Revenire Cuprins
THE SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA IN ROMANIAN CRITICISM
Prof. univ. dr. Aurel Curtui
Universitatea “1 Decembrie 1918” Alba Iulia
The paper deals with the Romanian critical interpretations of the
Shakespearean drama. It lays special stress on the meaning and value of
these interpretations.
Four centuries have passed with a constant and diversified interest in Shakespeare’s
masterpiece. Shakespeare’s critical posterity has led to a most sensational evolution and its
aesthetic value has given rise to fertile conclusions some of which are contradictory.
Many critical interpretations were more relevant by their intensity and their exegesis.
Owing to the romantic aesthetic period, for instance, Goethe1 in the Sturn and Drang
period, in his Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister makes an analytic study of the characters in
Hamlet. The Danish prince coordinates ethical and philosophical complexes finally finding himself
in the impossibility of carrying out the obligation insured. Goethe’s viewpoint concerning Hamlet’s
character had a strong influence on the European exegesis including our own.
The Shakespearean approach to the Greek drama was, as a matter of fact, a response
against the French classical drama which occasioned Lessing to note that “After Sophocles’s
Oedip, no other play in the world could have more impact upon our passions except Othello, King
Lear, Hamlet etc.”2.
Similarly, Herder considers that the Shakespearean drama as well as that of Sophocles
are of similar origin deriving from the folklore of the two nations, a straight artistic expression of
their spiritual life. In the critic’s opinion Shakespeare is “the best master” just because “he is always
devoted to reality”. Each play is distinguished by an individuality and a well shaped artistic
universe, and Hamlet seems to the German critic a play full of “local flavour”, “of a deep
preservation of truth”, in which the reader who searches “a mere theatrical moment” finds “a wide
range of dialogues normally connected”3.
While Friedrick Schlegel is shoked by the English poet’s mastery evoking “the depths
of all passions and to present with profound genuineness the human vulgar nature, as it really is”.
And in this respect Hamlet embodies “that life’s concept painful and skeptical and tough” which
individualizes the main hero and “gives Hamlet the very enigmatic note”4.
Shakespeare’s work was thus responding to the romantic demand of embodying in an
artistic work all aspects of reality in a perfect structure and modality of expression, so thoroughly
commented on by Hegel. The analysis of Hamlet, for instance, undertaken by the German
aestheticist, through its comments on the Shakespearean tragic and conflict opened the large series
of philosophical interpretations of the masterpiece within the framework of which some prominent
personalities of the European aesthetics such as Taine, Brandes, Bielinski, Croce etc. are relevant.
This appreciation of the Shakespearean drama will be massively extended and
diversified in other European cultures as well. Writers and critics alike of most varied convictions
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and descending looked for confirmation of their own artistic aspirations and truths in the
Shakespearean drama which offered answers to many aesthetic and theoretical problems of the
time. The large amount of debates and romantic attitudes with their own shades prove that the
Shakespearean drama was placed in the centre of romantic art as the most perfect image of the
poetic creative spirit being regarded together with Faust as one of the most representative works of
the epoch.
However, the critical reception manifests itself in different and diversified manner in
their directions too. Samuel Coleridge5 and especially William Hazlitt6 are the beginners of the
psychological criticism of the Shakespearean drama illustrated at the end of the last century by
Edward Dowden7 and A.C.Bradley.8 Another ultimate trend manifested itself especially in the
Victorian age and which identifies the greatness of the Shakespearean hero with that of a
philosophic moralist who studies and discerns the sides of human conduct in terms of life and death.
For A.C.Swinburne, Hamlet, for instance, is a teacher of morality” more a satirist than a
philosopher”9. While the erudite academic investigations displayed the moral weakness and
exaggerated pessimism of the hero as rendered by E.K.Chambers,10 E.Wilson Knight.11
Criticism in our century could not accept the romantic hamletian characterization which
attempted to give the Danish prince a real existence. Finally T.S.Eliot handles the poetic Hamletian
language in dealing with critical research concerned with style, poetical images, symbolical
interpretations, etc.
Such interpretations among which we find ideas from Freud, E.Jones are generally
simplified. It is certain that almost all literary currents have tried to create a Hamlet who was
“romantic”, “realist”, “symbolist”, “existentialist” and even pathologically created by
psychoanalitical criticism.
Shakespeare’s masterpiece by its many meanings led to be adopted in a large number of
literary schools, which nowadays gave rise to a broad exegesis. We may say that no classical work
has ever been presented so vividly in cultural periods as the tragedy of the unhappy Danish prince.
There are various writers and critics among people who are attracted by the
Shakespearean masterpiece which leads to a creative stimulant and of course to a moral immanent.
Considered from this point of view the Romanian hamletian exegesis nearly corresponds with our
own literary and aesthetic contributions so that critical receptions of the work in Romanian culture
leads to a close relationship with the great European culture in the literary ideas.
From this point of view it is significant that at the beginning of our last century
translations are frequently from Voltaire, Hugo, Coleridge, Goethe, La Harpe prove to be great
European resonances in the classical and romantic epoque. The names of modern critics Taine,
Brandes, Matthew Arnold, Faguet, Brunentier are strongly mentioned.
Such receptive critical efforts to Shakespeare finds itself in the aesthetic thought of the
time. Thus Hamlet begins to be more and more from many points of view considering purely
aesthetic approaches as well as other suggestions determine the interest in the drama.
1. Ideas about the Drama and the Art of the Performance
It has become axiomatic that the profound aesthetic and inimitable structure of the
Shakespearean drama has become a model of evolution of the drama on a European and universal
level. We take it for granted that whether we accept it or not the modern drama is closely related to
the work of the English poet and that the modern drama is definitely related to the work of the
English poet.
Many of the universal brilliant dramatic works were created either by the negation of
the Shakespearean dramatic principles or, in most frequent cases through the recreation in their
spirit, by a permanent confrontation of their value. Consequently, the Shakespearean drama often
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played, in the concept of the authors, a role of catalyst, converted into a literary and aesthetic ideal,
it embodied one of the current tendencies of modern drama.12
It is thus natural that in an early literature like ours which had for a long time the
obsession of the theatre, the Shakespearean work to be placed at the very top.
Nothing else did Eminescu do when in 1870 raised the problem of the National Theatre
program. The Romanian drama in a permanent tendency of renewal and emancipation followed
with an increased interest the Shakespearean work and especially the great tragedies. So much more
as Romanian criticism brought in the efforts of the investigation of this drama elements of pure
originality. The whole process of affirmation and recognition of the novelty of the Shakespearean
work naturally derives from its own artistic value, from the unusual art of setting forth the themes
and human relationships asserted and validated by their own significance from one epoch to
another. By the deepening of the individual life of the personages up to the profound feelings from
the depth of the human mind, Shakespearean tragedy endeavoured to revive the whole epoch of the
English Renaissance. And from this point of view it integrated in the conception of the modern
drama which tended towards a similar objective, namely the description of life in its whole,
complex contradiction and variety.
In this respect the Shakespearean tragedy, a powerful and profound dramatic expression
of life becomes a model of the genre for the Romanian writer, a key pattern of any dramatic
construction, a standard changed more and more often into one of the terms of any comparison.
As we have seen in the previous chapter Romanian writers read, studied and largely
commented on Shakespeare’s dramatic works, they have passed through this habitual education,
which obviously left traces of the most fertile.
Eminescu’s theatrical criticism, for example, proves the influence of Shakespeare’s
aesthetic and ethical ideas. The Romanian poet integrated the Shakespearean theatre into the
modern vision of art, into the general movement of ideas in our dramatic culture relating him to
sensitivity and taste of his age. Many of Eminescu’s observations that he sets forth in a series of
dramatic reviews13 prove his interest for the means through which one may give the dramatic work
a new life, by creating a stronger symbiosis between the dramatic work and the spectator. They
often obey the law of the unity of impression in stage interpretation, as a matter of fact the aim of a
work of art is no other than to produce a unique impression. Therefore the idea of evaluating the
drama through a just distribution of the roles, by a special care towards an all the more condesed
general interpretation seems to Eminescu as an essential element in the art of performance.
The staging of Hamlet by Rossi and his company in 1878 offered Eminescu the
occasion to note that theatre must be directed towards an interpretative art in which the truth and the
common place must be dominating. “A play, and particularly one of Shakespeare’s – the poet
asserts is a work of art, in which all of the characters are so important that they deserve to be
performed by great artist…” Therefore Eminescu notices that “There is too much of a difference
between Rossi and his company so that in order to set forth the unity of the Shakespearean
conception we should take off much of Rossi or to add much to see the company”.14
The renewed meaning of the observation concerning the psychology of the central
character by its relation to the rest of the personages and its integration in the substance of the
drama was consequently a necessity which appeared as superior principle of the interactive art.
For Eminescu the Shakespearean heroes require complex determination while the task
of those who act them must be done in the spirit of the Shakespearean text in order “to see
Shakespeare performed as he naturally is”. So Eminescu’s criticism becomes stricter and stricter
from the standpoint of interpretative art hoping it to be natural and realistic in complete agreement
with the concrete significance of the text. In this respect Eminescu’s comments sums up in a real
“aesthetics” of the stage of interpretation not missing the advice given by Hamlet in Act III, scene
2.
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Like Hamlet, Eminescu demands the actors to give up the extremes in acting as much as
possible. He hates “affected speech and false pronunciation” urging to “decent measure in speech
and gesture”.15
Comments of this kind made by other prominent artistic personalities such as Al.Davila,
Ioan Slavici, B.St.Delavrancea, Vasile Alecsandri will shape a new art of interpretation and of the
usage of dramatic text. Significant are in this respect Ioan Luca Caragiale’s comments which
deserve special attention. They display the Romanian playwright’s careful meditation on the deeply
innovational and significance of the Shakespearean drama. He is surprised by the realism of
Shakespeare’s drama and urgently demands its brushing up of romantic meaning with which it got
in Romanian culture. Caragiale speaks about the English author as a master whom he follows, in
one way or another, in the way of conceiving drama and from whom he really learned many of the
modern stage means (the use of the clown – see the drunken citizen). Caragiale notes with sparkling
penetration that “the Great Brit” is a profound dramatist of human nature, a skillful master of the
dramatic creation.
Thus the concept about drama in our own literature enriches its content with certain
sides and features by the Shakespearean drama. Still in 1885 Caragiale makes a precise delimitation
between the Shakespearean tragedy and the works of the romantic writers, especially Hugo and
Schiller showing the clear superiority of the English author. What impresses the Romanian
dramatist is the unity between stage form and the dramatic content in Hamlet. The dramatic tension
of the action dramatic shifting, the rhythm of the dialogue, dramatic atmosphere and structure, the
development of conflicts are all basic elements embodied in a dense human content.
In Caragiale’s conception the dramatic works provide their value by lively depicting of
intense life, through the background it reflects. “Hamlet is a Shakespearean figure full of truth who
unlike romantic heroes who embody a typical false product of a literary school” who no theatre can
escape from forgetfulness.
On the same occasion Caragiale appreciates the hero’s human dignity especially
preoccupied to find out the truth and to show his “disrespect for human meannesses”. Eminescu
whose critical observations about the Danish Prince deal with acting interpretation Caragiale argues
in favour of natural dramatic development of the Shakespearean character. In his view the main
shortcoming of Ruy Blas lies in his linear psychological structure which cannot assure him a stage
success similar to that of Hamlet. According to Caragiale Hamlet in Manolescu’s interpretation
fully demonstrated the idea that the dramatic works ensure their value trough dramatic force and the
life content they embody. It is worth maintaining Caragiale’s plea for realist orientation in both
stage interpretation as well as in the process of dramatic creativity.
In art, maintains Caragiale, important is not only the form, with all its brightness and
perfection but the life the valuable work can make lively though the noble thought of inspiration,
through artistic meditation able to stir up sensitivity. In this respect the Romanian writer catches on
the Shakespearean craftsmanship in its concrete and revealing details. He thus sets forth this
realistic requirement at the basis of the dramatic art and connected with Hamlet who seemed to him
of a deep and convincing humanity. It is not therefore incidental that in the theoretical guidances in
the problems of drama Caragiale sets definitely forth the criterion of human and artistic values of
the Shakespearean drama.
Alongside Eminescu and Caragiale the Shakespearean work holds the interest of other
writers and critics of the age. Thus for Al.Davila prominent playwright and an intellectual “with
good taste and artistic authority” as the poet Tudor Arghezi called him, the vigour of the
Shakespearean verb suggested in a more complex manner the “psychology of Hamlet” and the
artistic quality of the tragedy.
In Davila’s opinion the characters created by Shakespeare are not essentially the
embodiment of common passions or of a vice, as frequently it was stated in the epoch but the
artistic embodiment of certain complex human prototypes. The Romanian writer points out the
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utmost role of life’s meaning existing in drama exemplifying with Hamlet whose character is one
“of depth and of unusual psychological complexity”, the Danish Prince embodying through his
charming and complex personality “all, but absolutely all of the human passions”.
The Romanian dramatist admires Shakespeare’s simplicity, vigour, alternation and
subtlety of the dramatic construction in his work. Which gives creation above all efficiency is its
permanent topicality, the value of lasting in time. Shakespeare brilliantly represents for Davila the
capacity of genius writer to create everlasting universal types. Writing “To show the world how a
man should be” – our writer says – “Shakespeare, the genius contrasts Hamlet (the deep thinker)
with Fortinbras (man of action). The latter would have punished Claudius without any hesitation.”16
Davila’s comments are focused particularly on the ethical aspects of the tragedy. The
Shakespearean character seems to him endowed with complex features. The chief merit of the
author of Hamlet must be looked for in his quality of “a deep knowledge of humanity” and
consequently in his practice of selecting from life the beautiful and human truth.
In this way the Romanian playwright realizes that the Shakespearean drama is the
outcome of an artistic process of discerning human reality. It has characters who do not act
instinctively but on the basis of a lucid and laborious process of working out phenomena; a human
prototype towards which contemporary dramatic art strove.
As time went on theoretical considerations about the dramatic art of Shakespeare
became denser and serious fully engaging such prestigious writers as L.Rebreanu, G.Topârceanu,
T.Arghezi, V.Eftimiu whose observations through their original depth and character display new
facets of the English writer’s creation.
The artistic quality of the Shakespearean drama, its construction and dramatic conflict
together with personages whose experience and quality disclose general human truths with a
permanent character are but a few major aspects our writers are interested in. Liviu Rebreanu’s
concepts on drama and the art of performance, for instance, display a constant praise and admiration
towards the author of Hamlet whose creation imposes criteria of genuine value. Rebreanu’s
observations sum up a thorough and competent analysis of Hamlet. They are disclosed in the
significance of the conflictual interpretation of the drama. Hamlet seems to the Romanian writer
“…a modern man. A man like us. A man whom mediation hinders to fulfill. A man of scruples.
A man who weighs each of his steps and gestures, each word…”17
The Shakespearean hero in this interpretation gradually displays his fascinating and
complex nature caused by the eternal inner struggle. Like Caragiale, Rebreanu emphasizes the
originality of the interior structure of the personage; the process of artistic individualization
represents for Rebreanu the essential quality of the Shakespearean craftsmanship. It is in the
concept of the Romanian writer – the greatest idea, the unshakable tendency, an individualization
which the writer never proclaims by the sound of a trumpet but it results from the whole of his work
depicted and experienced by all of his characters”.18 The shaping of the Shakespearean drama
occurs according to the structural conduct of the central character in relation to whom the rest of the
dramatic elements are defined such as action, conflict etc.
The value of Shakespeare’s major work rests not so much in its complex typology as in
its harmony in construction: “Each of Shakespeare’s personage – Rebreanu says – gravitates around
a fixed point out of which start all of his deeds and thoughts”. In other words the psychology and
the responses of the dramatic character derive from a fundamental ethical feature out of the rest of
the features of the moral physiognomy are explained and understood. Rebreanu is a sensitive and
gifted spirit evidently inclined to display the complex characters in Hamlet.
In Victor Eftimiu’s view Shakespeare presents the unattainable complexity of human
nature in his work. His heroes have a powerful individuality which is not emphasized only through
their unusual psychological structure but also by an increased and shaded intensity of developing
affective states of mind. Therefore, they are so close to us, we understand them so well that we are
moved by their deeds. Of special interest are also George Topârceanu’s opinions on Shakespearean
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drama. “Hamlet – the Romanian poet asserts – embodies more life that a living human
being…eternal synthetic features through which a large category of present-day people can
reorganize their features”.19
As we can see the tradition of an interesting interpretation of Shakespearean drama is
well preserved throughout certain decades. Significant are in this respect Tudor Arghezi’s
apreciations. “One who has not seen Hamlet – the Romanian poet says – passed on his street an
ignorant. Hamlet is indeed an old friend of the Bucharest theatre-goers”.20
The originality of Arghezi’s vision is visible in the evaluation of theatrical
interpretations.
The dramatic feeling of the Romanian poet displays deeper meanings than other
commentators of the epoch.
As we can see the interpretations are formulated in the perspective of a staging or
theatrical aesthetics. Shakespeare becomes in these decades the prototype of the most accomplished
artistic achievement, of profound aesthetic emotion.
Tudor Vianu, a broad-minded critic and aestheticist calls attention to the necessity of a
more careful displaying of the Shakespearean truth, of an interpretation in a new spirit. In such an
approach Shakespeare’s drama “should be modernized” while the personages ”would have gained
in” depth and reality.
At the same time Camil Petrescu, dramatist and critic of high value pleaded for a theatre
of knowledge. Both his theoretical approach as well as his definition of drama are based on the
principle of a perfect balance between feeling and expression. The demonstration of such ideas
frequently appealed Shakespeare ‘s theatre. Camil Petrescu’s comments on this drama prove a
thorough assimilation of the Shakespearean creation. In his opinion, for example, Hamlet is a
model of absolute drama. Since – the Romanian playwright asserts Shakespeare’s drama is,
essentially everything that worried the intellectuals of the world so far, even in its highest
philosophy: the question of Knowledge, of soul”21 And the critic goes on “Never, in any work, and
may be neither in reality superior people were tormented by frightful problems and more tortured
than Shakespeare’s heroes”.22
In Camil Petrescu’s opinion Hamlet is the drama of lucidity of mankind consciousness,
of the difficulty to discern out of 2 concrete multitude the truth: “The whole of Hamlet’s doubt
facing truth, death and life, is the doubt of mankind facing the little it gets from the unknown”.23 In
Modalitatea estetică a teatrului (The Aesthetic Modality of the Theatre) Camil Petrescu often
employs Hamlet’s example in order to support his theoretical ideas. Thus talking about the dramatic
character he makes it clear that one of the essential conditions it has to fulfill is “an interior
conflict”, the dispute tendencies in its psychological structure, a considerable requirement for
expressing the genuine human nature. In Shakespeare’s masterpiece “this interior conflict exists in
its most perfect form”. Camil Petrescu thus concludes that the value of a dramatic work rests first of
all on its internal artistic virtues.
2. Towards a Systematic Criticism
In the last decades of the 19th century the reception of the Shakespearean drama gets into a
new and superior stage. Now more and more consistently this creation is talked about as about
something fully assimilated in our culture able to stirr new critical opinions meant to contribute to
the improvement of literary and theatrical life. The Shakespearean work is more and more the
objective of special critical investigations, his name is often invoked in general debates on
literature and culture.
Our critical spirit now finds out a theoretical and methodological substantiation through Titu
Maiorescu and C. Dobrogeanu-Gherea shaping itself as an autonomous part of Romanian literature.
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Early attracted by the Shakespearean drama Titu Maiorescu will make of this a model of literary
creation in his theoretical comments. Although he has not written systematic studies on
Shakespeare his incidental references reflect through their density the impact of the Shakespearean
creation in the critical conscience of a remarkable personality of the age. In some of his works the
name of Shakespeare is often called upon as example in sustaining and developing certain aesthetic
and critical ideas.
The important debate on morality in art in The Comedies of Mr. Caragiale is illustrative in
this respect.
Titu Maiorescu defends the Romanian writes against the charge of imorality by providing an
example from Shakespeare’s work “Ophelia loves Hamlet. Does she do anything wrong by doing
this ?”
Like Caragiale, Maiorescu demonstrated through Hamlet that vivid literary works live not
through the tendencies they embody but through the way these tendencies act upon the spirit.
Notes and References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
I.W.Goethe, “Anii de ucenicie ai lui Wilhelm Meister, 1759”, in Shakespeare şi
opera lui. Culegere de texte critice (traducere de M.Isbăşescu, E.L.U., Buc., p.308)
W.Schlegel, “Scrisori despre literatura cea nouă, 1759” in “Shakespeare şi opera
lui. Culegere de texte critice”, E.L.U., Buc., 1964, p. 285
J.G.Herder, “Despre maniera şi arta germană, 1773”, in “Shakespeare şi opera lui.
Culegere de texte critice”, E.L.U., Buc., 1964, p. 293
E. Schlegel, “Istoria literaturii vechi şi noi, 1812” in “Shakespeare şi opera lui.
Culegere de texte critice”, E.L.U., Buc., 1964, p. 303
“Hamlet” in “Lectures on Shakespeare”, London, 1930, p. 135-156
“Hamlet” in “The round Table, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays”, London,
1960,p. 232-237
“The first and Second Tragedy: Romeo and Juliet”; “Hamlet” in “Shakespeare: A
Critical of His Mind and Art”, London (f.a), p. 95-162
“Lecture III, Shakespeare’s Tragic Period - Hamlet”, in “Shakespeare’s Tragedy”,
London, 1926, p. 79-174
“A Study of Shakespeare” in “Readings on the Character of Hamlet, 1661-1947”,
Compiled from Over Three Hundred Sources by Claude C.H.Williamson, London,
1950, p. 562
“Hamlet” in “Shakespeare. A Survey”, Penguin Books, 1964, p.142-149
“The Embassay of Death: An Essay on Hamlet”, in “The Wheel of Fire.
Interpretations of Shakespearean Tragedy with Three New Essays”, London, 1962,
p. 17-47
C.S.Checkley, op., cit., p. 147
C.S.Checkley, op., cit., p. 146-147
“Shakespeare în România”, London, J.M.Dent and Sons Ltd., 1931, p.38-42
Maria Moscu, “Eminescu şi Shakespeare”, in Flacăra, Buc., 1964, nr. 11, p.6-8
“Eminescu şi Shakespeare” in “Studii de literatură universală şi comparată”, Ed.
Academiei, Buc., 1963, p.565-567
op. cit., p.25-38
“Momentul Eminescu”, op. cit., p.81-104
“Student la Viena” (1869-1872), in “Viaţa lui Eminescu”, Buc., E.P.L. 1969, p.128
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20. “The Shakespearean Inspiration in the Romanian Poetry”, in Romanian Review,
Bucharest, 1967, nr.2, p. 88
21. “Literatorul”, 1880, anul I, p.403-404
22. Ibidem, p.404
23. “Contemporanul” 1886-1887, p.29