Vondel's Lucifer Part 16

The drama, though concerning the divine beings of another sphere, conforms, except where tradition or religion has invested these with extraordinary qualities and powers, to the physical requirements of this, thus making it more probable and the action more dramatic.

The dramatist is a veritable illusion-weaving magician, leading the spectator through tortuous mazes of expectation into a labyrinth of suspense. The end is reached, and lo! the path which appeared so bewilderingly crooked is straight and direct, without a turn to its starting point. Everywhere, too, the mind of the reader cooperates with the mind of the poet in his logical appeals to the heart.

The action, moreover, has its mainspring in error, and ends in showing the natural consequences of crime, with a picture of the sin atoned though not unpunished.

Nowhere is the human interest of this drama lessened by grand scenic displays. These are truly splendid; but even such sublime properties as the universe affords only heighten the interest by showing that, after all, "the thinking will" we call the soul is the n.o.blest work of G.o.d. As played on the stage, the drama must have had exceedingly simple, though perhaps somewhat costly, accessories.

Nothing in the play is more admirable than the uninterrupted contrast of thought and the constant ant.i.thesis of character. Nothing, furthermore, can surpa.s.s the inimitable art with which the monologue is handled at the critical moments that determine a character, as in Lucifer's soul-revealing soliloquy in the fourth act. Here the action, though still sweeping irresistibly on, seems to be in perfect poise, while the inmost secrets of the heart are laid bare.

In his dialogue, also, Vondel is simple and direct. The conversation is always used to recall, to suggest, or to display some motive that binds, while, at the same time, it urges, the action. In such scenes, of course, talk is action.

If art is, as some a.s.sert, a thing of proportions, then surely this drama is ent.i.tled to the highest praise; for its proportions are irreprehensible. If, too, as Ruskin says, "Poetry is the suggestion by the imagination of n.o.ble grounds for the n.o.ble emotions," as a poem, also, it is unsurpa.s.sed. There are, indeed, as many definitions of poetry as there are poets. The "Lucifer" is Vondel's definition.

It is conception that suggests the correlated thought. It is construction that shapes it to the stature of a grand design; and construction is the highest form of the creative intellect; for was it not this same power that framed the templed universe out of the scattered fragments of countless millions of stars? It is in construction, the highest requisite of the dramatist, wherein the "Lucifer" is most grand. The architecture of the play is as symmetrical as a beautiful Greek temple.

There is no obscurity in this cla.s.sic drama, into which, moreover, the poet has introduced enough of the modern romantic to lend it vivacity and interest. Such a subject could not have been cast save in a cla.s.sic mould. The romantic drama would not have been equal to the majestic dignity and the stately style demanded by this sublime theme.

Each act, with its own subordinate conclusion, is followed by a chorus which not only fills the pause, but also intensifies, while at the same time it relieves, the suspense. These choruses, n.o.ble melodies of retrospect, are yet charged with the rumbling thunder of the coming catastrophe. Each is, as it were, an incarnate conscience, the concentrated echo of the preceding act, gathering around it the action, and blending harmoniously with it.

Vondel is one of the few moderns who grasped the fact that the h.e.l.lenic drama originated in rhythmic song, and that around the choral ode should gather the action and the interest of the play. His chorus, therefore, act both as singers and as interpreters of the action, relieving the measured tread of stately tragedy with pauses of musical suspense.

Often, also, they break into the dialogue, and act as mediators and as moralists.

The chorus represent the populi of Heaven, and voice the sentiments of the many. The interchange of thoughts between chorus and chorus, and the chorus and the persons, produces variety. To this the swift changes of thought and emotion also contribute.

Here, also, as in the Greek dramas, we observe the proper subordination of the chorus to the protagonist and the chief characters, and of the lyric to the dramatic elements, while through the whole play the length of the speeches is artfully suited to the character and the situation.

Much, too, might be said about Vondel's felicities of rime, his sweet feminine rimes, his stately, sonorous hexameters, his trimeters and tetrameters, his frequent use of the various cla.s.sic metres, and his admirable s.h.i.+fting of the caesura to suit the feeling of the speaker.

The three unities are here also carefully preserved, which perhaps was the more easily done on account of the divinity of the characters, to which a celerity of movement was natural not possible to mortals.

Hence, the time of the whole drama from the inception of the revolt until the final catastrophe could very probably be included in twenty-four hours. The unity of action we have already spoken of. The unity of place is equally well kept. The "Lucifer," hardly two thousand seven hundred lines, including the choruses, conforms also in respect to length to the cla.s.sic standard.

The growth of the play is no less wonderful than the characterization, many preparations and conspiracies developing at last into a battle, many scenes into a definite situation; the numberless changes of cause and effect at length resulting in a plot full of the force of an action-impelling motive. Thus from the varied complexities of circ.u.mstance and situation is at last evolved the one controlling purpose.

A fine ant.i.thesis to the turbulent catastrophe is the quiet climax, Lucifer's soliloquy in Act IV.; where, however, all that precedes is resolved into one intense situation. The advent of Rafael here, furthermore, is an unforeseen complication to heighten the interest.

The end, by suggestive reminiscence of the fading perspective of the beginning, unites the commencement with the close, making the drama an organic whole, whose soul is purpose and whose heart is truth.

The exquisite blending of the action with the characters, each shaping the other, has rarely been equalled. It is the characters, after all, that are the chief interest and that control the action. We see here the strange anomaly of a cla.s.sic play where the individual shapes the action, and is yet conquered by law.

Here, where the will of a G.o.d clashes with the supreme will of the Supreme G.o.d, great art is necessary to sustain human interest--to delay the interposition of the superior deity until the very close.

The primary motive, self-exaltation, fails grandly; yet in its failure it brings into partial fulfilment the secondary motive, the fall of man.

True, the logical catastrophe does not occasion surprise. It has all along, as in every tragedy, been foreshadowed by circ.u.mstances big with fate. Yet Vondel has added the element of surprise, and to a remarkable degree, by the introduction of a second catastrophe, the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, the natural result of the first. Thus curiosity and reason only end with the play itself. One by one, too, the various episodes are seen to spring from the action, which, moreover, requires no introduction of antecedent circ.u.mstance to set it in motion.

The _ensemble_ scenes, or groups, a sure test of the great dramatist, are handled in a masterly manner. There is also a delightful r.e.t.a.r.dation which heightens the suspense and delays the catastrophe, until, like an electric cloud, it bursts into the thunder of its own generating.

Each messenger, in the play, brings vividly before the eye of the spectator the consequential scene which he himself has just witnessed--of which, perhaps, he has been a part.

Thus, by the artful use of motive-producing complications, the action, once projected, moves on to its end, where the totality of figures, thoughts, and emotions are drawn into one maelstrom of ruin.

There is no distraction. There is no swerving from the opening to the catastrophe; from the catastrophe to the conclusion, the awful retribution.

As in the tragedy of life, so, too, in this drama, the innocent suffer through the punishment that overtakes the guilty; witness the sorrow of Rafael and the good angels at the fall of their fellows; the sin of Adam and Eve, and the doom p.r.o.nounced upon their innocent descendants.

The truth of Vondel's poetic conception is seen in the fact that its essential elements are coeval with man and coeternal with the universe.

As in Sophocles, we hardly know which most to admire, the balanced proportions of the play, or its general conception. Here, also, we often, in a single sentence, find a synthesis of a situation or a character.

Vondel, moreover, most impressively introduces into the ancient Greek form, with its suggestion of an over-ruling destiny, the modern idea of free will. And he does it so admirably that there is no confusion.

Simple in its complexity, splendid in its largeness of design, grand in its harmony, magnificent in its whole conception, the drama sweeps irresistibly through the whole gamut of human emotion.

Such epic breadth and intense lyric concentration have rarely been combined in one poem. Such a drama is, indeed, the sum of all the arts!

THE CHARACTERIZATION.

Vondel's devils are no devils, until the last act, when they act no more, but are described. Then truly they are the incarnations of h.e.l.l's deepest deviltries, and are as splendid in their malignity as they were formerly superb in their wickedness.

The sophistries of these evil spirits are scarcely inferior to those in "Faust." They are the meshes of a gigantic delusion woven by the leaders of the conspiracy around the rank and file of the angels, seducing them from bliss to doom.

Belzebub is the cynic of the play--a compound of Iago and Mephistopheles. This dark contriver of h.e.l.lish plots is colossal in his malignity. He is the first in Heaven to make a prurient suggestion. He is more fiend than his n.o.ble superior. Sleepless, unrelenting, resourceful, alert, he conjures motives of evil even from the tender beauty of the primal innocence. He finds the gall of hate even in the sweet flower of Eden's sinless love. His is the deliberating intellect necessary for the Stadtholder's counsellor; and though slowly unfolding the many sides of his malign nature, he is, we feel, evil from the beginning, grandly diabolical.

Belial, conscienceless and without remorse, is utterly depraved; a vile seducer, the genius of deceit, who does evil for its own sake; a useful tool to serve the baser purposes of the chief devil. Apollion has some gleams of goodness in his nature, but is weak, l.u.s.tful, and easily influenced by the hope of gain--a type of the traitor. All of the devils, and they are the chief characters of the play, may be supposed to represent the different phases of evil; while the good angels, whose characteristics have been but briefly indicated, show the different attributes of the Deity.

As in the "dipus Tyrannus," "the country must be purged," so here, too, the Heavens must be cleansed of "this perjured sc.u.m,"--the rebellious angels.

We must now proceed to speak of Lucifer: his all-consuming wrath, his ambition, his pride, and infernal energy. These traits are exhibited in gigantic outlines even before his fall. After his defeat, what can be more impressive than his all-enduring Archangelic pa.s.sion, glorious in its all-defying mood? Not his the wild outbursts nor the mad ravings of Lear. Every ebullition of his anger is fraught with purpose, and is trans.m.u.ted into revengeful action. Mind and spirit are, after all, the conquering forces of the universe. Material circ.u.mstance and physical environment cannot thwart their design. It is this enn.o.bling consciousness of intellectual power, supplemented by unconquerable and irresistible will, that makes the magnificence of the personality of Lucifer. Like Milton's Satan, he is, we feel, most near a G.o.d when he is most a devil.

Lucifer, like Macbeth, is not influenced all at once. With a G.o.d-like circ.u.mspection, he first weighs every atom of probability. However, when the die is cast and the line of rebellion has once been crossed, he fights to the last ditch.

Lucifer is a sublime egoist--the spirit of negation placed against the limitations of the positive. He is overpowering. No one, even for an instant, dares to dispute his power, not even the grand Michael. His is the unconquerable Batavian heart. He dominates the entire action, and like a magnet draws all the other characters around him. Though jealousy of man is the animating pa.s.sion of the lower devils and the excuse of the protagonist himself, yet we feel that he uses this merely as a stalking horse for his overweening ambition. Lucifer would become G.o.d himself. It is an unwritten law of great tragedy that the villain, though a villain, must be admirable. Lucifer, arch-villain that he is, is superb in his constructive villany--a very G.o.d of evil, with resources at his command formidable enough to make or to mar a world, and yet resulting only in his own undoing. Proud in the consciousness of G.o.dlike powers, he thinks,

"I have a bit of fiat in my soul, And can myself create a little world."

His confidence, however, proves to be but the fiat of his d.a.m.nation.

"There is no fiercer h.e.l.l than the failure in a great undertaking." Into this h.e.l.l Lucifer was forever thrust. Yet he is allowed one brief moment of happiness; it is where he proclaims himself a G.o.d, and is wors.h.i.+pped by his followers.

Lucifer is the prince of thinkers, and a monarch among actors. His is the intellect to plan and to conceive, and the will to execute; and will is above all the one quality emphasized. As much as he is in this respect supereminent, so much greater the degree of his guilt. Could the force of this faculty have been better shown than in the picture of the fallen Archangel, where, in the agonies of torture and the throes of expiation, he not only deliberates, resolves, and executes, but even exults, as, culling the bitter sweetness of a hopeless hope from the h.e.l.l-flower of despair, he rejoices in the fiendish triumph that he knows is but the prelude to everlasting doom? Unlike the unconquerable and torture-racked Prometheus, he allows not one sigh to escape from the depths of his anguish; not one moan rises from his abysmal despair.

Malediction alone can unlock his implacable lips. From even the caverns of h.e.l.l he projects his evil genius back into s.p.a.ce to accomplish a predetermined revenge.

Lucifer reasons with Rafael and with Gabriel; but with Michael only war is possible. The two chiefs are too equal in power, too proud, and too warlike to waste time in words. Each, accustomed to command, will brook no authority in the other. The pathos and the tenderness of Rafael, on the other hand, present a strong relief to the sombre pa.s.sions of Lucifer. It is the ethical portraiture of this drama that is its most powerful feature.

Lucifer, also, in a certain sense, represents the ideal Dutchman--combining in a losing struggle the daring of Civilis and the intellect of Erasmus with the astuteness and magnanimity of William the Silent--a grand hero in a bad cause! Lucifer has indeed "set the time out of joint" for Adam's seed; yet the play also gives promise of the Christ who will again make all things right; there is here, also, a suggestion of the "Paradise Regained."

The drama is ended; the thunders have ceased to roll, and are again chained to the chariot of the Deity; the lightnings once more slumber in the bosom of the night. The battle is over, the air is again pure and clear. The good has been exalted; the bad has been debased. The heart of the spectator, too, has been the scene of the battle of the pa.s.sions: terror, pity, hope, despair, love, joy, peace have each alternated in brief possession. The _katharsis_ of the soul is accomplished. It has been purified of all that is gross and earthly. It has become spiritualized. It has become conscious of its wings, thrilled with aspiration for the ethereal and for the stars beyond.

IS THE "LUCIFER" A POLITICAL ALLEGORY?