How then can we speak of epic purpose
invading
drama?
Lascelle Abercrombie
As Hugo says, in his preface to _La
Legende des Siecles_: "Comme dans une mosaique, chaque pierre a sa
couleur et sa forme propre; l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce
livre," he goes on, "c'est l'homme. " To get an epic design or _figure_
through a sequence of small idylls need not be the result of mere
technical curiosity. It may be a valuable method for the future of epic.
Tennyson attempted this method in _Idylls of the King_; not, as is now
usually admitted, with any great success. The sequence is admirable for
sheer craftsmanship, for astonishing craftsmanship; but it did not
manage to effect anything like a conspicuous symbolism. You have but to
think of _Paradise Lost_ to see what _Idylls of the King_ lacks. Victor
Hugo, however, did better in _La Legende des Siecles_. "La figure, c'est
l'homme"; there, at any rate, is the intention of epic symbolism. And,
however pretentious the poem may be, it undoubtedly does make a
passionate effort to develop the significance which Milton had achieved;
chiefly to enlarge the scope of this significance. [14] Browning's _The
Ring and the Book_ also uses this notion of an idyllic sequence; but
without any semblance of epic purpose, purely for the exhibition of
human character.
It has already been remarked that the ultimate significance of great
drama is the same as that of epic. Since the vital epic purpose--the
kind of epic purpose which answers to the spirit of the time--is
evidently looking for some new form to inhabit, it is not surprising,
then, that it should have occasionally tried on dramatic form. And,
unquestionably, for great poetic symbolism of the depths of modern
consciousness, for such symbolism as Milton's, we must go to two such
invasions of epic purpose into dramatic manner--to Goethe's _Faust_ and
Hardy's _The Dynasts_. But dramatic significance and epic significance
have been admitted to be broadly the same; to take but one instance,
Aeschylus's Prometheus is closely related to Milton's Satan (though I
think Prometheus really represents a monism of consciousness--that which
is destined--as Satan represents a dualism--at once the destined and the
destiny).
How then can we speak of epic purpose invading drama? Surely
in this way. Drama seeks to present its significance with narrowed
intensity, but epic in a large dilatation: the one contracts, the other
expatiates. When, therefore, we find drama setting out its significance
in such a way as to become epically dilated, we may say that dramatic
has grown into epic purpose. Or, even more positively, we may say that
epic has taken over drama and adapted it to its peculiar needs. In any
case, with one exception to be mentioned presently, it is only in
_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_ that we find any great development of Miltonic
significance. These are the poems that give us immense and shapely
symbols of the spirit of man, conscious not only of the sense of his
own destined being, but also of some sense of that which destines. In
fact, these two are the poems that develop and elaborate, in their own
way, the Miltonic significance, as all the epics in between Homer and
Milton develop and elaborate Homeric significance. And yet, in spite of
_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_, it may be doubted whether the union of epic
and drama is likely to be permanent. The peculiar effects which epic
intention, in whatever manner, must aim at, seem to be as much hindered
as helped by dramatic form; and possibly it is because the detail is
necessarily too much enforced for the broad perfection of epic effect.
The real truth seems to be, that there is an inevitable and profound
difficulty in carrying on the Miltonic significance in anything like a
story. Regular epic having reached its climax in _Paradise Lost_, the
epic purpose must find some other way of going on. Hugo saw this, when
he strung his huge epic sequence together not on a connected story but
on a single idea: "la figure, c'est l'homme. " If we are to have, as we
must have, direct symbolism of the way man is conscious of his being
nowadays, which means direct symbolism both of man's spirit and of the
(philosophical) opponent of this, the universal fate of things--if we
are to have all this, it is hard to see how any story can be adequate to
such symbolic requirements, unless it is a story which moves in some
large region of imagined supernaturalism. And it seems questionable
whether we have enough _formal_ "belief" nowadays to allow of such a
story appearing as solid and as vividly credible as epic poetry needs.
It is a decided disadvantage, from the purely epic point of view, that
those admirable "Intelligences" in Hardy's _The Dynasts_ are so
obviously abstract ideas disguised.
Legende des Siecles_: "Comme dans une mosaique, chaque pierre a sa
couleur et sa forme propre; l'ensemble donne une figure. La figure de ce
livre," he goes on, "c'est l'homme. " To get an epic design or _figure_
through a sequence of small idylls need not be the result of mere
technical curiosity. It may be a valuable method for the future of epic.
Tennyson attempted this method in _Idylls of the King_; not, as is now
usually admitted, with any great success. The sequence is admirable for
sheer craftsmanship, for astonishing craftsmanship; but it did not
manage to effect anything like a conspicuous symbolism. You have but to
think of _Paradise Lost_ to see what _Idylls of the King_ lacks. Victor
Hugo, however, did better in _La Legende des Siecles_. "La figure, c'est
l'homme"; there, at any rate, is the intention of epic symbolism. And,
however pretentious the poem may be, it undoubtedly does make a
passionate effort to develop the significance which Milton had achieved;
chiefly to enlarge the scope of this significance. [14] Browning's _The
Ring and the Book_ also uses this notion of an idyllic sequence; but
without any semblance of epic purpose, purely for the exhibition of
human character.
It has already been remarked that the ultimate significance of great
drama is the same as that of epic. Since the vital epic purpose--the
kind of epic purpose which answers to the spirit of the time--is
evidently looking for some new form to inhabit, it is not surprising,
then, that it should have occasionally tried on dramatic form. And,
unquestionably, for great poetic symbolism of the depths of modern
consciousness, for such symbolism as Milton's, we must go to two such
invasions of epic purpose into dramatic manner--to Goethe's _Faust_ and
Hardy's _The Dynasts_. But dramatic significance and epic significance
have been admitted to be broadly the same; to take but one instance,
Aeschylus's Prometheus is closely related to Milton's Satan (though I
think Prometheus really represents a monism of consciousness--that which
is destined--as Satan represents a dualism--at once the destined and the
destiny).
How then can we speak of epic purpose invading drama? Surely
in this way. Drama seeks to present its significance with narrowed
intensity, but epic in a large dilatation: the one contracts, the other
expatiates. When, therefore, we find drama setting out its significance
in such a way as to become epically dilated, we may say that dramatic
has grown into epic purpose. Or, even more positively, we may say that
epic has taken over drama and adapted it to its peculiar needs. In any
case, with one exception to be mentioned presently, it is only in
_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_ that we find any great development of Miltonic
significance. These are the poems that give us immense and shapely
symbols of the spirit of man, conscious not only of the sense of his
own destined being, but also of some sense of that which destines. In
fact, these two are the poems that develop and elaborate, in their own
way, the Miltonic significance, as all the epics in between Homer and
Milton develop and elaborate Homeric significance. And yet, in spite of
_Faust_ and _The Dynasts_, it may be doubted whether the union of epic
and drama is likely to be permanent. The peculiar effects which epic
intention, in whatever manner, must aim at, seem to be as much hindered
as helped by dramatic form; and possibly it is because the detail is
necessarily too much enforced for the broad perfection of epic effect.
The real truth seems to be, that there is an inevitable and profound
difficulty in carrying on the Miltonic significance in anything like a
story. Regular epic having reached its climax in _Paradise Lost_, the
epic purpose must find some other way of going on. Hugo saw this, when
he strung his huge epic sequence together not on a connected story but
on a single idea: "la figure, c'est l'homme. " If we are to have, as we
must have, direct symbolism of the way man is conscious of his being
nowadays, which means direct symbolism both of man's spirit and of the
(philosophical) opponent of this, the universal fate of things--if we
are to have all this, it is hard to see how any story can be adequate to
such symbolic requirements, unless it is a story which moves in some
large region of imagined supernaturalism. And it seems questionable
whether we have enough _formal_ "belief" nowadays to allow of such a
story appearing as solid and as vividly credible as epic poetry needs.
It is a decided disadvantage, from the purely epic point of view, that
those admirable "Intelligences" in Hardy's _The Dynasts_ are so
obviously abstract ideas disguised.
