|
A New and Complete Translation

Essay 4

1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 12 May 1767

2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 But what kind of hand movements should accompany the speaking of a moral truism in quiet situations?[4.1]

3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 We know very little of the chironomy of the ancients – that is, of the essence of the rules stipulated by the ancients regarding the movements of the hands.[4.2] But we do know that they had brought the language of the hands to a perfection that – given what our orators are capable of achieving – is nearly impossible to imagine. From this complete language, we seem to have retained nothing other than an inarticulate clamor, nothing other than the capacity to produce movements without knowing how to give those movements a fixed meaning or how to combine them so that they become capable of producing a holistic expression rather than just individual significations.[4.3]

4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 I am fully aware that when talking of the ancients, we must not conflate the pantomimes with the actors.[4.4] The actor’s hands were not nearly as loquacious as the pantomime’s. In the case of the latter, the hands substituted for speech; whereas in the case of the former, the hands served to give increased emphasis to speech and, as natural signs of things, helped to lend truth and life to the corresponding signs of the voice.[4.5] The pantomime’s hand movements were not simply natural signs; many of their movements had a conventional meaning, which the actor had to avoid at all costs.[4.6]

5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 The actor thus used his hands more sparingly than the pantomime, but just as effectively as the latter. He never gestured unless, in so doing, he could convey or emphasize meaning. He knew nothing of those indifferent gestures through whose continuous and monotonous use so many actors, particularly women, give the perfect impression of being marionettes. When they describe half of a stunted figure eight downwards from the body, first with the right hand, then with the left, or use both hands simultaneously to row the air away from them, they call it acting; and if someone is adept at doing this with a certain dance master’s grace – well! He believes he can hold us spellbound.

6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 I know well that even Hogarth instructs actors to learn how to move their hands in beautiful serpentine lines – but to all sides, and with all the possible variations that these lines are capable of in terms of fluctuation, range, and duration.[4.7]And in the end, he instructs them to learn this primarily as an exercise, to make them adept at acting, to make their arms familiar with graceful curves, and not out of a belief that acting consists only of describing such beautiful lines, always in the same direction.[4.8]

7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 So away with this meaningless port de bras, and in particular during moral passages![4.9] Grace in the wrong place is affectation and contortion; and that same grace, repeated too many times in a row, becomes cold and ultimately repugnant. When the actor offers me general observations with the same movement one uses to proffer one’s hand in a minuet, or offers his moral as if winding a spindle, I see a schoolboy reciting his little verses.

8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 Every movement of the hand in the delivery of moral passages must be meaningful. One may approach the picturesque at times, but only if one avoids pantomime. There may perhaps be an opportunity in the future to elucidate through example the differences and gradations in gesture from meaningful to picturesque and from picturesque to pantomimic. At present this would lead me too far, and I will only note here that among the meaningful gestures, there is one type above all that the actor should mark well, and with which alone he can infuse light and life into the moral. This is, in a word, the individualizing gesture. The moral is a general tenet drawn from the particular circumstances of the characters; by means of its generality, it becomes somewhat distanced from the action; it becomes a digression whose relationship to the present will not be noted or understood by the less observant or less discriminating spectators. If, then, there exists some means to make this relationship evident to the senses, to make the symbolic nature of the moral transparently visible, and if this means consists of certain gestures, then the actor must not fail to use them.[4.10]

9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 [†]I will be best understood if I offer an example. I use one that occurs to me in the moment; the actor will be able to think of many more enlightening ones with little trouble. – When Olint flatters himself with the hope that God will move Aladin’s heart, so that he will not deal as cruelly with the Christians as he has threatened to, then Evander, as an older man, cannot do other than warn him to take to heart the deceitfulness of our hopes: [4.11]

10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0        “Trust not hopes, my son, they betray us!”

11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 His son is a fiery youth, and in youth we are particularly inclined to expect only the best from the future.

12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0      “Because they trust too easily, spirited youth often err.”

13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 But then he remembers that the old are no less inclined to the opposite error; he does not want to completely crush the fearless young man. He continues:

14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 0      “Age torments itself, because it hopes too little.”

15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 To pronounce these sentences with an indifferent action, accompanied by nothing but a beautiful movement of the arms, would be far worse than saying them with no action at all. The only action appropriate to them is one that narrows their generality back down to the specific. The line,

16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0      “Because they trust too easily, spirited youth often err.”

17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 must be spoken in the tone and with the gesture of fatherly warning for – and to – Olint, because it is Olint’s inexperienced, gullible youth that has motivated this observation from the cautious old man. In contrast, the line

18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 0      “Age torments itself, because it hopes too little.”

19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 demands the tone and the shrug of the shoulders with which we are in the habit of admitting our own weaknesses, and the hands must necessarily be drawn against the breast, in order to make the point that Evander came by this maxim from his own experience, that he himself is of the age for which it holds true.

20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 0 It is time that I return from this digression about the representation of moral passages. We have Herr Ekhof’s examples to thank for whatever we might find instructive therein; I have done nothing but try to abstract correctly from them. How easy and pleasant it is to study an artist who not only succeeds but also sets a new standard!

21 Leave a comment on paragraph 21 0 The role of Clorinda was played by Madame Hensel, who is unquestionably one of the best actresses the German theater has ever had.[4.12] Her particular accomplishment is a very accurate declamation; a false accent will scarcely escape her lips; she knows how to say the most confusing, stumbling, murky verse with such lightness and precision that, through her voice, it receives the clearest interpretation and the most perfect commentary. Frequently she couples this with a refinement that testifies to either a very felicitous feeling, or a very correct judgment. In my imagination, I can still hear the declaration of love she makes to Olint:[4.13]

22 Leave a comment on paragraph 22 0      “ – Know me! I can no longer remain silent;

23 Leave a comment on paragraph 23 0      Deception or pride belong to baser souls.

24 Leave a comment on paragraph 24 0      Olint is in danger, and I am beside myself –

25 Leave a comment on paragraph 25 0      With admiration I often watched you in war and battle;

26 Leave a comment on paragraph 26 0      My heart, which shied away from discovering itself to itself,

27 Leave a comment on paragraph 27 0      Was in combat against my reputation and my pride.

28 Leave a comment on paragraph 28 0      But your misfortune transported my soul entirely,

29 Leave a comment on paragraph 29 0      And now I finally see how small, how weak I am.

30 Leave a comment on paragraph 30 0      Now when all who once honored you, hate you,

31 Leave a comment on paragraph 31 0      When you are destined for punishment, abandoned by everyone,

32 Leave a comment on paragraph 32 0      Equated with criminals, ill-fated and a Christian,

33 Leave a comment on paragraph 33 0      Near terrible death, and wretched even in death:

34 Leave a comment on paragraph 34 0      Now I dare to confess it: now know my desires!”[4.14]

35 Leave a comment on paragraph 35 0 How free, how noble was this outburst! What fire, what ardor animated each tone! With what forwardness, with what an overflowing heart did her compassion speak! With what decisiveness did she begin her admission of love! But then how unexpectedly, how surprisingly, did she suddenly break off and change, all at once, her voice and expression and the whole posture of her body, as the moment came to speak the blunt words of her confession. Eyes cast down toward the earth, after a long sigh, in a fearful, pinched tone of confusion, came finally

36 Leave a comment on paragraph 36 0             “I love you, Olint – ”

37 Leave a comment on paragraph 37 0 and with such truth! Even someone uncertain of whether love would declare itself in such a way must have felt that it ought to declare itself so. As a heroine, she resolved to admit her love; but she confessed it as a tender, bashful woman. As much as she was a warrior, otherwise accustomed to doing everything in a masculine manner, here the feminine kept the upper hand. But no sooner were these words that posed such difficulty to modesty uttered than all at once the outspoken tone was back again. She continued with the most unfettered spirit, in the most reckless heat of passion:

38 Leave a comment on paragraph 38 0             “ – and proud of my love,

39 Leave a comment on paragraph 39 0             proud, that your life can be saved by my power,

40 Leave a comment on paragraph 40 0             I offer you hand and heart, crown and scepter.”

41 Leave a comment on paragraph 41 0 For at this point love manifests itself as generous friendship; and friendship is as bold as love is shy.

42 Leave a comment on paragraph 42 0  

  • 43 Leave a comment on paragraph 43 0
  • [†] Text in blue indicates passages omitted by Zimmern in her 1890 translation.
  • [4.1] Lessing continues his evaluation, begun in [2], of Konrad Ekhof’s performance of Evander in Cronegk’s Olint und Sophronia, and in particular his ability to deliver “moral truisms,” introduced in [3]. For the play’s plot, see [1.2].
  • [4.2] Chironomy: Lessing refers to the “hand language” of rhetoricians and actors in ancient Rome, as described in Quintilian, The Institutes of Oratory Bk. 11, Ch. 3, sec. 61–184.
  • [4.3] This passage echoes Diderot’s discussion of the lost art of pantomime in his theoretical essay Entretiens sur Le Fils naturel [Conversations on the Natural Son] (1757). See Diderot, Entretiens sur Le Fils naturel 139–45; for the English, see Selected Writings on Art and Literature 20–2.
  • [4.4] Pantomimes: the ancient Roman term pantomimus (pantomime) indicated a masked performer who danced and imitated characters wordlessly, usually with musical accompaniment, in contrast to the unmasked mimus (mime) and histrio (actor), whose gestures supported and enhanced words that were spoken and sung.
  • [4.5] Two uncompleted works of Lessing speak to his interest in gesture: “Abhandlung von den Pantomimen der Alten” [“Treatise on the Pantomime of the Ancients”] (dated between 1749 and 1750, Werke und Briefe 1: 711–24) and “Der Schauspieler: Ein Werk worinne [sic] die Grundsätze der ganzen körperlichen Beredsamkeit entwickelt werden” [“The Actor: A work in which the basic principles of a whole bodily expressivity will be developed”] (dated between 1750 and 1754, Werke und Briefe 3: 320–9). In his discussions of gesture, Lessing draws on a range of seminal eighteenth-century works of aesthetics and performance, a number of which he reviewed and translated, including the Dissertation sur les Représentations Théâtrales des Anciens [Inquiry into the Theatrical Entertainments of the Ancients] by the Abbé Du Bos; Les Beaux-Arts Réduits à un Même Principe [The Fine Arts Distilled into a Few Principles] by Charles Batteux; William Hogarth’s Analysis of Beauty; and François (Francesco) Riccoboni’s treatise L’Art du théâtre [Art of the Theater].
  • [4.6] For an analysis of Lessing’s distinction between “natural signs” and conventionally agreed upon signs, see Wellbery, Lessing’s Laocoön 191–203.
  • [4.7] William Hogarth (1697–1764): English engraver and painter whose Analysis of Beauty (1753), a widely influential treatise on aesthetics in the pictorial and plastic arts, was translated into German in 1754 by Christlob Mylius. Lessing provided a preface to the second edition of this book (Werke und Briefe 3: 350ff.). In Chapter 17 (“Of Action”), Hogarth briefly addresses stage movement, explaining that stage action should be graceful and work in conjunction with, rather than against, stage dialogue.
  • [4.8] Hogarth suggests chalking graceful curving lines on a flat surface and training the hand to follow them – an exercise that he describes as “an odd, but perhaps, efficacious method of acquiring a habit of moving in the lines of grace and beauty” (153).
  • [4.9] Port de bras: ballet term indicating the movement and carriage of the arms; also an exercise meant to develop graceful arm movements.
  • [4.10] The term Lessing uses, “das Anschauende” (translated here as “visible”), relates this passage to the eighteenth-century aesthetic concept of “Anschaulichkeit,” (clarity or transparency). As Dorothea von Mücke notes, the “Project of Anschaulichkeit” aimed to remove the veil of artful representation in order to increase the reality effect of the artistic illusion (see von Mücke, Virtue and the Veil of Illusion 18; 40–60). See [3.6] for Lessing’s distinction between symbolic and intuitive knowledge.
  • [4.11] The lines that follow are from Olint und Sophronia 2.4; see Cronegk 311–2.
  • [4.12] Sophie Friederike Hensel (née Sparmann) (1738–89): one of the leading German actresses of her day, as well as a playwright and librettist; Hensel toured for the majority of her career with the troupe of Konrad (Ernst) Ackermann (1712–71) and was hired by the Hamburg National Theater due to her status as a star performer. Known for her tragic neoclassical roles such as Semiramis, Merope, and Cleopatra, Hensel was also lauded for her performances of Lessing’s Minna, Orsina, and Sara Sampson. Lessing and Hensel were not always on good terms, and traditionally the actress has been depicted as a divisive “diva” figure within the Hamburg company. Contemporary scholarship has begun only recently to explore more fully Hensel’s contributions to the German theater; see, for example, Kord, “Tugend im Rampenlicht: Friederike Sophie Hensel als Schauspielerin und Dramatikerin” [“Virtue in the Limelight: Friederike Sophie Hensel as actress and playwright”].
  • [4.13] J. G. Robertson notes that Lessing’s description of Hensel’s declamation follows Sainte-Albine’s description in Le Comédien of how actors should perform Act 2, Scene 5 of Racine’s Phèdre; see J. G. Robertson 478–9; Sainte-Albine 198–207.
  • [4.14] This speech, and the lines that follow, are from Olint und Sophronia 3.3; see Cronegk 331–2.
Page 6

Source: https://mcpress.media-commons.org/hamburg/essay-4-2/