GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS.1 [1829.] In this stage of society, the playwright is as essential and acknowledged a character as the millwright, or cartwright, or any other wright whatever; neither can we see why, in general estimation, he should rank lower than these his brother artisans, except perhaps for this one reason: that the former working in timber and iron, for the wants of the body, produce a completely suitable machine; while the latter, working in thought and feeling, for the wants of the soul, produces a machine which is incompletely suitable. In other respects, we confess we cannot perceive that the balance lies against him for no candid man, as it seems to us, will doubt but the talent which constructed a Virginius or a Bertram, might have sufficed, had it been properly directed, to make not only wheelbarrows and wagons, but even mills of considerable complicacy. However, if the public is niggardly to the playwright in one point, it must be proportionably liberal in another; according 1 FOREIGN REVIEW, No. 6. - 1. Die Ahnfrau (The Ancestress). A Tragedy, in five Acts. By F. Grillparzer. Fourth Edition. Vienna, 1823. König Ottokars Glück unde Ende (King Ottocar's Fortune and End). A Tragedy, in five Acts. By F. Grillparzer. Vienna, 1825. 2. Faust. A Tragedy, in five Acts. By August Klingemann. Leipzig and Altenburg, 1815. Ahasuer. A Tragedy, in five Acts. By August Klingemann. Brunswick, 1827. 3. Müllners Dramatische Werke. Erste rechtmässige, vollständige und vom Verfasser verbesserte Gesammt-Ausgabe. (Müllner's Dramatic Works. First legal collective Edition, complete and revised by the Author.) 7 vols. Brunswick, 1828. to Adam Smith's observation, that trades which are reckoned less reputable have higher money wages. Thus, one thing compensating the other, the playwright may still realize an existence; as, in fact, we find that he does: for playwrights were, are and probably will always be; unless, indeed, in process of years, the whole dramatic concern be finally abandoned by mankind; or, as in the case of our Punch and Mathews, every player becoming his own playwright, this trade may merge in the other and older one. The British nation has its own playwrights, several of them cunning men in their craft: yet here, it would seem, this sort of carpentry does not flourish; at least, not with that preeminent vigor which distinguishes most other branches of our national industry. In hardware and cotton goods, in all sorts of chemical, mechanical, or other material processes, England outstrips the world; nay in many departments of literary manufacture also, as, for instance, in the fabrication of Novels, she may safely boast herself peerless: but in the matter of the Drama, to whatever cause it be owing, she can claim no such superiority. In theatrical produce she yields considerably to France; and is, out of sight, inferior to Germany. Nay, do not we English hear daily, for the last twenty years, that the Drama is dead, or in a state of suspended animation; and are not medical men sitting on the case, and propounding their remedial appliances, weekly, monthly, quarterly, to no manner of purpose? Whilst in Germany the Drama is not only, to all appearance, alive, but in the very flush and heyday of superabundant strength; indeed, as it were, still only sowing its first wild oats! For if the British Playwrights seem verging to ruin, and our Knowleses, Maturins, Shiels and Shees stand few and comparatively forlorn, like firs on an Irish bog, the Playwrights of Germany are a strong, triumphant body; so numerous that it has been calculated, in case of war, a regiment of foot might be raised, in which, from the colonel down to the drummer, every officer and private sentinel might show his drama or dramas. To investigate the origin of so marked a superiority would lead us beyond our purpose. Doubtless the proximate cause must lie in a superior demand for the article of dramas; which superior demand again may arise either from the climate of Germany, as Montesquieu might believe; or perhaps more naturally and immediately from the political condition of that country; for man is not only a working but a talking animal, and where no Catholic Questions, and Parliamentary Reforms, and Select Vestries are given him to discuss in his leisure hours, he is glad to fall upon plays or players, or whatever comes to hand, whereby to fence himself a little against the inroads of Ennui. Of the fact, at least, that such a superior demand for dramas exists in Germany, we have only to open a newspaper to find proof. Is not every Litteraturblatt and Kunstblatt stuffed to bursting with theatricals? Nay, has not the "able Editor" established correspondents in every capital city of the civilized world, who report to him on this one matter and on no other? For, be our curiosity what it may, let us have profession of "intelligence from Munich," "intelligence from Vienna," "intelligence from Berlin," is it intelligence of anything but of green-room controversies and negotiations, of tragedies and operas and farces acted and to be acted? Not of men, and their doings, by hearth and hall, in the firm earth; but of mere effigies and shells of men, and their doings in the world of pasteboard, do these unhappy correspondents write. Unhappy we call them; for, with all our tolerance of playwrights, we cannot but think that there are limits, and very strait ones, within which their activity should be restricted. Here in England, our "theatrical reports are nuisance enough; and many persons who love their life, and therefore "take care of their time, which is the stuff life is made of," regularly lose several columns of their weekly newspaper in that way but our case is pure luxury, compared with that of the Germans, who instead of a measurable and sufferable spicing of theatric matter, are obliged, metaphorically speaking, to breakfast and dine on it; have in fact nothing else to live on but that highly unnutritive victual. We ourselves are occasional readers of German newspapers; and have often, in the spirit of Christian humanity, meditated presenting to the whole body of German editors a project, which, however, must Vol. 14-16.16 - certainly have ere now occurred to themselves, and for some reason been found inapplicable: it was, to address these correspondents of theirs, all and sundry, in plain language, and put the question, Whether, on studiously surveying the Universe from their several stations, there was nothing in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, nothing visible but this one business, or rather shadow of business, that had an interest for the minds of men? If the correspondents still answered that nothing was visible, then of course they must be left to continue in this strange state; prayers, at the same time, being put up for them in all churches. However, leaving every able Editor to fight his own battle, we address ourselves to the task in hand: meaning here to inquire a very little into the actual state of the dramatic trade in Germany, and exhibit some detached features of it to the consideration of our readers. For, seriously speaking, low as the province may be, it is a real, active and ever-enduring province of the literary republic; nor can the pursuit of many men, even though it be a profitless and foolish pursuit, ever be without claim to some attention from us, either in the way of furtherance or of censure and correction. Our avowed object is to promote the sound study of Foreign Literature; which study, like all other earthly undertakings, has its negative as well as its positive side. We have already, as occasion served, borne testimony to the merits of various German poets; and must now say a word on certain German poetasters; hoping that it may be chiefly a regard to the former which has made us take even this slight notice of the latter for the bad is in itself of no value, and only worth describing lest it be mistaken for the good. At the same time, let no reader tremble, as if we meant to overwhelm him, on this occasion, with a whole mountain of dramatic lumber, poured forth in torrents, like shot rubbish, from the playhouse garrets, where it is mouldering and evaporating into nothing, silently and withou harm to any one. Far be this from us! Nay, our own knowledge of this subject is in the highest degree limited; and, indeed, to exhaust it, or attempt discussing it with scientific : t precision, would be an impossible enterprise. What man is there that could assort the whole furniture of Milton's Limbo of Vanity; or where is the Hallam that would undertake to write us the Constitutional History of a Rookery? Let the courteous reader take heart, then; for he is in hands that will not, nay what is more, that cannot, do him much harm. One brief shy glance into this huge bivouac of Playwrights, all sawing and planing with such tumult; and we leave it, probably for many years. The German Parnassus, as one of its own denizens remarks, has a rather broad summit; yet only two Dramatists are reckoned, within the last century, to have mounted thither: Schiller and Goethe: if we are not, on the strength of his Minna von Barnhelm and Emilie Galotti, to account Lessing also of the number. On the slope of the Mountain may be found a few stragglers of the same brotherhood; among these, Tieck and Maler Müller, firmly enough stationed at considerable elevations; while far below appear various honest persons climbing vehemently, but against precipices of loose sand, to whom we wish all speed. But the reader will understand that the bivouac we speak of, and are about to enter, lies not on the declivity of the Hill at all; but on the level ground close to the foot of it; the essence of a Playwright being that he works not in Poetry, but in Prose which more or less cunningly resembles it. And here pausing for a moment, the reader observes that he is in a civilized country; for see, on the very boundaryline of Parnassus, rises a gallows with the figure of a man hung in chains! It is the figure of August von Kotzebue; and has swung there for many years, as a warning to all too audacious Playwrights; who nevertheless, as we see, pay little heed to it. Ill-fated Kotzebue, once the darling of theatrical Europe! This was the prince of all Playwrights, and could manufacture Plays with a speed and felicity surpassing even Edinburgh Novels. For his muse, like other doves, hatched twins in the month; and the world gazed on them with an admiration too deep for mere words. What is all past or present popularity to this? Were not these |