ΤΟ THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE A STRANGER PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE OF A LITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE LORD, THE FIRST OF EXISTING WRITERS, WHO HAS CREATED THE LITERATURE OF HIS OWN COUntry, AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OF EUROPE. THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIM Es Entitled, SARDANAPALUS.* * ["Well knowing myself and my labours, in my old age, I could not but reflect with gratitude and diffidence on the expressions contained in this dedication, nor interpret them but as the generous tribute of a superior genius, no less original in the choice than inexhaustible in the materials of his subjects."-GOETHE.] PREFACE. IN publishing the following Tragedies* I have only to repeat, that they were not composed with the most remote view to the stage. On the attempt made by the managers in a former instance, the public opinion has been already expressed. With regard to my own private feelings, as it seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing. For the historical foundation of the following compositions the reader is referred to the Notes. The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach, the "unities;" conceiving that with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature; but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion, which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilised parts of it. But " nous avons changé tout cela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular predecessors: he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation of a structure, however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules whatsoever. Where he has failed, the failure is in the architect, and not in the art. * ["Sardanapalus" originally appeared in the same volume with "The Two Foscari" and "Cain."] INTRODUCTION TO SARDANAPALUS. THE story of "Sardanapalus" was known to Lord Byron when he was twelve years old, and he had been meditating a poem on it for seven years before he commenced his tragedy. He sketched the outline on the 13th of January 1821, and composed the two first acts very slowly and at intervals. He then cast aside his painstaking caution, and, trusting to the breathless fervour of his genius, wrote the three last acts between the 13th and 27th of May. With him it was almost essential to excellence that he should give full rein to his "fiery Pegasus ;" and it is at the third act, when he had ceased to move with a wary step, that the real power of the piece begins. The unities continued in his own phrase to be his "great object of research." "It is writ," he said, "according to Aristotle,-all, save the chorus-I could not reconcile me to that." The object on the other hand, that he most endeavoured to avoid, was every species of fitness for the stage. Neither his predilection for the unities, nor his antipathy for the stage, was favourable to dramatic power; but genius clears the barriers which it places in its own path, and " Sardanapalus" has much of that variety of impersonation, of that movement of action and dialogue, which are thought essential to the perfection of this department of poetry. He expressed a hope, in July, that it would not be mistaken for a political play. The revelries of the Assyrian monarch, and his neglect of his wife for a mistress, admitted, no doubt, of an easy application to George IV., but in reality, the allusions, which were not historical, belonged nearer home. On the first development of the plan Lord Byron records, that the Countess of Guiccioli had quarrelled with his declaration that love was not the loftiest theme for a tragedy, and adds, that he must give it more prominence than he designed. He fulfilled this purpose by shadowing out in Myrrha the relation in which the Countess stood to himself. Nor could any one fail to detect in the tender scene between Sardanapalus and Zarina, that the poet's thoughts were upon Lady Byron and her child. Bishop Heber remarked, that the remorse of Sardanapalus for his infidelity to his wife was not in keeping with Eastern polygamy, or the scruples of Myrrha with the Greek morals of the period, when to be the creature of the captor's pleasure, had no suspicion of infamy. To this prevalence in Lord Byron of private feeling over historic consistency we are indebted for many of the beauties of the piece. The delineation of Sardanapalus himself was thought highly successful. "He is almost," wrote the poet, "a comic character, but for that matter so is Richard III. I have made him brave (though voluptuous as history represents him), and also as amiable as my poor powers could render him.” The festive and luxurious disposition of Sardanapalus is, in fact, so skilfully relieved by courage and benignity, by epicurean sophistry and well-directed sarcasm, that he always extorts our interest, and sometimes our admiration. The play appeared in December, 1821, and obtained such success that the approbation of the professional critics was only the echo of the public applause. The verse has the defects of "Marino Faliero; the story, the characters, and the dialogue were all considered superior. But we doubt, nevertheless. The most impassioned passages of the present drama appear cold and constrained in comparison with the impatient indignation of the Doge, and the greater brilliancy of that central star more than atones, in our estimation, for the inferior splendour of the attendant satellites, contrasted with those which revolve round the Assyrian monarch. |