The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [1045]
Pretend — for every particle of it was pretence. Never was enthusiasm more utterly false than that which so many “respectable audiences” endeavored to get up for these plays — endeavored to get up, first, because there was a general desire to see the drama revive, and secondly, because we had been all along entertaining the fancy that “the decline of the drama” meant little, if anything, else than its deviation from the Elizabethan routine — and that, consequently, the return to the Elizabethan routine was, and of necessity must be, the revival of the drama.
But if the principles we have been at some trouble in explaining, are true — and most profoundly do we feel them to be so — if the spirit of imitation is, in fact, the real source of the drama’s stagnation — and if it is so because of the tendency in in all imitation to render Reason subservient to Feeling and to Taste — it is clear that only by deliberate counteracting of the spirit, and of the tendency of the spirit, we can hope to succeed in the drama’s revival.
The first thing necessary is to burn or bury the “old models,” and to forget, as quickly as possible, that ever a play has been penned. The second thing is to consider de novo what are the capabilities of the drama — not merely what hitherto have been its conventional purposes. The third and last point has reference to the composition of a play (showing to the fullest extent these capabilities) conceived and constructed with Feeling and with Taste, but with Feeling and Taste guided and controlled in every particular by the details of Reason — of Common Sense — in a word, of a Natural Art.
It is obvious, in the meantime, that towards the good end in view, much may be effected by discriminative criticism on what has already been done. The field, thus stated, is of course, practically illimitable — and to Americans the American drama is the special point of interest. We propose, therefore, in a series of papers, to take a somewhat deliberate survey of some few of the most noticeable American plays. We shall do this without reference either to the date of the composition, or its adaptation for the closet or the stage. We shall speak with absolute frankness both of merits and defects — our principal object being understood not as that of mere commentary on the individual play — but on the drama in general, and on the American drama in especial, of which each individual play is a constituent part. We will commence at once with
TORTESA, THE USURER.
This is the third dramatic attempt of Mr. Willis, and may be regarded as particularly successful, since it has received, both on the stage and in the closet, no stinted measure of commendation. This success, as well as the high reputation of the author, will justify us in a more extended notice of the play than might, under other circumstances, be desirable.
The story runs thus: — Tortesa, a usurer of Florence, and whose character is a mingled web of good and evil feelings, gets into his possession the palace and lands of a certain Count Falcone. The usurer would wed the daughter (Isabella) of Falcone, not through love, but, in his own words,
To please a devil that inhabits him —
in fact, to mortify the pride of the nobility, and avenge himself of their scorn. He therefore bargains with Falcone [a narrow-souled villain] for the hand of Isabella. The deed of the Falcone property is restored to the Count, upon an agreement that the lady shall marry the usurer — this contract being invalid should Falcone change his mind in regard to the marriage, or should the maiden demur — but valid should the wedding be prevented through any fault of Tortesa, or through any accident