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MARY TUDOR

PREFACE

There are two ways of arousing the interest of the play-going public: by the great and by the true. The great appeals to the masses, the true to the individual.

The aim therefore of the dramatic poet, whatever may be the general tenor of his opinions concerning his art, ought always to be, before everything, to represent the great, as Corneille does, or the true, like Moliére: or better still, and this is the greatest triumph that genius can attain, to achieve the great and the true at once, the great in the true, the true in the great, like Shakespeare.

For, we may remark in passing, it was given to Shakespeare, and therein lies the sovereignty of his genius, to reconcile, to unite and to weld together time and again in his works, these two qualities, grandeur and truth, almost always set over against each other, or at least so clearly distinguished that the lack of either of them constitutes the opposite of the other. The stumbling-block of the true is the trivial: the stumbling-block of the great is the false. In all of Shakespeare’s works there is grandeur which is true, and truth which is great. At the centre of all his creations we find the point of intersection between grandeur and truth: and where things that are great and things that are true come together, art has done its perfect work. Shakespeare, like Michael Angelo, seems to have been created to solve the interesting problem, the simple enunciation of which has an absurd sound: —— how to remain always true to Nature, while overstepping her bounds at times. Shakespeare exaggerates proportions, but exhibits things in their proper relations. Marvelous omnipotence of the poet! he conceived characters greater than we, who live as we do.

Hamlet, for example, is as true to life as anyone of us, and far greater. Hamlet is colossal, and still true to life. The fact is that Hamlet is not you, nor I, but all of us together. Hamlet is not a man, but man. Constantly to exalt the great through the agency of the true, and the true through the agency of the great, such, in the opinion of the author of this drama, who reaffirms nevertheless such other opinions as he has taken occasion to exploit in such matters, such should be the aim of the poet who writes for the stage. And these two words, great and true, embrace everything. Truth includes morality, the great includes the beautiful. The reader will not credit him with the presumption of thinking that he has himself ever attained this result, or even that he ever could attain it, but he may be permitted to attest publicly his own sincerity by declaring that he has never sought any other end in any of his writing for the stage to this day. The new drama which is about to be produced is another attempt to reach that glorious result. What is the thought which he has sought to develop in Marie Tudor? It is this. A queen who is also a woman. Great as queen. True as woman.

He has heretofore said in another place that the drama as he feels that it should be, the drama as he would like to see it made by a man of genius, the drama according to nineteenth century ideas, is not the lofty, impassioned and sublime Spanish tragic comedy of Corneille; it is not the abstract, amorous, idealistic and judiciously sad tragedy of Racine: it is not the profound, acute, sagacious, but too pitilessly satirical comedy of Molière: it is not the tragedy with philosophical leanings of Voltaire: it is not the comedy of revolutionary days of Beaumarchais: it is not more than all of these, but it is all of these at once: or, I should rather say, it is something different from any of them. It does not consist, as in the works of these great men, in systematically and incessantly emphasizing a single aspect of things, but in looking at everything in all aspects at once. If there were a man living to-day who could realize our understanding of what the drama should be, his work would be an epitome of the human heart, the human head, human passions and the human will; it would be the past brought to life again for the benefit of the present; it would be the history our fathers made brought face to face with the history we are making; it would be a commingling upon the stage of all those things which are mingled in real life; there would be an émeute here, a love scene there, and in the love scene a lesson for the people, and in the émeute an appeal to the heart; there would be laughter, there would be tears: good and evil, the high and the low, fatality, providence, genius and chance, society, the world, nature, life; and over it all one would instinctively feel the presence of something great!

Such a drama, which would be an inexhaustible source of instruction to the spectators, would be allowed entire liberty, because it would be of its very essence to abuse no privilege. It would be so notoriously elevated, honest, straightforward and helpful, that it would never be accused of seeking mere effect and noise, where its only purpose was to point a moral or enforce a lesson. It might introduce François I. to Maguelonne's abode without arousing suspicion; it might make Didier's heart bleed with pity for Marion without alarming the most strait-laced; it might without being taxed with exaggeration and with being too emphatic as the author of “Marie Tudor” has been, introduce frequently upon the stage that formidable triumvirate which appears so often in history: a queen, a favorite, and a headsman.

The man who produces such a drama must have two qualities, conscientiousness and genius. The present writer is well aware that he has only the first. He will go on nevertheless with what he has begun, hoping that others may do better than he. At the present day an immense public, growing always in intelligence, sympathizes with all the serious ventures of art. At the present day all high-minded criticism assists and encourages the poet. What captions critics have to say matters little. So let the poet come forward! So far as the author of this drama is concerned, feeling sure of the future in store for one who goes steadily forward, and that his perseverance will someday be counted in his favor, in default of talent, he gazes out with serene and confident tranquility upon the throng which evening after evening honors his unworthy work with such deep interest and anxious attention. In the presence of that throng he feels the responsibility which rests upon him and accepts it with a clear conscience. Never, in his toil, does he for a single instant lose sight of the people whom the stage civilizes, of history which the stage explains, of the human heart to which the stage gives counsel. To-morrow he will lay aside the work that is done for the work that is to do: he will quit the noisy throng for the solitude of his study: a profound solitude, whither no evil influence from the outside world ever penetrates, where jocund youth, his friend, comes now and then to press his hand, where he is alone with his thoughts, his freedom and his will. His solitude will be more than ever dear to him, because it is only in solitude that one can work for the multitude. He will keep his mind, his thought and his work farther than ever removed from cliques and coteries: for he knows of something greater than cliques, namely parties: of something greater than parties, namely the people: of something greater than the people, namely mankind.

November 17, 1833.

CONTENTS:

MARY TUDOR

PREFACE

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ