Mr. Winter on Dramatic Criticism

THE remarks of experienced critics about their own art are often most instructive, and in Mr. Winter’s late oration upon the relation of dramatic criticism to the stage ¹ there is a fund of wisdom, applicable to all criticism, which is rarely to be met with in so ripe, temperate, and apt a form. The immediate occasion of this expression of his views was the complaint of Boucicault that the press is responsible for the low vitality of the theatre, which, it is alleged, has not produced a great play since 1850. Mr. Winter is consequently somewhat controversial in style, but he cannot be said to be put upon his defense, for he no sooner begins than he carries the war straight into the enemy’s country. The completeness of his demolition of his adversary is a feat of destructive criticism, in the finest modern urbane manner, to which the lover ot literary mischief is not often treated ; it is a spectacle in itself. This, however, is a minor matter, and belongs to the annals of the stage. What has a more enduring and a wider value is his exposition of the function of criticism, and its value to the public and the author.

It is refreshing to find him minimizing its influence, He first limits its scope. It is not the business of dramatic criticism to create the theatre; it does not aim to teach the writing of plays or the acting of them, nor keep school in any way ; but, just as with other news, it is the place of the press to make a complete and truthful record, and to comment in a “ rational, able, and vivacious manner, and in that vein of reflection, whatever it may be, which it is believed will most conduce to the public good.”The press should treat all news in this way ; and so far as the stage is concerned, “ its moral aspect, its intellectual quality, its spiritual drift, and its artistic and industrial prosperity are the proper objects of attention.” In setting off this modest province for dramatic criticism, Mr. Winter points out that he merely observes inherent limitations. He finds it ridiculous to suppose that any number of critics could create a great actor or a great play. He is content to take his place with the men of an elder day as a believer in genius. “Greatness,” he says, “in any period and under any circumstances, has always been rare. It is of elemental birth, and is independent alike of its time and of its circumstances. Theorists who assure you, as the historian Froude has assured you, that Shakespeare was the result of his time talk fantasy. He was the consequence of heredity, — if you like, of Adam and Eve, — but not of social conditions antecedent to the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The active existence of a circle of dramatic critics could neither have repressed his development nor caused it ; nor would such a circle affect such a mind now, if such a mind were born. Neither is it environment that causes the production of great plays ; it is inspiration working upon a special faculty congenital in the author ; and even this cannot be implicitly trusted. Not more than twenty out of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays are great plays, or have survived as of any practical use to the stage at present.” Of six thousand English plays published before 1800, he finds no more than fifty that ever are or ever should be acted now ; and that the part of the dramatic critics in the creation of these was excessively small he does not need to add.

The futility of criticism as an influence upon imaginative literature of the first order could not be more broadly stated, nor the doctrine of genius more exactly declared. The inadequacy of the means invoked by those who look to criticism as a regenerating influence becomes more apparent as Mr. Winter proceeds to show that it is largely the reflection of that very public opinion which it is called upon to instruct. He quotes the saying of James Gordon Bennett, that he did not desire the Herald to be “more than half a day in advance of public opinion on any subject whatever,”— an ambition that Mr. Winter thinks was never overshot by that journal. He quotes also something of the vapid talk of theatre-goers, in illustration of what state of advancement public opinion in matters of the stage is in.

Dramatic criticism, which by the conditions of its existence is bound to such a body of public opinion, cannot rise to a high mark except in the case of a few writers in a few journals of rank. It will be observed that the author does not overestimate his trade even at its best; but let it not be thought that he is niggard of praise to his companionsin-arms or to the stage. He frequently reminds the complaining Boucicault that there are many good plays, good actors, and good critics, and affirms, without any fear of contradiction, that the condition of the theatre in America has shown continual and great betterment, from whatever point of view it be regarded, even if judged by the space afforded to it and the notoriety given to its lights in the newspaper columns. He makes an admirable and just showing for the stage as it is to-day in comparison with any past American days. But he returns again to the modest office of the critic, and acknowledges that he is unable quite to understand the superlative practical value of the critical article. " If well written, it may interest the reader’s thoughts, excite his curiosity, increase or rectify his knowledge, and possibly suggest to him a beneficial line of reflection or study. That is all. Criticism establishes no man ’s rank, fixes no man’s opinion, dissuades no man from the bent of his humor.” He therefore advises the critic not to flatter himself.

“ It often happens that his articles are not read at all ; and when they are read, it is quite as likely that they will excite antipathy as it is that they will win assent. He should not imagine that he is Apollo standing by a tripod, or Brutus sending his son to the block. He is in reality — if we consider the probable effect of his words upon the mind of the public in general — firing a pop-gun.”Then turning to the other branch of perfect counsel, he reminds him that his first obligation is that of “sympathetic and judicious favor. The most important, part of his function is the perception and proclamation of excellence. To a man of fine intelligence and gentle feeling, nothing in the world is so delightful as a free impulse to the appreciation of nobleness in human capacity and beauty in human life;” and it is only when criticism springs from this impulse that he finds it a blessing.

Mr. Winter quotes at the end Longfellow’s doctrine that “ it is the province of the critic to give pain.”He confesses that in his own literary life he has followed the poet’s advice, and habitually left unread criticisms upon his own works. He counsels the actor to the same course. “ If favorable,” he says, “ there is danger that it may weaken his character by ministering to his vanity, already sufficiently inflamed by his life of constant appeal to the admiration of the public. If unfavorable, there is the possibility that it will restrict his freedom, and thus impair his usefulness, by wounding his sensibility, if not actually grieving his heart, and thus depressing his spirits and paralyzing his energy.”Finally, he recommends to him “the tribunal of his own conscience,”instead of running after newspapers in search of appreciation, which, “in the broad and grand sense of the word, is the one thing not to be expected, because it is the one thing that almost never comes.” In this strain the oration fitly ends with words that sum up in practical counsel the results of a survey of the scope and value of dramatic criticism which at every step arrests the mind by its sound observation and exact expression of truth.

There is, let us remark further, not a word of all this that does not equally apply to literary criticism. Its dependence upon public opinion is hardly less intimate; its impotence in producing great novels or great poems is equally well illustrated in the past and patent at the present; its inutility to the author is not less certain ; its need of modesty in estimating its practical value, its rightful restriction of its efforts to its duty to the public, and its concern with excellence mainly are not a whit less to be insisted on. It is true that literary criticism is an instrument for the agitation of ideas, independent of the author’s works which may be made the excuse for advancing them, and theories of literary art offer a broader scope, since they include much beside the drama ; but of the criticism of literature in the strict sense all that Mr. Winter lays down may be reasserted. The great critics are the least likely to overrate their office, as their words about themselves show; and to the diatribes which are launched against their class, and which are usually in Boucicault’s manner, they would reply in the same vein that Mr. Winter has so happily employed. A misconception of the office of criticism and of its limited influence underlies these complaints in one as in the other art. Mr. Winter corrects this, and the advice which he mingles with his discourse applies to the whole literary as to the whole dramatic profession. Usually the world has little reason to be glad of controversy ; but in this case of Boucicault’s quarrel, sweet are the uses of his adversity, in which so much instruction is accompanied by so much gentleness.