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Robert Louis Stevenson-Part22_Alexander H.Japp(1839-1905)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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declares the need for correction and limitation the moment that he



essays artisticpresentation - from the point of view of art he

lacks at once artisticclearness and decision, and from the point



of view of morality seems utterly loose and confusing. His

artistic quality here rests wholly in his style - mere style, and



he is, alas! a castaway as regards discernment and reading of human

nature in its deepest demands and laws. Herein lies the false



strain that has spoiled much of his earlier work, which renders

really superficial and confusing and undramatic his professedly



dramatic work - which never will and never can commend the hearty

suffrages of a mixed and various theatricalaudience in violating



the very first rule of the theatre, and of dramatic creation.

From another point of view this is my answer to Mr Pinero in regard



to the failure of Stevenson to command theatrical success. He

confuses and so far misdirects the sympathies in issues which



strictly are at once moral and dramatic.

I am absolutely at one with Mr Baildon, though I reach my results



from somewhat different grounds from what he does, when he says

this about BEAU AUSTIN, and the reason of its failure - complete



failure - on the stage:

"I confess I should have liked immensely to have seen [? to see]



this piece on the boards; for only then could one be quite sure

whether it could be made convincing to an audience and carry their



sympathies in the way the author intended. Yet the fact that BEAU

AUSTIN, in spite of being 'put on' by so eminent an actor-manager



as Mr Beerbohm Tree, was no great success on the stage, is a fair

proof that the piece lacked some of the essentials, good or bad, of



dramatic success. Now a drama, like a picture or a musical

composition, must have a certain unity of key and tone. You can,



indeed, minglecomedy with tragedy as an interlude or relief from

the strain and stress of the serious interest of the piece. But



you cannot reverse the process and mingletragedy with comedy.

Once touch the fine spun-silk of the pretty fire-balloon of comedy



with the tragicdagger, and it falls to earth a shrivelled nothing.

And the reason that no melodrama can be great art is just that it



is a compromise between tragedy and comedy, a mixture of tragedy

with comedy and not comedy with tragedy. So in drama, the middle



course, proverbially the safest, is in reality the most dangerous.

Now I maintain that in BEAU AUSTIN we have an element of tragedy.



The betrayal of a beautiful, pure and noble-minded woman is surely

at once the basest act a man can be capable of, and a more tragic



event than death itself to the woman. Richardson, in CLARISSA

HARLOWE, is well aware of this, and is perfectly right in making



his DENOUEMENT tragic. Stevenson, on the other hand, patches up

the matter into a rather tame comedy. It is even much tamer than



it would have been in the case of Lovelace and Clarissa Harlowe;

for Lovelace is a strong character, a man who could have been put



through some crucial atonement, and come out purged and ennobled.

But Beau Austin we feel is but a frip. He endures a few minutes of



sharp humiliation, it is true, but to the spectator this cannot but

seem a very insufficient expiation, not only of the wrong he had



done one woman, but of the indefinite number of wrongs he had done

others. He is at once the villain and the hero of the piece, and



in the narrow limits of a brief comedy this transformation cannot

be convincingly effected. Wrongly or rightly, a theatrical



audience, like the spectators of a trial, demand a definite verdict

and sentence, and no play can satisfy which does not reasonably



meet this demand. And this arises not from any merely Christian

prudery or Puritanism, for it is as true for Greek tragedy and



other high forms of dramatic art."




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