2. THE EXTERNAL TECHNIQUE OF A DRAMATIC COMPOSITION

Poetry, alone among the arts, completely dispenses with the sensuous

medium of the objective world of phenomena. Inasmuch moreover as the

drama does not interpret to the imaginative vision the exploits of

the past, or express an ideal personal experience to mind and soul,

but rather is concerned to depict an action in all the reality of its

actual presence, it would fall into contradiction with itself if it

were forced to remain limited to the means, which poetry, simply as

such, is in a position to offer. The present action no doubt belongs

entirely to the personal self, and from this point of view complete

expression is possible through the medium of language. From an opposite

one, however, the movement of action is towards objective reality, and

it requires the complete man to express its movement in his corporeal

existence, deed and demeanour, as well as the physiognomical expression

of emotions and passions, and not only these on their own account,

but in their effect on other men, and the reactions which are thereby

brought into being. Moreover, in the display of individuality in its

actual presence, we require further an external environment, a specific

_locale_, in which such movement and action is achieved. Consequently

dramatic poetry, by virtue of the fact that no one of these aspects can

be permitted to remain in their immediate condition of contingency,

but have all to be reclothed in an artistic form as phases of fine

art itself, is compelled to avail itself of the assistance of pretty

well all the other arts. The surrounding scene is to some extent,

just as the temple is, an architectonic environment, and in part also

external Nature, both aspects being conceived and executed in pictorial

fashion. In this _locale_ the sculpturesque figures are presented with

the animation of life, and their volition and emotional states are

artistically elaborated, not merely by means of expressive recitation,

but also through a picturesque display of gesture and of posture and

movement, which, in its objective form, is inspired by the inward

soul-life. In this respect we may have brought home to us a distinction

which recalls a feature I have at an earlier stage indicated in the

sphere of music as the opposition implied in the arts of declamation

and melody. In other words, just as in declamatory music language in

its spiritual signification is the aspect of most importance, to the

characteristic expression of which the musical aspect is entirely

subordinate, whereas the movement of melody is unfolded freely on its

own account in its own specific medium, although it too is able to

assimilate the content of language--so also dramatic poetry, on the one

hand, avails itself of those sister arts merely as instrumental to a

material basis and environment, out of which the language of poetry is

in its free domination asserted as the commanding central focus, upon

and around which all else really revolves. From the further point of

view, however, that which in the first instance had merely the force of

an assistant and accompaniment, becomes an object on its own account,

and receives the appearance in its own domain of an essentially

independent beauty. Declamation passes into song, action into the mimic

of the dance, and scenery in its splendour and pictorial fascination

itself puts forward a claim to artistic perfection.

In contrasting, then, a contrast frequently insisted upon, and more

particularly in recent times, poetry in its simplicity with the

external dramatic execution such as we have above described, we

may continue the course of our review under the following heads of

discussion.

_First,_ there is the dramatic poetry, whose object is to restrict

itself to the ordinary ground of poetry, and consequently does not

contemplate the theatrical representation of its productions.

_Secondly_, we have the genuine art of the theatre, to the extent that

is in which it is limited to recitation, play of pose and action, under

the modes in which the language of the poet is able throughout to

remain the definitive and decisive factor.

_Lastly_, there is that type of reproduction, which admits the

employment of every means of scenery, music and dance, and suffers the

same to assert an independent position as against the dramatic language.

(_a_) _The Reading and Recitation of Dramatical Compositions._

The true sensuous medium or instrument of dramatic poetry is, as we

have seen, not only the human voice and the spoken word, but the entire

man, who not merely expresses emotions, ideas, and thoughts, but, as

vitally absorbed in a concrete action, in virtue of all that he is

influences the ideas, designs, the action and behaviour of others,

experiences similar effects on himself, or maintains his independent

opposition to them.

(_α_) In contrast to such a definite view, which is based upon the

essential character of dramatic poetry itself, it is a feature of

modern notions on the subject, particularly so among ourselves,

to regard the organization of drama with a view to its theatrical

reproduction as unessential and subsidiary, although as a fact all

dramatic authors, even when they adopt this attitude of indifference

and contempt, entertain the wish and hope to see their compositions

on the stage. The result is that the greater number of more recent

dramas are unable ever to find a stage, and the simple reason of this

is that they are undramatical. We are not of course, therefore, in a

position to deny that a dramatic composition may satisfy the conditions

of genuine poetry in virtue of its intrinsic worth. What we affirm is

that it is only to an action, the dramatic course of which is admirably

adapted to theatrical representation, that we are to attribute such

intrinsic dramatic worth. The best authority for such a statement is

supplied by the Greek tragedies. It is true that we no longer see these

on the contemporary stage, but they do nevertheless, if we regard the

facts more closely, completely satisfy us to a real extent precisely on

this ground that they were written without reserve for the theatre of

their day. What has banished them from the theatre of today is not so

much the character of their dramatic organization, which differs mainly

from that of to-day in its employment of the chorus, as in the nature

of national predilections and conditions, upon which for the most part,

if we consider their content, they are based, and in which owing to the

distance in which they are placed relatively to our own contemporary

life we are unable now to feel ourselves at home. The malady of

Philoctetes, for instance, the loathsome ulcer on his foot, his

ejaculations and outcries, are as little likely to awaken the genuine

interest of a modern audience as the arrows of Hercules, about which

the main course of that drama revolves. In a similar way, though we may

admit the barbaric cruelty of the human sacrifice in the Iphigeneia

in Aulis and Tauris in an opera, we find it absolutely necessary in

tragedy at any rate that this aspect should be wholly revised as Goethe

has in fact done.

(_β_) The difference, however, thus indicated between ancient and

modern customs, which effects the mere perusal of such works, no

less than the complete and vital reproduction of them as a whole, has

had the further effect of pointing out to us another by-way, in which

poets to some extent deliberately fashion their work exclusively for

the reader's perusal, and in a manner by which the difficulty above

indicated no longer affects the character of such compositions. There

are no doubt in this connection isolated points of view, which merely

refer to features of external form, which are implied in the so-called

knowledge of the stage, and an indifference as to which does not lessen

the poetical worth of a dramatical production. To these belong, for

example, the careful regulation of the scenic arrangements, that one

scene can follow without difficulty after another, though it requires

great alterations in the scenery, or that the actor is given sufficient

time to make the necessary change of costume, or to recover from his

previous exertions. A knowledge and aptitude of this nature is neither

indicative of any poetical superiority or the reverse; they rather

depend upon the naturally varying and conventional arrangements of

the theatre. There are, however, other features relatively to which

the poet, in order to be truly dramatical, must have the animated

reproduction visibly present in its substance, must make his _dramatis

personae_ speak and act conformably thereto, that is, in complete

congruity with an actually present realization. Viewed in this light

theatrical reproduction is a real test. For in the presence of the

supreme court of appeal of a sound and artistic public the mere

speeches and tirades of our so-called exquisite diction, if dramatic

truth is not thereby asserted, will not hold water. There are periods,

no doubt, in which the public also is corrupted by the culture it is

the fashion so highly to praise, I mean by heads generally overstocked

with the current opinions and fancies of the connoisseur and critic.

Let it however only retain its own essentially sterling commonsense,

and it will only be satisfied in those cases where characters express

themselves and act precisely as the reality of life no less than

art demands and necessitates. If the poet, on the contrary, writes

exclusively for the single reader he very readily gets no further

than making his characters speak and behave much as they might do in

an epistolary correspondence. If any one thus gives us the reasons

for his aims and what he does, or unbares his heart in any other

respect, instead of that which we should at once remark thereupon we

get between the receipt of the letter and our immediate reply time

for all kinds of reflection and idea. The imagination opens in this

case a wide field of possibilities. In the _actually present_ speech

and rejoinder we have to presuppose that as between man and man the

volition and heart, the movement of feeling and decision are more

direct, that in short the dialogue passes on without any such recourse

to considerable reflection, but at once from soul to soul, as eye to

eye, mouth to mouth, and ear to ear. Only in such a case the actions

and speeches are expressed with life from the actual personality, who

has no time left him to make a careful selection from one out of many

possibilities. Under this view of the case it is not unimportant for

the poet throughout his composition to keep his eye on the stage, which

renders such a direct type of animation necessary. Nay, for myself

I go to the length of maintaining that no dramatic work ought to be

printed, but rather, as no doubt with the ancients, it should belong to

the stage repertory in manuscript form,[21] and only receive quite an

insignificant circulation. We should at least in that case limit very

considerably the present superabundance of dramas, which it is possible

possess the speech of culture, fine sentiments, excellent reflections,

and profound thoughts, but which are defective in the very direction

which makes a drama dramatical, that is, in the display of action, and

the vital movement which belongs to it.

(_γ_) In the mere _perusal_ and _reading aloud_ of dramatic

compositions we find a difficulty in deciding whether they are of

a type which would produce the due effect from the stage. Even

Goethe, whose experience of stage management in his later years was

exceptional, was far from being dependable on this head, a result no

doubt mainly due to the extraordinary confusion of our public taste,

which is able to accept with approval almost anything and everything.

If the character and object of the _dramatis personae_ are on their

own account great and substantive the manner of composition no doubt

presents less difficulty. But as regards the motive force of interests,

the various phases in the progress of the action, the suspended

interest and development of situations, the just degree in which

characters assert their effect on each other, the appropriate force

and truth of their demeanour and speech--in all such respects the mere

perusal unassisted by a theatrical performance can only in the rarest

cases arrive at a reliable decision. Reading a work aloud is only under

great qualification a further assistance. Speech in drama requires

the presence of separate individuals. The delivery of _one voice_,

however artistically it may adapt itself to different shades of tone

in alternate or varying change is insufficient. Add to this the fact

that in reading aloud we are throughout confronted with the difficulty

whether on every occasion the persons speaking should be mentioned or

not. Both alternations are equally open to objection. If the delivery

is that of one voice the statement of the names of the characters

speaking becomes an indispensable condition of intelligibility, but by

doing so the expression of pathos throughout suffers violence. If, on

the other hand, the delivery is vitally dramatic, and we are carried

thereby into the actual situation, a further kind of contradiction

can hardly fail to appear. For with the satisfaction of our sense of

hearing that of sight puts forward a certain claim of its own. For

when we listen to an action we desire to see the acting persons, their

demeanour and surroundings; the eye craves for a completed vision, and

finds instead before it merely a reciter, who sits or stands peacefully

in a private house with company. Reading aloud or recitation is

consequently always an unsatisfying compromise between the unambitious

pretensions of private perusal, in which the aspect of realization is

absent entirely and all is left to the imagination, and the complete

theatrical presentation.

(_b_) _The Art of the Actor_

In conjunction with actual dramatic reproduction there is along with

music a second practical art, namely, that of _acting_, the complete

development of which belongs entirely to more recent times. Its

principle consists in this, that while it summons to its assistance

dramatic posture, action, declamation, music, dance, and scenery,

it accepts as the predominant mark of its effort human speech and

its poetical expression. And this is for poetry in its simplest

significance the exclusively just relation. For if mere mimicry or song

or dance once begin to assume an independent position of their own,

poetry viewed as a fine and creative art is degraded to the position

of an instrument, and loses its ascendancy over the in other respects

accompanying arts. We will venture to point out a few characteristic

distinctions in this connection.

(_α_) The primary phase of the art of acting is to be found among

the Greeks. Here, as one aspect of the matter, the art of speech is

affiliated with that of sculpture. The acting _dramatis personae_

stands before us as an objective figure in his entire bodily

realization. In so far as here this statuesque figure is animated,

assimilates and expresses the content of the poetry, enters into every

movement of personal passion and at the same time asserts it through

word and voice, this presentation is more animated and more spiritually

transparent than any statue or picture.

As to this quality of living animation we may draw a distinction

between two distinct ways of regarding it.

(_αα_) _First_, there is declamation in the sense of artistic speech.

Declamation was not carried far among the Greeks; intelligibility is

here what is of most importance. We desire to recognize in the tone of

the voice and in the quality of the recitations the characterization

of soul-life in its finest shades and transitions, as also in its

oppositions and contrasts, in short, in its entire concreteness.

The ancients, on the contrary, added a musical accompaniment to

declamation, partly to emphasize rhythm, and in part to increase

the modulation of the verbal expression. At the same time it is

probable that the dialogue was either not at all or only very lightly

accompanied. To the reproduction of the choruses, however, the lyric

association of music was essential. It is highly probable that

singing, by means of its more definite accentuation of the meaning of

the language used in the choice strophes and antistrophes, made the

same more intelligible; only under such an assumption can I myself

understand how it was possible for a Greek audience to follow the

choruses of either Æschylus or Sophocles. I admit that such choruses

might not necessarily present to a Greek all the difficulties _we_

ourselves experience; at the same time I confess that, though I know

the German language well and am not wholly destitute of imagination,

German lyrics written in the same style, if declaimed from the stage,

even with the full accompaniment of song, would still be far from

wholly intelligible.

(_ββ_) A _further_ means of interpretation is supplied by the pose and

movement of the body. In this respect it is worth noticing that with

the Greeks the play of facial expression is entirely absent, by reason

of the fact that their actors wore masks. The facial contour returned

an unalterable sculpturesque image, the plastic outlines of which were

as unable to assimilate the varied expression of particular states

of soul, as to reproduce the acting characters, which fought through

a pathos securely fixed and universal in the nature of its dramatic

conflict, and neither deepened the substance of this pathos to the

ideal intensity of our modern emotional life, nor suffered it to expand

into all the particularization of the world of dramatic individualities

now in vogue. The action was equally simple, for which reason we do

not possess any tradition of famous Greek mimes. Sometimes the poet

himself was actor; both Sophocles and Aristophanes are examples. To

some extent the mere citizen, who was not strictly a professional actor

at all, took a part in tragedy. As a set-off to such difficulties the

choric songs were accompanied with the dance, a procedure which can

only appear frivolous to us Germans in the view we generally take of

the dance. With the Greeks it belonged as an essential feature to their

theatrical performances.

(_γγ_) To summarize, then, we find that among the ancients not only

was the poetical claim of language, and the intelligible expression

of general emotional states, freely admitted, but also the external

realization received the most complete elaboration by means of musical

accompaniment and the dance. A concrete unity of this kind gives to

the entire presentation a plastic character. What is spiritual is not

on its own account idealized as part of a personal soul-life, nor is

it expressed under such a mode of particularization; the main effect

is to bring about its complete affiliation and reconciliation with the

external aspect of sensuous appearance whose correspondent claim is

equally recognized.

(_β_) In rivalry with music and the dance speech suffers injury, in so

far as it ought to remain the _spiritual_ expression of spirit. Our

modern art of the theatre has consequently succeeded in liberating

itself from such features. The poet is by this means exclusively placed

in a relation to the actor simply, who, by his declamation, play of

facial expression, and posture, has to represent to vision the poetical

work. This relation of the author to the external material is, however,

in its contrast to other arts, quite unique. In painting and sculpture

it is the artist himself, who executes his conceptions in colour,

bronze, or marble; and although musical execution is dependent upon

the hands and voices of others, yet the feature thus added, albeit, of

course, the element of soul in the delivery ought not to be absent,

is none the less, to a more or less degree, overwhelmingly mechanical

technique and virtuosity.[22] The actor, on the contrary, appears

before us in the entire personality which combines his bodily presence,

physiognomy, voice, and so forth, and it is his function to coalesce

absolutely with the character he portrays.

(_αα_) In this respect the poet has the right to demand of the actor

that he enters with all his faculties into the part he receives,

without adding thereto anything peculiar to himself, that, in short, he

acts in complete consonance with the creative conception and means of

its display supplied by the poet. The actor ought, in fact, to be the

instrument upon which the author plays, an artist's brush which absorbs

all colours and returns the same unchanged. Among the ancients this was

more easily achieved for the reason that declamation, as above stated,

was mainly restricted to clarity of meaning, and music looked after

the aspect of rhythm, while masks concealed the faces, and, moreover,

not much scope was left to the action. Consequently, the actor could

without real difficulty conform in his delivery to a universal tragic

pathos; and although too, in comedy, portraits of living people such

as Socrates, Nicias, Creon, and so forth, had to be represented, in a

real measure the masks reproduced characteristic traits with sufficient

force, and further we should note that a detailed individualization

was less necessary, inasmuch as the comic poets, as a rule, merely

introduced such characters in order to represent general tendencies of

the time.

(_ββ_) The position is different in the modern theatre. Here, to start

with, we have no masks or musical accompaniment, but have instead of

these the play of facial expression, the variety of pose, and a richly

modulated style of declamation. For, on the one hand, human passions,

even when they are expressed by the poet in a more general and typical

characterization, have none the less to be asserted as part of an inner

and personal life; and for the rest our modern characters receive,

for the most part, a far more extended compass of particularization,

the distinctively appropriate expression of which has in the same way

to be placed before us with all the animation of present life. The

characters of Shakespeare are, above all, entire men, standing before

us in distinctively unique personality, so that we require of our

actors that they, for their part, give us back the entire impression of

such complete creations. There is no specific rôle here that does not

require a definite kind of expression fitted to it, and which covers

in fact every feature of its display, whether we regard that which we

cannot see or that which we do, whether it be in the tone of the voice,

the mode of delivery, gesticulation, or facial expression. For this

reason, apart from the nature of the dialogue, the varied character

of the pose and gesture, through every possible shade, receives an

entirely new significance. In fact, the modern poet leaves to the actor

self-expression here much that the ancients would have expressed in

words. Take the example of the final scene of Wallenstein. The old

Octavio has assisted materially in the downfall of Wallenstein. He

finds him treacherously murdered by the machinations of Buttler, and at

the very moment when the Countess Terzky makes the announcement that

she has taken poison, an imperial letter arrives. Gordon, after reading

the same, hands it to Octavio with a glance of reproach, adding the

words, "To the Lord Piccolomini." Octavio is confounded, and, pained

to the heart, glances heavenwards. That which Octavio experiences in

this reward for a service, for the bloody issue of which he himself is

mainly responsible, is in this passage not expressed in so many words,

but is left solely to the gesture of the actor.

(_γγ_) Owing to demands of this kind made by our modern art of

acting, poetry may, relatively to the material of its presentation,

not unfrequently opens up difficulties unknown to the ancients. In

other words, the actor, being the man he is, possesses, in respect

to voice, figure, physiognomical expression, as everybody else, his

native peculiarities, which he is compelled to set on one side, either

owing to their incompatibility with a pathos of universal import and a

really typical characterization, or to bring them into harmony with the

more complete personalities of a type of poetry rich in its power of

individualization.

Actors claim the title of artists, and receive all the honours of an

artistic profession. According to our modern ideas, no taint of any

sort, whether ethical or social, is implied in the fact of being a

dramatic actor. This view is the right one. The profession demands

conspicuous talent, intelligence, perseverance, energy, practice,

knowledge, and, indeed, its highest attainment is impossible without

the rare qualities of genius. The actor has not only to assimilate

profoundly the spirit of the poet and the part he accepts, and to make

his own individuality conform entirely to the same, both inwardly and

outwardly; he has, over and above this, in many respects to supplement

the part with his own creative insight, to fill in gaps, to discover

modes of transition, and generally, by his performance, to interpret

the poet by making visibly and vitally present and intelligible

meanings which lie beneath the surface, or the less obvious touches of

a master's hand.

(_c_) _The Theatrical Art which is more Independent of Poetical

Composition_

Finally, we shall have that further, or _third_ aspect of the art in

its actual employment, where it liberates itself from the exclusive

precedency of articulate poetry, and accepts as an independent end

what was previously, to a more or less extent, a mere accompaniment

or instrument, and elaborates the same on its own account. To carry

out this emancipation, music and the dance are quite as much essential

features of the dramatic development as the art of the actor simply.

(_α_) In respect to this change in the art, there are broadly speaking

two systems. The first, according to which the performer tends to

be simply in spirit and body the living instrument of the poet, we

have already referred to. The French, who make much of professional

rôles[23] and schools, and are, as a rule, more typical in their

theatrical representations, have shown an exceptional fidelity to this

system in their tragedy and _haute comédie_. What we may define here

as the position of the art of acting reversed consists in this, that

the entire creation of the poet now tends to be purely an appendage

or frame to and for the natural endowment, technical ability, and

art of the actor. It is by no means uncommon to hear actors make the

demand that poets should write expressly for them. The soul function

of poetical composition is, in this view, to give the artist an

opportunity to display and unfold in all its brilliance his emotional

powers and art, to let us see the final outcome of his particular

individuality. Among the Italians, the _commedia dell' arte_ belongs

to this type. Here, no doubt, we have certain definite types of

character such as those of the _arlecchino_, _dottore_, and the like,

with appropriate situations and series of scenes; the more detailed

execution is, however, almost entirely left to the discretion of the

actors. Among ourselves, the dramatic pieces of Iffland and Kotzebue,

and many others besides, though in large measure regarded as poetry,

unimportant or even bad compositions, nevertheless offer such an

opportunity for the creative powers of the actor, who is compelled to

initiate and shape something from such generally sketchy and artificial

productions, which on account of a vital and independent performance

of this kind receives a unique interest exclusively united to one and

no other artist. It is here, more especially, that we find our much

belauded realistic effects are displayed, a style carried to such

lengths that a mere mumble and whisper of articulate speech, quite

impossible to follow, will pass as an admirable performance. In protest

to such a style, Goethe translated Voltaire's "Tancred" and "Mahomet"

for the Weimar stage, in order to compel its actors to drop this

vulgar naturalism, and accustom themselves to a more noble exposition.

And this is invariably the case with the French, who, even in all

the animation of the farce, always keep the audience in view, and

throughout address themselves to it. As a matter of fact, mere realism

and imitation of our everyday expression is as little exhaustive of

the real problem as the mere intelligibility and clever use made of

characterization. If an actor seeks to produce a really artistic effect

in such cases, he will have to extend his powers to a genial virtuosity

similar to that I have described already in a previous passage when

referring to musical execution.[24]

(_β_) A _second_ province belonging to the type under consideration

is that of the modern _opera_, in the direction, at least, which

it more and more is inclined to take. In other words, although in

opera, generally speaking, the music is of most importance, which of

course possesses a content in partnership with the poetry and the

libretto, albeit it treats and executes the same freely as it thinks

best, yet in more recent times, and particularly among ourselves,

it has become increasingly an affair of luxurious display. It has

carried its _accessoires_, in the splendour of its decorations, the

pomp of its costumes, the completeness of its choruses and their

grouping, to a degree of independence that throws all else into the

shade. It was a magnificence of this kind, sufficiently criticized

among ourselves, which Cicero long ago complains of when referring

to Roman tragedy. In tragedy, where the poetry is always the most

essential thing, such a lavish display of the sensuous side of things

is no doubt not in its right place, although Schiller, in his "Maid

of Orleans," shows a tendency here to run astray. In the opera, on

the contrary, with its sensuous exuberance of song and the melodic,

thundering chorus of voices and instruments, we may with more reason

admit such an emphasized charm of external embellishment and display.

If the decorations are splendid, then the groups and processions, to

give point to them, must be equally gorgeous, and everything else must

be adapted to the same scale. The subject most suited to a sensuous

luxuriance of this kind, which, no doubt, is always some indication

of the decline of genuine art, is that part of the entire performance

which inclines to the wonderful, fantastic, or fairy tale. Mozart, in

his "Magic Flute," has supplied us with an example which is not too

extravagant, and is worked out on completely artistic lines. At the

same time, we may entirely exhaust all the arts of scenic display,

costume, instrumentation and the rest, but the fact remains that, if we

are not really in earnest with that part of the content which concerns

real dramatic action, the impression upon us can be at the strongest

merely that of a perusal of the fairy-tale of "The Thousand and One

Nights."

(_γ_) The same observations apply to the modern _Ballet_, which above

all is most suited to fairy-land and miracle of all kinds. Here, too,

we note as one supreme feature, quite apart from the picturesque

beauty of the grouping and tableaux, the kaleidoscopic splendour and

fascination of the decorations, costumes, and lighting, to an extent

that ordinary persons find themselves transported into a world in

which common sense and the laws and pressure of our daily life vanish

altogether. As a further aspect of these performances, connoisseurs

in such subjects will go into ecstacies over the elaborately trained

dexterity and virtuosity of legs, which is nowadays an essential

feature of the dance. If, however, any more spiritual significance is

to flash athwart such mere physical agility, which we have reduced

to the final ultimatum of senselessness and ideal poverty, we ought

to have associated with the complete command over all the executive

difficulties implied a real measure and euphony of movement, a freedom

and grace such as finds a response in the soul; and it is only very

rarely that we do so. As a further element in association with the

dance here, which stands in the place of the choruses and solos of

the opera, we find as real expression of action the Pantomime. This,

however, in proportion as our modern dance has advanced in technical

dexterity, has fallen from the rank which it once possessed, and,

indeed, has so deteriorated that the very thing tends once more to drop

out of the modern ballet altogether, which is alone able to lift the

same into the free domain of art.

3. THE TYPES OF DRAMATIC POETRY AND THE PRINCIPAL PHASES OF THEIR

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT.

Viewing for a moment the course of our present inquiry in retrospect,

it will be seen that we have, _first,_ established the principle of

dramatic poetry in its widest and more specific characteristics,

and, further, in its relation to the general public. _Secondly_, we

deduced from the fact of the drama's presenting an action distinct and

independent in its actually visible development the conclusion that a

fully complete sensuous reproduction is also essential, such as is for

the first time possible under artistic conditions in the theatrical

performance. In order that the action, however, may adapt itself to an

external realization of this kind, it is necessary that both in poetic

conception and detailed execution it should be absolutely definite

and complete. This is only effected, our _third_ point, by resolving

dramatic poetry into _particular types_, receiving their typical

character, which is in part one of opposition and also one of mediatory

relation to such opposition, from the distinction, in which not only

the end but also the characters, as also the conflict and entire result

of the action, are manifested. The most important aspects emphasized

by such distinction and subject to an historical development are those

peculiar to tragedy and comedy respectively, as also the comparative

value of either mode of composition. This inquiry in dramatic poetry is

for the first time so essentially important that it forms the basis of

classification for the different types.

In considering more closely the nature of these distinctions we shall

do well to discuss their subject-matter in the following order.

_First_, we must define the general principle of tragedy, comedy, and

the so-called drama.

_Secondly_, we must indicate the character of ancient and modern

dramatic poetry, to the contrast between which the distinctive relation

of the above-named types is referable in their historical development.

_Thirdly_, we will attempt, in conclusion, to examine the concrete

modes, which these types, though mainly comedy and tragedy, are able to

exhibit within the boundary of this opposition.

(_a_) _The Principle of Tragedy, Comedy, and the Drama, or Social Play_

The essential basis of differentiation among the types of epic poetry

is to be found in the distinction whether the essentially substantive

displayed in the epic manner is expressed in its universality, or

is communicated in the form of objective characters, exploits, and

events. In contrast to this, the classification of lyric poetry, in

its series of varied modes of expression, is dependent upon the degree

and specific form in which the content is assimilated in more or

less stable consistency with the soul experience, according as such

content asserts this intimate life. And, finally, dramatic poetry,

which accepts as its centre of significance the collision of aims and

characters, as also the necessary resolution of such a conflict, cannot

do otherwise than deduce the principle of its separate types from the

relation in which _individual persons_ are placed relatively to their

purpose and its content. The definition of this relation is, in short,

the decisive factor in the determination of the particular mode of

dramatic schism and the issue therefrom, and consequently presents

the essential type of the entire process in its animated and artistic

display. The fundamental points we have to examine in this connection

are, speaking broadly, those phases or features in the process, the

mediation of which constitutes the essential purport of every true

action. Such are from one point of view the substantively sound and

great, the fundamental stratum of the realized divine nature in the

world, regarded here as the genuine and essentially eternal content

of individual character and end. And, on its other side, we have the

_personal conscious life_ simply as such in its unhampered power of

self-determination and freedom. Without doubt, essential and explicit

truth is asserted in dramatic poetry; it matters not in what form it

may be manifested from time to time in human action. The specific type,

however, within which this activity is made visible receives a distinct

or, rather, actually opposed configuration, according as the aspect

of substantive worth or in its opposition thereto, that of individual

caprice, folly, and perversity is retained as the distinctive _modus_

of operation either in individuals, actions, or conflicts.

We have therefore to consider the principle in its distinctive relation

to the following types:

_First_, as associated with tragedy in its substantive and primitive

form.

_Secondly_, in its relation to comedy, in which the life of the

individual soul as such in volition and action, as well as the external

factor of contingency, are predominant over all relations and ends.

_Thirdly_, in that to the drama, the theatrical piece in the more

restricted use of the term, regarding such as the middle term between

the two first-mentioned types.

(_α_) With respect to _tragedy_, I will here confine myself to a

consideration of only the most general and essential characteristics,

the more concrete differentiation of which can only be made clear by

a review of the distinctive features implied in the stages of its

historical process.

(_αα_) The genuine content of tragic action subject to the _aims_ which

arrest tragic characters is supplied by the world of those forces

which carry in themselves their own justification, and are realized

substantively in the volitional activity of mankind. Such are the love

of husband and wife, of parents, children, and kinsfolk. Such are,

further, the life of communities, the patriotism of citizens, the will

of those in supreme power. Such are the life of churches, not, however,

if regarded as a piety which submits to act with resignation, or as a

divine judicial declaration in the heart of mankind over what is good

or the reverse in action; but, on the contrary, conceived as the active

engagement with and demand for veritable interests and relations.

It is of a soundness and thoroughness consonant with these that the

really tragical _characters_ consist. They are throughout that which

the essential notion of their character enables them and compels them

to be. They are not merely a varied totality laid out in the series

of views of it proper to the epic manner; they are, while no doubt

remaining also essentially vital and individual, still only the one

power of the particular character in question, the force in which such

a character, in virtue of its essential personality, has made itself

inseparably coalesce with some particular aspect of the capital and

substantive life-content we have indicated above, and deliberately

commits himself to that. It is at some such elevation, where the mere

accidents of unmediated[25] individuality vanish altogether, that we

find the tragic heroes of dramatic art, whether they be the living

representatives of such spheres of concrete life or in any other way

already so derive their greatness and stability from their own free

self-reliance that they stand forth as works of sculpture, and as such

interpret, too, under this aspect the essentially more abstract statues

and figures of gods, as also the lofty tragic characters of the Greeks

more completely than is possible for any other kind of elucidation or

commentary.

Broadly speaking, we may, therefore, affirm that the true theme of

primitive tragedy is the godlike.[26] But by godlike we do not mean

the Divine, as implied in the content of the religious consciousness

simply as such, but rather as it enters into the world, into

individual action, and enters in such a way that it does not forfeit

its substantive character under this mode of realization, nor find

itself converted into the contradiction of its own substance.[27] In

this form the spiritual substance of volition and accomplishment is

ethical life.[28] For what is ethical, if we grasp it, in its direct

consistency--that is to say, not exclusively from the standpoint of

personal reflection as formal morality--is the divine in its secular or

world realization, the substantive as such, the particular no less than

the essential features of which supply the changing content of truly

human actions, and in such action itself render this their essence

explicit and actual.

(_ββ_) These ethical forces, as also the characters of the action,

are _distinctively defined_ in respect to their content and their

individual personality, in virtue of the principle of differentiation

to which everything is subject, which forms part of the objective world

of things. If, then, these particular forces, in the way presupposed

by dramatic poetry, are attached to the external expression of human

activity, and are realized as the determinate aim of a human pathos

which passes into action, their concordancy is cancelled, and they are

asserted _in contrast_ to each other in interchangeable succession.

Individual action will then, under given conditions, realize an object

or character, which, under such a presupposed state, inevitably

stimulates the presence of a pathos[29] opposed to itself, because it

occupies a position of unique isolation in virtue of its independently

fixed definition, and, by doing so, brings in its train unavoidable

conflicts. Primitive tragedy, then, consists in this, that within a

collision of this kind both sides of the contradiction, if taken by

themselves, are _justified_; yet, from a further point of view, they

tend to carry into effect the true and positive content of their end

and specific characterization merely as the negation and _violation_ of

the other equally legitimate power, and consequently in their ethical

purport and relatively to this so far fall under _condemnation._

I have already adverted to the general ground of the necessity of

this conflict. The substance of ethical condition is, when viewed

as concrete unity, a totality of _different_ relations and forces,

which, however, only under the inactive condition of the gods in

their blessedness achieve the works of the Spirit in enjoyment of

an undisturbed life. In contrast to this, however, there is no less

certainly implied in the notion of this totality itself an impulse

to move from its, in the first instance, still abstract ideality,

and transplant itself in the real actuality of the phenomenal world.

On account of the nature of this primitive obsession,[30] it comes

about that mere difference, if conceived on the basis of definite

conditions of individual personalities, must inevitably associate with

contradiction and collision. Only such a view can pretend to deal

seriously with those gods which, though they endure in their tranquil

repose and unity in the Olympus and heaven of imagination and religious

conception, yet, in so far as they are actual,[31] viewed at least as

the energic in the definite pathos of a human personality, participate

in concrete life, all other claims notwithstanding, and, in virtue of

their specific singularity and their mutual opposition, render both

blame and wrong inevitable.

(_γγ_) As a result of this, however, an unmediated contradiction is

posited, which no doubt may assert itself in the Real, but, for all

that, is unable to maintain itself as that which is wholly substantive

and verily real therein; which rather discovers, and only discovers,

its essential justification in the fact that it is able to _annul_

itself as such contradiction. In other words, whatever may be the

claim of the tragic final purpose and personality, whatever may be

the necessity of the tragic collision, it is, as a consequence of our

present view, no less a claim that is asserted--this is our _third_

and last point--by the tragic resolution of this division. It is

through _this_ latter result that Eternal Justice is operative in such

aims and individuals under a mode whereby it restores the ethical

substance and unity in and along with the downfall of the individuality

which disturbs its repose. For, despite the fact that individual

characters propose that which is itself essentially valid, yet they

are only able to carry it out under the tragic demand in a manner that

implies contradiction and with a onesidedness which is injurious.

What, however, is substantive in truth, and the function of which

is to secure realization, is not the battle of particular unities,

however much such a conflict is essentially involved in the notion

of a real world and human action; rather it is the reconciliation in

which definite ends and individuals unite in harmonious action without

mutual violation and contradiction. That which is abrogated in the

tragic issue is merely the _one-sided_ particularity which was unable

to accommodate itself to this harmony, and consequently in the tragic

course of its action, through inability to disengage itself from

itself and its designs, either is committed in its entire totality

to destruction or at least finds itself compelled to fall back upon

a state of resignation in the execution of its aim in so far as it

can carry this out. We are reminded of the famous dictum of Aristotle

that the true effect of tragedy is to excite and purify _fear_ and

_pity._ By this statement Aristotle did not mean merely the concordant

or discordant feeling with anybody's private experience, a feeling

simply of pleasure or the reverse, an attraction or a repulsion, that

most superficial of all psychological states, which only in recent

times theorists have sought to identify with the principle of assent

or dissent as ordinarily expressed. For in a work of art the matter of

exclusive importance should be the display of that which is conformable

with the reason and truth of Spirit; and to discover the principle

of this we have to direct our attention to wholly different points

of view. And consequently we are not justified in restricting the

application of this dictum of Aristotle merely to the emotion of fear

and pity, but should relate it to the principle of the _content_ the

appropriately artistic display of which ought to purify such feelings.

Man may, on the one hand, entertain fear when confronted with that

which is outside him and finite; but he may likewise shrink before the

power of that which is the essential and absolute subsistency of social

phenomena.[32] That which mankind has therefore in truth to fear is

not the external power and its oppression, but the ethical might which

is self-defined in its own free rationality, and partakes further of

the eternal and inviolable, the power a man summons against his own

being when he turns his back upon it. And just as fear may have two

objectives, so also too compassion. The first is just the ordinary

sensibility--in other words, a sympathy with the misfortunes and

sufferings of another, and one which is experienced as something finite

and negative. Your countrified cousin is ready enough with compassion

of this order. The man of nobility and greatness, however, has no wish

to be smothered with this sort of pity. For just to the extent that

it is merely the nugatory aspect, the negative of misfortune which is

asserted, a real depreciation of misfortune is implied. True sympathy,

on the contrary, is an accordant feeling with the ethical claim at

the same time associated with the sufferer--that is, with what is

necessarily implied in his condition as affirmative and substantive.

Such a pity as this is not, of course, excited by ragamuffins and

vagabonds. If the tragic character, therefore, just as he aroused our

fear when contemplating the might of violated morality, is to awake a

tragic sympathy in his misfortune, he must himself essentially possess

real capacity and downright character. It is only that which has a

genuine content which strikes the heart of a man of noble feeling, and

rings through its depths. Consequently we ought by no means to identify

our interest in the tragic _dénouement_ with the simple satisfaction

that a sad story, a misfortune merely as misfortune, should have a

claim upon our sympathy. Feelings of lament of this type may well

enough assail men on occasions of wholly external contingency and

related circumstance, to which the individual does not contribute, nor

for which he is responsible, such cases as illness, loss of property,

death, and the like. The only real and absorbing interest in such

cases ought to be an eager desire to afford immediate assistance. If

this is impossible, such pictures of lamentation and misery merely

rack the feelings. A veritable tragic suffering, on the contrary, is

suspended over active characters entirely as the consequence of their

own act, which as such not only asserts its claim upon us, but becomes

subject to blame through the collision it involves, and in which such

individuals identify themselves heart and soul.

Over and above mere fear and tragic sympathy we have therefore the

feeling of _reconciliation_, which tragedy is vouched for in virtue of

its vision of eternal justice, a justice which exercises a paramount

force of absolute constringency on account of the relative claim of all

merely contracted aims and passions; and it can do this for the reason

that it is unable to tolerate the victorious issue and continuance in

the truth of the objective world of such a conflict with and opposition

to those ethical powers which are fundamentally and essentially

concordant.[33] Inasmuch as then, in conformity with this principle,

all that pertains to tragedy pre-eminently rests upon the contemplation

of such a conflict and its resolution, dramatic poetry is--and its

entire mode of presentation offers a proof of the fact--alone able to

make and completely adapt its form throughout its entire course and

compass to the principle of the art product. And this is the reason

why I have only now found occasion to discuss the tragic mode of

presentation, although it extends an effective force, if no doubt one

of subordinate degree, in many ways over the other arts.

(_β_) In tragedy then that which is eternally substantive is

triumphantly vindicated under the mode of reconciliation. It simply

removes from the contentions of personality the false one-sidedness,

and exhibits instead that which is the object of its volition, namely,

positive reality, no longer under an asserted mediation of opposed

factors, but as the real support of consistency.[34] And in contrast to

this in _comedy_ it is the purely _personal experience_, which retains

the mastery in its character of infinite self-assuredness.[35] And it

is only these two fundamental aspects of human action which occupy a

position of contrast in the classification of dramatic poetry into its

several types. In tragedy individuals are thrown into confusion in

virtue of the abstract nature of their sterling volition and character,

or they are forced to accept that with resignation, to which they have

been themselves essentially opposed. In comedy we have a vision of the

victory of the intrinsically assured stability of the wholly personal

soul-life, the laughter of which resolves everything through the medium

and into the medium of such life.

(_αα_) The general basis of comedy is therefore a world in which

man has made himself, in his conscious activity, complete master of

all that otherwise passes as the essential content of his knowledge

and achievement; a world whose ends are consequently thrown awry on

of their own lack of substance. A democratic folk, with egotistic

citizens, litigious, frivolous, conceited, without faith or knowledge,

always intent on gossip, boasting and vanity--such a folk is past

praying for; it can only dissolve in its folly. But it would be a

mistake to think that any action that is without genuine content is

therefore comic because it is void of substance. People only too

often in this respect confound the merely _ridiculous_ with the true

comic. Every contrast between what is essential and its appearance,

the object and its instrument, may be ridiculous, a contradiction in

virtue of which the appearance is absolutely cancelled, and the end is

stultified in its realization. A profounder significance is, however,

implied in the comic. There is, for instance, nothing comic in human

crime. The satire affords a proof of this, to the point of extreme

aridity, no matter how emphatic may be the colours in which it depicts

the condition of the actual world in its contrast to all that the man

of virtue ought to be. There is nothing in mere folly, stupidity, or

nonsense, which in itself necessarily partakes of the comic, though

we all of us are ready enough to laugh at it. And as a rule it is

extraordinary what a variety of wholly different things excite human

laughter. Matters of the dullest description and in the worst possible

taste will move men in this way; and their laughter may be excited

quite as much by things of the profoundest importance, if only they

happen to notice some entirely unimportant feature, which may conflict

with habit and ordinary experience. Laughter is consequently little

more than an expression of self-satisfied shrewdness; a sign that they

have sufficient wit to recognize such a contrast and are aware of

the fact. In the same way we have the laughter of the scoffer, the

scornful and desperation itself. What on the other hand is inseparable

from the comic is an infinite geniality and confidence[36] capable of

rising superior to its own contradiction, and experiencing therein no

taint of bitterness or sense of misfortune whatever. It is the happy

frame of mind, a hale condition of soul, which, fully aware of itself,

can suffer the dissolution of its aims and realization. The unexpansive

type of intelligence is on the contrary least master of itself where it

is in its behaviour most laughable to others.

(_ββ_) In considering with more detail the kind of content which

characterizes and educes the object of comic action, I propose to limit

myself to the following points of general interest.

On the _one_ hand there are human ends and characters essentially

devoid of substantive content and contradictory. They are therefore

unable to achieve the former or give effect to the latter. Avarice,

for example, not only in reference to its aim, but also in respect

to the petty means which it employs, is clearly from the first and

fundamentally a vain shadow. It accepts what is the dead abstraction

of wealth, money simply as such, as the _summum bonum_, the reality

beyond which it refuses to budge; and it endeavours to master this

frigid means of enjoyment by denying itself every other concrete

satisfaction, despite the fact too that, in the impotency of its

end no less than the means of its achievement, it is helpless when

confronted with cunning and treachery, and the like. In such a case

then, if anyone identifies _seriously_ his personal life with a content

so essentially false, to the extent of a man confining the embrace

of his soul-life to that exclusively, and in the result, if the same

is swept away as his foot-hold, the more he strives to retain that

former foot-hold, the more the life collapses in unhappiness--in such a

picture as this what is most vital to the comic situation fails, as it

does in every case where the predominant factors are simply on the one

side the painfulness of the actual conditions, and on the other scorn

and pleasure in such misfortune. There is therefore more of the true

comic in the case where, it is true, aims intrinsically mean and empty

would like to be achieved with an appearance of earnest solemnity and

every kind of preparation, but where the individual himself, when he

falls short of this, does not experience any real loss because he is

conscious that what he strove after was really of no great importance,

and is therefore able to rise superior with spontaneous amusement above

the failure.

A situation which is the reverse of this occurs where people vaguely

grasp at aims and a personal impression of real substance, but in their

own individuality, as instruments to achieve this, are in absolute

conflict with such a result. In such a case what substance there is

only exists in the individual's imagination, becomes a mere appearance

to himself or others, which no doubt offers the show and virtue of

what is thus of material import, but for this very reason involves end

and personality, action and character in a contradiction, by reason

of which the attainment of the imaged end or characterization is

itself rendered impossible. An example of this is the "Ecclesiazusae"

of Aristophanes, where the women who seek to advise and found a new

political constitution, retain all the temperament and passions of

women as before.

We may add to the above two divisions of classification, as a distinct

basis for yet _another_, the use made of external accident, by means of

the varied and extraordinary development of which situations are placed

before us in which the objects desired and their achievement, the

personal character and its external conditions are thrown into a comic

contrast, and lead to an equally comic resolution.

(_γγ_) But inasmuch as the comic element wholly and from the first

depends upon contradictory contrasts, not only of ends themselves

on their own account, but also of their content as opposed to the

contingency of the personal life and external condition, the action

of comedy requires a _resolution_ with even more stringency than the

tragic drama. In other words, in the action of comedy the contradiction

between that which is essentially true and its specific realization is

more fundamentally asserted.

That which, however, is abrogated in this resolution is not by any

means either the _substantive_ being or the _personal_ life as such.

And the reason of this is that comedy too, viewed as genuine art, has

not the task set before it to display through its presentation what

is essentially rational as that which is intrinsically perverse and

comes to naught, but on the contrary as that which neither bestows

the victory, nor ultimately allows any standing ground to folly and

absurdity, that is to say the false contradictions and oppositions

which also form part of reality. The masculine art of Aristophanes,

for instance, does not turn into ridicule what is truly of ethical

significance in the social life of Athens, namely genuine philosophy,

true religious faith, but rather the spurious growth of the democracy,

in which the ancient faith and the former morality have disappeared,

such as the sophistry, the whining and querulousness of tragedy, the

inconstant gossip, the love of litigation and so forth; in other

words, it is those elements directly opposed to a genuine condition of

political life, religion and art, which he places before us in their

suicidal folly. Only in more modern times do we find in such a writer

as Kotzebue the baseness possible which throws over moral excellence,

and spares and strives to maintain that which only exists under a

condition of sufferance. To as little extent, however, ought the

individual's private life suffer substantial injury in comedy. Or to

put it otherwise, if it is merely the appearance and imagined presence

of what is substantive, or if it is the essentially perverse and petty

which is asserted, yet in the essential self stability of individual

character the more exalted principle remains, which in its freedom

reaches over and beyond the overthrow of all that such finite life

comprises, and continues itself in its character of self-security and

self-blessedness. This subjective life that we above all identify with

comic personality has thus become master of all the phenomenal presence

of the real. The mode of actual appearance adequate to what is, so to

speak, substantive, has vanished out of it; and, if what is essentially

without fundamental subsistence comes to naught with its mere pretence

of being that which it is not, the individual asserts himself as master

over such a dissolution, and remains at bottom unbroken and in good

heart to the end.[37]

(_γ_) Midway between tragedy and comedy we have furthermore a _third_

fundamental type of dramatic poetry, which is, however, of less

distinctive importance, despite the fact that in it the essential

difference between what is tragic and comic makes an effort to

construct a bridge of mediation, or at least to effect some coalescence

of both sides in a concrete whole without leaving either the one or the

other in opposed isolation.

(_αα_) To this class we may, for example, refer the _Satyric_ drama of

the ancients, in which the principal action itself at least remains of

a serious if not wholly tragic type, while the chorus of its Satyrs is

in contrast to this treated in the comic manner. We may also include

in such a class the tragic-comedy. Plautus gives an example of this in

his "Amphitryo," and indeed in the prologue, through verses given to

Mercury, asserts this fact; the declamation runs as follows:

Quid contraxistis frontem? Quia Tragoediam

Dini futuram hanc? Deus sum: commutavero

Eamdem hanc, si voltis: faciam, ex Tragoedia

Comoedia ut sit, omnibus eisdem versibus.

Faciam ut conmista sit Tragicocomoedia.

He offers us as a reason for this intermixture the fact, that while

gods and kings are represented among the _dramatis personae_, we have

also in comic contrast to this the figure of the slave Sofia. With

yet more frequency in modern dramatic poetry we have the interplay of

tragic and comic situation; and this is naturally so, because in modern

compositions the principle of an intimate personal life has its place

too in tragedy, the principle which is asserted by comedy in all its

freedom, and from the first has been predominant, forcing as it does

into the background the substantive character of the content in which

the ethical forces, I have referred to previously, are paramount.

(_ββ_) The profounder mediation, however, of tragic and comic

composition in a new whole does not consist in the juxtaposition or

alteration of these contradictory points of view, but in a mutual

accommodation, which blunts the force of such opposition. The element

of subjectivity, instead of being exercised with all the perversity

of the comic drama, is steeped in the seriousness of genuine social

conditions and substantial characters, while the tragic steadfastness

of volition and the depth of collisions is so far weakened and reduced

that it becomes compatible with a reconciliation of interests and a

harmonious union of ends and individuals. It is under such a mode of

conception that in particular the modern play and drama arise. The

profound aspect of this principle, in this view of the playwright,

consists in the fact that, despite the differences and conflicts

of interests, passions and characters, an essentially harmonious

reality none the less results from human action. Even the ancient

world possesses tragedies, which accept an issue of this character.

Individuals are not sacrificed, but maintained without serious

catastrophe. In the "Eumenides" of Æschylus, for example, both parties

there brought to judgment before the Areopagus, namely Apollo and

the avenging Furies, have their claims to honorable consideration

vindicated. Also in the "Philoctetes" the conflict between Neoptolemos

and Philoctetes is disposed of through the divine interposition of

Hercules and the advice he gives. They depart reconciled for Troy. In

this case, however, the accommodation is due to a _deus ex machinâ_ and

the actual source of such is not traceable to the personal attitude

of the parties themselves. In the modern play, however, it is the

individual characters alone who find themselves induced by the course

of their own action to such an abandonment of the strife, and to a

reciprocal reconciliation of their aims and personalities. From this

point of view the "Iphigeneia" of Goethe is a genuine model of a play

of this kind, and it is more so than his "Tasso," in which in the

first place the reconciliation with Antonio is rather an affair of

temperament and personal acknowledgment that Antonio possesses the

genuine knowledge of life, which is absent from the character of Tasso,

and along with this that the claim of ideal life, which Tasso had

rigidly adhered to in its conflict with actual conditions, adaptability

and grace of manners, retains its force throughout with an audience

merely in an ideal sense, and relatively to actual conditions at most

asserts itself as an excuse for the poet and a general sympathy for his

position.

(_γγ_) As a rule, however, the boundary lines of their intermediate

type fluctuate more than is the case with tragedy or comedy. It is

also exposed to a further danger of breaking away from the true

dramatic type, or ceasing to be genuine poetry. In other words, owing

to the fact that the opposing factors, which have to secure a peaceful

conclusion from out of their own division, are from the start not

antithetical to one another with the emphasis asserted by tragedy;

the poet is for this reason compelled to devote the full strength

of his presentation to the psychological analysis of character,

and to make the course of the situations a mere instrument of such

characterization. Or, as an alternative, he admits a too extensive

field for the display of the material aspect of historical or ethical

conditions; and, under the pressure of such material, he tends to

restrict his effort to keep the attention alive to the interest of

the series of events evolved alone. To this class of composition we

may assign a host of our more recent theatrical pieces, which rather

aim at theatrical effect than claim to be poetry. They do not so

much seek to affect us as genuine poetical productions as to reach

our emotions generally as men and women; or they aim on the one hand

simply at recreation, and on the other at the moral education of public

taste; but while doing so they are almost equally concerned to provide

ample opportunity to the actor for the display of his trained art and

virtuosity in the most brilliant manner.

(_b_) _The Difference between Ancient and Modern Dramatic Poetry_

The same principle which offered us a basis for the classification of

dramatic art into tragedy and comedy also will give us the essential

points of arrest in the history of their development. The progress we

find in this course of evolution can only appear after we have placed

such particular phases in the process side by side for comparison and

analysis. They subsist, in short, in the notion of dramatic action,

with the result that on the one hand the entire composition and its

theatrical execution emphasizes what is _substantive_ in the ends,

conflicts, and characters, and on the other that the _personal_

factor of conscious and individual life constitutes the focal centre

throughout.

(_α_) With regard to such an inquiry we may at once in the present

work, which does not attempt to include an exhaustive history of art,

leave out altogether those origins of dramatic art which we find

among Oriental peoples. Despite the considerable progress made by

Eastern poetry in the epic and certain types of lyrical composition

the entire world-outlook of such peoples nevertheless from the first

excludes an artistic development favourable to dramatic art. And the

reason is that to genuine _tragic_ action it is essential that the

principle of _individual_ freedom and independence, or at least that

of self-determination, the will to find in the self the free cause

and source of the personal act and its consequences, should already

have been aroused; and we may observe that to a still more emphatic

degree is this free claim of the personal life and its self-recognized

_imperium_ a necessary condition to the appearance of comedy. In the

East we find in neither case such a condition satisfied. In particular

remoteness from any and every attempt at real dramatic self-expression

is that imposing sublimity of Mohammedan poetry, although from a

certain point of view it is capable with real power of vindicating the

claim of individual independence. But it necessarily fails, because

it is an equally essential assumption of it that the One substantive

Power overrules every created being and determines his irreversible

destiny, and with all the more irresistible fatality in proportion as

such a spirit is asserted. The justification of a particular content

of individual action and of a personal life which explores its own

most intimate substance, in the sense that dramatic art presupposes,

is here impossible; indeed it is precisely in Mohammedanism that the

subjugation of the individual self to the will of God is the more

abstract in proportion as the One predominant Power, who rules the

universe, is more abstractly conceived in his universality, and in the

last instance will not tolerate one shred of particularity to remain.

We consequently only find origins of dramatic composition among the

Chinese and Hindoos. But here, too, so far as our present scanty

evidence carries us, these do not so much amount to the execution of

any free and individual action; they merely reflect the animated life

of events and emotions under the mode of definite situations, which are

displayed in their course as they actually happen.

(_β_) The true beginning of dramatic poetry we have consequently to

seek among the Hellenes, with whom for the first time and in every

respect the principle of free individuality renders the perfect

elaboration of the classic type of art possible. Compatibly with

this type of art, however, and in its relation to human action,

individuality is only so far asserted as it directly demands the

free animation of the essential content of human aims. That which

pre-eminently is of valid force in ancient drama, therefore, whether

it be tragedy or comedy, is the universal and essential content of

the end, which individuals seek to achieve. In tragedy this is the

ethical claim of human consciousness in view of the particular action

in question, the vindication of the act on its own account. And in the

old comedy, too, it is in the same way at least the general public

interests which are emphasized, whether it be in statesmen and the

mode in which they direct the State, questions of peace or war, the

general public and its moral conditions, or the condition of philosophy

and its decline. And it is owing to this that here neither the varied

exposition of personal soul-life and exceptional character, nor the

equally exceptional plot and intrigue can obtain the fullest play, nor

does the main interest revolve so much around the fate of individuals.

In the place of this interest for such particular aspects of the

drama above all else sympathy is evoked and claimed for the simple

conflict and issue of the essential powers of life, and for the godlike

manifestations of the human heart,[38] as distinctive representatives

of which the heroes of tragedy are set before us in much the same

way as that in which the figures of comedy make visible the general

perversity of mankind, to the expression of which, in the reality of

the actual present, even the fundamental institutions of public life

have been corrupted.

(_γ_) In _modern_ romantic poetry, on the contrary, it is the

individual passion, the satisfaction of which can only be relative to a

wholly personal end, generally speaking the destiny of some particular

person or character placed under exceptional circumstances, which forms

the subject-matter of all importance.

From such a point of view the poetic interest consists in that

greatness of characters, which, in virtue of their imaginative power or

their disposition and talents, display a spiritual[39] elevation over

their situations and actions no less than over the entire wealth of

their soul-life, and show it as the real substance of political forces,

though often, too, these may be obstructed and, indeed, annihilated in

the stress of particular circumstances and the current of events; and

we may add that in the greatness of such natures it is not infrequent

to find that a power of recovery[40] is further contained. With regard

to the particular content of the action in this style of composition

it is not therefore the ethical vindication and necessity, but rather

the isolated individual and his conditions to which our interest is

directed. From a standpoint such as this, therefore, a fundamental

motive will arise in such qualities as love and ambition; indeed, crime

itself is not excluded. But in the latter case we may easily find

rocks ahead difficult indeed to clear. For an out and out criminal,

and irrevocably so when he is weak and a thoroughly mean scamp, as

is the hero in Milliner's drama, "Crime," is something more than a

sorry sight. What we require therefore above all in such cases is at

least the formal[41] greatness of character and power of the personal

life which is able to ride out everything that negates it, and which,

without denial of its acts or, indeed, without being materially

discomposed by them, is capable of accepting their consequences.

And on the other side we find that those substantive ends, such as

patriotism, family devotion, loyalty, and the rest, are by no means to

be excluded, although for the individual persons concerned the main

question of importance is not so much the substantive force as their

own individuality. But in such cases as a rule they rather form the

particular ground upon which such persons, viewed in the light of their

private character, take their stand and engage in conflict, rather than

have supplied what we may regard as the real and ultimate content of

their volition and action.

And further, in conjunction with a personal self-assertion of this type

we may have presented the full extension of individual idiosyncrasy,

not merely in respect to the soul-life simply, but also in relation

to external circumstances and conditions, within which the action

proceeds. And it is owing to this that in distinctive form the simple

conflicts which characterize more classical dramatic composition, we

now meet with the variety and exuberance of the characters dramatized,

the unforeseen surprises of the ever new and complicated developments

of plot, the maze of intrigue, the contingency of events, and, in a

word, all those aspects of the modern drama which claim our attention,

and the unfettered appearance of which, as opposed to the overwhelming

emphasis attached to what is essentially most fundamental in the

content, accentuates the type of romantic art in its distinction from

the classic type.

But again, even in the cases above indicated, and despite all this

apparently untrammelled particularity, the whole ought to continue to

be both dramatic and poetical. In other words, on the one hand, the

harshness of the collision, which has to be fought through, ought to

be visibly obliterated, and on the other, pre-eminently in tragedy,

the predominant presence of a more exalted order of the world, whether

we adopt the conception of Providence or Fatality, ought to plainly

discover itself in and through the course and issue of the action.

(_c_) _The Concrete Development of Dramatic Poetry and its Types_

Within the essential distinctions of conception and poetical

achievement which we have just considered the different types of

dramatic art assert themselves, and, for the first time in such

association, and in so far as their development follows either one

or the other direction, attain a really genuine completeness. We

have, therefore, in concluding the present work, still to concentrate

our inquiry upon the concrete mode under which they receive such a

configuration.

(_α_) Excluding as we shall do for the reasons already given from

our subject-matter the origins of such poetry in Oriental literature,

the material of first and fundamental importance which engages our

attention, as the most valuable phase of genuine tragedy no less than

comedy, is the dramatic poetry of the _Greeks._ In other words, in

it for the first time we find the human consciousness is illuminated

with that which in its general terms the tragic and comic situation

essentially is; and after that these opposed types of dramatic outlook

upon human action have been securely and beyond all confusion separated

from each other, we mark first in order tragedy, and after that comedy,

rise in organic development to the height of their achievement. Of

such a successful result the dramatic art of Rome merely returns a

considerably attenuated reflection, which does not indeed reach the

point secured by the similar effort of Roman literature in epic and

lyrical composition. In my examination of the material thus offered my

object will be merely to accentuate what is most important, and I shall

therefore limit my survey to the tragic point of view of Æschylus and

Sophocles, and to Aristophanes so far as comedy is concerned.

(_αα_) Taking, then, tragedy first, I have already stated that the

fundamental type which determines its entire organization and structure

is to be sought for in the emphasis attached to the substantive

constitution of final ends and their content, as also of the

individuals dramatized and their conflict and destiny.

In the tragic drama we are now considering, the general basis or

background for tragic action is supplied, as was also the case in the

Epos, by that world-condition which I have already indicated as the

_heroic_. For only in heroic times, when the universal ethical forces

have neither acquired the independent stability of definite political

legislation or moral commands and obligations, can they be presented

in their primitive jucundity as gods, who are either opposed to each

other in their personal activities, or themselves appear as the

animated content of a free and human individuality. If, however, what

is intrinsically ethical is to appear throughout as the substantive

foundation, the universal ground, shall we say, from which the growth

of personal action arrests our attention with equal force in its

disunion, and is no less brought back again from such divided movement

into unity, we shall find that there are two distinct modes under which

the ethical content of human action is asserted.

_First,_ we have the simple consciousness, which, in so far as it

wills its substantive content[42] wholly as the unbroken identity of

its particular aspects, remains in undisturbed, uncriticized, and

neutral tranquillity on its own account and as related to others.

This undivided and, we may add, purely formal[43] state of mind in

its veneration, its faith, and its happiness, however, is incapable

of attaching itself to any definite action; it has a sort of dread

before the disunion which is implied in such, although it does, while

remaining itself incapable of action, esteem at the same time that

spiritual courage which asserts itself resolutely and actively in a

self-proposed object, as of nobler worth, yet is aware of its inability

to undertake such enterprize, and consequently considers that it can

do nothing further for such active personalities, whom it respects so

highly, than contrast with the energy of their decision and conflict

the object of its own wisdom, in other words, the substantive ideality

of the ethical Powers.

The _second_ mode under which this ethical content is asserted is that

of the individual pathos,[44] which urges the active characters to

their moral self-vindication into the opposition they occupy relatively

to others, and brings them thereby into conflict. The individuals

subject to this pathos are neither what, in the modern use of the

term, we describe as characters, nor are they mere abstractions. They

are rather placed in the vital midway sphere between both, standing

there as figures of real stability, which are simply that which they

are, without aught of collision in themselves, without any fluctuating

recognition of some other pathos, and in so far--in this respect

a contrast to our modern irony--elevated, absolutely determinate

characters, whose definition, however, discovers its content and

basis in a particular ethical power. Forasmuch as, then, the tragic

situation first appears in the _antagonism_ of individuals who are

thus empowered to act, the same can only assert itself in the field

of actual human life. It results from the specific character of this

alone that a particular quality so affects the substantive content of

a given individual, that the latter identifies himself with his entire

interest and being in such a content, and penetrates it throughout with

the glow of passion. In the blessed gods, however, it is the divine

Nature, in its indifference, which is what is essential; in contrast

to which we have the contradiction, which in the last instance is not

treated seriously, rather is one which, as I have already noticed

when discussing the Homeric Epos, becomes eventually a self-resolving

irony. These two modes or aspects--of which the one is as important

for the whole as the other--namely, the unsevered consciousness of

the godlike, and the combating human action, asserted, however, in

godlike power and deed, which determines and executes the ethical

purpose--supply the two fundamental elements, the mediation of which is

displayed by Greek tragedy in its artistic compositions under the form

of _chorus_ and _heroic figures_ respectively.

In modern times, considerable discussion has been raised over the

significance of the Greek chorus, and the question has been raised

incidentally whether it can or ought to be introduced into modern

tragedy. In fact, the need of some such substantial foundation has

been experienced; but critics have found it difficult to prescribe

the precise manner in which effect should be given to such a change,

because they failed to grasp with sufficient penetration the nature

of that in which true tragedy consists and the necessity of the

chorus as an essential constituent of all that Greek tragedy implies.

Critics have, no doubt, recognized the nature of the chorus to the

extent of maintaining that in it we find an attitude of tranquil

meditation over the whole, whereas the characters of the action remain

within the limits of their particular objects and situations, and,

in short, receive in the chorus and its observations a standard of

valuation of their characters and actions in much the same way as the

public discovers in it, and within the drama itself, an objective

representative of its own judgment upon all that is thus represented.

In this view we have to this extent the fact rightly conceived, that

the chorus is, in truth, there as a substantive and more enlightened

intelligence, which warns us from irrelevant oppositions, and reflects

upon the genuine issue. But, granting this to be so, it is by no

means a wholly disinterested person, at leisure to entertain such

thoughts and ethical judgments as it likes as are the spectators,

which, uninteresting and tedious on its own account, could only be

attached for the sake of such reflections. The chorus is the actual

substance of the heroic life and action itself: it is, as contrasted

with the particular heroes, the common folk regarded as the fruitful

heritage, out of which individuals, much as flowers and towering trees

from their native soil, grow and whereby they are conditioned in this

life. Consequently, the chorus is peculiarly fitted to a view of life

in which the obligations of State legislation and settled religious

dogmas do not, as yet, act as a restrictive force in ethical and

social development, but where morality only exists in its primitive

form of directly animated human life, and it is merely the equilibrium

of unmoved life which remains assured in its stability against the

fearful collisions which the antagonistic energies of individual action

produces. We are made aware of the fact that an assured asylum of

this kind is also a part of our actual existence by the presence of

the chorus. It does not, therefore, practically co-operate with the

action; it executes by its action no right as against the contending

heroes; it merely expresses its judgment as a matter of opinion; it

warns, commiserates, or appeals to the divine law, and the ideal forces

imminent in the soul, which the imagination grasps in external guise

as the sphere of the gods that rule. In this self-expression it is, as

we have already seen, lyrical; for it does not act and there are no

events for it to narrate in epical form. The content, however, retains

at the same time the epic character of substantive universality; and

its lyric movement is of such a nature that it can, and in this respect

in contrast to the form of the genuine ode, approach at times that of

the paean and the dithyramb. We must lay emphatic stress upon this

position of the chorus in Greek tragedy. Just as the theatre itself

possesses its external ground, its scene and environment, so, too, the

chorus, that is the general community, is the spiritual scene; and we

may compare it to the architectural temple which surrounds the image

of the god, which resembles the heroes in the action. Among ourselves,

statues are placed under the open sky without such a background, which

also modern tragedy does not require, for the reason that its actions

do not depend on this substantive basis, but on the personal volition

and personality, no less than the apparently external contingency of

events and circumstances.

In this respect it is an entirely false view which regards the chorus

as an accidental piece of residuary baggage, a mere remnant from the

origins of Greek drama. Of course, it is incontestable that its source

is to be traced to the circumstance that, in the festivals of Bacchus,

so far as the artistic aspect is concerned, the choral song was of most

importance until the introduction and interruption of its course by

one reciter, whose relation finally was transformed into and exalted

by the real figures of dramatic action. In the blossoming season of

tragedy, however, the chorus was not by any means merely retained in

honour of this particular phase of the festival and ritual of the god

Bacchus; rather it became continuously more elaborate in its beauty and

harmonious measures by reason of the fact that its association with the

dramatic action is essential and, indeed, so indispensable to it that

the decline of tragedy is intimately connected with the degeneration of

the choruses, which no longer remain an integral member of the whole,

but are degraded to a mere embellishment. In contrast to this, in

romantic tragedy, the chorus is neither intrinsically appropriate nor

does it appear to have originated from choric songs. On the contrary,

the content is here of a type which defeats from the first any attempt

to introduce choruses as understood by Greek dramatists. For, even if

we go back to the most primitive of those so-called mysteries, morality

plays and farces of a similar character, from which the romantic drama

issued, we find that these present no action in that original Greek

sense of the term, no outbreak, that is, of opposing forces from the

undivided consciousness of life and the god-like. To as little extent

is the chorus adapted to the conditions of chivalry and the dominion

of kings, in so far as, in such cases, the attitude of the folk is one

of mere obedience, or it is itself a party, involved together with the

interest of its fortune or misfortune in the course of the action. And

in general the chorus entirely fails to secure its true position where

the main subject-matter consists of particular passions, ends, and

characters, or any considerable opportunity is admitted to intrigue.