A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance Part 5

To expand this definition, tragedy, in common with all other forms of poetry, is the imitation of an action; but the action of tragedy is distinguished from that of comedy in being grave and serious. The action is complete, in so far as it possesses perfect unity; and in length it must be of the proper magnitude. By embellished language, Aristotle means language into which rhythm, harmony, and song enter; and by the remark that the several kinds are to be found in separate parts of the play, he means that some parts of tragedy are rendered through the medium of verse alone, while others receive the aid of song. Moreover, tragedy is distinguished from epic poetry by being in the form of action instead of that of narration. The last portion of Aristotle's definition describes the peculiar function of tragic performance.

I. _The Subject of Tragedy_

Tragedy is the imitation of a _serious_ action, that is, an action both grave and great, or, as the sixteenth century translated the word, ill.u.s.trious. Now, what const.i.tutes a serious action, and what actions are not suited to the dignified character of tragedy? Daniello (1536) distinguishes tragedy from comedy in that the comic poets "deal with the most familiar and domestic, not to say base and vile operations; the tragic poets, with the deaths of high kings and the ruins of great empires."[110] Whichever of these matters the poet selects should be treated without admixture of any other form; if he resolves to treat of grave matters, mere loveliness should be excluded; if of themes of loveliness, he should exclude all grave themes. Here, at the very beginning of dramatic discussion, the strict separation of themes or _genres_ is advocated in as formal a manner as ever during the period of cla.s.sicism; and this was never deviated from, at least in theory, by any of the writers of the sixteenth century. Moreover, according to Daniello, the dignified character of tragedy demands that all unseemly, cruel, impossible, or ign.o.ble incidents should be excluded from the stage; while even comedy should not attempt to represent any lascivious act.[111] This was merely a deduction from Senecan tragedy and the general practice of the cla.s.sics.

There is, in Daniello's theory of tragedy, no single Aristotelian element, and it was not until about a decade later that Aristotle's theory of tragedy played any considerable part in the literary criticism of the sixteenth century. In 1543, however, the _Poetics_ had already become a part of university study, for Giraldi Cintio, in his _Discorso sulle Comedie e sulle Tragedie_, written in that year, says that it was a regular academic exercise to compare some Greek tragedy, such as the _Oedipus_ of Sophocles, with a tragedy of Seneca on the same subject, using the _Poetics_ of Aristotle as a dramatic text-book.[112] Giraldi distinguishes tragedy from comedy on somewhat the same grounds as Daniello. "Tragedy and comedy," he says, "agree in that they are both imitations of an action, but they differ in that the former imitates the ill.u.s.trious and royal, the latter the popular and civil. Hence Aristotle says that comedy imitates the worse sort of actions, not that they are vicious and criminal, but that, as regards n.o.bility, they are worse when compared with royal actions." Giraldi's position is made clear by his further statement that the actions of tragedy are called ill.u.s.trious, not because they are virtuous or vicious, but merely because they are the actions of people of the highest rank.[113]

This conception of the serious action of tragedy, which makes its dignity the result of the rank of those who are its actors, and thus regards rank as the real distinguishing mark between comedy and tragedy, was not only common throughout the Renaissance, but even throughout the whole period of cla.s.sicism, and had an extraordinary effect on the modern drama, especially in France. Thus Dacier (1692) says that it is not necessary that the action be ill.u.s.trious and important in itself: "On the contrary, it may be very ordinary or common; but it must be so by the quality of the persons who act.... The greatness of these eminent men renders the action great, and their reputation makes it credible and possible."[114]

Again, Robortelli (1548) maintains that tragedy deals only with the greater sort of men (_praestantiores_), because the fall of men of such rank into misery and disgrace produces greater commiseration (which is, as will be seen, one of the functions of tragedy) than the fall of men of merely ordinary rank. Another commentator on the _Poetics_, Maggi (1550), gives a slightly different explanation of Aristotle's meaning.

Maggi a.s.serts that Aristotle,[115] in saying that comedy deals with the worse and tragedy with the better sort of men, means to distinguish between those whose rank is lower or higher than that of ordinary men; comedy dealing with slaves, tradesmen, maidservants, buffoons, and other low people, tragedy with kings and heroes.[116] This explanation is defended on grounds similar to those given by Robortelli, that is, the change from felicity to infelicity is greater and more noticeable in the greatest men.[117]

This conception of the rank of the characters as the distinguishing mark between tragedy and comedy is, it need not be said, entirely un-Aristotelian. "Aristotle does undoubtedly hold," says Professor Butcher, "that actors in tragedy ought to be ill.u.s.trious by birth and position. The narrow and trivial life of obscure persons cannot give scope for a great and significant action, one of tragic consequence. But nowhere does he make outward rank the distinguishing feature of tragic as opposed to comic representation. Moral n.o.bility is what he demands; and this--on the French stage, or at least with French critics--is transformed into an inflated dignity, a courtly etiquette and decorum, which seemed proper to high rank. The instance is one of many in which literary critics have wholly confounded the teaching of Aristotle."[118]

This distinction, then, though common up to the end of the eighteenth century, is not to be found in Aristotle; but the fact is, that a similar distinction can be traced, throughout the Middle Ages, throughout cla.s.sical antiquity, back almost to the time of Aristotle himself.

The grammarian, Diomedes, has preserved the definition of tragedy formulated by Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor as head of the Peripatetic school. According to this definition, tragedy is "a change in the fortune of a hero."[119] A Greek definition of comedy preserved by Diomedes, and ascribed to Theophrastus also,[120] speaks of comedy as dealing with private and civil fortunes, without the element of danger.

This seems to have been the accepted Roman notion of comedy. In the treatise of Euanthius-Donatus, comedy is said to deal with the common fortunes of men, to begin turbulently, but to end tranquilly and happily; tragedy, on the other hand, has only mighty personages, and ends terribly; its subject is often historical, while that of comedy is always invented by the poet.[121] The third book of Diomedes's _Ars Grammatica_, based on Suetonius's tractate _De Poetis_ (written in the second century A.D.), distinguishes tragedy from comedy in that only heroes, great leaders, and kings are introduced in tragedy, while in comedy the characters are humble and private persons; in the former, lamentations, exiles, bloodshed predominate, in the latter, love affairs and seductions.[122] Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, says very much the same thing: "Comic poets treat of the acts of private men, while tragic poets treat of public matters and the histories of kings; tragic themes are based on sorrowful affairs, comic themes on joyful ones."[123] In another place he speaks of tragedy as dealing with the ancient deeds and misdeeds of infamous kings, and of comedy as dealing with the actions of private men, and with the defilement of maidens and the love affairs of strumpets.[124] In the _Catholicon_ of Johannes Januensis de Balbis (1286) tragedy and comedy are distinguished on similar grounds: tragedy deals only with kings and princes, comedy with private citizens; the style of the former is elevated, that of the latter humble; comedy begins sorrowfully and ends joyfully, tragedy begins joyfully and ends miserably and terribly.[125] For Dante, any poem written in an elevated and sublime style, beginning happily and ending in misery and terror, is a tragedy; his own great vision, written as it is in the vernacular, and beginning in h.e.l.l and ending gloriously in paradise, he calls a comedy.[126]

It appears, therefore, that during the post-cla.s.sic period and throughout the Middle Ages, comedy and tragedy were distinguished on any or all of the following grounds:--

i. The characters in tragedy are kings, princes, or great leaders; those in comedy, humble persons and private citizens.

ii. Tragedy deals with great and terrible actions; comedy with familiar and domestic actions.

iii. Tragedy begins happily and ends terribly; comedy begins rather turbulently and ends joyfully.

iv. The style and diction of tragedy are elevated and sublime; while those of comedy are humble and colloquial.

v. The subjects of tragedy are generally historical; those of comedy are always invented by the poet.

vi. Comedy deals largely with love and seduction; tragedy with exile and bloodshed.

This, then, was the tradition that shaped the un-Aristotelian conception of the distinctions between comedy and tragedy, which persisted throughout and even beyond the Renaissance. Giraldi Cintio has followed most of these traditional distinctions, but he is in closer accord with Aristotle[127] when he a.s.serts that the tragic as well as the comic plot may be purely imaginary and invented by the poet.[128] He explains the traditional conception that the tragic fable should be historical, on the ground that as tragedy deals with the deeds of kings and ill.u.s.trious men, it would not be probable that remarkable actions of such great personages should be left unrecorded in history, whereas the private events treated in comedy could hardly be known to all. Giraldi, however, a.s.serts that it does not matter whether the tragic poet invents his story or not, so long as it follows the law of probability. The poet should choose an action that is probable and dignified, that does not need the intervention of a G.o.d in the unravelling of the plot, that does not occupy much more than the s.p.a.ce of a day, and that can be represented on the stage in three or four hours.[129] In respect to the denouement of tragedy, it may be happy or unhappy, but in either case it must arouse pity and terror; and as for the cla.s.sic notion that no deaths should be represented on the stage, Giraldi declares that those which are not excessively painful may be represented, for they are represented not for the sake of commiseration but of justice. The argument here centres about Aristotle's phrase [Greek: en to phanero thanatoi],[130] but the common practice of cla.s.sicism was based on Horace's express prohibition:--

"Ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet."[131]

Giraldi gives it as a universal rule of the drama that nothing should be represented on the stage which could not with propriety be done in one's own house.[132]

Scaliger's treatment of the dramatic forms is particularly interesting because of its great influence on the neo-cla.s.sical drama. He defines tragedy as an imitation of an ill.u.s.trious event, ending unhappily, written in a grave and weighty style, and in verse.[133] Here he has discarded, or at least disregarded, the Aristotelian definition of tragedy, in favor of the traditional conception which had come down through the Middle Ages. Real tragedy, according to Scaliger, is entirely serious; and although there are a few happy endings in ancient tragedy, the unhappy ending is most proper to the spirit of tragedy itself. _Mortes aut exilia_--these are the fit accompaniments of the tragic catastrophe.[134] The action begins tranquilly, but ends horribly; the characters are kings and princes, from cities, castles, and camps; the language is grave, polished, and entirely opposed to colloquial speech; the aspect of things is troubled, with terrors, menaces, exiles, and deaths on every hand. Taking as his model Seneca, whom he rates above all the Greeks in majesty,[135] he gives as the typical themes of tragedy "the mandates of kings, slaughters, despairs, executions, exiles, loss of parents, parricides, incests, conflagrations, battles, loss of sight, tears, shrieks, lamentations, burials, epitaphs, and funeral songs."[136] Tragedy is further distinguished from comedy on the ground that the latter derives its argument and its chief characters from history, inventing merely the minor characters; while comedy invents its arguments and all its characters, and gives them names of their own. Scaliger distinguishes men, for the purposes of dramatic poetry, according to character and rank;[137] but it would seem that he regarded rank alone as the distinguishing mark between tragedy and comedy. Thus tragedy is made to differ from comedy in three things: in the rank of the characters, in the quality of the actions, and in their different endings; and as a result of these differences, in style also.

The definition of tragedy given by Minturno, in his treatise _De Poeta_ (1559), is merely a paraphrase of Aristotle's. He conceives of tragedy as describing _casus heroum cuius sibi quisque fortunae fuerit faber_, and it thus acts as a warning to men against pride of rank, insolence, avarice, l.u.s.t, and similar pa.s.sions.[138] It is grave and ill.u.s.trious because its characters are ill.u.s.trious; and no variety of persons or events should be introduced that are not in keeping with the calamitous ending. The language throughout must be grave and severe; and Minturno has expressed his censure in such matters by the phrase, _poema amatorio mollique sermone effoeminat_,[139] a censure which would doubtless apply to a large portion of cla.s.sic French tragedy.

In Castelvetro (1570) we find a far more complete theory of the drama than had been attempted by any of his predecessors. His work is by no means a model of what a commentary on Aristotle's _Poetics_ should be.

In the next century, Dacier, whose subservience to Aristotle was even greater than that of any of the Italians, accuses Castelvetro of lacking every quality necessary to a good interpreter of Aristotle. "He knew nothing," says Dacier, "of the theatre, or of character, or of the pa.s.sions; he understood neither the reasons nor the method of Aristotle; and he sought rather to contradict Aristotle than to explain him."[140]

The fact is that Castelvetro, despite considerable veneration for Aristotle's authority, often shows remarkable independence of thought; and so far from resting content, in his commentary, with the mere explanation of the details of the _Poetics_, he has attempted to deduce from it a more or less complete theory of poetic art. Accordingly, though diverging from many of the details, and still more from the spirit of the _Poetics_, he has, as it were, built up a dramatic system of his own, founded upon certain modifications and misconceptions of the Aristotelian canons. The fundamental idea of this system is quite modern; and it is especially interesting because it indicates that by this time the drama had become more than a mere academic exercise, and was actually regarded as intended primarily for representation on the stage. Castelvetro examines the physical conditions of stage representation, and on this bases the requirements of dramatic literature. The fact that the drama is intended for the stage, that it is to be acted, is at the bottom of his theory of tragedy, and it was to this notion, as will be seen later, that we are to attribute the origin of the unities of time and place.

But Castelvetro's method brings with it its own _reductio ad absurdum_.

For after all, stage representation, while essential to the production of dramatic literature, can never circ.u.mscribe the poetic power or establish its conditions. The conditions of stage representation change, and must change, with the varying conditions of dramatic literature and the inventive faculty of poets, for truly great art makes, or at least fixes, its own conditions. Besides, it is with what is permanent and universal that the artist--the dramatic artist as well as the rest--is concerned; and it is the poetic, and not the dramaturgic, element that is permanent and universal. "The power of tragedy, we may be sure," says Aristotle, "is felt even apart from representation and actors;"[141] and again: "The plot [of a tragedy] ought to be so constructed that even without the aid of the eye any one who is told the incidents will thrill with horror and pity at the turn of events."[142]

But what, according to Castelvetro, are the conditions of stage representation? The theatre is a public place, in which a play is presented before a motley crowd,--_la molt.i.tudine rozza_,--upon a circ.u.mscribed platform or stage, within a limited s.p.a.ce of time. To this idea the whole of Castelvetro's dramatic system is conformed. In the first place, since the audience may be great in number, the theatre must be large, and yet the audience must be able to hear the play; accordingly, verse is added, not merely as a delightful accompaniment, but also in order that the actors may raise their voices without inconvenience and without loss of dignity.[143] In the second place, the audience is not a select gathering of choice spirits, but a motley crowd of people, drawn to the theatre for the purpose of pleasure or recreation; accordingly, abstruse themes, and in fact all technical discussions, must be eschewed by the playwright, who is thus limited, as we should say to-day, to the elemental pa.s.sions and interests of man.[144] In the third place, the actors are required to move about on a raised and narrow platform; and this is the reason why deaths or deeds of violence, and many other things which cannot be acted on such a platform with convenience and dignity, should not be represented in the drama.[145] Furthermore, as will be seen later, it is on this conception of the circ.u.mscribed platform and the physical necessities of the audience and the actors, that Castelvetro bases his theory of the unities of time and place.

In distinguishing the different _genres_, Castelvetro openly differs with Aristotle. In the _Poetics_, Aristotle distinguishes men according as they are better than we are, or worse, or the same as we are; and from this difference the various species of poetry, tragic, comic, and epic, are derived. Castelvetro thinks this mode of distinction not only untrue, but even inconsistent with what Aristotle says later of tragedy.

Goodness and badness are to be taken account of, according to Castelvetro, not to distinguish one form of poetry from another, but merely in the special case of tragedy, in so far as a moderate virtue, as Aristotle says, is best able to produce terror and pity. Poetry, as indeed Aristotle himself acknowledges, is not an imitation of character, or of goodness and badness, but of men acting; and the different kinds of poetry are distinguished, not by the goodness and badness, or the character, of the persons selected for imitation, but by their rank or condition alone. The great and all-pervading difference between royal and private persons is what distinguishes tragedy and epic poetry on the one hand from comedy and similar forms of poetry on the other. It is rank, then, and not intellect, character, action,--for these vary in men according to their condition,--that differentiates one poetic form from another; and the distinguishing mark of rank on the stage, and in literature generally, is the bearing of the characters, royal persons acting with propriety, and meaner persons with impropriety.[146]

Castelvetro has here escaped one pitfall, only to fall into another; for while goodness and badness cannot, from any aesthetic standpoint, be made to distinguish the characters of tragedy from those of comedy,--leaving out of consideration here the question whether this was or was not the actual opinion of Aristotle,--it is no less improper to make mere outward rank or condition the distinguishing feature. Whether it be regarded as an interpretation of Aristotle or as a poetic theory by itself, Castelvetro's contention is, in either case, equally untenable.

II. _The Function of Tragedy_

No pa.s.sage in Aristotle's _Poetics_ has been subjected to more discussion, and certainly no pa.s.sage has been more misunderstood, than that in which, at the close of his definition of tragedy, he states its peculiar function to be that of effecting through pity and fear the proper purgation ([Greek: katharsis]) of these emotions. The more probable of the explanations of this pa.s.sage are, as Twining says,[147]

reducible to two. The first of these gives to Aristotle's _katharsis_ an ethical meaning, attributing the effect of the tragedy to its moral lesson and example. This interpretation was a literary tradition of centuries, and may be found in such diverse writers as Corneille and Lessing, Racine and Dryden, Dacier and Rapin. According to the second interpretation, the purgation of the emotions produced by tragedy is an emotional relief gained by the excitement of these emotions. Plato had insisted that the drama excites pa.s.sions, such as pity and fear, which debase men's spirits; Aristotle in this pa.s.sage answers that by the very exaltation of these emotions they are given a pleasurable outlet, and beyond this there is effected a purification of the emotions so relieved. That is, the emotions are clarified and purified by being pa.s.sed through the medium of art, and by being, as Professor Butcher points out, enn.o.bled by objects worthy of an ideal emotion.[148] This explanation gives no direct moral purpose or influence to the _katharsis_, for tragedy acts on the feelings and not on the will. While the ethical conception, of course, predominates in Italian criticism, as it does throughout Europe up to the very end of the eighteenth century, a number of Renaissance critics, among them Minturno and Speroni, even if they failed to elaborate the further aesthetic meaning of Aristotle's definition, at least perceived that Aristotle ascribed to tragedy an emotional and not an ethical purpose. It is unnecessary to give a detailed statement of the opinions of the various Italian critics on this point; but it is essential that the interpretations of the more important writers should be alluded to, since otherwise the Renaissance conception of the function of the drama could not be understood.

Giraldi Cintio points out that the aim of comedy and of tragedy is identical, viz. to conduce to virtue; but they reach this result in different ways; for comedy attains its end by means of pleasure and comic jests, while tragedy, whether it ends happily or unhappily, purges the mind of vice through the medium of misery and terror, and thus attains its moral end.[149] Elsewhere,[150] he affirms that the tragic poet condemns vicious actions, and by combining them with the terrible and the miserable makes us fear and hate them. In other words, men who are bad are placed in such pitiable and terrible positions that we fear to imitate their vices; and it is not a purgation of pity and fear, as Aristotle says, but an eradication of all vice and vicious desire that is effected by the tragic _katharsis_. Trissino, in the fifth section of his _Poetica_ (1563), cites Aristotle's definition of tragedy; but makes no attempt to elucidate the doctrine of _katharsis_. His conception of the function of the drama is much the same as Giraldi's. It is the office of the tragic poet, through the medium of imitation, to praise and admire the good, while that of the comic poet is to mock and vituperate the bad; for tragedy, as Aristotle says, deals with the better sort of actions, and comedy with the worse.[151]

Robortelli (1548), however, ascribes a more aesthetic function to tragedy. By the representation of sad and atrocious deeds, tragedy produces terror and commiseration in the spectator's mind. The exercise of terror and commiseration purges the mind of these very pa.s.sions; for the spectator, seeing things performed which are very similar to the actual facts of life, becomes accustomed to sorrow and pity, and these emotions are gradually diminished.[152] Moreover, by seeing the sufferings of others, men sorrow less at their own, recognizing such things as common to human nature. Robortelli's conception of the function of tragedy is, therefore, not an ethical one; the effect of tragedy is understood primarily as diminishing pity and fear in our minds by accustoming us to the sight of deeds that produce these emotions. A similar interpretation of the _katharsis_ is given by Vettori (1560) and Castelvetro (1570).[153] The latter compares the process of purgation with the emotions which are excited by a pestilence. At first the infected populace is crazed by excitement, but gradually becomes accustomed to the sight of the disease, and the emotions of the people are thus tempered and allayed.

A somewhat different conception of _katharsis_ is that of Maggi.

According to him, we are to understand by purgation the liberation through pity and fear of pa.s.sions similar to these, but not pity and fear themselves; for Maggi cannot understand how tragedy, which induces pity and fear in the hearer, should at the same time remove these perturbations.[154] Moreover, pity and fear are useful emotions, while such pa.s.sions as avarice, l.u.s.t, anger, are certainly not. In another place, Maggi, relying on citations from Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander of Aphrodisias, explains the pleasure we receive from tragedy, by pointing out that we feel sorrow by reason of the human heart within us, which is carried out of itself by the sight of misery; while we feel pleasure because it is human and natural to feel pity. Pleasure and pain are thus fundamentally the same.[155] Varchi[156] is at one with Maggi in interpreting the _katharsis_ as a purgation, not of pity and fear themselves, but of emotions similar to them.

For Scaliger (1561) the aim of tragedy, like that of all poetry, is a purely ethical one. It is not enough to move the spectators to admiration and dismay, as some critics say aeschylus does; it is also the poet's function to teach, to move, and to delight. The poet teaches character through actions, in order that we should embrace and imitate the good, and abstain from the bad. The joy of evil men is turned in tragedy to bitterness, and the sorrow of good men to joy.[157] Scaliger is here following the extreme view of poetic justice which we have found expressed in so many of the Renaissance writers. In the last century, Dr. Johnson, in censuring Shakespeare for the tragic fate meted out to Cordelia and other blameless characters, showed himself an inheritor of this Renaissance tradition, just as we shall see that Lessing was in other matters. For Scaliger the moral aim of the drama is attained both indirectly, by the representation of wickedness ultimately punished and virtue ultimately rewarded, and more directly by the enunciation of moral precepts throughout the play. With the Senecan model before him, such precepts (_sententiae_) became the very props of tragedy,--_sunt enim quasi columnae aut pilae quaedam universae fabricae illius_,--and so they remained in modern cla.s.sical tragedy. Minturno points out that these _sententiae_ are to be used most in tragedy and least in epic poetry.[158]

Minturno also follows Scaliger in conceiving that the purpose of tragedy is to teach, to delight, and to move. It teaches by setting before us an example of the life and manners of superior men, who by reason of human error have fallen into extreme unhappiness. It delights us by the beauty of its verse, its diction, its song, and the like. Lastly, it moves us to wonder, by terrifying us and exciting our pity, thus purging our minds of such matters. This process of purgation is likened by Minturno to the method of a physician: "As a physician eradicates, by means of poisonous medicine, the perfervid poison of disease which affects the body, so tragedy purges the mind of its impetuous perturbations by the force of these emotions beautifully expressed in verse."[159]

According to this interpretation of the _katharsis_, tragedy is a mode of h.o.m.oeopathic treatment, effecting the cure of one emotion by means of a similar one; and we find Milton, in the preface to _Samson Agonistes_, explaining the _katharsis_ in much the same manner:--

"Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems; therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like pa.s.sions; that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those pa.s.sions well imitated. Nor is nature wanting in her own effects to make good his a.s.sertion; for so in physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours."

This pa.s.sage has been regarded by Twining, Bernays, and other modern scholars as a remarkable indication of Milton's scholarship and critical insight;[160] but after all, it need hardly be said, he was merely following the interpretation of the Italian commentators on the _Poetics_. Their writings he had studied and knew thoroughly, had imbibed all the critical ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and in the very preface from which we have just quoted, filled as it is with ideas that may be traced back to Italian sources, he acknowledges following "the ancients and Italians," as of great "authority and fame." Like Milton, Minturno conceived of tragedy as having an ethical aim; but both Milton and Minturno clearly perceived that by _katharsis_ Aristotle had reference not to a moral, but to an emotional, effect.

One of the most interesting discussions on the meaning of the _katharsis_ is to be found in a letter of Sperone Speroni[161] written in 1565. His explanation of the pa.s.sage itself is quite an impossible one, if only on philological grounds; but his argument is very interesting and very modern. He points out that pity and fear may be conceived of as keeping the spirit of men in bondage, and hence it is proper that we should be purged of these emotions. But he insists that Aristotle cannot refer to the complete eradication of pity and fear--a conception which is Stoic rather than Peripatetic, for Aristotle does not require us to free ourselves from emotions, but to regulate them, since in themselves they are not bad.

III. _The Characters of Tragedy_

Aristotle's conception of the ideal tragic hero is based on the a.s.sumption that the function of tragedy is to produce the _katharsis_, or purgation, of pity and fear,--"pity being felt for a person who, if not wholly innocent, meets with suffering beyond his deserts; fear being awakened when the sufferer is a man of like nature with ourselves."[162] From this it follows that if tragedy represents the fall of an entirely good man from prosperity to adversity, neither pity nor fear is produced, and the result merely shocks and repels us. If an entirely bad man is represented as undergoing a change from distress to prosperity, not only do we feel no pity and no fear, but even the sense of justice is left unsatisfied. If, on the contrary, such a man entirely bad falls from prosperity into adversity and distress, the moral sense is indeed satisfied, but without the tragic emotions of pity and fear.

The ideal hero is therefore morally between the two extremes, neither eminently good nor entirely bad, though leaning to the side of goodness; and the misfortune which falls upon him is the result of some great flaw of character or fatal error of conduct.[163]

This conception of the tragic hero was the subject of considerable discussion in the Renaissance; in fact, the first instance in Italian criticism of the application of Aristotelian ideas to the theory of tragedy is perhaps to be found in the reference of Daniello (1536) to the tragic hero's fate. Daniello, however, understood Aristotle's meaning very incompletely, for he points out that tragedy, in order to imitate most perfectly the miserable and the terrible, should not introduce just and virtuous men fallen into vice and injustice through the adversity of fortune, for this is more wicked than it is miserable and terrible, nor should evil men, on the contrary, be introduced as changed by prosperity into good and just men.[164] Here Daniello conceives of tragedy as representing the change of a man from vice to virtue, or from virtue to vice, through the medium of prosperity or misfortune. This is a curious misconception of Aristotle's meaning.

Aristotle refers, not to the ethical effect of tragedy, but to the effect of the emotions of pity and terror upon the mind of the spectator, although of course he does not wish the catastrophe to shock the moral sense or the sense of justice.

Giraldi Cintio, some years after Daniello, follows Aristotle more closely in the conception of the tragic hero; and he affirms, moreover, that tragedy may end happily or unhappily so long as it inspires pity and terror. Now, Aristotle has expressly stated his disapprobation of the happy ending of tragedy, for in speaking of tragedies with a double thread and a double catastrophe, that is, tragedies in which the good are ultimately rewarded and the bad punished, he shows that such a conclusion is decidedly against the general tragic effect.[165]

Scaliger's conception of the moral function of the tragic poet as rewarding virtue and punishing vice is therefore inconsistent with the Aristotelian conception; for, as Scaliger insists that every tragedy should end unhappily, it follows that only the good must survive and only the bad suffer. Another critic of this time, Capriano (1555), points out that the fatal ending of tragedy is due to the inability of certain ill.u.s.trious men to conduct themselves with prudence; and this is more in keeping with Aristotle's true meaning.[166]

It has been seen that Aristotle regarded a perfectly good man as not fitted to be the ideal hero of tragedy. Minturno, however, a.s.serts that tragedy is grave and ill.u.s.trious because its characters are ill.u.s.trious, and that therefore he can see no reason, despite Aristotle, why the lives of perfect men or Christian saints should not be represented on the stage, and why even the life of Christ would not be a fit subject for tragedy.[167] This is, indeed, Corneille's opinion, and in the _examen_ of his _Polyeucte_ he cites Minturno in justification of his own case. As regards the other characters of tragedy, Minturno states a curious distinction between characters fit for tragedy and those fit for comedy.[168] In the first place, he points out that no young girls, with the exception of female slaves, should appear in comedy, for the reason that the women of the people do not appear in public until marriage, and would be sullied by the company of the low characters of comedy, whereas the maidens of tragedy are princesses, accustomed to meet and converse with n.o.blemen from girlhood. Secondly, married women are always represented in comedy as faithful, in tragedy as unfaithful to their husbands, for the reason that comedy concludes with friendship and tranquillity, and unfaithful relations could never end happily, while the love depicted in tragedy serves to bring about the tragic ruin of great houses. Thirdly, in comedy old men are often represented as in love, but never in tragedy, for an amorous old man is conducive to laughter, which comedy aims at producing, but which would be wholly out of keeping with the gravity required in tragedy. These distinctions are of course deduced from the practice of the Latin drama--the tragedies of Seneca on the one hand, and the comedies of Plautus and Terence on the other.

In a certain pa.s.sage of Aristotle's _Poetics_ there is a formulation of the requirements of character-drawing in the drama.[169] In this pa.s.sage Aristotle says that the characters must be good; that they must be drawn with propriety, that is, in keeping with the type to which they belong; that they must be true to life, something quite distinct either from goodness or propriety; and that the characters must be self-consistent.

This pa.s.sage gave rise to a curious conception of character in the Renaissance and throughout the period of cla.s.sicism. According to this, the conception of _decorum_, it was insisted that every old man should have such and such characteristics, every young man certain others, and so on for the soldier, the merchant, the Florentine or Parisian, and the like. This fixed and formal mode of regarding character was connected with the distinction of rank as the fundamental difference between the characters of tragedy and comedy, and it was really founded on a pa.s.sage in Horace's _Ars Poetica_,--