y. A palace--or a temple--or a cave by the wild
sea-shore, was painted; actors, representing by their attire, and their
majestic demeanour, heroes and heroines of the old departed world; nay,
upon high occasions, celestial gods and goddesses--trod the Stage and
spoke, in measured recitation, before assembled thousands of spectators,
seated in wonder and awe-stricken expectation. The change to the poet in
the manner of communicating with his hearers, alters the character of
the composition. The stage trodden by living feet, the scenery, voices
from human tongues varying with all the changes of emotion, impassioned
gestures, and events no longer spoken of, but transacted in presence,
before the eyes of the audience, are elements full of power, that claim
for tragedy and impose upon it a character of its own. The heart is more
interested, and the imagination less. Persons who accompany the whole
business that is to be done, with speaking--a poem consisting of
incessant dialogue--must disclose, with more precise and profounder
discovery, the minds represented as engaged. Motives are produced and
debated--the sudden turns of thought--the violent fluctuations of the
passions--the gentle variations of the feelings, appear. Time is given
for this internal display--and a species of poetry arises, distinguished
for the fulness and the decision with which the springs of action in the
human bosom are shown as breaking forth into, and determining, human
action. Meanwhile, the means that are thus afforded to the poet of a
more energetic representation, curb in him the flights of imagination.
To represent Neptune as at three strides from his seat on a mountain-top
descending the slope, that with all its woods quakes under the immortal
feet, and as reaching at the fourth step his wave-covered palace--this,
which was easy between the epic poet and his hearer, becomes out of
place and impossible for tragedy, simply because no actors and no stage
can represent a god so stepping and the hills so trembling. We know what
the pathetically sublime literature was which the drama gave to Athens;
how poets of profound and capacious spirits, who had looked into
themselves--and, so enlightened, had observed human life--were able, by
taking for their subjects the strongly portrayed characters and the
stern situations of the old Greek fable, to unite in their lofty and
impressive scenes the truth of nature and the tender interests which
endear our fami