|
succedaneum that will move us, will delight us. The intention of the author is of
less importance to us than our own enjoyment, and we need a charm that is
adapted for us.”
CHAPTER VII.
One evening a dispute arose among our friends about the novel and the drama,
and which of them deserved the preference. Serlo said it was a fruitless and
misunderstood debate: both might be superior in their kinds, only each must
keep within the limits proper to it.
“About their limits and their kinds,” said Wilhelm, “I confess myself not
altogether clear.”
“Who is so?” said the other; “and yet perhaps it were worth while to come a
little closer to the business.”
They conversed together long upon the matter; and, in fine, the following was
nearly the result of their discussion: —
“In the novel as well as in the drama, it is human nature and human action that
we see. The difference between these sorts of fiction lies not merely in their
outward form, — not merely in the circumstance that the personages of the one
are made to speak, while those of the other have commonly their history
narrated. Unfortunately many dramas are but novels, which proceed by dialogue;
and it would not be impossible to write a drama in the shape of letters.
“But, in the novel, it is chiefly sentiments and events that are exhibited; in the
drama, it is characters and deeds. The novel must go slowly forward; and the
sentiments of the hero, by some means or another, must restrain the tendency of
the whole to unfold itself and to conclude. The drama, on the other hand, must
hasten: and the character of the hero must press forward to the end: it does not
restrain, but is restrained. The novel-hero must be suffering, — at least he must
not in a high degree be active: in the dramatic one, we look for activity and
deeds. Grandison, Clarissa, Pamela, the Vicar of Wakefield, Tom Jones himself,
are, if not suffering, at least retarding, personages; and the incidents are all in
some sort modelled by their sentiments. In the drama the hero models nothing by
himself; all things withstand him; and he clears and casts away the hinderances
from off his path, or else sinks under them.”
Our friends were also of opinion, that, in the novel, some degree of scope may
be allowed to Chance, but that it must always be led and guided by the
sentiments of the personages: on the other hand, that Fate, which, by means of
outward, unconnected circumstances, carries forward men, without their own
concurrence, to an unforeseen catastrophe, can have place only in the drama; that
Chance may produce pathetic situations, but never tragic ones; Fate, on the other
hand, ought always to be terrible, — and is, in the highest sense, tragic, when it
brings into a ruinous concatenation the guilty man, and the guiltless that was
unconcerned with him.
These considerations led them back to the play of “Hamlet,” and the
peculiarities of its composition. The hero in this case, it was observed, is
endowed more properly with sentiments than with a character: it is events alone
that push him on, and accordingly the play has in some measure the expansion of
a novel. But as it is Fate that draws the plan, as the story issues from a deed of
terror, and the hero is continually driven forward to a deed of terror, the work is
tragic in the highest sense, and admits of no other than a tragic end.
The book-rehearsal was now to take place, to which Wilhelm had looked
forward as to a festival. Having previously collated all the parts, no obstacle on
this side could oppose him. The whole of the actors were acquainted with the
piece: he endeavored to impress their minds with the importance of these book-
rehearsals. “As you require,” said he, “of every musical performer, that he shall,
in some degree, be able to play from the book: so every actor, every educated
man, should train himself to recite from the book, to catch immediately the
character of any drama, any poem, any tale he may be reading, and exhibit it
with grace and readiness. No committing to memory will be of service, if the
actor have not, in the first place, penetrated into the sense and spirit of his
author: the mere letter will avail him nothing.”
Serlo declared that he would overlook all subsequent rehearsals, — the last
rehearsal itself, — if justice were but done to these rehearsals from the book.
“For, commonly,” said he, “there is nothing more amusing than to hear an actor
speak of study: it is as if freemasons were to talk of building.”
The rehearsal passed according to their wishes; and we may assert, that the
fame and favor which our company acquired afterwards had their foundation in
these few but well-spent hours.
“You did right, my friend,” said Serlo, when they were alone, “in speaking to
our fellow-laborers so earnestly; and yet I am afraid they will scarcely fulfil your
wishes.”
“How so?” asked Wilhelm.
“I have noticed,” answered Serlo, “that, as easily as you may set in motion the
imaginations of men, gladly as they listen to your tales and fictions, it is yet very
seldom that you find among them any touch of an imagination you can call
productive. In actors this remark is strikingly exemplified. Any one of them is
well content to undertake a beautiful, praiseworthy, brilliant part; and seldom
will any one of them do more than self-complacently transport himself into his
hero’s place, without in the smallest troubling his head whether other people
view him so or not. But to seize with vivacity what the author’s feeling was in
writing; what portion of your individual qualities you must cast off, in order to
do justice to a part; how, by your own conviction that you are become another
man, you may carry with you the convictions of the audience; how, by the
inward truth of your conceptive power, you can change these boards into a
temple, this pasteboard into woods, — to seize and execute all this, is given to
very few. That internal strength of soul, by which alone deception can be
brought about; that lying truth, without which nothing will affect us rightly, —
have, by most men, never even been imagined.
“Let us not, then, press too hard for spirit and feeling in our friends. The surest
way is first coolly to instruct them in the sense and letter of the play, — if
possible, to open their understandings. Whoever has the talent will then, of his
own accord, eagerly adopt the spirited feeling and manner of expression; and
those who have it not will at least be prevented from acting or reciting altogether
falsely. And among actors, as indeed in all cases, there is no worse arrangement
than for any one to make pretensions to the spirit of a thing, while the sense and
letter of it are not ready and clear to him.”
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: | 
