SOURCE: "Joanna Baillie," in The Closet Drama of the Romantic Revival (Poetic Drama and Poetic Theory 35), edited by James Hogg, Universität Salzburg, 1978, pp. 308–19.

The dramatic works of the major poets of the Romantic Revival show the varied manifestations of the phenomenon of the closet drama and its distinguishing characteristics. But there were quite a few other writers also who, by choice or necessity, pursued the same path and made their own contribution to the form. It will be interesting to see what this contribution was and how it stands in relation to that of the major poets.

The earliest and, historically, the most important of these writers was Joanna Baillie who received perhaps a little more than her due of praise from a number of her illustrious contemporaries. Sir Walter Scott often mentioned her with Shakespeare,¹ for he thought that she was showing "the means of regaining the true and manly tone of national tragedy."² In all she wrote twenty-six plays published at various times between 1798 and 1836.

Miss Baillie was a dramatist with a purpose and a plan. Believing that "the theatre is a school in which much good or evil may be learned",³ she wanted to create a drama which "improves" us by giving us "knowledge" "of our own minds" through "the thoughts" and "behaviour of others".⁴ In order to realise this moral object she decided to create a gallery of Passions to warn and to guide her fellowmen. She planned "to write a series of tragedies of simpler construction, less embellished with poetical decorations, less constrained by that lofty seriousness which has so generally been considered as necessary for the support of tragic dignity, and in which the chief object should be to delineate the progress of higher passions in the human breast, each play exhibiting a particular passion".⁵ She projected a similar series for comedy, "in which bustle of plot, brilliancy of dialogue, and even the bold and striking in character, should, to the best of the author's judgment, be kept in due subordination of nature".⁶ In these comedies and tragedies the "chief antagonists" were not to be outward circumstances and events, but "the other passions and propensities of the heart"⁷ portrayed with "those minute and delicate traits which distinguish them in an infant, growing and repressed state".⁸

But Miss Baillie often broke away from her own plan, and wrote from time to time "an unconnected or (may I so call it?) a free, independent play"⁹ not bound down to the portrayal of a particular passion. She hoped that such a play "might have a chance of pleasing upon a stage",¹⁰ though she continued to believe that plays written according to her plan were "capable of being made upon the stage more interesting than any other species of drama".¹¹

Miss Baillie had obviously no love for 'closet' drama,¹² though she fully realised the limitations of the largesized contemporary theatres,¹³ in which mere spectacle—"splendid pantomime, or pieces whose chief object is to produce striking scenic effect"—was preferred to "well-written and well acted Plays".¹⁴ After the comparative failure of De Montfort at the Drury Lane theatre, her dislike of the monopoly theatres grew greater, for a few years later she reacted sharply when Sir John Sinclair asked her to write a play on Darius for either of the London playhouses. She declared that she would not "suffer" her plays "to be offered to either of those theatres through any medium whatever", though she was prepared to write a tragedy upon some interesting, but more private and domestic story than that of Darius, … to be offered to the Edinburgh theatre, or any other theatre in the United Kingdom he may think proper, those of London excepted."¹⁵ But her disapproval of the London theatres did not make her recoil from acted drama. While publishing the first volume of her plays, she clearly repudiated the supposition that she had written them for the closet rather than the stage".¹⁶ A few years later, she re-asserted that her "strongest desire" was "to add a few pieces to the stock of what may be called our national or permanently acting plays",¹⁷ so as to leave behind her in the world "a few plays, some of which might have a chance of continuing to be acted even in our canvass theatres and barns".¹⁸ She even withheld a number of her plays from publication, so that they might be offered, through her executor, to "some of the smaller London theatres".¹⁹

Yet only seven of her dramas were professionally produced,²⁰ and in spite of the support they received from the fame of the authoress, good acting, spectacle and music, they were only rarely successful outside Scotland,²¹ though their closet-perusal made her one of the foremost dramatists of her times.²²

This paradox is inherent in her equipment and her objective as a dramatist. She had little practical experience of the stage, and her 'plan' followed in the majority of her plays, detracted from their overall effectiveness as dramas. This, while true of all her plays, is seen more particularly in the more prominent ones: in Basil: A Tragedy, De Montfort, The Election, Orra and The Dream from the 'Passion-group'; and in Rayner, Constantine Paleologus and The Family Legend from the 'miscellaneous group'.

Basil: A Tragedy seeks to depict the disastrous consequences of the passion of Love, through the story of the youthful and gallant general, Basil, who loses all his fame and commits suicide, only because his newfound love for Victoria has detained him in Mantua for a day. The passion of Hatred is the subject of De Montfort, in which the hero's deep and persistent hatred for Rezenvelt defeats all attempts at reconciliation, and culminates in his murdering Rezenvelt, resulting, finally, in his arrest and death. The Election is a comedy on hatred, which shows how Baltimore's hatred for Freeman ends only when they are revealed to be half brothers. Orra and The Dream are both tragedies on the Fear of Death. In Orra, the fear is that of the supernatural, for the young heroine, not willing to marry according to the choice of her guardian, Hughobert, is sent to a lovely castle on the borders of the Black Forest, where she goes mad for fear. The Dream portrays the Fear of Death as being present in the heart of even the bravest. General Osterloo is detained at a wayside monastery and condemned by the Prior to death for a past crime. An attempt to save him fails, and as the blow of the executioner is about to descend, he dies of shock.

The Plays on the Passions are by themselves the best illustration of the academic and dramatic unsoundness of Miss Baillie's plan. In it logic takes the place of observation. Passions are not compartmentalised in life, nor can they be in literature. And in these plays themselves they often mingle. Love, for instance, is found in most plays. The passion of fame weighs more with Count Basil than that of love:²³ he kills himself on the loss of the former without caring to enjoy the latter. Even consciously, the dramatist was forced to mix the Passions, as in The Siege (a comedy on Fear), the hero of which is "a mixed character" whose "leading traits" are "conceit and selfishness" and not cowardice and fear.²⁴ The dramatist's ambitious designs gave way in another respect too: not all the passions can be portrayed from their inception to their consummation. She needed ten Acts to portray ambition in Ethwald, and the roots of hatred in De Montfort and The Election were present long before the beginning of the plays. From the dramatic point of view, even more serious objections to her plan can be advanced, for an unsound dramatic core vitiates the parts. The interest of the play becomes internal: action is sacrificed to thought, and events to manifestations of passion. The movement of the plot resembles the circling currents of a whirlpool more than the swift onward flow of a stream. This downgrading of the importance of action leads to much irresponsibility in the conduct of the plot which sheds its natural verderous garment of events and puts on the sombre robes of meditation. On a comparison with Shakespeare's tragedies after which some of Miss Baillie's plays are clearly modelled, we find the plots too bare and the action too insubstantial. Sometimes too fundamental a role is assigned to coincidence. The root cause of the tragedy of Basil is the coincidence of the battle and his love for Victoria. In De Montfort, the sudden appearance of Conrad, and his disappearance after the crisis has been precipitated, can only be put down to a careless handling of the plot. Another insignificant character who is made to play an undeservedly important role is Hereulf at whose unworthy hands the brave Ethwald is made to die. Such arrangements do not impress either the reader or the spectator. For the latter the authoress has tried to sugar-coat the bitter passion-pill by providing spectacle and Gothic motifs. But at least one of these is overdone—the device of murder, which is pressed into service as a convenient mode of rounding off a situation. What is natural in Shakespeare appears stereotyped in Joanna Baillie.

Joanna Baillie could, however, introduce some beautiful and effective scenes. Her crowd scenes are generally well-conceived and well-executed. Basil: A Tragedy alone contains two such scenes—the opening scene and the scene of mutiny. The Election also has well-managed crowd-scenes. Here, again, Shakespeare seems to have been her model. But the provision of such occasional and isolated scenes or the employment of other tawdry devices cannot compensate for the deeper dramatic deficiencies.

Miss Baillie seems to have realised the possible harmful effects of her plan in the realm of characterisation, for she avowedly "endeavoured fully to delineate the character of the chief person of drama, independently of his being the subject of a particular passion".²⁵ She "endeavoured also distinctly to discriminate the inferior characters."²⁶ But her success in both these respects has been, to say the least, limited. She tends to forget the man in her passion, and so even within the limited range of passions she attempted to portray, the main characters seem to be in line with case-histories reported in medical bulletins rather than human beings with whom we come in contact every day. De Montfort is rightly called a "strange man" (IV.ii), and Baltimore a "madman" (V.iii). The difference between the case-history of a Passion and a complete human being will be apparent if we compare Basil with Antony, De Montfort with Othello, or Ethwald with Macbeth. The dramatist's success with her minor characters has also been partial, for while she has undoubtedly been able to give them distinctive traits, there is a superficiality about them which no amount of variety can cure. They hardly appear as living. Geoffrey, Mirando, Jerome, Glottenbal and the many servants—all, no doubt, strut their hour or two upon the stage but then are wiped clean off the state of memory.

The plays of the miscellaneous group are twelve in number. Though less interesting in the closet as psychological studies of certain passions, they are on the whole better theatre. Rayner portrays a weak hero, who is mistakenly sentenced to death for a murder committed by another, but is saved from the gallows when the real murderer confesses his crime. Constantine Paleologus is one of Miss Baillie's best plays. It shows the Greek Emperor Constantine and his small band of devoted followers bravely but unsuccessfully resisting the Turkish siege. The play is full of striking contrasts in theme and character. In The Family Legend, Miss Baillie was more at home, for its theme is characteristically Scottish—a feud between two families. To end the quarrel, Helen of Argyll is married to Maclean, but, with the full knowledge and implicit approval of her husband, an unsuccessful attempt is made on her life, and she somehow reaches her father's house. The Macleans believe she is dead, and go unsuspecting to a banquet given by her father. After the banquet, Helen discloses herself, and the dazed Maclean is challenged to a duel by her brother outside the castle, and is fatally stabbed.

The miscellaneous plays, though less characteristic of the dramatist, are more traditional in nature and reveal a firmer grasp on the material. Their plots, with just a few exceptions like The Country Inn, contain more action and dramatic events than the Plays on the Passions do. She rightly claims for Rayner a variety of tone, a "varied conduct … , sometimes gay and even ludicrous, sometimes tender or even distressing", and also that she has endeavoured to make all these varied incidents "arise naturally from the circumstances of the story".²⁷ But her works, as she admits, suffer from another serious drawback. They do not possess "that strength and compactness of plot, that close connection of events producing one another … , which is a great perfection in every dramatic work".²⁸ Even the plot of Constantine Paleologus, one of her best plays, lacks an inner motivation: the events just happen. The Family Legend is much more successful from this point of view, though the element of chance, in the timely rescue of Helen of Argyll, is the hub of the story. Like the plot, the characterisation of these plays is also more varied, comprehensive and on the whole, more effective than that of the plays of the 'Passion-group'. The weak and human Rayner, struggling with temptation; the noble but luxurious Constantine awaking himself, like Byron's Sardanapalus, into magnificent action; the loving but timid Maclean—are all life-like creations. None of the heroes of the Plays on the Passions, not even the brooding Montfort, can equal the straightforward and uninhibited characterisation found in these plays.

Joanna Baillie's strongest point in her plays is her poetic power. Of the Plays on the Passions a critic wrote, "These dramas are noticeable for the sustained vigour of their style and for the beautiful lyrics with which they are interspersed, but they have neither passion, interest, nor character."²⁹ The same is more or less true of the style of the other plays. As dramas they are long forgotten, but their poetry pleases still. Here is an example portraying the beginning of love in Count Basil's heart:

'Farewell, my lord.' O! what delightful sweetness!
The music of that voice dwells on the ear!
'Farewell, my lord!'—Ay, and then look'd she so—
The slightest glance of her bewitching eye,
Those dark blue eyes, commands the inmost soul.
Well, there is yet one day of life before me,
And whatso'er betide, I will enjoy it.
Though but a partial sunshine in my lot,
I will converse with her, gaze on her still,
If all behind were pain and misery.
Pain! Were it not the easing of all pain,
E'en in the dismal gloom of after years,
Such dear remembrance on the mind to wear
Like silv'ry moon-beams on the 'nighted deep,
When heaven's blest sun is gone?
(Basil: A Tragedy, II, ii)

She uses prose too with equal effect. She re-wrote certain parts of Rayner, particularly the comic ones, in "plain prose", for the original blank verse appeared to her "sufficiently rugged and hobbling".³⁰ She later proceeded to experiment with prose even in a tragedy. The Dream is written wholly in prose, so that "the expression of the agitated person might be plain though strong, and kept as closely as possible to the simplicity of nature".³¹ But even in her prose Miss Baillie does not cease to be a poet. A passage like the following has all the force of poetry, for it portrays a subdued but powerful feeling:

"Jerome.

(to Osterloo.) Did you hear my son, what the Prior has been saying to you?

Osterloo.

I heard words through a multitude of sounds.

Jer.

It was the Prior desiring to know if you have any wishes to fulfil, regarding worldly affairs left behind you unsettled.—Perhaps to your soldiers you may.

Ost.

(interrupting him eagerly, and looking wildly round.) My soldiers! are they here?

Jer.

Ah, no! they are not here; they are housed for the night in their distant quarters: they will not be here till the setting of tomorrow's sun.

Ost.

(groaning deeply) To-morrow's sun!

Jer.

Is there any wish you would have conveyed to them?
Are there any of your officers to whom you would send a message or token of remembrance?

Ost.

Ye speak again imperfectly, through many ringing sounds, (Jer. repeats the question in a slow, distinct voice.)

Ost.

Aye, there is: these,—
(Endeavouring to tear off his cincture and some military ornaments from his dress.) I cannot hit upon these fastenings.

Jer.

We'll assist you my son. (Undoing his cincture or girdle etc.)

Ost.

(Still endeavouring to do it himself.) My sword too, and my daggers.—My last remembrance to them both.

Jer.

To whom, my lord?

Ost.

Both—all of them.
(The Dream, III.iii)

Joanna Baillie was not a closet dramatist by intention: her desire rather was to breathe a new life into the theatre. But not being, nor caring to be, familiar with the stage, she could not make her plays stage-worthy. The romantic and Gothic nature of the incidents is neutralised by a heavy moral tone, and the occasional sublimity and dignity of her poetry by a pervading "wooden and wordy"³² style. She probably wrote for a stage of her own conception. G. Wilson Knight calls her plays "stage-worthy".³³ But they can be produced on the popular stage only after substantial cuts and alterations. Things, however, being what they are, she must take her place not in the playhouse but in the closet. The following lines of her own may well be allowed to sum up, in essence, the impression left by her dramas:

The speech, indeed, with which he welcomed us,
Too wordy and too artificial seem'd
To be the native growth of what he felt.
(The Family Legend, V.ii)

Notes

¹ For instance, Scott's commendatory lines printed at the beginning of The Complete Works of Joanna Baillie (Philadelphia, 1832).

²Essay on the Drama, in The Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott, [vol. VI] (London, 1834), p. 387.

³ "Introductory Discourse", in Complete Works, p. 22.

⁴Ibid., p. 17.

⁵ "Introductory Discourse", in Complete Works, p. 18.

⁶Ibid., p. 22.

⁷Ibid., p. 23.

⁸Ibid., p. 22.

⁹ "To the Reader", in Complete Works, p. 238.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 238.

¹¹Complete Works, p. 238, footnote.

¹² She had no taste for mere reading, and preferred dramatic narration to it. In The Election: A Comedy, Charles says that "no story read can ever be like a story told by a pair of moving lips, and their two lively assistants the eyes, looking it to you all the while, and supplying every deficiency of words." (III. i).

¹³Complete Works, pp. 336–339.

¹⁴Ibid., p. 336.

¹⁵ M. S. Carhart, The Life and Work of Joanna Baillie (New Haven, 1923), p. 25.

¹⁶ "Introductory Discourse", in Complete Works, p. 24.

¹⁷ "To the Reader", in Complete Works, p. 238.

¹⁸Ibid., p. 238. A number of her plays were written with definite actresses in view. Her various introductory notes bear ample testimony to the fact that stage-production was constantly in her mind. In De Montfort, she even went to the extent of indicating in a footnote (in Act V, Sc. iv) where the curtain should drop in a theatrical production, for "what comes after, prolongs the piece too much when our interest for the fate of De Montfort is at an end."

¹⁹ Carhart, p. 53. They were published in 1836, when, because of the theatrical conditions in England, she relinquished "all hope of their production on the London stage." (Ibid.)

²⁰ Miss Carhart has given the details of the productions in England, Scotland and elsewhere. (The Life and Work of Joanna Baillie, pp. 109–165).

²¹ Among the important successful productions of Joanna Baillie's plays may be mentioned the Edinburgh production (1810) of De Montfort, the Edinburgh production (1810) of The Family Legend, and the Edinburgh production (1820) of Constantine Paleologus. As regards the other important productions, the following comment on the world premiere of De Montfort (the first play of Miss Baillie to be performed) may be taken as more or less representative, "The audience yawned in spite of themselves, in spite of the exquisite poetry, the vigorous passion, and the transcendent acting of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons." (Carhart, The Life and Work of Joanna Baillie, p. 18).

²² Miss Carhart, for instance, calls her "the greatest Scotch dramatist" (The Life and Work of Joanna Baillie, p. 206). Among her own contemporaries, Byron hailed her as "our only dramatist since Otway" (Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, ed. R. E. Prothero, [rev. ed.] Vol. III, 1922, p. 399). Scott's praise of her has already been noticed.

²³ Rosinberg says about him:

One fault he has; I know but only one;
His too great love of military fame
Absorbs his thoughts, and makes him oft appear
Unsocial and severe.
(Basil: A Tragedy, I.i)

²⁴Complete Works, p. 335.

²⁵Complete Works, p. 238.

²⁶Ibid.

²⁷Complete Works, p. 240.

²⁸Complete Works, p. 241.

²⁹ Mary F. Robinson, Introduction to Joanna Baillie in Ward's English Poets, Vol. IV.

³⁰Complete Works, p. 240.

³¹Ibid., p. 335.

³² Hesketh Pearson, Walter Scott: His Life and Personality (London, 1954), p. 70.

³³ G. Wilson Knight, The Golden Labyrinth (London, 1962), p. 210.