OCR Text |
Show 212 THE CODE OF TERPSICHORE. neglect variety is excluded, and a multitude of subjects to be found in nature remains entirely untouched. The tragi-comic class of pieces present a vast field in which a fertile fancy may range at pleasure. It requires, however, deep discrimination to succeed in this style, nothing being more difficult than to pass " From grave to gay; from lively to severe.'' POPE. " Passer du grave au doux, du plaisant au severe." BOILEAU. Were we to admit nothing into tragedy but horror and dread, and nothing but the jocular and ridiculous into comedy, what would then become of that immense space that lays between these two extremes ? Should not this blank be adorned by representations of those sentiments and incidents which are neither terrible nor trite, neither grave nor gay ? Thus it appears there are several kinds of tragic and comic productions. Can the style of Corneille be termed tragic in his Nicomede, as it is in Rodogune ? H o w widely different is the style of Tancredi from that of Otello! Yet both are of the tragic cast. The style of Alfieri is entirely different from that of Racine. The comic humour of the Misantrope is not the same with that of the Femtnes Savantes, and the style of the Etourdi differs from that of the Glorieux. Goldoni presents still another sort of comedy in his Padre di Famiglia, not at all resembling that of Gl' Innamorati. Le Dissipateur, Nanine, La Gouvernante, & c , are all dissimilar. The same characteristics are perceptible in the style of Ballets as in that of poetry, and it belongs to the man of talent to appropriate to each its peculiar colouring. There are many French comedies, however, which, had ' they been written in verse, with a classic change in the names, might pass for legitimate tragedies. On the other hand, |