Summary of Foreign Literary and Art Aesthetics · Treatise · "On Ancient and Modern Tragedy"

The representative work of the French critic Saint-Evremont, written in 1672.

This treatise joined the "controversy between ancient and modern" at that time with a literary and artistic outlook that respected reality and followed the times. It competed with Boileau's rationalism and showed progressive literary and artistic ideas.

First of all, it emphasizes the description of ordinary people, ordinary things, ordinary situations, and common sense. This is a criterion for measuring works. Although the ancient gods and goddesses brought a series of great and unusual deeds to the stage, they may not have been surprising in the eyes of people at that time. But today, all these miraculous deeds are just a false story to us. That's all. For us, God no longer exists, and for God, we no longer exist." If the writer just imitates the ancients and introduces angels and saints on the stage, it will be an offense to those pious men and women. , it will be a kind of blasphemy to the gods, and people will not learn from it. Therefore, "What we need is great and humane action", "We should make the actions of the hero in the play not exceed the possibility of human action, but also arouse people's admiration for its unusual and noble qualities." In the process of describing ordinary people, "you must be careful to avoid mediocrity, and be careful to avoid mythologizing when describing great things." Evremont's idea is obviously much more advanced than Boileau's advocating reason and adhering to eternal laws.

Secondly, the book criticizes the atmosphere of superstition and fear created by ancient tragedies on the stage. "This kind of fear has greatly dampened people's courage" and made people sit back and wait for death in the face of fear. Aristotle was very wise. He saw the harm of ancient tragedies to the Athenians and tried to avoid them with a "purification" theory, but he himself did not really understand this "purification" method.

Substance. The author believes that the fear and pity we feel on the stage should be a psychological state caused by suspense and uneasiness, and should be caused by concern for the characters. In this way, we should focus on showing the emotions of those great characters after experiencing disasters. The mourning that is carried out focuses on the expression of cordial human feelings. Even though it arouses our great sympathy and even sheds tears for it, it makes the audience feel heartfelt satisfaction. Therefore, "I hope that this melancholy feeling of pity will be accompanied by warm appreciation, which will arouse in our souls an admiring desire to imitate him." Ivermont enriched the theory of tragic aesthetics and expressed his appreciation for Traditional tragedy theory and creative ideas are also a development.

Thirdly, the book emphasizes the need to use the "now" that describes reality to combat the "ancient" that imitates predecessors, and persuades everyone to use common sense to replace eternal rational laws, which shows the author's aggressive and innovative spirit. Ivermont has a famous saying in his book "On the Imitation of Ancient Writers": "Homer's poems will always be masterpieces, but they cannot always be models." This is a very profound statement. It cannot simply deny the predecessors. Nor can we regard the ancients as the only models that are eternal and unchangeable. The correct attitude should be "We neither overly praise the ancients nor overly discriminate against the present", because every era has its own particularities, social content is changing, people's cultural psychology is changing, and artistic creation can only reflect the times. Only the spirit has vitality. In order to liberate himself from the ancient tragic laws, Ivermont reiterated Horace's aesthetic proposition of "education through entertainment" and boldly put forward his understanding of the task of tragedy: "In tragedy, the goal we pursue should first of all It is the perfect expression of the greatness of the human soul, which arouses in us a tender admiration by which our minds are delighted, our courage is inspired, and our souls are deeply impressed. "Moving." Although this theory is not discussed in the book, it is not difficult to see that the author does examine the creation of tragedy and the way to achieve aesthetic effects from both the aesthetic object and the subject of appreciation, which makes this theory have certain significance. depth.