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Preface to "Cromwell"

[French] Hugo's Translation by Liu Mingjiu

Erlitou Clean the school

…

We start from the fact that the world is not always composed of civilizations of the same nature, that is to say, it is always composed of the same social form (this is more accurate) , although the meaning is broader) dominated and ruled. Humanity as a whole, just like each of us, goes through stages of growth, development and maturity. He has passed through childhood, adulthood, and now reaches old age. Before the historical period that modern society calls "ancient times", there was another century that the ancients called the "mythological age", and its correct name may be "primitive age". These are the three continuous processes through which civilization has developed from its original source to today. Since poetry is always built on society, then, according to the form of social development, let us analyze what the characteristics of poetry are in the three major stages of human development: primitive period, ancient times and modern times.

In the primitive period, when people awakened in a newly formed world, poetry also awakened. Faced with the wonders of nature that dazzled and intoxicated him, his first words were only a hymn. At that time, he was still very close to God, so all his meditations were ecstatic and all his reveries became divine revelations. He expresses his heart, he sings as he breathes, his harp has only three strings, God, soul, and creation; but these three mysteries embrace all, this trinity of thought contains all. The land is still almost barren and barren. There is a family, but not a nation; there are elders, but not a king. Each race lives in freedom; there is no private property, no laws, no conflicts, and no wars. Everything belongs to everyone and collectively. The entire society is a public body. Nothing binds people. People live a pastoral nomadic life. This kind of life is the starting point of all civilization, and it is very conducive to lonely contemplation and unrestrained dreams. He works with abandon and acts with abandon. His thoughts, like his life, are like clouds in the sky, changing and drifting with the direction of the wind. This is the first man, this is the first poet. He is young and poetic. Prayer is all his religion, and song is all his poetry.

This kind of poem, this kind of ballad from the primitive period, is "Genesis".

However, this youth period gradually passed. Everything expanded in scope; religion became tribe, tribe became nation. …These peoples began to overcrowd the earth. They hinder each other and rub against each other; from this, conflicts and wars arise between countries. They invade each other; this results in national migration and wandering. Poetry reflects these huge events; it moves from expressing thoughts to describing things. It sings of centuries, peoples and countries. It became epic, it produced Homer.

We have to point out repeatedly that the only thing that expresses this kind of culture is epic poetry. Epic takes many forms but never loses its identity. Pindar is not so much a lyric as it is an epic. If chroniclers, who are indispensable in the second period of human development, engage in collecting various legends and start counting the years in centuries, then their efforts will be in vain. Chronicles cannot exclude poetry; history will still remain epic. . Herodotus is a Homer.

The age of epic poetry is fading. Similarly, the society it represents is also facing its end. This kind of poetry has also become obsolete due to its self-circulation for a long time. Rome imitated Greece and Virgil imitated Homer. It seems that in order to end with dignity, the epic is at the end. died during childbirth.

The time has come. Another era of world and poetry is about to begin.

A spiritual religion replaced material, superficial idolatry and sneaked into the center of ancient society, eradicating it, and sowing the seeds of modern culture on the corpse of this aging culture. seed. This religion is complete because it is true; it is deeply sustained by morality between doctrine and ordinances. And first of all, he showed people the most important truth: there are two kinds of life, one is temporary and the other is immortal; one is earthly and the other is heavenly.

It also points out to man that just like his destiny, man is also dualistic. In him, there is an animal nature and a spirituality, a soul and a body; in short, he is like the intersection of two lines, It is like the connecting link between two chains of entities that encompass the world. One of these two chains is a system of material entities, and the other is a system of invisible existence. The former starts from stones and ends with people, and the latter starts from people and ends at God.

Nothing is more practical than the ancient theogony. It does not separate spirit from body at all like Christianity, but gives shape and appearance to everything, even to spirit and intellect. Here, everything is visible, tangible and emotional. Those gods need clouds and mist to cover themselves. They also eat, drink, and sleep. If you hurt them, they will bleed; if you hurt them, they will be crippled forever. This religion has some gods and some demigods. Its thunderbolts are forged on an anvil, and among its other ingredients are three curved lines of rain, its god Cupid hangs the world on a golden chain; its sun rides on four A horse-drawn cart; its hell is an abyss with its exit geographically marked; its divine realm is on a mountain.

In this way, polytheism used the same clay to mold various creations, thus shrinking the gods and enlarging humans. Homer's heroes are almost as tall as the gods, Ajax offends Jupiter, Achilles rivals Mars. As we have just said, Christianity, on the contrary, completely separates spirituality and matter. It draws an abyss between soul and body, an abyss between man and God.

Christianity leads poetry to truth. Modern poetry will also look at things from a far-sighted perspective just like Christianity. It will feel that not everything in creation is humanly beautiful, that ugliness is next to beauty, deformity is next to beauty, vulgarity is hidden behind sublimity, evil and good coexist, darkness and light are intertwined. It will explore whether the narrow and relative rationality of the artist should prevail over the infinite and absolute wisdom of the Creator; whether man is required to correct God; whether nature becomes more beautiful once it is artificial; whether art has the right to separate people, life and creation into Two aspects are: whether everything will move better if the tendons and elasticity are removed; and whether "all methods to become harmonious" are incomplete. It is at this time that the poem turns its attention to events that are both ridiculous and terrible, and under the influence of the melancholy spirit of Christianity and the spirit of philosophical criticism we have just examined, it will take a decisive step, which seems to be It is like the shock of an earthquake, which will change the entire spiritual world. It will begin to act like nature, mixing shadow with light in its creations, combining the vulgar with the sublime without mixing them, in other words, giving body to soul and bestiality to intelligence, because religion The starting point of is always the starting point of poetry. The two are related to each other.

This is a principle which has no precedent in antiquity, a new type which enters into poetry, and because as a condition it changes the whole thing, a new form develops in art. This new genre is "burlesque," this new form is comedy.

Please allow us to examine this issue in detail; because we have just pointed out the different characteristics, the fundamental difference. This distinction seems to us to separate modern art from ancient art, living forms from dead forms, or, to use a more vague but popular expression, "romantic" literature from "classical" literature. differentiate.

On the contrary, in modern people's thinking, funny and ugly have a wide range of functions. It exists everywhere; on the one hand, it creates deformities and horrors; on the other hand, it creates ridiculousness and burlesque. It gathers thousands of weird superstitions around religion, and attaches all kinds of wonderful imagination to poetry. It is it that sows in the air, water, fire and earth countless intermediaries that we still think are alive in the legends of the medieval people; it is it that makes the magician dance terrifyingly in the dark midnight. Round dance; it is also it that gives Satan two horns, a pair of goat hooves, and a pair of bat wings. It is it, it is it, that throws sometimes into the Christian hell those grotesque figures that were later conjured up by the grim genius of Dante and Milton, sometimes into Gallo, the comic Michelangelo. The image of Qi Luo amusing himself in it. From the ideal world to the real world, we have to go through countless funny human deformations.

The figures of Scarlett, Chris and Arlequin are all creations of its imagination, grotesque silhouettes of men, completely alien to serious antiquity and derived from Italian classicism. A typical example arising from ism. Finally, it is it that alternately paints the same drama with the imaginary colors of the North and the South, making Sgnahale dance around Don Juan and Mephistopheles around Faust.

And how free and clear it behaves! How boldly it made jump out those strange images which a previous age had so shyly swaddling. Ancient poetry had to arrange some companions for the lame Vulkan, but they tried their best to cover up their deformities by enlarging their stalwart bodies. The spirit of modernity preserved the legend of the extraordinary blacksmith, but at once gave it a character which was diametrically opposite and made it more outstanding; it turned the giant into a dwarf, the Cyclops into a subterranean god. It is with this same ingenuity that it replaces the not-so-strange Hydra with monsters native to our legends, the Garguyet of Rouen, the Cra-Ui of Metz, the Charr of Troy. - Shanet, Tehe of Mondeleli, and Tahask of Tahasgon. The appearance of these monsters is so varied, and their strange names add to the strangeness. These creatures derive from their own nature a deep and powerful tone before which ancient times sometimes seemed to recoil. Indeed, the monsters in Greece are far less scary than the witches in "Macbeth", and therefore less real. Proudhon in Greek mythology is not a devil.

In our opinion, the question of how to use the comic and the grotesque in art would be enough to fill a novel book. One can cite what powerful effects modern man has drawn from this rich model, against which a narrow criticism still rages today. Our subject may at once lead us to point out in passing certain features of this vast picture. But here we only want to say that, in our opinion, the comic, as a supporting role and counterpoint to the sublime and beautiful, is the richest source that nature has given to art. There is no doubt that Rubens knew this, for he proudly mixed the ugly images of court jesters into the proceedings of royal ceremonies, coronations, and honors. The universal beauty which ancient times solemnly spread over everything is not without a sense of monotony; the same impressions are always repeated, and in time one becomes tired. It is difficult to contrast the sublime with the sublime, so one needs to take a break from everything, even beauty. On the contrary, the grotesque seems to be a period of respite, an object of comparison, a starting point from which we ascend toward beauty with a fresher and keener sense. The salamanders bring out the daffodils; the little underground gods make the celestial beings even more beautiful.

Moreover, it is not impossible to say that the contact with the comic and the grotesque has given the modern sublime something purer, greater, and nobler than the beauty of ancient times; and this should be the case. . When art itself is reasonable, it is more certain that all things will achieve the final goal. If the Homeric fairyland is far removed from this celestial interest and from the beauty of the angels in Milton's paradise, it is because beneath the Garden of Eden there is a terrible hell different from the polytheistic hell. Francesca da Rimini and Beatrice would have been written if they had not been written by Dante, a poet who shuts his readers in a tower of hunger and forces them to share in the disgusting meal of Corinno. Is it so attractive? If Dante had not written so powerfully, he would not have been so moving.

The plump river god, the strong mermaid, the wanton wind god, do they have the transparent fluidity of our narcissus and gods? Isn't it because modern man can imagine vampires, cannibals, goblins, basilisks, giant bats, zombies and skeletons swinging around in our tombs that this imagination can give its goblins that illusion? shape, that elven purity rarely achieved by polytheistic nymphs? The ancient Venus is undoubtedly beautiful and attractive; but what is it that spreads that exquisiteness, that wonderful and ethereal charm in all the paintings of Jean Couron? What gives them that quality unknown to life and greatness? If not a close approach to the majestic sculptures of the Middle Ages, what is it?

If the thread of our thoughts has not been broken in the reader's mind during these necessary discussions, which can be said more thoroughly, he will definitely understand that the funny and ugly are A germ of comedy inherited by the modern god of poetry will grow and develop with great vitality once it is transplanted to a soil more favorable than idolatry and epic poetry. In fact, in the new poetry, the sublime and beautiful will express the true state of the soul after being purified by Christian morality, while the comic and ugly will express the bestiality of human beings. The first type will be freed from the impure mixture and possess all charm, charm and beauty; it should one day create Juliet, Desdemona, Ophelia. The second type encompasses all the ridiculous, deformed and ugly things. In this division between human beings and things, all desires, shortcomings and sins will be attributed to it; it will be luxury, baseness, greed, miserliness, betrayal, chaos, hypocrisy; it will play the role of Yago and Tartuff in turn. , Basil ⒅; Polonius, Abagon, Bartero ⒆; Falstaff, Scaben, Figale ⒇. Beauty has only one type; ugliness is ever-changing. For, logically speaking, beauty is nothing but a form, a form expressed in its simplest relationships, in its strictest symmetry, in the harmony closest to our structure. Therefore, it always presents us with a complete, yet as rigid whole as we are. What we call ugly is, on the contrary, a detail of a vast whole unknown to us, which is in harmony with the whole of creation rather than with man. This is why it often takes on new, yet incomplete, aspects.

It is interesting to study the use and development of funny monsters in modern times. First, it invades, overflows, overflows, like a torrent breaking through a dike. When it was born, it permeated the dying Latin literature... and then it spread in the imagination of the new peoples who transformed Europe. It fills the imaginations of storytellers, historians and novelists. It spreads from south to north. It plays in the dreams of the German nation, and at the same time, with its aura, it revives those praiseworthy Spanish "Book of Songs", which is the true "Iliad" of the age of chivalry. For example, it describes a solemn ceremony and the election of a king in "The Legend of the Rose" (21):

So they elected a big commoner

This is the biggest hunk among them

...

It would be superfluous to highlight the influence of the grotesque in the third civilization. In the so-called romantic era, everything showed its close and creative combination with "beauty". As far as the simplest folk tales are concerned, they all express the mystery of modern art in a lovely nature. It would have been impossible to create Beauty and the Beast in ancient times.

Indeed, it is very evident that in the period we have just examined, the comic and the grotesque predominated in literature over the sublime and the beautiful. But this is a fever of reaction, a fleeting enthusiasm for novelty; it is an initial wave that gradually subsides. The model of beauty will soon regain its status and rights, not to exclude the other principle, but to overcome it.

The time has come for the grotesque to occupy only a corner of the vast frescoes of Murillo and in the sacred space of Veronis; to let the grotesque only penetrate into art that will be proud of it. into the two Last Judgments that Michelangelo would use to decorate the Vatican (24), only into what Rubens would paint at Unwers The church's vaulted roof bore a hideous pattern of human depravity. The time has come to establish a balance between the two principles. Soon there will be a man, a poet (as Dante calls Homer), who will define it. The brilliance of these two rival geniuses merged, and out of this brilliance was born Shakespeare.

In this way we have reached the pinnacle of modern poetry. Shakespeare, this is drama; and drama, it combines the funny and the grotesque with the sublime and beautiful, the terrible and the ridiculous, the tragedy and the comedy in the same breath. Drama is the third stage of poetry, which is the inherent nature of current literature. characteristics.

Let’s briefly summarize the facts discussed above. It can be seen that poetry has three periods, and each period is correspondingly related to a social period. These three periods are lyric tanks, epics and dramas. . The primitive period was lyrical, ancient times were epic, and modern times were dramatic. Lyrical short songs sing about eternity, epic poems praise history, and dramas depict life. The first type of poetry is characterized by simplicity, the second is simplicity, and the third is truth. The troubadour is the transition from the lyric poet to the epic poet, just as the novelist is the transition from the epic poet to the dramatic poet. The historian came with the second period, and the chroniclers and critics emerged with the third period. The characters of the lyric tank are great men: Adam, Cain, Noah (25); the characters of the epic are giants: Achilles, Atrus, Orestes (26); the characters of the drama are mortals: Hamlet , Macbeth, Othello. Lyrical tanka lives by ideals, epics exist by majesty, and dramas are sustained by truth. In short, these three types of poetry come from three great sources: the Bible, Homer and Shakespeare.

...In order to prove that new ideas (referring to the literary and artistic ideas of the romantics - translator) are far from destroying art but only to transform art into a stronger and more stable one, let us do Let us try to point out, in our opinion, what is the insurmountable line that distinguishes truth arising from art from truth arising from nature. It would be rash to confuse the two, as some unimproved romantics do. The truth in art cannot be the absolute truth as some people say. Art cannot provide the original. Let us just imagine how a person who advocates imitating absolute nature without thinking, imitating nature beyond the scope of art, will behave when he sees a performance of a romantic drama (such as "The Cid"). The first thing he would definitely say is, "What? The characters in "Cid" also speak in poetry! It's unnatural to speak in poetry." "Then how do you want the characters to speak?" "In prose." "Okay, just use it. Prose." If he sticks to his principles, he will say after a while: "Why, the characters in "The Cide" speak French! "What should it be?" "Nature requires the characters in the play to speak. The native language, he can only speak Spanish. "Then we won't understand at all; but it's still up to you. "You think it's all about being picky? No; before he had spoken ten sentences in Spanish, it was time for him to stand up again and ask whether the Cid who was speaking was the real Cid. What right does this actor named Peter or Jacques have to use Sid's name? This is all hypocrisy. There was no reason why he should not insist on replacing lamps with the sun, and with "real" trees and houses instead of fake stage sets. Because as soon as we start this way, logic forces us to go on, and we can no longer stop.

Therefore, people should admit that the realm of art and the realm of nature are very different, otherwise it will be absurd. Nature and art are two things that complement each other and cannot exist without the other. In addition to its ideal part, art also has an earthly and real part. Whatever it creates, it is always framed between grammar and prosody, between Wu Rila (27) and Li Xilai (28). For the most free form of creation, there are all kinds of forms, all kinds of creative methods and a lot of materials to shape. To the genius these are ingenious means, to the mediocre they are cumbersome tools.

We seem to think that someone has already said this: drama is a mirror that reflects nature. However, if this mirror is an ordinary mirror, a rigid flat mirror, then it can only reflect a dark, flat, faithful but lackluster image of things; everyone knows that after such a simple reflection, the color of things changes. And how much luster will be lost. Drama should be a concentrated mirror that not only does not weaken the original colors and brilliance, but also concentrates and condenses them, turning the glimmer into light and the light into fire. Therefore, only drama is recognized as art.

The stage is a visual focus. Everything in the world, history, life and humanity should and can be reflected in it, but only under the influence of the magic wand of art. Art looks at the centuries and nature, studies history, and strives to represent the reality of things, especially the reality of customs and characters that are more certain and less contradictory than things. It uses materials that the chronicler has abridged and reconciles them with the things, discovering what they missed and repairing them, filling their holes with imaginations rich in the color of the times, gathering up the things they let scatter, reconnecting the divine threads beneath the human puppets, giving everything All put on the appearance of poetry and nature, and give them the life of fantasy, reality and vitality, that is, the magic of reality, which can arouse the enthusiasm of the audience, and first of all, arouse the poet's own enthusiasm. Passionate, because the poet has a conscience. From this the purpose of art is almost divine, if it writes history it is to raise the dead, if it writes poetry it is to create.

It is a great and magnificent thing if we see such an extensive development of drama: in which art powerfully develops nature, where the plot develops steadily but briskly towards its conclusion, Neither complicated nor stingy, the poet comprehensively accomplished the complex purpose of art, which is to show the audience two artistic conceptions, illuminate the outside and inside of the characters at the same time, express their external appearance through words and deeds, and express through narration and The monologue depicts the inner psychology. In a word, it interweaves the drama of life and the drama of the heart in the same picture.

We believe that in order to write this kind of work, if the poet should choose among these things, then what he chooses is not beauty, but characteristics. This does not mean, as people now say, to render some local color, that is, to finish a work that is ultimately hypocritical and general, and then add some striking color to this work. , it is inappropriate to do so. The local color should not be on the surface of the play, but should be inside the work, even in the center of the work. From there, the local color flows vividly and naturally and evenly to the outside, or to all parts of the play, like a tree. The fluid is transported from the rhizome all the way to the tipmost leaves. Drama should be completely immersed in the color of this era; drama in this color is like being in the air, so that when people enter and leave it, they only feel that the century and atmosphere have changed. Getting to this point requires some study and effort; it's better this way. It is also a good thing that the avenue of art is blocked by thorns, which discourage all but the strong-willed. It is this kind of study supported by passionate inspiration that will save drama from one fatal flaw, which is generalization. Generalization is the fault of short-sighted and untalented poets. In the field of vision of the stage, all images should be distinctive, full of personality, accurate and appropriate. Even the vulgar and commonplace should have their own character. Nothing should be given up. The true poet is like God present everywhere in his work at the same time. Genius is like a coin-making machine, capable of engraving the king's head on both gold and copper coins.

We have no hesitation, and this proves to all sincere minds how little we wish to distort art, that we have no hesitation in regarding poetry as best suited to prevent art from suffering the evils we have just pointed out. One method of that disaster is to regard it as the strongest defense against the proliferation of "generalization" which, like "democracy", is everywhere in the spiritual realm. Here, let us ask young literature, with its many writers and works, to point out to it an error into which we feel it has fallen, an error which is far more worthy of defense than the incredible fallacies of the old school. The new century is in a period of growth and growth, when people can easily correct their mistakes.

If we have the right to say what the style of drama should be according to our own pleasure, then we want a free, clear and honest verse that dares to say everything without pretense, without saying anything. It expresses everything with sophistication; it moves with a natural pace from comedy to tragedy, from the sublime to the farcical; it is sometimes practical, sometimes poetic, and its whole is both artistic and inspired, both profound and sudden, both broad and broad. It is also true; it is good at appropriately breaking sentences and shifting pauses to cover up the monotony of Alexandria; it prefers straddles that lengthen sentences to inversions that confuse meaning; it is loyal to the restricted queen of rhythm, we The noblest charm of poetry, the mother of our meter; the modes of expression of this verse are inexhaustible, the secrets of its beauty and structure cannot be grasped; it is as formal as Proteus. It is ever-changing, but does not change its typical and characteristics. It avoids long lines and is leisurely in the dialogue; it always hides behind the characters; its first thing is to be decent, and when it becomes "beautiful", it is good The image is just an accident, not of its own making, and it is not consciously aware of it; it becomes lyrical, epic or dramatic, depending on the need; it can rob Passing through all the musical scales of poetry, from high notes to low notes, from the noblest thoughts to the most banal, from the most comical to the most solemn, from the most superficial to the most abstract, it never goes beyond the limits of the confessional scene; In short, this verse is as beautiful as if it had been written by a man who had received from the fairy both the heart of Corneille and the mind of Molière. We felt that this kind of verse would be "as beautiful as prose."

We especially want to reiterate that poetry on the stage should exclude all self-pity and self-love, all excessive demands and all flattery. It is nothing but a form, a form that should bear everything. It has nothing to impose on the drama, but on the contrary, it should accept everything in the drama: French, Latin, legal texts, insults of princes and nobles. , folk sayings, comedy, tragedy, laughter, tears, prose and poetry, convey all this to the audience. What a misfortune it would be if the poet's verses were pretentious! But this form is the form of bronze, which embeds thought in its meter. In this form, the drama is indestructible. This poetic trick is deeply imprinted on the actor's spirit and guides him. What it adds or subtracts, prevents him from tampering with its role, prohibits him from supplanting the author's original intention, sanctifies every word, and makes what the poet said long after the listener's memory. Thoughts, refined in poetry, immediately take on something deeper and more radiant.

(Excerpt from the second volume of "Selected Western Literature", Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1979 edition)

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Note:

① It can be seen from Hugo's draft that this refers to Homer's epic "Iliad".

② It can be seen from Hugo’s draft that this refers to Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey”.

③ Volume 8, line 426 of Virgil's "Inet", the original meaning is: "three colored lights".

④ Ajax: A hero in ancient Greek mythology.

⑤ Mars: The God of War in ancient Roman mythology, equivalent to Ares in Greek mythology.

⑥ Refers to the first chapter of Dante's "Divine Comedy" "Inferno" and Milton's "Paradise Lost".

⑦ Gallo: French bronze artist, a bold and imaginative genius.

These three characters ⑧, ⑨, and ⑩ are common witty and intelligent characters in Italian comedies.

⑾ Don Juan and Sganahele are a pair of master and servant in Molière's famous play "Don Juan".

⑿ Proudhon: The god of hell in Greek mythology.

⒀ Rubens: a famous Dutch painter.

⒁ Fa da Rimini fell in love with her husband's brother Paul, but was killed by her husband. His story can be found in the fifth song of "The Divine Comedy: Inferno".

⒂ For the story of Yu Corino, see the 33rd song of "The Divine Comedy: Inferno".

⒃ Jean Gujon: a famous French sculptor and architect.

⒄ Juliet, Desdemona, Ophelia: the three heroines in Shakespeare's famous plays "Romeo and Juliet", "Othello" and "Hamlet".

⒅ Yago is a character in Shakespeare's "Othello", Tartuffe is the protagonist in Molière's "The Hypocrite", and Basil is the character in Beaumarchais's "The Marriage of Figale" characters in. These three characters have insidious, hypocritical, and greedy characters respectively.

⒆ Polonius is a flattering character in "Hamlet", Abagon is a miser in Molière's "The Miser", and Barthero is a character in Beaumarchais' comedy "Serre". The lecherous old man in Victoria's Barber.

⒇ Falstaff is a character in Shakespeare's historical drama "Henry IV", Scapin is a clever servant in Molière's comedy "Scapin's Gambit", and Figale is Beaumarchais's The protagonist of the comedy "The Marriage of Figale" is also a clever and witty servant.

(21) Medieval French verse novel.

(22) Murillo: Spanish painter.

(23) Veronese: Italian painter.

(24) "The Last Judgment" is a mural painted by Michelangelo.

(25) These three characters are all found in the Bible.

(26) Atreus and Orestes are both very hateful characters in Greek stories.

(27) Wu Rila: a famous French grammarian.

(28) Richie: French grammarian.

(29) Proteus: The sea god in Greek mythology.