Gayety serves as a distraction for us: in one way or another it takes our souls and spreads them round about us: people never truly laugh except when they are together. But if the gay spirit of ridicule amuses us for an instant, experience teaches that the laugh which is aroused by a satiric shaft dies as it reaches its victim, without ever rebounding and affecting ourselves. Pride, zealously avoiding the personal application, hides itself amid the uproar of the assembled audience, and takes advantage of the general tumult to cast out all that might be of value to us in a sharp epigram. If matters went no further, the evil would be irremediable, so long as the dramatist holds up to public ridicule only such types as the pedant, the blockhead, the coquette, the pretentious man, the fool, the puppet—in a word, all those who in the life of our day are ridiculous. But is the mockery which chastises them the proper weapon with which to attack vice? Can a dramatist smite his victim with a joke? Not only would he fail to fulfill his purpose, he would achieve the exact opposite of what he set out to accomplish. We see this happen in most comic pieces: to the shame of his moral sense, the spectator often finds himself sympathizing with the rascal against the honest man, because the latter is always rendered the less attractive of the two. But if the gayety of the play has succeeded in sweeping me along for a moment, it is not long, however, before I experience a sense of humiliation at having allowed myself to be ensnared by witty lines and stage tricks; and I leave the theater displeased with the author and with myself. The essential morality of the comic play is therefore either very shallow, or else nothing at all; or finally it produced just the result which it should not produce.
Not so with a drama which appeals to our emotions, whose subject-matter is taken from our daily life. If loud laughter is the enemy of reflection, pity, on the other hand, induces silence: it invites us to meditate, and isolates us from distracting externals. He who weeps at a play is alone; and the more deeply he feels, the more genuine is his pleasure, especially in the Serious Drama, which moves us by true and natural means. Often, in the midst of an amusingly pleasant scene, some charming bit of emotion causes abundant and ready tears to fall, which, mingling with a graceful smile, bring sympathy and joy to the face of the spectator. Is not a touching conflict of this sort the greatest triumph of art, as well as the sweetest sensation that can be experienced by a person of sensibility?
Sympathy has this advantage over the spirit of ridicule, that it is never aroused in us without the concomitant quality of realization, which is made all the more powerful as it appeals to us directly, on the stage.
When we see an honest man who is unhappy we are touched: the spectacle opens our heart, takes possession of it, and finally forces us to examine our inmost conscience. When I see virtue persecuted, made a victim by wickedness, and yet remaining beautiful, glorious, and preferable to everything else, even when it is surrounded by misfortune—when all this is portrayed in a drama, then I am assured that that drama is not "equivocal": I am interested in virtue alone. And then, if I am not happy myself, if base envy does her best to influence me, if she attacks my person, my fortune, and my honor, then how much more interest do I take in that sort of play! And what a splendid moral can I take from it! The subject is one to interest me, naturally: since I am interested only in those who are unhappy and who suffer unjustly, I ask myself whether as a result of some carelessness of character, same fault in my conduct, some excessive ambition, or dishonorable conspiracy, I have called down upon my own head the hatred which pursues me. In any event, I shall be induced to correct my faults, and I shall leave the theater a better man than I entered, merely because I shall have been moved to tenderness and sympathy.
Mobile users, click here to return to the main page.
