George Henry Lewes - Lewes and Literature

Lewes and Literature

During the next ten years Lewes supported himself by contributing, to quarterly and other reviews, articles discussing a wide range of subjects, often imperfect but revealing acute critical judgment enlightened by philosophic study. The most valuable are those on drama, afterwards republished under the title Actors and Acting (1875), and The Spanish Drama (1846). As a youngster, he witnessed a performance by Edmund Kean which stayed with him as an unforgettable experience. He also witnessed and wrote of his impressions of performances by William Charles Macready and other famous stars of the 19th century London stage. He is considered to be the first practitioner of modern theatre criticism and the realistic approach to acting.

In 1845–46, Lewes published The Biographical History of Philosophy, an attempt to depict the life of philosophers as an ever-renewed fruitless labour to attain the unattainable. In 1847–48, he published two novels — Ranthrope, and Rose, Blanche and Violet — which, though displaying considerable skill in plot, construction, and characterization, have taken no permanent place in literature. The same is to be said of an ingenious attempt to rehabilitate Robespierre (1849). In 1850 he collaborated with Thornton Leigh Hunt in the foundation of the Leader, of which he was the literary editor. In 1853 he republished under the title of Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences a series of papers which had appeared in that journal.

The culmination of Lewes's work in prose literature is the Life of Goethe (1855), probably the best known of his writings. Lewes's versatility, and his combination of scientific with literary tastes, eminently fitted him to appreciate the wide-ranging activity of the German poet. The work became well known in Germany itself, despite the boldness of its criticism and the unpopularity of some of its views (e.g. on the relation of the second to the first part of Faust).