Chapter 10

With pain of a like quality those vain hopes, too, return back to him, in which he saw in Kaiser Joseph the uprise of a new world of spiritual effort and poetry. And, finally, it is an honour to the heart of the old veteran at least as great that he sympathizes with the present fact that a people had shattered its fetters of every kind, had trodden under foot the injustice of a thousand years, and for the first time sought to found its political life on reason and right.

He greets this new

Labende, selbst nicht geträumte Sonne.Geseegnet sei mir du, das mein Haupt bedeckt,Mein graues Haar, die Kraft, die nach sechzigenFortdauert; denn sie war's, so weithinBrachte sie mich, dass diess Erlebte![23]

Nay, he will even express his gratitude to France:[24]

Verzeiht, O Franken (Namen der Bruder istDer edle Name) dass ich den Deutschen einstZurufte, das zu fliehen, warum ichIhnen jetzt flehe, euch nachzuahmen.

And, naturally, the acerbation of the poet was all the more bitter, when this fair dawn of freedom changed to a day that was steeped in horror and blood, one that murdered liberty. Klopstock, however, was unable to give poetical expression to such painful feelings. What he did find the opportunity to say was all the more prosaic, without definite structure and logical consequence on account of the fact that he had no higher purpose,[25]veiled in such facts, to set off against his disappointed hope. His genius was in short entirely blind to any more profound demand of reason in the facts of such a revolution.

The greatness of Klopstock consists then essentially in his national sympathies, his keen sense of freedom, friendship, love, and his staunch Protestantism. We may justly honour him for his noble character and his noble art, for his effort and achievement. And if, too, in many directions he shares the limitations of his own times, and in truth is responsible for many odes that are solely of interest to the critic, the grammarian, the metrist, odes deficient in all poetic vitality, we may affirm, nevertheless, that with the single exception of Schiller, we shall find in our subsequent literature no more noble figure, no disposition of such serious and masculine independence.

We have, indeed, to compare with him Schiller and Goethe, who are not merely the poetic exponents of their own times in a spirit resembling his own, but in their experience as poets are of course far more comprehensive. And, above all, in the songs of Goethe we Germans unquestionably possess the most consummate, profound, and influential poetic compositions of modern times. If they are wholly an expression of the poet they are equally the treasure of his people; and, in fact, as the genuine growth of his native soil, are completely in accord with the fundamental tones of our national life and genius.

[1]Subjectivität.Individual self-conscious life.

[2]Das Subject, here the individual consciousness which composes.

[3]Ergusses,the pouring out into a mould.

[4]Vol. iv, pp. 169-172.

[5]This appears to be the meaning of the wordsdie letzte Music eines nationalen Inneren.

[6]I presume byNachhülfeHegel practically means imitation rather than translation. It may be very much doubted whether any composition, involving a change of language, can give anything but the faintest knowledge of the original folk-song. Goethe's genius could produce poetry out of strange materials, but he could not reproduce the music of another medium.

[7]Subjektiver Art.

[8]Or as the text runs, "and as everybody's poet."

[9]Pausanias, I, c. 8.

[10]Æschines, ep. 4.

[11]Zusammengezogenheit.The idea of concentration is also present.

[12]I have taken the revised translation.

[13]Äussersichseyn.The being beside or aloof from oneself, not so much in the sense of infatuation as ecstasy.

[14]I presume Hegel means this by the wordsnur zum Trällern; it might mean "merely to be hummed."

[15]Still in sich.

[16]High above the life of earth beneath it shall wave in the blue band of heaven, neighbour to the thunder, on the boundary of the starry world. It shall be a voice from above, ay, as the bright choir of the stars, who praise their Creator in their motion and conduct the garlanded year. Its voice of bronze is dedicate to eternal and earnest matters alone, and, hour by hour, as it swiftly swings backwards and forwards, it is one with Time in its flight.

[17]Einlebung.This vital fusion with the object.

[18]In seiner in sich Zurückgenommenen Innerlichkeit.

[19]In seinem Aufgehohenseyn.

[20]That is, of the isle of Melos, Sappho's birthplace.

[21]Readers of the Xenien of Goethe and Schiller will recall the unsparing attacks which were directed against this formalist and pedant.

[22]Even Frederick II "did not see that the art of German poesy was raising itself swift on high from the enduring stock of a stable root, and spread the shade of its branches far abroad."

[23]He greets this new "reawakened sun, no mere dream at least of mine. Verily I bless thee, who sweepest over my head, my grey hairs, the strength of me that still endures after its sixty years. Ay, for was it not this strength which has carried me so far to see this very vision!"

[24]"Forgive me, brother of France, and brotherhood is the noblest tie after all, that I once cried to my Germans to flee from that, which I now implore them to follow—imitation of you." The reference is of course to the French Revolution.

[25]Hegel may mean that Klopstock was unable to see the real benefits which would result from the French Revolution despite its apparent failure. The sentence which follows would, however, suggest an alternative interpretation that the poet was unable to see the higher demand which the facts of Revolution made upon the French people, and which from the first, that is, even when Klopstock admired them, they did not either frankly face or successfully respond to. I think, indeed, this latter is most probable.

The reason that dramatic poetry must be regarded as the highest phase of the art of poetry, and, indeed, of every kind of art, is due to the fact that it is elaborated, both in form and substance, in a whole—that is the most complete. For in contrast to every other sort of sensuousmateria, whether it be stone, wood, colour, or tone, that of human speech is the only medium fully adequate to the presentation of spiritual life; and further, among the particular types of the art of articulate speech, dramatic poetry is the one, in which we find the objective character of the Epos essentially united to the subjective principle of the Lyric. In other words it presents directly before our vision an essentially independent action as a definite fact, which does not merely originate from the personal life of character under the process of self-realization, but receives its determinate form as the result of the substantive interaction in concrete life of ideal intention, many individuals and collisions. This mediated form of epic art by means of the intimate personal life of an individual viewed in the very presence of his activity does not, however, permit the drama to describe the external aspects of local condition and environment, nor yet the action and event itself in the way that they are so described in the epic. Consequently, in order that the entire art-product may receive the full animation of life, we require its complete scenic representation. And, finally, the action itself, regarded in the full complexus of its ideal and external reality, is adapted to two distinct types of composition of the most opposite character, the predominant principles of which, regarded severally as the tragic and comic type, create in their turn also a further fundamental and specific point of view in our attitude to the dramatic art.

Starting then from the vantage of these general observations we may indicate the course of our inquiry as follows:

Firstswe propose to consider the dramatic composition, both in its general and more detailed features, in the contrast it presents to epic and lyrical poetry.

Secondly, our attention will be directed to its scenic presentation and the conditions of this necessity.

Thirdly, we shall pass under review the different types of dramatic poetry as we find them realized in the concrete facts of past history.

What we have, in the first instance, to define more emphatically is the poetic aspect of the dramatic composition as such, that is to say in its independence of the fact that the same is necessarily presented to our direct vision on the stage. Our investigation of this will do well to concentrate itself on the following points:

Firststhere is the general principle of dramatic poetry.

Secondly, we have the several specific types of dramatic composition.

Thirdly, there is the relation which obtains between these and the public audience.

(a)The Principle of Dramatic Poetry

The demand of the drama, in the widest sense, is the presentation of human actions and relations in their actually visible form to the imaginative consciousness, that is to say, in the uttered speech of living persons, who in this way give expression to their action. Dramatic action, however, is not confined to the simple and undisturbed execution of a definite purpose, but depends throughout on conditions of collision, human passion and characters, and leads therefore to actions and reactions, which in their turn call for some further resolution of conflict and disruption. What we have consequently before us are definite ends individualized in living personalities and situations pregnant with conflict; we see these as they are asserted and maintained, as they work in co-operation or opposition—all in a momentary and kaleidoscopic interchange of expression—and along with this, too, the final result presupposed and issuing from the entirety of this interthreading and conflicting skein of human life, movement, and accomplishment, which has none the less to work out its tranquil resolution. The mode of poetical composition adapted to this novel type of content can be, as already suggested, no other than a mediating union of the principles of epic and lyrical art respectively.

(α) Thefirstpoint of importance we have to settle to our satisfaction is that of thetimeat which dramatic poetry is able to assert itself in all its predominance. Drama is the product of an already essentially cultured condition of national life. It already presupposes as essentially a feature of past history not only the primitive poetic period of the genuine Epos, but also the independent personal excogitation of lyrical rapture. The bare fact that, while combining these two points of view, it is satisfied with neither sphere in its separation proves that this is so. And in order that we may have this poetic combination the free self-consciousness of human aims, developments and destinies must be already fully alert and awake, must have attained, in short, a degree of culture such as is only possible in the intermediate and later epochs of a nation's development. For this reason, too, the greatest exploits and events of a nation's primitive history are rather of an epic than a dramatic type. Such are features of the national existence for the most part related to communities outside it, such as the Trojan war,or the wave of popular migration, as illustrated in the Crusades, or the national resistance to a common enemy, as was the case in the war of Greece against Persia. It is only at a later stage that we meet with the more stable independence of single heroes, who create for themselves and out of themselves in their isolation definite ends, and carry through the undertakings they imply.

(β) We may add the following remarks upon the nature of thismediationbetween the opposed principles ofepicandlyric poetry.

The Epos already makes an action visible to our imaginative sense. It is, however, here presented as the substantive entirety of a national spirit under the form of definite events and exploits of external life, in which personal volition, the individual aim and the externality of vital conditions, together with the obstructions which such external facts present, are retained in an equal balance. In the Lyric, on the contrary, it is the individual person, which is emphasized in the independence of his subjective life and as such expressed.

(αα) In combining these two points of view drama has in thefirstplace, following in this respect the Epos, to bring before our vision an event, action, or practical affair. But above all in everything that is thus presented the factor of bare externality must be obliterated, and in, its place the self-conscious and active personality is posited as the paramount ground and vital force. The drama, in short, does not take exclusive refuge in-the lyric presence of soul-life, as such stands in contrast to an external world, but propounds such a life in and throughitsexternal realization. And in virtue of this the event does not appear to proceed from external conditions, but rather from personal volition and character; it receives in fact its dramatic significance exclusively in its relation to subjective aims and passions. At the same time the individual is not left exclusively rooted in his self-exclusive independence; he comes to his own through the peculiar nature of the conditions in which he is placed, and subject to which his character and purpose become the content of his volitional faculty, quite as much so in fact as in virtue of the nature of the particular purpose itselfin its opposition to and conflict with other ends. Consequently the dramatic action in question must submit to a process of development and collision with other forces, which themselves, on their own account, and even in a contrary direction to that willed and intended by the active personality, effect the ultimate course of the events through which the personal factor, in its essential, characteristics of human purpose, personality, and spiritual conflict, is asserted. This substantive or objective aspect, which is enforced along with the individual character, in other respects acting independently from its own ideal resources, is no other than the very point of view which we find effective and vital in the principle of dramatic poetry, when it coincides with that of the epic composition.

(ββ) However much, therefore, we may have as a centre of attraction the intimate soul-life of particular men and women, nevertheless dramatic composition cannot rest content with the purely lyrical conditions of the emotional life; nor can the poet of such merely limit his sympathy to the dusty record of exploits that are already complete, or, speaking generally, merely describe the experience of enjoyment or other states of emotional or contemplative life. The drama, on the contrary, has to exhibit situations and the spiritual atmosphere that belongs to them as definitely motived by the individual character, which is charged with specific aims, and which makes these an effective part of the practical content of its volitional self-identity. The definition of soul-life, therefore, in the drama passes into the sphere of impulse, the realization of personality by means of active volition, in a word, effective action; it passes out of the sphere of pure ideality, it makes itself an object of the outer world, and inclines itself to the concrete facts of the epic world. The external phenomenon, however, instead of attaining existence in the bare fact of an event, is here, in the view of the acting character himself, charged with the opinions and aims he forms on his own account. Action is here the executed will, which as such is at the same timerecognized, recognized, that is, not merely in its origin and point of departure from the soul-life, but also in respect to its ultimate purpose. In other words, all that issues from the action, issues, so far as the personality in question is concerned, from himself, and reacts thereby on his personalcharacter and its circumstances. This constant relation of the entire complexus of external condition to the soul-life itself of the self-realized and self-realizing individuality, who is at once the basis and assimilating force of the entire process, marks the point where dramatic poetry falls in line with the truly lyrical principle.

(γγ) It is only when thus regarded that human action asserts itself asactionin the supreme sense, that is, as actual execution of ideal intentions and aims with the realization of which the individual agent associates himself as with himself, discovers himself and his satisfaction therein, and thereupon further takes his stand with his entire being in all that proceeds from it as a constituent of the objective world. A character which is dramatic plucks for himself the fruit of his own deeds.

Inasmuch, however, as the interest, in a dramatic sense, restricts itself to the personal aim, whose hero the active personality is, and it is only necessary in the artistic work to borrow from the external world so much as is bound in an essential relation to this purpose, which originates in self-conscious life, for this reason the drama isprimarilyof a more abstract nature than the epic poem. For on the one hand the action, in so far as it reposes in the self-determination of character, and is deducible from this vital source and centre, does not presuppose the epic background of an entire world through all the varied aspects and ramifications of its positive realization, but is concentrated in the simpler definition of circumstance subject to which the individual man is absorbed in his immediate purpose and carries the same to accomplishment. And from a further point of view we have not here the type of personality which asserts its development to our vision in theentire complexityof national qualities as such are displayed by the epic, but rather character viewed indirectrelation to its action, character which possesses adefiniteend directed to spirit life in its universality. This end or purpose, this eventual fact on which it depends, is placed in a more exalted position than is possible to the extension of the purely individual life, which appears inclusively as living organ and animating vehicle ofthe same. A more widely extended unveiling of character under the most varied aspects which are present either in no connection at all or only in a more remote one to its action, as we find it concentrated ononesingle point of interest would be a superfluity; consequently in this respect, too, that is, in its relation to the active personality, dramatic poetry ought to be more simply concentrated than epic poetry. The same generalization is applicable to the number and variety of the characters represented. For in virtue of the fact, as previously insisted, that the movement of the drama is not thrown upon the background of a national existence essentially complete in its envisagement of every conceivable variety of class, age, sex, activity, and so forth, but on the contrary, rivets our attention throughout ononefundamental purpose and its achievement, a realization of objective fact so extended and intricate as this would not merely be ineffective, but would actually impair the result proposed. At the same time, however, andsecondly, the end and content of an action is only dramatic by reason of the fact that on account of its defined character, in the distinctive qualities of which the particular personality itself can alone lay hold of it under equally definite conditions, it calls into being in other individuals other objects and passions opposed to it, This pathetic excitant[1]may, no doubt, in each separate active agent, assume the form of spiritual, ethical, and divine forces, such as duty, love to fatherland, parents, wife, relations, and the like. If, however, this essential content of human feeling and activity is to assert itself as dramatic it must in its specializationconfrontus as distinct ends, so that in every case the action will inevitably meet with obstruction in its relation to other active individuals, and fall into subjection to changing conditions and contradictions, which alternately prejudice the success of their own particular fulfilment. The genuine content, the essential operative energy throughout may therefore very well be the eternal forces, the essentially explicit ethical State, the gods of vital reality, in a word the divine and the true, but it is not these in the might of their tranquillity, in that condition, so to speak, wherein the unmoved godsabide, saved from all action, as some serene figures of sculpture self-absorbed in a state of blessedness. What we have here is the divine in its community, as content, that is, and object of human personality, as concrete existence in its realization,[2]invited to act and charged with movement.

If, however, as above described, the godlike presence constitutes the most vital objective truth in the external precipitate[3]of human action, then,thirdly, the deciding factor in the course and original departure of such an evolution and conflict cannot reside with particular individuals, which are placed in a relation of opposition to one another; it must be referred to the divine presence itself, regarded as essential totality: and for this reason, the drama, it matters not in what form it may be shaped, will have to propound to us the vital energy of a principle of Necessity which is essentially self-supporting, and capable of resolving every conflict and contradiction.

(γ) Consequently, we have before everything else the demand made on the dramaticpoetin his creative capacity, that to the fullest extent his intelligence is awake to that ideal and universal substance which is at the root of human ends, conflicts, and destinies. He must fully acquaint himself with all the contradictions and developments which the particular action will, under the proposed conditions, necessarily involve and display. He must not merely be aware of them in so far as they originate in personal passion and the specific characterization of particular individuals, or as he finds such related to the actual content of human designs and resolves; but also in so far as they are simply referable to the external relations and circumstances of concrete life. And, along with this, it should be within his powers to recognize what the real nature of these paramount forces are, which apportion to man the just guerdon of his achievements. The rightful claim, no less than the wrongful misuse of the passions, which storm through the human heart, and excite to action, must lie disclosed to him with equal clarity, in order that precisely in those cases where the ordinary vision can only discover the ascendancy of obscurity, chance, and confusion, he, at least, will find revealed the actual selfaccomplishment of what is the essence of reason and truth itself. It follows, therefore, that the dramatic poet ought as little to confine his efforts to the indefinite exploration of the depths of emotional life, as the one-sided retention of any single exclusive mood of soul-life, or any limited partiality in the type of his sense-perception and spiritual outlook generally. He ought, rather, to exclude nothing from his vision that may be embraced by the widest expansion of Spirit conceivable. And this is so because the spiritual powers which are exclusively distinct in the mythological Epos, and which, by virtue of the many-sided aspects ofactual individualization[4]tend to lose theclear definitionof their significance, assert themselves in dramatic poetry in consonance with their simple substantive content as pathos altogether, and as apart from individual characters. The drama is, in fact, the resolution of the one-sided aspect of these powers, which discover their self-stability in the dramatic character. And this is so whether, as in tragedy, they are opposed to such in hostility, or, as in comedy, they are displayed within these characters themselves, without further mediation, in a condition of resolution.

(b)Dramatic Composition

In discussing the drama as a concrete work of art, I propose to emphasize, briefly, the following fundamental points:

Firstthere is the unity of the same viewed in contrast to that of the Epos and the lyric poem.

Secondly, we have to consider the articulation of its parts, of its separate parts and their development.

Thirdly, there is the external aspect of diction, dialogue, and verse-measure.

(α) What we have in the first instance to observe and, from the broadest point of view, to establish with regard to the unity of the drama, is connected with a remark made in a previous passage to the effect that dramatic poetry, in contradistinction to the Epos, must be more strenuously self-concentrated. For, although the Epic makes a specific event its centre of unity, this is none the less expanded over a wide and manifold field of the national existence, and may break up into very various episodes and the independent presentation which belongs to each as parts of the entire panorama. An analogous appearance of merely general connection, on grounds which are converse to the above, is permissible to certain types of lyrical poetry. Inasmuch, however, as in dramatic poetry, from one point of view, that epic foundation, as we have seen, falls away—and as, otherwise regarded, the individual characters do not find their expression under the insulation proper to lyric expression, but rather assert in such a way their mutual relations to one another, by means of the opposed features of their characterization and aims, that it is just this personal relation which constitutes the ground of their dramatic realization—it follows, as by a law of necessity, that the synthetic unity of the entire composition is of a more stringent character. Now this more restricted homogeneity is quite as much objective as it is ideal in its nature. It is objective relatively to the features of the practical content of the objects, which the different characters carry out in a condition of conflict. It is ideal or subjective in virtue of the fact that this essentially substantive content appears in dramatic work as the passion of particular characters, so that the ill-success or achievement, fortune or misfortune, victory or defeat, essentially affect the individuals, whom such concern, in their actual intention.[5]

The more obvious laws of dramatic composition may be summarized in the time-honoured prescription of the so-called unities of place, time, and action.

(αα) The inalterability of one exclusivelocaleof the action proposed belongs to the type of those rigid rules, which the French in particular have deduced from classic tragedy and the critique of Aristotle thereupon. As a matter of fact, Aristotle merely says[6]that the duration of the tragicaction should not exceed at the most the length of a day. He does not mention the unity of place at all; moreover, the ancient tragedians have not followed such a principle in the strict sense adopted by the French. As examples of such a deviation, we have a change of scene both in the Eumenides of Æschylus and the Ajax of Sophocles. To a still less extent can our more modern dramatic writing, in its effort to portray a more extensive field of collision,dramatis personaeof whatever kind and incidental event, and, in a word, an action the ideal explication of which requires, too, an external environment of greater breadth, subject itself to the yoke of a rigid identity of scene. Modern poetry, in so far, that is, as its creations are in harmony with the romantic type, which as a rule displays more variety and caprice in its attitude to external condition, has consequently freed itself from any such demand. If, however, the action is in truth concentrated in a few great motives, so that it can avoid complexity of external exposition, there will be no necessity for considerable alternation of scene. Indeed, the reverse will be a real advantage. In other words, however false such a rule may be in its purely conventional application, it contains at least the just conception that the constant transition of scene, without any particular reason why we should have one more than another, is obviously quite inadmissible. The dramatic concentration of the action ought necessarily to assert itself also in this external aspect, and thus present a contrast to the Epos, which is permitted in the most varied way to adapt itself to the fresh expatiation in the form of the spatial condition and its changes. Moreover, from a further point of view, the drama is not, as the Epos, composed exclusively for the imaginative sense, but for the direct vision of our senses. In the sphere of the pure imagination we can readily pass from one scene to another. In a theatrical representation, however, we must not put too great a strain on the imaginative faculty beyond the point which contradicts the ordinary vision of life. Shakespeare, for example, in whose tragedies and comedies there is a very frequent change of scene, had posts put up with notices attached to them indicating the particular scene on view. A device of this kind is a poor sort of affair, and can only impair the dramatic effect. For this reason the unity of place is at least commendable to the extent that itsintelligibility and convenience areprimâ facieassured, in so far, that is, that all confusion is thus avoided. But after all, no doubt, much may still be trusted to the imagination, which would conflict with our ordinary perception and notion of probability. The most convenient course in this, as in other matters, is a happy mean; in other words, while not wholly excluding the claim of purely natural fact and perception, we may still permit ourselves considerable license in our attitude to both.

(ββ) The unity oftimeis a precisely similar case. In the pure realm of imaginative idea we may no doubt, with no difficulty, combine vast periods of time; in the direct vision of perception we cannot so readily pass over a few years. If the action is, therefore, of a simple character, viewed in its entire content and conflict, we shall do best to concentrate the time of such a conflict, from its origin to its resolution, in a restricted period. If, on the contrary, it demands character richly diversified, whose development necessitates many situations which, in the matter of time, lie widely apart from one another, then the formal unity of a purely relative and entirely conventional duration of time will be essentially impossible. To attempt to remove such a representation from the domain of dramatic poetry, on theprimâ facieground that it is inconsistent with the strict rule of time-unity would simply amount to making the prose of ordinary facts the final court of appeal, as against the truth of poetic creation. Least of all need we waste time in discussing the purely empirical probability that as audience we could, in the course of a few hours, witness also, directly through our sense, merely the passage of a short space of time. For it is precisely in the case where the poet is most at pains to illustrate this conclusion that, from other points of view, he wellnigh invariably perpetrates the most glaring improbabilities.

(γγ) In contrast to the above examples of unity, that ofactionis the one truly inviolable rule. The true nature, however, of this unity may be a matter of considerable dispute. I will therefore develop my own views of its significance at greater length.

Every action must without exception have adistinctobject which it seeks to achieve. It is through his action that man enters actively into the concrete actual world, in which also the most universal subject-matter is in its turn accepted in the poetic work and defined under more specific manifestation. From this point of view, therefore, the unity will have to be sought for in the realization of an end itself essentially definite, and carried under the particular conditions and relations of concrete life to its consummation. The circumstances adapted to dramatic action are, however, as we have seen, of a kind that the individual end meets with obstructions at the hands of other personal agents, and this for the reason that a contradictory end stands in its path, which in its turn equally strives after fulfilment, so that it is invariably attached to the reciprocal relation of conflicts and their devolution. Dramatic action in consequence rests essentially upon an action that is involved withresistance;[7]and the genuine unity can only find itsrationalein the entire movement which consists in the assertion of this collision relatively to the definition of the particular circumstances, characters, and ends proposed, not merely under a mode consonant to such ends and characters, but in such a way as to resolve the opposition implied. Such a resolution has, precisely as the action itself has, an external and an inside point of view. In other words, on the one side, the conflict of the opposedendsis finally composed; and on the other the particularcharacters, to a greater or less extent, have committed their entire volitional energy and being to the undertaking they strive to accomplish. Consequently the success or misadventure of the same, to complete or partial execution, the inevitable disaster or the secure union effected with intentions that are apparently opposed to their extent, also determine the destiny of the character in question, that it is inextricably involved with that which it was impelled to commit to such activity. A true end is therefore only then consummated, where the object and interest of the action, around which all revolves, are identified with the individuals concerned, and absolutely united to them. And whether the difference and opposition of the dramatic character assumes a simple form or branches out in various accessory episodes and individuals, the unity in either case may be of a more severe or less stringent nature. Comedy, for instance, in the many-sided features of its worked-out intrigue does not require such deliberate self-concentration as tragedy does, which is as a rule motived on grandiose and simple lines. Romantic tragedy, however, is also in this respect more varied and less consistent in its unity than is classic tragedy. And even where there is more licence the relation of the episodes and supplementary characters must be throughout recognizable; and the entirety of the piece should also naturally and without strain fit in with and help to complete the conclusion. So, for example, in "Romeo and Juliet," the discord between the families, which lies outside the lovers and their object and destiny, is no doubt the base on which the action is shaped, though not the actual matter on which all actually depends. Shakespeare consequently devotes the necessary, if also wholly subordinate attention to the final issue of this conflict in his conclusion. In the same way in "Hamlet" the fortunes of Denmark remain a subsidiary interest, though with the entrance of Fortinbras they are apparently considered, and are settled at last satisfactorily.

No doubt in the particular end, which resolves the colliding factors, the possibility of fresh interests and conflicts may be presented; it is, however, theonecollision with which the action is concerned, which has to discover its final adjustment in the essentially independent composition. Of this type are the three tragedies of Sophocles borrowed from the Theban cycle of myths. The first contains the discovery by Œdipus of the murderer of Laius; the second his peaceful death in the home of the Eumenides; the third the fate of Antigone. And, despite of this connection, every one of the three is equally an intrinsically complete whole independent of the other two.

(β) With regard to oursecondpoint, namely, that of the mode of denouement in a dramatic composition, we have three main features of distinction to consider between it and epic composition or the song, namely, the size of its extension, the nature of its progression and its division into scenes and acts.

(αα) We have already seen that the embrace of a drama—is not so extensive as the demand of the epos implies. Ipropose, therefore—over and above the two features already discussed of that world-condition, which is necessarily implied in the complete picture of the epic, and the more simple collision which is an equally essential constituent of the content of drama—merely to advert to the further ground, that in the drama the greater part of everything that the muse of the epic poet has to describe and linger over as servant of our imaginative vision, is omitted altogether from the scenic reproduction. And, further, in the case of drama it is not actual exploit, but the exposition of personal passions which is here the main thing. This personal life, however, in contrast to the expanse of the phenomenal world, is concentrated in simple emotions, sentences, decisions, and the like; and here, too, as distinct from the collateral display of epic narration and its historical part, it gives effect to the principle of lyric absorption and the origination and expression in present time of passion and idea. Dramatic poetry is, however, not satisfied with merelyonesituation;[8]it presents the ideal world of emotional life or intelligence in active self-assertion as a totality of circumstances and ends of very various character, which expresses taken together, all that, if viewed relatively to its activity, passes in such an inward world. In comparison with the lyrical poem, the drama reaches out to and is completed in a far more extensive embrace of subject-matter. To summarize this comparative relation we may say, perhaps, that dramatic poetry stands as a mean between the wide embrace of the Epopaea and the concentrated compression of the Lyric.

(ββ) Yet more important than this aspect of external extension is the nature of thedramatic progressionas opposed to the mode of the epic's devolution The form of the epic objectivity demands throughout, as we have seen, a lingering style of description, which may along with this become more intense and pointed in its display of active obstruction. It is possible that we may at first blush incline to the view that, inasmuch as other ends and characters resist the main end and principal character in dramatic exposition, dramatic poetry is entitled to accept this sort of pause and obstacle as an essential feature of its principle. As a matter of fact just the reverse is the case. The true dramatic progression is acontinuousmovementonwardsto the final catastrophe. This is clear from the simple fact that it is incollisionthat we find the emphatic turning point. In consequence of this we have the twofold view of, in the first place, a general strain towards the outbreak of this conflict, and, secondly, the necessity implied in this discord and contradiction of views, ends, and activities, that they should find some resolution to which they are driven forwards. By this we by no means assert that mere celerity of forward movement is simply in itself beautiful in the dramatic sense. On the contrary, the dramatic poet should have himself room to supply every situation on its own account with all the motives which it truly implies. Episodical scenes, however, which only impede the action are contrary to the nature of the drama.

(γγ) As a final point, we may divide the course of the dramatic work most naturally by simply following the stages implied in the notion of dramatic movement itself. In this connection Aristotle[9]long ago remarks that a whole is that which possesses a beginning, a middle, and a conclusion. He further defines a beginning 'as that which, of itself necessary, does not issue from something else, and out of which something other than itself issues and proceeds. The end is the reverse of this, namely, that which originates from something else, either of necessity, or mainly so at least, but which does not itself lead to further consequence. The middle is that which both issues from something else, and also is that from which something else proceeds.

Now no doubt in the reality of our experience every action includes many presuppositions which make it a difficult matter to decide the exact point where we may find the true commencement. In so far, however, as dramatic action rests essentially on a definite state of collision, the right point of departure will lie in the situation, out of which the future devolution of that conflict, despite the fact that it has not as yet broken out, will none the less in its further course issue. The end, on the contrary, will then be attained, when the resolution of the discord and its development is secured in every possible respect. In the midway condition between origination and end we have the conflict of ends,and the struggle of individual persons in collision. These different section's are in dramatic composition, so to speak, the phases or moments of the action of what are also actions, and the definition of this is admirably indicated by theactsof the piece. They are now of course more or less equivalent to pauses of time, and a prince on one occasion, who was either in a hurry, or wished the action to proceed without interruption, blamed his chamberlain openly that such a pause occurred. With regard to theirnumber threesuch acts for every kind of drama is the number that will adapt itself most readily to intelligible theory. Of these thefirstdiscloses the appearance of the collision, which is thereupon emphasized in thesecondwith all the animation of conflicting interests as the positive difference of such discord and its progression, until,finally, driven as it were upon the very apex of its contradiction, it is necessarily resolved. We may cite—as some kind of illustration of this division which the nature of such an action suggests—from ancient drama, in which no doubt the dramatic articulation is as a rule less distinct, the trilogies of Æschylus, in which each single play combines with the others to form a single and completely exclusive whole.[10]In modern poetry the Spaniards mainly follow such a division into three acts. The English, French, and Germans, on the contrary, for the most part divide the entire play intofiveacts, in which the initial exposition is assigned to the first, the three next are occupied with the various aggressions and reactionary effects, the complex intentions and conflicts of the opposed parties; and it is not until the fifth that we reach the entire resolution of such contending forces.

(γ) The third and final important aspect we have to investigate in our present connection is the nature of theexternal means, in so far as the employment of the same by dramatic art can be held distinct from and independent of the actual scenic representation that is otherwise essential to its complete display. An account of the specific nature of diction which is frequently dramatic generally, secondly, of the distinguishing features of the monologue, dialogue, and the like, and, lastly, of verse measure, will be all that is necessary here. As we have more than once insisted in thedrama the fact of the action is not the external aspect to which we refer, but the exposition of the ideal spirit of the action, not merely in respect to thedramatis personaeand their passion, pathos, resolve, interaction, and mediation, but also relatively to the universal essence of the action in its conflict and destiny. It is this ideally pregnant spirit, in so far as poetry gives embodiment to it in poetic form, which pre-eminently discovers an appropriate expression in the language of poetry, viewing this, as we should, as the most spiritual way of expressing emotions and ideas.

(αα) But, moreover, just as the drama combines the principles of the Epos and the Lyric, dramatic diction, too, is compelled both to carry and assert within itself elements that are lyrical and those that are epic. Thelyricalapproach is rather a special feature of modern drama, and as a rule in those cases where the personal life is or tends to be self-absorbed, and seeks in its decision and action throughout to retain the self-consciousness of its inward resources. But none the less this unveiling of the individual heart-life, if it is to remain dramatic, ought not merely to be the exploitation of a vague and variable cloud of emotions, memories, and visions; it should keep its relation to the action constant throughout, should make its result identical with that of the different phases of the same.

In contrast to this subjective pathos the epic character of the diction, which we may define as theobjectivepathos, is mainly concerned with the unfolding of what is substantive in dramatic relations, ends, and persons on lines rather directed to the vision of the audience. Such a point of view can also in part assume a lyrical tone, remaining when it does so dramatic only in so far as it does not more entirely in its independent force form the progress of the action and its asserted relation to the same. And over and above this, as a second residue, so to speak, of epic poetry, we may have the records of narrative, descriptions of battles and the like thrown in. But these also, in genuine dramatic composition, ought to be marked with greater compression and animated movement, and, relatively to their presentment as narrative, a necessary connection with the progress of the action should be evident.

In conclusion, genuine dramatic art consists in the expression of individuals in the conflict of their interests and the discord roused between their characters and their transitory passions. It is here that the twofold aspect of lyric and epic poetry[11]will assert its power in true dramatic union: and we have then attached to this the aspect of positive external fact expressed likewise in the medium of language, as where we have, for instance, the departure and entrance ofdramatis personaeas a rule announced beforehand; not unfrequently also their external habit or demeanour is indicated by other persons.

A fundamental distinction over the entire field now under review is the so-called realistic mode of expression, as opposed to a conventional speech of the theatre and its rhetoric. Diderot, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller also in their youth addressed themselves in modern times above all to this attitude of direct and natural expression. Lessing did so with the powers of a trained and sensitive observation Schiller and Goethe did so with their predilection for the direct animation of unembellished robustness and force. That men should converse with one another as in the Greek, or with more insistance—and in this latter respect the criticism has a reasonable basis—as in French comedy and tragedy was scouted as contrary to Nature. This type of naturalism, however, may very readily, with its superfluity of merely realistic traits, fall into the other extreme of dryness and prose, in so far, that is, as the characters are not developed in the essential qualities of their emotional life and action, but only as they happen to express themselves in the literal accuracy of their individual life, without indicating therein any more significant self-consciousness or any further sense of their essential position. The more natural the characterization is allowed to remain in this sense the more prosaicit becomes. In actual life men converse and strive with one another before everything else on the mere basis of theirdistinct singularity.If our object is to depict them simply as such it is impossible that they should also be represented in their truly substantive significance.[12]And, if we look at the essence of the matter, this question of crudeness and urbanity can only be in the last instance treated subject to the above considerations. In other words while, on the one hand, such crudeness or coarseness is made to issue from the particular personality, which is exclusively committed to the unmediated dictation of an imaginative type of outlook and feeling, in the converse treatment an urbanity is the outcome of a purely abstract and formal generalization of consideration for others, recognition of the claims of personality, love, honour, and the like, in which nothing that is suggestive of a rich and objective content can be expressed.[13]Between these two extremes of a purely formal generality and this natural expression of unpolished peculiarities we have the true universal, which is throughout neither formal nor destitute of individuality, but finds its concrete realization in a twofold way from the defined content of character and the objective presence of opinions and aims. Genuine poetry will therefore consist in the assertion of what belongs to immediate and actual life as characteristic and individual in the purifying medium of universality,[14]both aspects being permitted to mediate each other. In this case we are conscious, even in respect to diction, that without being wholly banished from the basis of reality and its actual traits of truth, we are nevertheless carried into another sphere, that is to say the ideal realm of art. Of this latter character is the diction of Greek dramatic poetry, the later diction of Goethe, and in part, too, that of Schiller, and in his own way Shakespeare's also, although the Englishman, owing to the peculiar conditions of the contemporary stage, is forced in part now and again to accommodate his verbal language to the actual ability of the actor.[15]

(ββ) We mayfurtherclassify the mode of dramatic expression as that of choral interlude, monologue, and dialogue. It is the ancient drama which has pre-eminently elaborated the distinction between chorus and dialogue. In our modern drama this falls away. What, in the classical composition, was presented by thechorus, is now rather placed in the mouths of the leading characters. The choric song expresses, among the ancients, by way of contrast to the particular characters and their more personal or more reciprocal conflict, the general or more impersonal view of the situation, and the emotions it excites, in a manner which at one time inclines to the objective style of epic narrative, at another to the impulsive movement of the Lyric. In themonologue, on the other hand, it is the isolated individual who, in a given situation of the action, becomes objective on his own account. Monologues are, therefore, dramatically in their right place at those moments chiefly when the emotional life is entirely self-concentrated as the result of previous events; when it sums up, as it were, the nature of the cleft between itself and others, or its own spiritual division; or when it arrives at some sudden decision, or comes to the final point of resolve on matters already long debated.

Thethirdand complete form of the drama, however, is thedialogue. For in this thedramatis personaeare mutually able to express their character and aims, not merely relatively to their personal attitude to each other, but also to the substantive character of the pathos disclosed; they engage in conflict, and thereby actually advance the movement of the action. We may further distinguish in the dialogue between the expression of a pathos that issubjectiveand one that isobjective.The first rather appertains to a given passion of more accidental a nature, whether it be the case in which it is retained essentially in suppression, and is only expressed aphoristically, or that in which it finds a vent in the most complete and exhaustive explosion. Poets, who endeavour to arouse the full movement of personal emotion by means of poignant scenes, are exceptionally partial to this type of pathos. Nevertheless, despite all their endeavourto depict personal suffering and unrestrained passion, or the unreconciled inward dissension of soul-life, it remains the fact that the human soul, in its depth, is less effected thereby than it is through a pathos, wherein at the same time a genuine objective content is evolved. For this reason the earlier plays of Goethe, despite all the real penetration of their subject-matter and the natural force of their dialogue, make on the whole a weaker impression. And, in the same way, outbreaks of unrelieved distraction and unrestrained fury, effect a truly healthy sense only in subordinate degree; and, above all, what is wholly frightful rather chills us than makes the blood flow. The poet may describe passion with all the overwhelming power possible. It is ineffective; the heart is merely rent in pieces,[16]and turns aside from it. What we fail to find here is that which art can least dispense with, the positive aspect of reconciliation. The ancient tragedians, therefore, mainly sought for their effect by means of the objective type of pathos; nor is there wanting here genuine human individuality, so far as this was compatible with their art. The plays, also, of Schiller possess this pathos of a great spiritual force,[17]a pathos which is penetrative throughout, and is manifested and expressed everywhere as fundamental to the action. It is, above all, to this circumstance that we may ascribe the lasting effect which the tragedies of Schiller produce even in our own day; I refer in particular to their scenic reproduction. For that which produces a profound dramatic effect of universal and enduring appeal can be only the substantive in action—by which I mean, viewing it as definite content, the ethical substance therein, or, in its more formal aspect, the grandeur of ideal reach and character, in which respect, again, Shakespeare is supreme.

(γγ) I will, in conclusion, add merely a word or two on the point ofverse-measure.Dramatic metre is best when it lies midway between the tranquil, uniform flow of the hexameter and the more interrupted and split-up syllabic metres congenial to the Lyric. In this respect the iambic metre is above all others commendable. For the iambus, with the rhythm of its onward movement, which may be either accelerated by anapaests, or be made more solemn and weighty with the spondee, forms a most fitting accompaniment to the march of the action; and in quite a peculiar way the senarius possesses a real tone of noble and restrained emotional force. Among modern authors the Spaniards, with an artistic purpose the reverse of this, adopt trochaeic tetrameters, the effect of which is one of tranquil retardation; a measure which, with its variety of interwoven rhymes and assonances, in part, too, with its alternative absence of rhyme, is admirably adapted to the imaginative exuberance of phantasy, and to the fine-drawn argumentative antitheses, which characterize this poetry and impede rather than advance the action. In a contrast of a similar kind, the French Alexandrine is harmonious with the formal carriage and the declamatory rhetoric of passions, sometimes held in restraint and at others expressed at full heat, the conventional expression of which the art of French drama has tasked itself to elaborate. The more realistic Englishman, whom we Germans too have followed in more recent times, has, on the contrary, retained the iambic metre, which Aristotle long ago defined as τὀ μάλιστα λεκτικὸν τῶν μἐτρων[18]He has, however, not accepted the same in identical form with the Greek trimeter, but substituted a measure of less pathetic character, if capable of the greatest freedom of treatment.

(c)The Relation of the Dramatic Composition to the General Public.

Although the advantages or defects of diction and metre are important, also, in epic and lyrical poetry, we must nevertheless ascribe a more emphatic effect to them in dramatic compositions, in virtue of the circumstance that we are in this case dealing with opinions, characters, and actions which have to appear before us in all the reality of life itself. A comedy of Calderon, for example, with all the interplay of fantastic wit we may assume, embodied, however, in the kind of diction we associate with this poet, with its logical niceties and its bombast—subject, also, to all the variations of his lyrical metres—would not, we may presume, on the simple ground of this manner of expression, be likely to arouse any general sympathy. It is on accountof this visual presence and nearness of approach that the other aspects of the content, apart from that of purely dramatic form, are brought into a far more direct relation to the public before whom they are reproduced. We should like shortly to explain the nature of this.

Scientific compositions and lyrical or epic poems either possess a distinct public, whose interest in such works is associated with their profession, or it is a matter of chance into what hands compositions of this character may fall. If a book does not please anyone it can be neglected, just as a man passes by the picture or statue that he does not like; such works may, in fact, be held to carry to some extent with them the author's admission that his book is not written for such. The case is somewhat otherwise with dramatic works. Here we have a distinct public for which the author has to cater, and he is under certain obligations towards it. Such a public possesses the right of applause no less than expressed displeasure; inasmuch as a work is represented before it in its entirety, and the appeal is made that it should be enjoyed, with sympathy in a given place and at a stated time. A public of this sort, as in the case of any—other public jury, is of a very varied character; it differs in its education, interests, accustomed tastes, and hobbies, so that to secure complete success in certain distinct respects a talent in the display of vulgar effect, or at least a relative shame-facedness in regard to the finest demand of genuine art, may be necessary. No doubt the dramatic poet has always the alternative left him to despise his public. But in that case he obviously fails to secure the very object for which dramatic writing exists. With us Germans, to an exceptional extent, it has become the fashion since the times of Tieck thus to scorn the public. Our German play-writer will express his own particular individuality, but takes no trouble to commend the result to his audience. The ideal of our German egotism is quite the reverse, namely, that every man must turn out something different to that of other people, in order that he may prove his originality. It was owing, in part, to this that Tieck and the brothers Schlegel, men who, from the very nature of their sentimental irony, were quite unable to master the emotional forces and intelligence of their nation and time, fell foul of Schiller, and tried to blacken his poetical reputation on the ground that he did among us Germans manage to strike the right key, and obtain a popularity unsurpassed. With our neighbours, the French, we find the opposite. Their authors write with the present effect on the public always in view, which further, on its own account, is capable of being a keener and less indulgent critic of the author, owing to the fact that a more definite artistic taste is already fixed in France: with us anarchy prevails, and everyone expresses his critical views, applauds or condemns just as he likes, or as his opinions, emotion, and mood may chance to dictate.

Inasmuch, however, as it is an essential part of the definition of the dramatic composition that it should possess the vitality able to command a favourable popular reception, the dramatic poet should submit to the conditions—quite apart, that is, from the accidental circumstances or tendencies of the time—which are likely to secure this result in an artistic form. What these are I will attempt to explain, at least in their more general features.

(a) Now, in thefirstplace, the ends, which in a dramatic work come into conflict and are resolved out of such conflict, either possess a general human interest, or at least have at bottom a pathos, which is of a valid and substantive character for the people for whom the poet creates his work. In such a case, however, the universal human quality and what is more definitely national, in so far as either are connected with the substance of dramatic collisions, may lie very widely apart. Compositions, which stand in the national life, at the very summit of their dramatic art and development, may consequently quite fail to be appreciated by another age and nation. We find, for example, in Hindoo lyrical poetry, even in our own time, much that carries with it a real charm, tenderness, and fascinating sweetness. The particular collision, however, around which the action in the "Sakontala" revolves, in other words, the furious curse upon Sakontala of the Brahman, because she does not see him, and omits to make her obeisance, can only strike us as absurd, so much so in fact that, despite all other excellences in this quite exceptionally beautiful poem, we fail to discover any interest in the very culminating crisis of the action. We may affirm very much the same thing of the way in which the Spaniards treat the motive of personal honour with the abstract severity of a logic, the brutality of which outrages most deeply all our ideas and feelings. Let me recall, for example, the attempt made by our own theatrical management to bring upon the stage one of the less famous plays of Calderon entitled "Clandestine Revenge for Clandestine Insult," an attempt condemned to failure from the first on this ground. Another tragedy, which on similar lines portrays a more profound human conflict, "The Physician of his own Honour," under the changed title of "The Intrepid Prince," has after some revision secured more leeway; but this, too, is handicapped by its abstract and unyielding Catholic principle. Conversely, and in an opposite direction, the Shakespearian tragedies and comedies are appreciated by a public that is constantly increasing. We find here that, despite all their nationality, the universal human interest is incomparably greater. Shakespeare has only failed to secure an entrance where the national conventions of art are so narrow and specific that they either wholly exclude or materially weaken works of the Shakespearian type. A similar position of advantage, such as that we allow to Shakespeare, would be attributable to the tragedies of the ancients, if we did not, apart from our changed habits in respect to scenic reproduction and certain aspects of the national consciousness, make the further demand of a profounder psychological penetration and a greater breadth of particular characterization. So far, however, as thesubject-matterof ancient tragedy is concerned, it could never at any time fail in its effect. We may, therefore, broadly affirm that, in proportion as a dramatic work accepts for its content wholly specific rather than typical characters and passions, conditioned, that is, exclusively by definite tendencies of a particular epoch of history, instead of mainly concerning itself with human interests substantive in all times, to that extent, despite of all its other advantages, it will be more transitory.

(β) And,further, it is necessary that universal human ends and actions of this kind should emphasize their poetic individualization to the point of animated life itself. Dramatic composition does not merely address itself to our sense of vitality, a sense which even the public certainly ought to possess, but it must itself, in all essentials, offer a living actual presence of situations, conditions, characters, and actions.

(αα) I have already, in a previous passage of this work,[19]entered into some detail relatively to the aspect of local environment, customs, usages and other matters which affect the visual representation of action. In this respect dramatic individualization ought to be either so thoroughly poetical, vital, and rich with interest that we can discount what is alien to our sense, and feel ourselves attracted to the performance by this vital claim on our attention, or it should not pretend to do more than present such characteristics as external form, which is entirely outshone by the spiritual and ideal characteristics which underlie it.

(ββ) More important than this external aspect is the vitality of thedramatis personae.Such ought not to be merely specific interests personified, which is only too frequently the case at the hands of modern dramatists. Such abstract impersonations of particular passions and aims are wholly destitute of dramatic effect. A purely superficial individualization is equally insufficient. Content and form in such cases, as in the analogous type of allegorical figures, fail to coalesce. Profound emotions and reflections, imposing ideas and language offer no real compensation. Dramatic personality ought to be, on the contrary, vital and self-identical throughout, a complete whole in short, the opinions and characterization of which are consonant with its aims and action. It is not the breadth of particular traits which is here of first importance, but the permeating individuality, which synthetically binds all in the central unity, which it in truth is, and displays a given personality in speech and action as issuing from one and the same living source, from which every characteristic, whether it be of idea, deed or manner of behaviour, comes into being. That which is merely an aggregate of different qualities and activities, even though such be strung together in one string, will not give us the vital character we require. This presupposes from the point of view of the poet himself a creative activity which is instinct with life and imagination. It is to the latter type, for instance, that the characters of the Sophoclean tragedies belong, despite the fact that they do not possess the variety of particular characteristics which distinguish the epic heroes of Homer. Among later writers Shakespeare and Goethe are pre-eminently famous for the vitality of their characterization. The French, on the contrary, particularly in their earlier dramatic compositions, appear to have been rather content to excogitate characters that are little more than the formal impersonations of general types and passions, than to have aimed at giving us true and living persons.

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