internal excellence is alone
decisive, and where this exists, we must not allow ourselves to be
repelled by the