R430500A. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon.
The Westminster Review, May 1843, pp. 603–604.
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 7.
Our opinions on the Drama have been so repeatedly expressed—we have had to make the same fundamental objections to so many new plays—that it has become at length a wearisome task. Yet here are four tragedies on our table, sinning, as we believe, against the very first requisites of the dramatic art, upon which we are forced to sit in unwilling judgment. Four tragedies, all exhibiting the marks of talent and culture—each exhibiting a very noble purpose, with a want of power and of knowledge to realise that purpose. Four men of more or less poetical culture and ability, wasting their strength upon inefficient materials—using their abilities upon insufficient knowledge.
The Drama, if the most fascinating form of poetical composition, is beyond comparison the most difficult. Most people are aware of this; yet few seem to consider it any obstacle to their attempting to achieve success. Hence the amazing quantity of talent squandered on the drama; squandered without a shadow of profitable result. The authors whose works we have now before us have all attempted the highest class of composition, and failed because it was beyond their grasp. What renders a drama the most difficult of poems? Not the story; not the dialogue (the easiest of all compositions when not rigidly dramatic); not even the art of stage effect. These are puissant aids, as they are necessary ones; but they do not, however perfectly worked out, constitute the eminence of the Drama; they do not, however difficult, constitute its chief difficulty. That which renders the Drama great, and that which tasks the writer’s powers to achieve, is the conception and evolution of character, and the exhibition of high tragic passion. In neither of these do we think the present plays succeed. There is no great passion of work; there are no great, heroic, passionate, real characters developing the progress of the story, and equally developed by it. There is more or less poetry, bustle, intrigue, treachery, duelling, murder, and set declamation. But there is none of the “high argument” of passion; there is no interest created in the characters, for they themselves are not individuals. We are not moved in the perusal. We forget them on closing the book. There is (especially in the “Banished Lord”) a luxuriance of imagery; but the poetry of passion is rare in all. Sweet harmonious verses roll upon the ear; fanciful metaphors crowd upon the sense; but the brief lightning-flash of dramatic poetry is scarcely ever present.
The authors will doubtless severely rebel against our judgment, They will declare that they have had very distinct conceptions of character. We will not dispute it; we only assert that they have failed in executing what they have attempted; they have mistaken the intention for the fulfilment—a mistake too common almost to need remark.
We have judged these dramas by the standard they aspire to; and we have judged them in consequence with severity. It would be needless, had [p. 604→] we the space, to enter into a detailed criticism of their minor merits or demerits; for having failed in what they have attempted, there can be little curiosity as to details. We may briefly say that “A Blot on the ’Scutcheon” is an instance of very clever superstructure on very rotten basis. In the worst sense, it is written for the stage, i.e., the poet has asked himself what situations could be made out of his subject, not what would be the natural consequences of the passions. He has succeeded so far. But the whole dramatic nature of the piece is false. The brother’s love is preposterous, and his honour only fit for the Spanish stage. It failed to touch the audience, because it was untrue; it succeeded occasionally in rousing them because it was theatrical. In the other plays there are glimpses of power and facility of expression; but as a whole they are crude and unsatisfactory.
G[eorge] H[enry] L[ewes]
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. V. A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1843.
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