In him
the comic is a vehicle for satire; and the satire gives pungency and
body to the comic. He was primarily a satirist, secondarily a poet.
Such being his powers and his aims, helpful to him, nay, needful, was
a present Parisian actuality of story and agents. A poetic comedy
ought to be, and will necessarily be, a chapter of very high life.
Moliere's comedies, dealing unctuously with vice and folly, are,
philosophically speaking, low life. His are comedies not of character
and sentiment, but of manners and morals, and therefore cannot be
highly poetical; and thence he felt no want of a remote
ground, clean of all local coloring and association, such as is
essential to the dramatist whose inspiration is poetical, and who
therefore must reconcile the ideal with the real, by which
reconciliation only can be produced the purest truth. That,
notwithstanding they belong not to the highest poetic sphere, his
comedies continue to live and to be enjoyed, this testifies of the
breadth and truthfulness of his humanity, the piercing insight of his
rich mind, and his superlative comic genius.
Of Alfieri's twenty-two tragedies, three only are modern, and of these
three the scene of one is in Spain.
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