Elements of Criticism. Henry Home, Lord Kames

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СКАЧАТЬ different emotions of love, namely, tenderness, concern, anxiety, pain of absence, hope, fear, accord delightfully with music: and accordingly, a person in love, even when unkindly treated, is soothed by music; for the tenderness of love still prevailing, accords with a melancholy strain. This is finely exemplified by Shakespear in the fourth act of Othello, where Desdemona calls for a song expressive of her distress. Wonderful is the delicacy of that writer’s taste, which fails him not even in the most refined emotions of human nature. Melancholy music is suited to slight grief, which requires or admits consolation: but deep grief, which refuses all consolation, rejects for that reason even melancholy music.

      Where the same person is both the actor and the singer, as in an opera, there is a separate reason why music should not be associated with the sentiments of any disagreeable passion, nor the description of any disagreeable object; which is, that such association is altogether unnatural: the pain, for example, that a man feels who is agitated with malice or unjust revenge, disqualifies him for relishing music, or any thing that is pleasing; and therefore to represent such a man, contrary to<141> nature, expressing his sentiments in a song, cannot be agreeable to any audience of taste.

      For a different reason, music is improper for accompanying pleasant emotions of the more important kind; because these totally ingross the mind, and leave no place for music, nor for any sort of amusement: in a perilous enterprise to dethrone a tyrant, music would be impertinent, even where hope prevails, and the prospect of success is great: Alexander attacking the Indian town, and mounting the wall, had certainly no impulse to exert his prowess in a song.⁴²

      It is true, that not the least regard is paid to these rules either in the French or Italian opera; and the attachment we have to operas, may at first be considered as an argument against the foregoing doctrine. But the general taste for operas is no argument: in these compositions the passions are so imperfectly expressed, as to leave the mind free for relishing music of any sort indifferently; and it cannot be disguised, that the pleasure of an opera is derived chiefly from the music, and scarce at all from the sentiments: a happy concordance of the emotions raised by the song and by the music, is extremely rare; and I venture to affirm, that there is no example of it, unless where the emotion raised by the former is agreeable as well as that raised by the latter.^*<142>

      The subject we have run through, appears not a little entertaining. It is extremely curious to observe, in many instances, a plurality of causes producing in conjunction a great pleasure: in other instances, no less frequent, no conjunction, but each cause acting in opposition. To enter bluntly upon a subject of such intricacy, might gravel an acute philosopher; but taking matters in a train, the intricacy vanisheth.

      Next in order, according to the method proposed, come external effects; which lead us to passions as the causes of external effects. Two coexistent passions that have the same tendency, must be similar: they accordingly readily unite, and in conjunction have double force. This is verified by experience; from which we learn, that the mind receives not impulses alternately from such passions, but one strong impulse from the whole in conjunction; and indeed it is not easy to conceive what should bar the union of passions that have all of them the same tendency.

      Two passions having opposite tendencies, may proceed from the same cause considered in differ-<143>ent views. Thus a mistress may at once be the cause both of love and of resentment: her beauty inflames the passion of love; her cruelty or inconstancy causes resentment. When two such passions coexist in the same breast, the opposition of their aim prevents any sort of union; and accordingly, they are not felt otherwise than in succession: the consequence of which must be, either that the passions will balance each other and prevent external action, or that one of them will prevail and accomplish its end. Guarini, in his Pastor Fido, describes beautifully the struggle between love and resentment directed to the same object:

      Corisea. Chi vide mai, chi mai udi più strana

      E più folle, e più fera, e più importuna

      Passione amorosa? amore, ed odio

      Con sì mirabil tempre in un cor misti,

      Che l’un par l’altro (e non so ben dir come)

      E si strugge, e s’avanza, e nasce, e more.

      S’ i’ miro alle bellezze di Mirtillo

      Dal piè leggiadro al grazioso volto,

      Il vago portamento, il bel sembiante,

      Gli atti, i costumi, e le parole, e ’l guardo;

      M’affale Amore con sì possente foco

      Ch’ i’ ardo tutta, e par, ch’ ogn’ altro affetto

      Da questo sol sia superato, e vinto:

      Ma se poi penso all’ ostinato amore,

      Ch’ ei porta ad altra donna, e che per lei

      Di me non cura, e sprezza (il vo’ pur dire)

      La mia famosa, e da mill’ alme, e mille,<144>

      Inchinata beltà, bramata grazia;

      L’ odio così, così l’aborro, e schivo,

      Che impossibil mi par, ch’unqua per lui

      Mi s’accendesse al cor fiamma amorosa.

      Tallor meco ragiono: o s’io potessi

      Gioir del mio dolcissimo Mirtillo,

      Sicche fosse mio tutto, e ch’ altra mai

      Posseder no ’l potesse, o più d’ ogn’ altra

      Beata, e felicissima Corisca!

      Ed in quel punto in me sorge un talento

      Verso di luisì dolce, e sì gentile,

      Che di seguirlo, e di pregarlo ancora,

      E di scoprirgli il cor prendo consiglio.

      Che più? così mi stimola il desio,

      Che se potessi allor l’ adorerei.

      Dall’ altra parte i’ mi risento, e dico,

      Un ritroso? uno schifo? un che non degna?

      Un, che può d’altra donna esser amante?

      Un, ch’ardisce mirarmi, e non m’adora?

      E dal mio volto si difende in guisa,

      Che per amor non more? ed io, che lui

      Dovrei veder, come molti altri i’ veggio

      Supplice, e lagrimoso a’ piedi miei,

      Supplice, e lagrimoso a’ piedi suoi

      Sosterro di cadere? ah non fia mai.

      Ed in questo pensier tant’ ira accoglio

      Contra di lui, contra di me, che volsi

      A seguirlo il pensier, gli occhi a mirarlo,

      Che ’l nome di Mirtillo, СКАЧАТЬ