Studies of Contemporary Poets Part 18

The dramatic sense is clearly operative there. Here is an instinct which perceives the kinetic values of things; which seizes unerringly upon the stuff of drama, and, contemplating a character, an event or a situation, feels it start into life under the touch and sees it move forward and rush to a crisis before the eyes. In the lyrics this quality is often merely latent; but in the plays it has come to full power and has found expression through its own proper medium. It is, of course, the originating impulse of drama as well as the force that shapes it; and if we would take some measure of this creative energy in our poet, we have only to observe that all of his five plays were published in five years, one play to each year. The first, _Joan of Arc_, appeared in 1909; the last, _Belisarius_, came out in 1913; the other three, _Mary Queen of Scots_, _Manin_, and _Marcus Aurelius_, belong respectively to the three intervening years. And there is another ready, representing 1914!

Moreover, they are all fully developed and of rather elaborate structure. Being poetic and historical drama, perhaps it is natural that they should follow the Shakespearean model, though their dependence on tradition is a curious fact at this time of day. _Joan of Arc_ and _Mary Queen of Scots_ are both of five-act length, and the rest are of four acts. Numerous characters are introduced and a great deal of material is handled: incident is plentiful, situations vary and scenes change with some frequency; while underplot and crossaction bring in interests which are additional to, though subserving, the main theme.

Looking at the work thus, and noting its ma.s.s and general character, one is impelled to pay a first tribute to the fertility of the genius from which it springs, and to the strength and staying power of the dramatic impulse which directs it. But we soon find that this is reinforced by other qualities which are almost as remarkable. There is what one may call a comprehensive intelligence, ranging over wide areas and gathering material in many places, but keeping it all strictly under control and constantly striving to relate and unify so much diversity. There is a constructive gift patiently building up, fitting together, organizing and articulating the form of the work. Selection acts persistently; proportion is generally--though not always--true and fine; a n.o.ble spirit and a manner at once gracious and dignified give the work distinction.

However, all that is little more than to say--here is a genuine artist working conscientiously in a given medium. It does not go far towards a relative estimate of the work as pure drama. Only a detailed critical a.n.a.lysis could do that adequately; though one may perhaps try to indicate two or three of the prominent features of the plays. Thus in _Joan of Arc_ we meet at once certain qualities which become in the later plays definitely characteristic. There is, for example, a conception of the theme which stresses the element of spiritual conflict, and draws upon it, as well as upon its human values, for dramatic inspiration. That is a primary fact in all this work; and in four of the five plays it is implied in the very name of the protagonist. _Joan_, _Manin_, _Marcus Aurelius_ and _Belisarius_ are synonyms for the purest spirituality of which human nature is capable.

They suggest, before a page of this poetry has been turned, that the conflict out of which drama always springs is in this case largely a matter of invisible forces--of principles and ideas. And they point to a type of dramatic art which, trending to fine issues, inevitably deals in quiet effects.

There is, in fact, in the extreme grandeur of these four characters, a possible source of weakness to the plays, as actual drama. There is a danger that Joan may be too good a Christian, Marcus Aurelius too austere a stoic, Manin or Belisarius too absolute an idealist, to put up a strenuous fight against destiny. In the final impression of the plays, indeed, one is aware of a vague touch of regret on that very account; and although that may arise from one's own pugnacity, one suspects the existence of a good many other imperfect humans who will share it; from which it may be inferred that the weakness inherent in the subject has not been entirely overcome. I doubt whether it would be possible to overcome it altogether; and by the same token I salute the power which has evoked profoundly moving and stimulating drama out of themes like these.

Again, in _Joan of Arc_, one may see how the poet uses the human elements of a story to make the stirring scenes through which the spiritual crisis is reached. Thus Joan, in the fundamental struggle of her soul for the soul of France, is brought into external conflict which rounds out the plot with incident. It belongs, of course, to the historical setting of her life, that that conflict is one of actual warfare; but we are bound to admire the art which has placed her as the central figure of those warring factions--the invading English, the army of the Duke of Burgundy, the Church, and Charles the Dauphin. Out of that come the events through which the action proceeds and the incomparable beauty of her character is revealed.

It is the struggle of Joan's enthusiasm with the apathy and indolence of Charles which gives rise to one of the finest scenes in the play. It occurs in Act I, the whole of which is skilfully designed to set the action moving, while indicating so much of the political situation as ought to be known, and the weakness in Charles' character which is the ultimate cause of Joan's downfall. A premonitory note is struck in the opening dialogue. A little story is told by la Tremoille, who is Joan's chief enemy, of how he had just whipped a ragged prophet in the street and caused him to be stoned. It has a double purpose--to introduce Joan, the prophetess of Domremy, as a subject of conversation; and, by reminding us of her own end, to awaken the sense of tragic irony through which we shall view the subsequent action. The talk turns to Joan, who is awaiting audience; and la Tremoille proposes the trick of the disguise. Charles agrees to it, and goes out to put on the dress of a courtier, while his absence is filled out by a lively dialogue which glances lightly from point to point of court life. When Charles and his train re-enter and Joan is brought in, the scene rises strongly to its climax. Joan recognizes the Dauphin through his disguise and announces her divine mission--

I do declare to you That I, no other,--neither duke, nor prince, Nor captain,--no, nor learned gentlemen, But I alone, a girl of Domremy,-- Am sent to save you.

By means of a flexible blank-verse, plain diction, and free and nervous phrasing, dialogue runs with an easy vigour. It is fired by strong and quickly changing emotion--the incredulity of Charles, the base hostility of la Tremoille, the indignation of Joan's friends, or the amazement and curiosity of the courtiers. But for the most part it remains strictly dramatic poetry; that is to say, raised by several degrees above the level of prose, yet closely fitted to personality. When, however, Joan begins to tell about her life, her quiet country home, and the divine command which bade her save her country, the note deepens. The verse becomes lyrical, burning with the mystical pa.s.sion which possesses her--a flame, like the grand simplicity of her own nature, white and intensely clear.

JOAN. Sire, it was in the spring; one afternoon When I was in a meadow all alone, Lying among the gra.s.ses (over head The scurrying clouds were like a flock of sheep, Chased by a sheep-dog); then, all suddenly, I heard a voice--nay, heard I cannot say, There _was_ a voice took hold upon my sense, As if it swallowed up all other sounds In all the world; the birds, the sheep, the bees, The sound of children calling far away, The rustling of the rushes in the stream, Were only like the cloth, whereon appears The gold embroidery, the voice of G.o.d.

ARCHBISHOP. Did you see aught?

JOAN. Yea, see! Our earthly words Cannot express divinity, but like Small vessels over-filled with generous wine, They leave the surplus wasted. If I say, I saw, or heard, that seems to leave untouched The other senses; but indeed, my lords, All of my body seemed transformed to soul.

So I should say I _saw_ the voice of G.o.d, And _heard_ the light effulgent all around, Nay, heard, and saw, and felt through all of me The radiance of the message of the Lord.

Pa.s.sages like that bring home to us the poetical character of this drama. True, they may remind us that in such a form of the art action is likely to lag: that its movement may be impeded, as toward the end of _Joan of Arc_, by long speeches. On the other hand, they emphasize the peculiar virtue of this kind of drama; the twofold nature of its appeal, and the fact that the two elements are often found concentrated at their highest degree in single scenes of great power. With genius of this type (if genius may be cla.s.sified in types!), when the dramatic imagination is most vividly alight, it will inevitably kindle poetry of the finest kind.

Thus, in the last act of _Marcus Aurelius_, we get the force of the whole drama, and all the incidence of the directly preceding scene moving behind and through the Emperor's speech from which I shall quote.

The play has shown the complicity of Faustina in the plot to depose her husband: we know that she is a wanton and a traitress. But Marcus is ignorant of the truth, and generously unsuspecting. After the death of Ca.s.sius, the chief conspirator, Marcus orders an officer to bring all the dead man's papers to him. It is necessary to examine them for the names of accomplices. They are brought in while he is chatting with Faustina; and she knows that they contain certain incriminating letters that she had written. Exposure is imminent--disgrace and probable death for her await the opening of the letters. She tries every ruse that a bold and cunning mentality can suggest to prevent her husband from reading them. She seems about to succeed, but her insistence faintly warning Marcus, she fails after all. He takes up the package and goes away to open it quietly in his tent, and Faustina, believing that in a few minutes he will know all her treachery, drinks poison and dies.

Unconscious of this catastrophe, the Emperor is sitting alone in his tent, with the package of letters on a table before him.

... Here, beneath my hand, Are laid the hidden hearts of many men.

What shall I read therein? Ingrat.i.tude, Lies, envy, spite, the barbed and venomous word Of those that called me Emperor, I called friend; ... Break the seal, and read Which of our subjects, of our intimates, Our friends of many years, are netted here.

How thickly fall the shadows in the tent!

Almost I fancied, with my tired eyes, I saw Faustina there ... Faustina, you!

If I should find _Her_ name among the friends of Ca.s.sius?

Ah no, Faustina, not such perfidy!

The G.o.ds must blush at it! Am I grown grey And learnt no wisdom? Though it should be so-- Though yet it cannot be--what's that to me?

Am _I_ wronged by it? Yet it cannot be, With that frank brow. I've loved you faithfully; It could not be so....

... I will not know More than I must of unprofitable things, Lest they should, in the garden of my soul, Nourish rank weeds of hate and bitterness; I will not hate that which I cannot change.

(_He drops the papers into a tripod._)

Burn! Go into oblivion! The G.o.ds Permit themselves to pity good and bad, Giving to each the sunshine and sweet rain, And hiding all things in the mist of years.

May I not do as G.o.ds do? Burn away, Consume all hate and evil into smoke!

I will not know of them; a.s.suredly For me such ills exist not----

(_The body of Faustina is brought in._)

The same combination of dramatic elements will be found in the crucial scenes of _Manin_ and _Belisarius_. In _Manin_ it is especially notable, because of the curious nature of the crisis. This would seem, on the face of it, almost calculated to inhibit the dramatic impulse: to tend to negative the dynamic properties of character and circ.u.mstance. Manin, the defender of Venice, has held his city against the Austrian enemy by sheer force of character. His courage and confidence and determination have heartened the Venetians to continue their resistance; and his statesmanship has been diligent in trying to secure the intervention of France or England, or military aid from Kossuth. But help is refused from every quarter; the garrison is small and weak; the people are starving, and ravaged by disease. Nevertheless, inspired by their leader, they are willing and eager to resist to the end, although they know that this must bring on them the hideous penalties with which the Austrians notoriously punished that kind of patriotism.

The crux of the drama lies in the problem thus presented to Manin. It is essentially a spiritual struggle: between wisdom on the one hand and patriotic ardour on the other; between foresight and courage; between the long, weary, unattractive processes that make for life and the blind impetuosity that makes for death; between, in his personal career, a prospect of humiliation in exile and the glory of a hero's end. Given the character of Manin, victory in the conflict was bound to lie with reason against pa.s.sion, with sagacity against recklessness; but the victory in this case meant defeat--physical and apparently moral. It would mean to the world, and even to his own people, that, with the surrender of the town, he yielded up the very principles for which he stood. Therein, of course, lies the unusual nature of this crisis. The dramatic instinct has somehow to vitalize a dead weight of failure. To see how that is done--and it _is_ done, finely--one must turn to the scene in Act III, which is the core of the play. There the poet creates an external conflict between Manin and the people which embodies, as it were, the spiritual struggle; and, translating it into action, visibly reveals Manin as a conqueror. Quotations hardly do justice to the poet here, but there are two speeches, one before and one after Manin has won the people to the proposed surrender, which indicate the skill of the art at this point.

The first expresses the agony of failure in Manin's mind, resulting from his decision to yield to the enemy. It is in answer to his faithful friend and secretary, Pezzato, who has been trying to comfort him with a prediction that the freedom of their city and their land is only deferred, that it must ultimately come. Manin replies:

I shall not see it.

I shall be blind beneath my coffin lid There in a foreign land; I shall not see The glory and the splendour of St. Mark's When our Italian flag salutes the sun; I shall be deaf, and never hear the peal Of our triumphant bells, and volleying guns; I shall be dumb, I shall be dumb that day, And never say "My people, for this hour I saved you when I sacrificed you most."

The second pa.s.sage burns with the fire of triumph, tragical but prophetic, which has been kindled in Manin by his struggle with the opposing will of the people and his victory over it:

Of this one thing be sure. A little time, A little hour, in the span of years That history devours, we submit To bow before the flail of tyranny; Ay, it may strike us down, and we may die With Europe pa.s.sive round our Calvary; Yet that for which we stand, for liberty, For equal justice, and the right of laws Purely administered, can never die, Being of the nature of eternity; Nor all the blood that Austria has shed Mar the indelibility of truth; Nor all the graves that Austria has dug Bury it deep enough; nor all the lies That coward hearts have bandied to and fro, And coward hearts received to trick themselves, Smother the face of it.

There remains to be particularly noted the poet's gift of realizing character. It is seen at its best in _Mary Queen of Scots_, where the unfortunate Queen is very strikingly recreated. Out of the diverse and stormy elements of her nature she is made to live again with a clear unity and completeness which are amazing. That is largely the reason why this play is the most powerful of the five, from the point of view of pure drama. Its theme is unerringly chosen, for drama inheres in Mary's being. The seeds of tragedy lurk in her contrasted weakness and strength, excess and defect, n.o.bility and baseness. And, because she has been so brilliantly studied, this play moves at every step to the majestic truth that character is destiny.

The broad lines of Mary's personality are established in the first act, revealing at once the springs of action. The sensuous basis of her nature, her strong will and quick temper, may be seen to set in motion the forces which will presently overwhelm her. Her widowed state is irksome--therefore she will marry. She hates authority--therefore she will make her own choice in the matter of a husband. And finer threads already begin to complicate the issues. She is really fond of Darnley, the weak youth whom she is determined to marry; but that motive is intricately mixed with the satisfaction of insulting Elizabeth through him; while her ready wit gives a spice to her malice which, in dialogue at least, is very refreshing. When she enters the audience-chamber she calls Darnley to her side and, with a gesture towards the gloomy faces of the disaffected n.o.bles, says in merry mockery:

... look you there On these good gentlemen, all friends of ours, The earls of Morton, Ruthven, and Argyll: For friends they are--upon their countenance We see it written.

She turns to the English amba.s.sador:

... Here's Sir Nicholas.

What news of our dear cousin? Has she come At last to give that virgin heart away Into another's keeping, that brave Archduke, Who'd bite your hand, they say, as soon as kiss it-- Such manners are in Austria--or Charles, My dear French brother, who is well enough, And only fourteen years her junior?

Not yet the happy moment? Patience, then, Another day you'll have that news for us.

Sir Nicholas states formally Elizabeth's objections to Darnley, who interjects:

By my beard!

MARY. No! No!

Not by your beard, dear Henry, or your oath Is emptier than a prince's promises-- Some princes we have heard of, we would say, Though cannot think it truth. Nay, let me hear What is it that my sister Princess wills Out of the largeness of her heart for me?

The complexity of Mary's character is well brought out. There is, for instance, the little scene with Mary Beaton at the beginning of Act II.

Here the Queen, discovering Darnley's infidelity, pa.s.ses rapidly through half a dozen moods--from satirical bitterness to a fury of pride, and then to tears in which humiliation, grat.i.tude, and tenderness are mingled. Mary Beaton has just said that the people pity their Queen:

MARY. ... On my life, I'll not be pitied: pity is a chafe On open wounds of pride. To pity me Makes me a beggar--dare you pity me?

BEATON. Sweet lady, I would not, but must perforce!

MARY. Nay, would you have me weep? What thing am I That three soft words should drive the tear drops forth Like floods in winter? Nay, nay, good my girl, This is my body's weakness, not my soul's.

The gentleness of that gives place at the entrance of Darnley to intense scorn, changing to indignation when he compels her to answer him, and to provocative coquetry at his insult to Rizzio. In the second scene of this act a new aspect of her mentality develops. The action here, dramatically splendid in its speed and emotion, grows out of Mary's recklessness, and proceeds directly, through the jealousy of Darnley, to Rizzio's murder and Mary's secret plot to avenge him. It would seem, in the astonishing duplexity of her nature, that there could be nothing more to reveal; yet the profounder forces of it only begin to be operative from this point. Bothwell, as she designs the scheme, is to be merely the tool of her shrewd intelligence. But she is betrayed by the force of her own pa.s.sion, which transforms Bothwell into the means of her destruction. The finest achievement of this portrayal is that which shows the Queen conscious of her infatuation, and perceiving the tragedy which it is preparing, but incapable of stemming the flood that is carrying her away. Intelligence remains acute: reason holds as clear a light to consequence as ever it did, but both are ineffectual against the storm of instinct. Here is a pa.s.sage from the end of Act III in which Bothwell after a rebuff has protested his love for the Queen:

MARY. Nay, swear not; nay, I know you what you are-- Hotter than flame in your desires; false-- Falser than water.

BOTHWELL (_embracing her_). Be a salamander, To live for ever in the midst of fire.