The play of “Hernani,” in which Sarah Bernhardt appeared for the first time on Thursday last, occupies an important place in the history of literature and the drama.
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THE NATION - January 10th 1884
Transcribed also below.
Fine Arts.
MLLE. BERNHARDT IN “HERNANI.”
THE play of “Hernani,” in which Sarah Bernhardt appeared for the first time on Thursday last, occupies an important place in the history of literature and the drama. It represents the most flourishing period of the Romantic school in France and may be considered the chef d’nuvre of the leader of that school. It is also a most excellent acting play. The plot is melodramatic to the point of opera, and indeed it has held the stage as an opera thus far with more success than as a play. At the time of its first production it was at the most extreme remove from the plays of the Classical school, and was designed for the purpose of showing how a Romantic play ought to be written. It abounds in the most generous sentiments and the most thrilling situations. The world which it places before us is that medieval world of romance in which love and war are the only occupations fit for men ; in which woman represents the idea of loveliness, purity, and devotion, and the straggle for her affections is the main motive of the action. The Romanticists, it must be remembered, invented this world by a great literary coup, but at the time they believed in its reality. Well established as it is that the age of chivalry and romance never existed, it is no less a fact that in the early part of this century a large number of the strongest writers of fiction and the drama that have ever appeared either in England or on the Continent did believe in its existence, and chivalry and romance were to them more true and real than even realism has proved with us. Their movement, so far as it affected the drama, was in fact, when we compare it with the preceding state of things, a movement in the direction of realism. Their practical object was to break up the classicism of the old drama, with its iron-bound unities, and to introduce in its place that liberality as to time, place, and action which might be supposed to correspond with the actual facts of life, and which Shakespeare had adopted as the dramatic basis of his system. In all this they succeeded completely classicism was killed and the drama was liberated from the fetters of the classical canon but reform stopped a long way short of pure realism of the photographic kind, such as the French dramatists of our day have en- grafted upon the stage. “Hernani” is almost as far removed from what we regard as reality as “Phèdre” must have seemed to audiences which first appreciated the merits of “Hernani.” It is, in fact, now necessary, in order to enter fully into the spirit of the play, to forget everything that has happened since—to forget the very existence of the drama to which plays like Froufrou” and “La Dame aux Camélias” belong, and to revert to that ideal world of romance and adventure which gave “ Hernani” its birth. It is necessary, too, to throw aside’ for a time one’s sense of the ludicrous, for, judged by our present tests, the plot and situations of “Hernani “are ludicrous in the extreme. There are, of course, no characters, in the proper sense of the word, in the play. The development of character never played any important part in the theories of the Romantic school, and Victor Hugo, who is nothing if not an accomplished playwright, cares so little for this branch of his business that be is willing to make everybody in turn display the same traits in the most opposite situations for the purpose of producing a dramatic effect. At the end of the first act we have Don Carlos saving the life of his mortal enemy, Hernani, by a display of that noble generosity which he was fond of exhibiting toward the end of an act, but which be rarely shows at the beginning of one. At the end of the second act we have Hernani playing precisely the same part with Don Carlos. Don (Carlos, however, does not hesitate to obtain an interview with Dona Sol by means of the basest trickery, and up to the last moment appears to be determined to ruin her happiness. Notwithstanding this, his elevation to the position of emperor, which gives him the opportunity of carrying out all his worst designs, has such an effect upon him that he gives up Dona Sol to Hernani. Meanwhile Dona Gamer, after sparing Hernani’s life from motives of the same exalted generosity which at critical dramatic points determines the action of all the characters in the play, and permitting him to marry Don Carlos in the end kills them both, although at one period he had offered Hernani to give up the talismanic horn which plays the part of hostage for the hero’s life. Hernani, who refused to take his life at the hand of his rival, because of his unquenchable thirst for the life of the king, in the end, having forgotten all the other motives which govern his action, insists on throwing up his hard-won happiness, and dying simply because Dona Sol still possesses the born, which lie had previously offered to give up. It is impossible to see the play without being struck by these peculiarities or noticing that what triumphs over them is the cunning art of an accomplished playwright, who thoroughly understands effective situations and climaxes.
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage actress, and has been called "the most famous actress in the history of the world". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of Europe in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the United States. She possessed a status as a serious dramatic actress, earning the nickname "The Divine Sarah."
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