Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/23

 women must be tragic heroes and heroines, or comedians in one immense farce. The most beautiful sights of nature must appeal to his eye as stage scenery. And then, too, he must have the knack of finding his plays.

If ideas were to determine what we wrote, we should always write the same thing, and what we wrote would forever be the same flummery. Art must be spontaneous, like the play of children, an expression of life, of strength, of natural abundance. Later, art will take on order and, again like the play of children, fall into a certain rhythm, so that what was at first mere activity, will presently become beauty, and at last will be found good.

The impressions of the artist are not evanescent, nor do they linger in the memory like common recollections of pleasure or of pain. The artist's brain is ruminant of emotions, transforming what at first was only heat into heat and light combined. Thus, through a constant effort of will, what was his life becomes at last the soul of his art, so that every artist can exclaim with Mme. Dorval, seeing the audience rise in enthusiastic applause: "They do well to applaud me, for I have given them my life."

The spirit of the truly great artist differs from that of the mediocre talent, who is always thoroughly at home in his works, which seem to belong to him, where he is comfortable and satisfied. To the true artist, rather, work is the prison of genius, and something forever hovers over it with the melancholy yearning of an infinite longing, seeking an outlet that it may be free. The best of his genius is not what is expressed in his works, but what escapes from them.

Benavente's theory of translation is outlined in his preface to his own rendering of "King Lear":

"Modern criticism prefers the type of translation which is known as interlinear. It distrusts translators, and with better reason it distrusts the literary translator. Truth, however, like virtue, is always to be found upon middle ground. An interlinear translation is preferable for the use of those who are already familiar with the language of the original work, or, else, who are engaged in the study of it.