THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. u o{ L Library CC! 29 1964 OCT 201343 1 -' cpr FEB 17625-S FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OE THE DRAivlA AN EXPOSITION OF DRAMATIC COMPOSITION AND ART DR. GUSTAV FREYTAG AN AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE SIXTH GERMAN EDITION ELIAS J. MACEWAN, M.A. SECOND EDITION. CHICAGO S. C. GRIGGS & COMPANY 1896 COPYRIGHT, 1894 BY S. C. GRIGGS & COMPANY Cfjr R. R. DONNELLEY * SONS CO., CHICAGO CONTENTS. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. INTRODUCTION. Technique of the drama not absolute. Cer- tain craftsman's skill of earlier times. Condition of present time. Aristotle's Poetics. Lessing. The great dramatic works as models. ....". 1-8 CHAPTER I. DRAMATIC ACTION. 1. THE IDEA. How the drama originates in the mind of the poet. Development of the idea. Material and its trans- formation. The historian and the poet. The range of material. Transformation of the real, according to Aris- totle. - - 9-18 2. WHAT is DRAMATIC? Explanation. Effects. Characters. The action. The dramatic life of the characters. Entrance of the dramatic into the life of men. Rareness of dramatic ^1 power. - - 19-27 n connection with Julian Schmidt, undertook the management of the politi- cal and literary newspaper, Die Grenzboten, in Leipzig. He continued his literary work, and entered in earnest upon what has proved the long and honorable career of a man of letters. In 1847, Valentine appeared, followed the next year by Count Waldemir, both society plays, evincing the author's dramatic power, and with his inclination toward viii BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. the spirit, the dialectics, and the sketchy manner of the younger writers, showing his delicate feeling for clear- ness and purity of style, his skill in the conduct of the action, in dialogue, and his genial fresh humor. His next play, The Scholar, is rather a psychological study in a single act, than a drama. In 1854, his greatest piece, The Journalists, was first acted; and it is still one of the most popular modern society dramas represented on the German stage. Perfectly natural and healthful in tone, it abounds in striking situations, depicts with fidelity many important types of German character, amusingly exhibits social rivalries and political machinations, and affords abundant opportunity for the author's effective satire. Another play, The Fabii, appeared in 1859. Freytag's first great novel, Soil und Haben (1858), translated into English under the title of Debit and Credit (1859), has become a classic. In this, his view of human life is broader and his insight into the springs of human action deeper than in his plays. Its purpose is to show the value and dignity of a life of labor. It attempts to show that the active, vigorous life of a great German merchant is purer, nobler, more beneficent than the life of a haughty aristocrat, relying only on the traditional merits of his family; and, in this attempt, the author weaves a web of glory about the life of the ordi- nary citizen. A second novel, The Lost Manuscript (1864), in like manner shows the superiority of the scholar over the nobleman. The Technique of the Drama was written in 1863, and dedicated to the author's friend Wolf, Count of Bau- dissin. The book has passed through six editions, and attained the rank of a first-class authority on the matters of which it treats, though now for the first time trans- lated into English. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE. ix In 1862, Freytag began his famous series of connected historic tales, in New Pictures from the Life of the Ger- man People, continued the next year in Pictures from the German Pas/, and still further in 1876 and later, in The Ancestors, including In go and Ingraban; The Nest of the Hedge-sparrows; The Brothers of the German House; Marcus King; The Brothers and Sisters; From a Little City, etc. These are all descriptions of German life, based on accurate research, and including periods from the fourth to the nineteenth century. Devoted to the glory of the German people, this, the author's most extensive work, makes an entertaining exposition of some of the noblest traits of German character. In 1870, he published a striking biography of his intimate friend, entitled Karl Mathy; Story of His Life. Freytag continued to edit Die Grenzboten for twenty- three years, when he went over to a new journal called Im Neuen Reich. His political writings having intro- duced him to public life, he became in 1867, a representa- tive of the Liberal party in the North-German Parliament. On the breaking out of the Franco- Prussian war in 1870, he entered the imperial army as an officer on the staff of the Crown Prince, remaining in military service till after the Battle of Sedan. He gave up public life in 1879. INTRODUCTION. That the technique of the drama is nothing absolute and unchangeable scarcely need be stated. Since Aristotle established a few of the highest laws of dramatic effect, the culture of the human race has grown more than two thousand years older. Not only have the artistic forms, the stage and method of representation undergone a great change, but what is more important, the spiritual and moral nature of men, the relation of the individual to the race and to the highest forces of earthly life, the idea of freedom, the concep- tion of the being of Divinity, have experienced great revolutions. A wide field of dramatic material has been lost ; a new and greater range has been won. With the moral and political principles which control our life, our notion of the beautiful and the artistically effective has developed. Between the highest art effects of the Greek festivals, the autos sacramaitalcs, and the drama of the time of Goethe and Iffland.the difference is not less great than, between the 2 INTRODUCTION. Hellenic choral theater, the structure for the mys- tery play, and the complete inclosed room of the modern stage. It may be considered certain that some of the fundamental laws of dramatic production will remain in force for all time ; in general, however, not only the vital requisites of the drama have been found in continuous devel- opment, but also the artistic means of producing its effects. Let no one think that the technique of poetry has been advanced through the creations of the greatest poets only ; we may say without self-exaltation that we at present have clearer ideas upon the highest art effects in the drama and upon the use of technical equipment, than had Lessing, Schiller and Goethe. The poet of the present is inclined to look with amazement upon a method of work in which the structure of scenes, the treatment of char- acters, and the sequence of effects were governed by a transmitted code of fixed technical rules. Such a limitation easily seems to us the death of free artistic creation. Never was a greater error. Even an elaborate system of specific rules, a certain limitation founded in popular custom, as to choice of material and structure of the piece, have been at different periods the best aid to creative power. Indeed, they are, it seems, nee- INTRODUCTION. 3 essary prerequisites of that rich harvest of many past periods, which has seemed to us so enigmatical and incomprehensible. We recognize still that Greek tragedy possessed such a technique, and that the greatest poets worked according to crafts- man's rules which were in part common, and in part might be the property of distinct families and guilds. Many of these were well known to Attic criticism, which judged the worth of a piece according to them whether the revolution scene were in the right place and the pathos scene aroused the desired degree of sympathy. That the Spanish cloak-and-dagger drama artistically wove the threads of its intrigue likewise according to fixed rules, no poetics of a Castilian informs us ; but we are able to recognize very well many of these rules in the uniform construction of the plays, and in the ever recurring characters ; and it would not be very difficult to formulate a code of peculiar rules from the plays themselves. These rules, of course, even to contemporaries, to whom they were useful, were not invariable ; through the genius and shrewd invention of individuals, these gradually learned how to improve and remodel, until the rules became lifeless; and after a period of spiritless application, together with the creative power of the poets, they were lost. 4 INTRODUCTION. It is true, an elaborate technique which deter- mines not only the form, but also many aesthetic effects, marks out for the dramatic poetry of a period a limit and boundary within which the greatest success is attained, and to transgress which is not allowed even to the greatest genius. In later times such a limitation is considered a hin- drance to a versatile development. But even we Germans might be well content with the unap- preciative judgment of posterity if we only possessed now the aid of a generally useful tech- nique. We suffer from the opposite of narrow limitations, the lack of proper restraint, lack of form, a popular style, a definite range of dramatic material, firmness of grasp ; our work has become in all directions casual and uncertain. Even to-day, eighty years after Schiller, the young poet finds it difficult to move upon the stage with confidence and ease. If, however, we must deny ourselves the advant- age of composing according to the craftsman's traditions which were peculiar to the dramatic art as well as to the plastic arts of former centuries, yet we should not scorn to seek, and intelligently to use, the technical rules of ancient and modern times, which facilitate artistic effects on our stage. To be sure, these rules are not to be prescribed INTRODUCTION. 5 at the dictation of a single person, not established through the influence of one great thinker or poet ; but drawn from the noblest effects of the stage, they must include what is essential they must serve criticism and creative power not as dictator, but as honest helper; and under them a transformation and improvement according to the needs of the time is not to be excluded. It is remarkable that the technical rules of a former time, in accordance with which the play- wright must construct the artistic framework of his piece, have been so seldom transmitted in writing to later generations. Two thousand two hundred years have passed since Aristotle formulated a part of these laws for the Hellenes. Unfortunately his Poetics has come down to us incomplete. Only an outline has been received, which unskilled hands have made a corrupt text with gaps, apparently disconnected chapters, hastily thrown together. In spite of this condition, what we have received is of highest value to us. To this our science of the past is indebted for a glance into the remains of the Hellenes' theater world. In our text-books on aesthetics, this still affords the foundation for the theory of our dramatic art, and to the growing poet, some chapters of the little work are instructive; for besides a theory 6 INTRODUCTION. of dramatic effects, as the greatest thinker of antiquity explained them to his contemporaries, and besides many principles of a popular system of criticism, as the cultured Athenian brought it into use in considering a new production, the work contains many fine appliances from the workshops of antiquity, which we can use to great advantage in our labors. In the following pages, so far as the practical purpose of the book will allow, these will be the subject of our discussion. It is a hundred and twenty years since Lessing undertook to decipher for the Germans this ste- nography of the ancients. His Hamburgische Dramaturgic was the avenue to a popular com- prehension of the dramatically beautiful. The victorious battle which he waged in this book, against the tyranny of French taste, will secure to him forever the respect and affection of the German people. For our time, the polemic past is of most importance. Where Lessing elucidates Aristotle, his understanding of the Greek does not seem entirely sufficient for our present time, which has at hand a more abundant means of explanation ; where he exposes the laws of dra- matic creation, his judgment is restricted by the narrow conception of the beautiful and effective, which he himself accepted. INTRODUCTION. 7 Indeed, the best source of technical rules is the plays of great poets, which still to - day, exercise their charm alike on reader and spectator, especially the Greek tragedies. Whoever accus- toms himself to look aside from the peculiarities of the old models, will notice with real joy that the skilful tragic poet of the Athenians, Sophocles, used the fundamental laws of dramatic construc- tion, with enviable certainty and shrewdness. For development, climax, and return of the action, he presents us a model seldom reached. About two thousand years after (Edipus at Colonos, Shakespeare, the second mighty genius which gave immortal expression to dramatic art, wrote the tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. He created the drama of the Germanic races. His treatment of the tragic, his regulation of the action, his manner of developing character, and his repre- sentation of soul experiences, have established for the introduction of the drama, and for the first half to the climax, many technical laws which still guide us. The Germans came in a roundabout way to a recognition of the greatness and significance of his service. The great German poets, easily the next models after which we have to fashion, lived in a time of a spirited beginning of experiments 8 INTRODUCTION. with the inheritance of the old past. There was lacking, therefore, to the technique which they inherited, something of certainty and consistency in effects ; and directly because the beautiful which they discovered has been infused into our blood, we are bound, in our work, to reject many things which with them rested upon an incomplete or insecure foundation. The examples brought forward in the following discussion are taken from Sophocles, Shakespeare, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller, for it has seemed desirable to limit examples to universally known works. CHAPTER I. THE DRAMATIC ACTION. I. THE IDEA. In the soul of the poet, the drama gradually takes shape out of the crude material furnished by the account of some striking event. First appear single movements ; internal conflicts and personal resolution, a deed fraught with consequence, the collision of two characters, the opposition of a hero to his surroundings, rise so prominently above their connection with other incidents, that they become the occasion for the transformation of other mate- rial. This transformation goes on to such an extent that the main element, vividly perceived, and com- prehended in its entrancing, soul-stirring or terrify- ing significance, is separated from all that casually accompanies it, and with single supplementary, invented elements, is brought into a unifying rela- tion of cause and effect. The new unit which thus arises is the Idea of the Drama. This is the center toward which further independent inventions are directed, like rays. This idea works with a power similar to the secret power of crystallization. Through this are unity of action, significance of Q io FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. characters, and at last, the whole structure of the drama produced. How ordinary material becomes a poetic idea through inspiration, the following example will show. A young poet of the last century reads the following notice in a newspaper: "Stuttgart, Jan. n. In the dwelling of the musician, Kritz, were found, yesterday, his oldest daughter, Louise, and Duke Blasius von Boiler, major of dragoons, lying dead upon the floor. The accepted facts in the case, and the medical examination indicated that both had come to their deaths by drinking poison. There is a rumor of an attachment between the pair, which the major's father, the well-known President von Boiler, had sought to break off. The sad fate of the young woman, universally esteemed on account of her modest demeanor, awakens the sympathy of all people of sensibility." From the material thus afforded, the fancy of the poet, aroused by sympathy, fashions the charac- ter of an ardent and passionate youth, and of an innocent and susceptible maiden. The contrast between the court atmosphere, from which the lover has emerged, and the narrow circle of a little village household, is vividly felt. The hostile father becomes a heartless, intriguing courtier. An unavoidable necessity arises, of explaining the frightful resolution of a vigorous youth, a resolution apparently growing out of such a situation. The creative poet finds this inner connection in an illu- sion which the father has produced in the soul of THE DRAMATIC ACTION. n the son, in a suspicion that his beloved is unfaith- ful. In this manner the poet makes the account intelligible to himself and to others ; while freely inventing, he introduces an internal consistency. These inventions are, in appearance, little supple- mentary additions, but they make an entirely orig- inal production which stands over against the original occurrence as something new, and has something like the following contents : In the breast of a young nobleman, jealousy toward his beloved, a girl of the middle class, has been so excited by his father, that he destroys both her and himself by poison. Through this remodeling, an occurrence in real life becomes a dramatic idea. From this time forward, the real occurrence is unessential to the poet. The place, and family name are lost sight of; indeed, whether the event happened as reported, or what was the character of the victims, and of their parents, or their rank, no longer matters at all ; quick perception and the first activity of creative power have given to the occurrence a universally intelligible meaning and an intrinsic truth. The controlling forces of the piece are no longer accidental, and to be found in a single occurrence ; they could "enter into a hundred cases, and with the accepted characters and the assumed connection, the outcome would always be the same. When the poet has once thus infused his own soul into the material, then he adopts from the real account some things which suit his purpose the 12 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. title of the father and of the son, the name of the bride, the business of her parents, perhaps single traits of character which he may turn to account. Alongside this goes further creative work ; the chief characters are developed, to their distinct individu- alities ; accessory figures are created, a quarrel- some accomplice of the father, another woman, the opposite of the beloved, personality of the parents ; new impulses are given to the action, and all these inventions are determined and ruled by the idea of the piece. This idea, the first invention of the poet, the silent soul through which he gives life to the mate- rial coming to him from external sources, does not easily place itself before him as a clearly defined thought ; it has not the colorless clearness of an abstract conception. On the contrary, the peculiar- ity in such work of the poet's mind is, that the chief parts of the action, the nature of the chief charac- ters, indeed something of the color of the piece, glow in the soul at the same time with the idea, bound into an inseparable unity, and that they con- tinually work like a human being producing and expanding in every direction. It is possible, of course, that the poet's idea, however securely he bears it in his soul, may never, during the process of composition, come to perfection in words, and that later, through reflection, but without having formulated it even for himself, he sets the possession of his soul into the stamped coin of speech, and comprehends it as the fundamental thought of his THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 13 drama. It is possible, indeed, that he has perceived the idea more justly according to the rules of his art, than he has given the central thought of his work verbal expression. If, however, it is inconvenient and often difficult for him to cast the idea of a growing play into a for- mula, to express it in words, yet the poet will do well, even in the beginning of his work, to temper the ardor of his soul, and sharply discriminating, judge the idea according to the essential requisites of the drama. It is instructive for a stranger to a piece to seek the hidden soul in the complete pro- duction, and however imperfect this may possibly be, give the thought formal expression. Much may be recognized in this way that is characteristic of single poets. For example, let the foundation of Mary Stuart be, "The excited jealousy of a queen incites to the killing of her imprisoned rival;" and again of Love and Intrigue, "The excited jealousy of a young nobleman incites to the killing of his humble beloved." These bare formu- las will be taken from the fulness of many-colored life which in the mind of the creative poet is con- nected with the idea; yet something peculiar will become distinct in the construction of both pieces, in addition ; for example, that the poet using such a frame work was placed under the necessity of com- posing in advance the first part of the action, which explains the origin of the jealousy, and that the impelling force in the chief characters becomes operative just in the middle of the piece, and that 14 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. the first acts contain preferably the endeavours of the accessory characters, to excite the fatal activity of one of the chief characters. It will be further noticed how similar in ultimate principle is the con- struction and motive of these two plays of Schiller, and how both have a surprising similarity in idea and plan, to the more powerful Otlicllo. The material which is transformed through the dramatic idea, is either invented by the poet spe- cially for his drama, or is an incident related from the life which surrounds him, or an account which history offers, or the contents of a tradition, or novel, or narrative poem. In all of these cases, where the poet makes use of what is at hand, it has already been humanized by the impress of an idea. Even in the above supposed newspaper notice, the incipient remodeling is recognizable. In the last sentence, "There is a rumor of an attachment," etc., the reporter makes the first attempt to transform the mere fact into a consistent story, to explain the tragic occurrence, to bring to the lovers a greater degree of interest, so that a more attractive mean- ing is given to their condition. The practice of transformation, through which consistency and a meaning corresponding to the demands of the think- ing person are given to real events, is no preroga- tive of the poet. Inclination toward this, and capa- bility for it, are active in all persons, and at all times. For thousands of years the human race has thus transposed for itself life in heaven and on earth ; it has abundantly endowed its representations of the THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 15 divine with human attributes. All heroic tradition has sprung from such a transformation of impres- sions from religious life, history, or natural objects, into poetic ideas. Even now, since historic culture prevails, and respect for the real relations of the great events of the world has risen so high, this ten- dency to explain occurrences shows itself in the greatest as well as in the least matters. In every anecdote, even in the disagreeable gossip of society, its activity is manifest, endeavoring, even if what is real remains unchanged, to present vividly and with spirit some trait of narrow life, or from the neces- sity of the raconteur, to make himself in contrast with others more surely and better observed. Historical material is already brought into order through some idea, before the poet takes possession of it. The ideas of the historian are not at all poet- ical ; but they have a specific and shaping influence on every part of the work which is brought through them into being. Whoever describes the life of a man, whoever makes an exposition of a section of past time, must set in order his mass of material from an established point of view, must sift out the unessential, must make prominent the most essen- tial. Still more, he must seek to comprehend the contents of a human life or a period of time ; he must take pains to discover ultimate characteris- tics and intimate connection of events. He must also know the connection of his material with much that is external, and much that his work does not present. In certain cases, indeed, he must supplement 16 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. what has been delivered to him, and so explain the unintelligible, that its probable and possible meaning is evident. He is finally directed in the arrangement of his work, by the laws of creation, which have many things in common with the laws of poetic composition. Through his knowledge and his art, he may from crude material create a picture excit- ing wonder, and produce upon the soul of the reader the most powerful effect. But he is distinguished from the poet by this, that he seeks conscientiously to understand what has actually occurred, exactly as it was presented to view, and that the inner con- nection which he seeks is produced by the laws of nature which we revere as divine, eternal, incompre- hensible. To the historian, the event itself, with its significance for the human mind, seems of most importance. To the poet, the highest value lies in his own invention ; and out of fondness for this, he, at his convenience, changes the actual incident. To the poet, therefore, every work of an historical writer, however animated it may be through the historical idea recognized in its contents, is still only raw material, like a daily occurrence ; and the most artistic treatment by the historian is useful to the poet, only so far as it facilitates his comprehen- sion of what has really happened. If the poet has, in history, found his interest awakened in the person of the martial prince, Wallenstein ; if he perceives vividly in his reading a certain connection between the deeds and the fate of the man ; if he is touched or shocked by single characteristics of his real life, THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 17 then there begins in his mind the process of reconstruction, so that he brings the deeds and fall of the hero into perfectly intelligible and striking connection, and he even so transforms the character of the hero as is desirable for a touching and thrilling effect of the action. That which in the historical character is only a subordinate trait, now becomes the fundamental characteristic of his being; the gloomy, fierce commander receives something of the poet's own nature; he becomes a high minded, dream- ing, reflecting man. Conformably with this charac- ter, all incidents are remodeled, all other characters determined, and guilt and calamities regulated. Through such idealization arose Schiller's Wallen- stein, a figure whose enchanting features have but little in common with the countenance of the his- torical Wallenstcin. Indeed, the poet will have to be on his guard lest, in his invention, there' be made to appear what to his contemporaries may seem the opposite of historical truth. How much the later poet may be limited by such a consideration, will be discussed later. It will depend on the personality of the poet, whether the first rapture of his poetic activity is derived from the enchanting characteristics of man- kind, or from what is striking in real destiny, or from the really interesting in the color of the time, which he finds in the historical record. But from the moment when the enjoyment and ardor neces- sary to his production begin, he proceeds, indeed, with unfettered freedom, however faithfully he i8 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. seems to himself to adhere to historical material. He transforms all available material into dramatic forces. 1 (See Notes, commencing page 383.) Moreover, when the poet adopts material which has already been put in order more or less perfectly according to the laws of epic construction, as heroic poem, saga, artistically finished narrative, what is prepared for another species of poetry, is for him only material. Let it not be thought that an event with the persons involved, which has already been ennobled through an art so nearly allied, has for that reason a better preparation for the drama. On the contrary, there is between the great creations of the epic which shadow forth occurrences and heroes as they stand near each other, and dramatic art which represents actions and characters as they are developed through each other, a profound opposi- tion which it is difficult for the creative artist to manage. Even the poetic charm which these created images exercise upon his soul, may render it the more difficult for him to transform them according to the vital requisites of his art. The Greek drama struggled as severely with its material, which was taken from the epic, as the historic poet of our time must, with the transformation of histor- ical ideas into dramatic. To transform material artistically, according to a unifying idea, means to idealize it. The characters of the poet, in contrast with the images from reality used as material, and according to a convenient craftsman's expression, are called ideals. THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 19 II. WHAT IS DRAMATIC ? The dramatic includes those emotions of the soul which steel themselves to will, and to do, (and those emotions of the sotal which are aroused by a deed or course of action) also the inner processes which man experiences from the first glow of per- ception to passionate desire and action, as well as the influences which one's own and others' deeds exert upon the soul ; also the rushing forth of will power from the depths of /nan's soul toward the external world, and the influx of fashioning influ- ences from the outer world into man's inmost being; also the coming into being of a deed, and its conse- quences on the human soul. I T U^HsLi, 1 ^ C^t-t^-cnst ,^\ An action, in itself, is notf dramatic. Passionate feeling, in itself, is not dramatic. , Not the presen- tation of a passion for itself, but of a passion which leads to action is the business of dramatic art; not the presentation of an event for itself, but tor its effect on a human soul is the dramatist's mission. The exposition of passionate emotions as such, is in the province of the lyric poet ; the depicting of thrilling events is the task of the epic poet. The two ways in which the dramatic expresses itself are, of course, not fundamentally different. Even while a man is under stress, and laboring to turn his inmost soul toward the external, his surround- ings exert a stimulating or repressing influence on 20 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. his passionate emotions. And, again, while what has been done exerts a reflex influence upon him, he 4-^does not remain merely receptive, but gains new impulses and transformations. Yet, there is a dif- ference in these closely connected processes. The first, the inward struggle of man toward a deed, has always the highest charm. The second stimulates to more external emotion, a more violent co-opera- tion of different forces; almost all that satisfies curi- osity belongs to this ; and yet, however indispensa- ble it is to the drama, it is principally a satisfying of excited suspense ; and the impatience of the hearer, if he has creative power, easily runs in advance, seeking a new vehement agitation in the soul of the hero. What is occurring chains the attention most, not what, as a thing of the past, has excited wonder. Since the dramatic art presents men as their inmost being exerts an influence on the external, or as they are affected by external influences, it must logically use the means by which it can make intel- ligible to the auditor these processes of man's nature. These means are speech, tone, gesture. It must bring forward its characters as speaking, sing- ing, gesticulating. Poetry uses also as accessories in her representations, music and scenic art. In close fellowship with her sister arts, with vig- orous, united effort she sends her images into the receptive souls of those who are at the same time auditors and spectators. V The impressions which she produces are called effects. These dramatic effects " THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 21 have a very peculiar character ; they differ not only from the effects of the plastic arts through the force of emphasis and the progressive and regular grada- tion of the chosen movement, but also from the powerful effects of music, in this, that they flow in at the same time through two senses, and excite with rapture not only emotional, but also intel- lectual activity. Q From what rlas already been said, it is clear that the characters, presented according to the demands of dramatic art, must have something unusual in their nature which may distinguish them not only from the innumerable, more manifold, and more com- plicated beings whose images real life impresses on the soul, but also from the poetic images which are rendered effective through other forms of art, the epic, the romance, the lyric. The dramatis persona must represent human nature, not as it is aroused and mirrored in its surroundings, active and full of feel- ing, but as a grand and passionately excited inner power striving to embody itself in a deed, trans- forming and guiding the being and conduct of others. Man, in the drama, must appear under powerful restraint, excitement, transformation. Spe- cially must there be represented in him in full activity those peculiarities which come effectively into conflict with other men, force of sentiment, violence of will, achievement hindered through pas- sionate desire, just those peculiarities which make character and are intelligible through character. It thus happens, not without reason, that in the terms 22 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. of art, the people of a drama are called characters. But the characters which are brought forward by poetry and her accessory arts, can evince their inner life only as participants in an event or occurrence, the course and internal connection of which becomes apparent to the spectator through the dramatic pro- cesses in the soul of the poet. This course of events, when it is arranged according to the demands of dramatic art, is called the action? Each participant in the dramatic action has a definite appointment with reference to the whole ; for each, an exact, circumscribed personality is nec- essary, which must be so constituted that so much of it as has a purpose may be conveniently per- ceived by the auditor, and what is common to man and what is peculiar to this character may be effect- ively represented by the actor by means of his art. Those spiritual processes which have been indi- cated above as dramatic, are, of course, not perfectly apparent in every person represented, specially on the later stage, which is fond of bringing forward a greater number of characters as participants in the action. But the chief characters must abound in them ; only when these, in an appropriate manner, exhibit their real nature with power and fulness, even to the inmost recesses of their hearts, can the drama produce great effects. If this last dramatic element is not apparent in the leading characters, is not forced upon the hearer, the drama is lifeless ; it is an artificial, empty form, without corresponding contents ; and the pretentious co-operation of several THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 23 combined arts makes this hollowncss the more painful. Along with the chief characters, the subordinate persons participate in this dramatic life, each accord- ing to the space occupied in the piece. It does not entirely disappear, even in the least role, m those figures which with a few words can show their par- ticipation ; the attendant or the messenger, owes it as a duty, at least to the actor's art, by costume, manner of speech, deportment, gesture, posture at entering, to represent in a manner suitable to the piece what he personates, so far as externals will do it, even if meagcrly and modestly. But since the representation of these mental processes, which are the prerogative and requisite of the drama, requires time, and since the poet's time for the producing of effects is limited according to the custom of his people, it follows that the event represented must bring the chief characters much more boldly into prominence than is necessary in an actual occurrence which is brought about through the general activity of many persons. The capability of producing dramatic effects is not accorded to the human race in every period of its existence. Dramatic poetry appears later than epic and lyric ; its blossoming among any people depends on the fortunate conjunction of many impelling forces, but specially on this, that in the actual life of the contemporary public, the corre- sponding mental processes are frequently and fully seen. This is first possible when the people have 24 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. reached a certain degree of development, when men ' have become accustomed to observe themselves and others critically under the impulse to a deed, when ' speech has acquired a high degree of flexibility and a clever dialect ; when the individual is no longer bound by the interdict of tradition and external force, ancient formula and popular custom, but is able more freely to fashion his own life. We dis- tinguish two periods in which the dramatic has come to the human race. This intensification of the human soul appeared for the first time in the ancient world, about 500 years before Christ, when the youthful consciousness of the free Hellenic commu- nity awoke with the bloom of commerce, with free- dom of speech, and with the participation of the citizen in affairs of state. The dramatic spirit appeared the second time, in the newer family of European peoples, after the Reformation, at the same time with the deepening of mind and spirit, which was produced through the sixteenth century, not only among the Germans, but also among the Latin races, but by different methods. Centuries before the inception of this mighty effort of the human spirit, not only the Hellenes, but the various branches of migrating nations, had already been developing the rudiments of a speech and art of pantomime which was seeking the dramatic. There, as here, great festivals in honor of the gods had occasioned the song in ceremonial costume, and the playing of popular masques. But the entrance of dramatic power into these lyric or epic exhibitions, THE DRAMATIC ACTION. was in both cases a wonderfully rapid, almost sudden one. Both times, the dramatic was devel- oped, from the moment it became alive, with a marvellous power to a beauty which, through the later centuries, it has not easily reached. Immedi- ately after the Persian wars, came yEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in close succession. Shortly after the Reformation, there appeared among the European nations, first in England and Spain, and later in France, last of all among the Germans, left behind through helpless weakness, the highest popular florescence of this rare art. But there is this difference between the begin- ning of the dramatic in the old world and in the new : the drama of antiquity originated in the lyric choral song ; that of the newer world rests on the epic enjoyment in the exhibition of important events. In the former, from the beginning, the passionate excitement of feeling was the charm ; in the latter, the witnessing of thrilling incident. This difference of origin has powerfully influenced the form and meaning of the drama in its artistic development ; and however eminent the contribu- tions of art were in both periods, they retained something essentially different. But even after dramatic life had arisen among the people, the highest effects of poetry remained the prerogative of a few, and since that time dra- matic power has not been accorded to every poet ; indeed, it does not pervade with sufficient power every work even of the greatest poets. We may 26 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. conclude that even in Aristotle's time, those stately plays with a simple action, with no characteristic desires on the part of the leading persons, with loosely connected choruses, had, possibly, lyric, but not dramatic beauty. And among the historic plays which, year after year, are written in Ger- many, the greater part contains little more than mangled history thrown into dialogue, some epic material thrown into scenic form, at all events noth- ing of dramatic character. Indeed, single poems of the greater poets suffer from the same lack. Only two celebrated dramas need here be named. The Hecuba of Euripides shows, until toward the end, only a little progress, and that entirely unsatisfac- tory, from the excited disposition, toward a deed ; first in the final conflict against Polymnestor does Hecuba exhibit a passion that becomes a determi- nation ; here the dramatic suspense first begins ; up to this point there was evoked from the briefly sketched and pathetic circumstances of the chief characters, only lyric complaints. And again, in Shakespeare's Henry V., in which the poet wished to compose a patriotic piece according to the old epic customs of his stage, with military parades, fights, little epi- sodes, there is apparent neither in the chief char- acters, nor in their accessories, any deeply laid foun- dation for their deeds, in a dramatically presenta- ble motive. In short waves, wish and demand rip- ple along ; the actions themselves are the chief thing. Patriotism must excite a lively interest, as in Shakespeare's time, and among his people, it THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 27 always did abundantly. For us, the play is less presentable than the parts of Henry VI. On the contrary, to name only a few of one poet's pieces, Macbeth, as far as the banquet scene, the whole of Coriolanus, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Casar, Lear, up to the hovel scene, and Richard III., con- tain the most powerful dramatic elements that have ever been created by a Teuton or a Saxon. I From the inner struggles of the leading charac- ters, the judgment of contemporaries, as a rule, or at least that of the immediately following time, rates the significance of a piece. Where this life is want- ing, no skill in treatment, no attractive material, is able to keep the work alive. Where this dramatic life is present, even later times regard with great respect a poetical composition and gladly overlook its shortcomings. .) III. UNITY OF ACTION. r By action is meant, an event or occurrence, arranged according to a controlling idea, and hav- ing its meaning made apparent by the characters. It is composed of many elements, and consists in a number of dramatic efficients (momente}, which become effective one after the other, according to a regular arrangement. The action of the serious drama must possess the following qualities : // must present complete unity. This celebrated law has undergone a very differ- 28 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. ent application with the Greeks and Romans, with the Spanish and French, with Shakespeare and the Germans, which has been occasioned partly by those learned in art, partly by the character of the stage. The restriction of its claims through the French classics, and the strife of the Germans with the three unities, of place, of time, and of action, have for us only a literary-historical interest. 3 No dramatic material, however perfectly its con- nections with other events have been severed, is independent of something presupposed. These in- dispensable presupposed circumstances must be so far presented to the hearer, in the opening scenes, that he may first survey the groundwork of the piece, not in detail, indeed, lest the field of the action itself, be limited ; then immediately, time, people, place, establishment of suitable relations between the chief persons who appear, and the unavoidable threads which come together in these, from what- ever has been left outside the action. When, for instance, in Love and Intrigue, an already exist- ing love affair forms the groundwork, the hearer must be given a sharp informing glance into this rela- tion of the two leading characters, and into the fam- ily life from which the tragedy is to be developed. Moreover, in the case of historical material, which is furnished by the vast and interminable connec- tions of the great events of the world, this exposi- tion of what has gone before is no easy undertaking ; and the poet must take heed that he simplify it as much as possible. THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 29 From this indispensable introduction the begin- ning of the impassioned action must arise, like the first notes of a melody from the introductory chords. This first stir of excitement, this stimu- lating impulse, is of great importance for the effect of the drama, and will be discussed later. The end of the action must, also, appear as the intelligible and inevitable result of the entire course of the action, the conjunction of forces ; and right here, the inher- ent necessity must be keenly felt ; the close must, however, represent the complete termination of the strife and excited conflicts. Within these limits, the action must move for- ward with uniform consistency. This internal ' consistency is produced by representing an event which follows another, as an effect of which that other is the evident cause ; let that which occa- sions, be the logical cause of occurrences, and the new scenes and events be conceived as proba- ble, and generally understood results of previous actions ; or let that which is to produce an effect, be a generally comprehensible peculiarity of a character already made known. If it is unavoid- able that, during the course of events, new incidents appear, unexpected to the auditor, or very surpris- ing, these must be explained imperceptibly, but perfectly, through what has preceded. This laying the foundation of the drama is called, assigning the motive (motiviren). Through the motives, the elements of the action are bound into an artistic, connected whole. This binding together of inci- 30 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. dents by the free creation of a causative connec* tion, is the- distinguishing characteristic of this species of art. Through this linking together of incidents, dramatic idealization is effected. Let the remodeling of a narrative into a dramatic action serve as an example. There lived in Verona two noble families, in enmity and feuds of long standing. As chance would have it, the son of one family, together with his companions, play the pre- sumptuous trick of thrusting themselves disguised into a masked ball, given by the chief of the other house. At this ball the intruder beholds the daugh- ter of his enemy, and in both arises a reckless pas- sion. They determine upon a clandestine marriage and are wedded by the father confessor of the maiden. Then fate directs that the new bridegroom is betrayed into a conflict with the cousin of his bride, and because he has slain him in the duel, is banished from his country by the prince of the land, under penalty of death. Meantime a distinguished suitor has visited the parents to sue for the hand of the newly married wife. The father disregards the despairing entreaties of his daughter, and appoints the day for the marriage. In these fearful circum- stances, the young woman receives from her priest, a sleep-potion which shall give her the appearance of death; the priest undertakes to remove her pri- vately from the coffin and communicate her embar- rassing situation to her distant husband. But again an unfortunate chance directs that the husband, in a foreign land, is informed of the death of his wife, THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 31 before the messenger of the priest arrives. He has- tens, in secret, back to his native city, and forces his way into the vault, where lies the body of his wife. Unfortunately, he meets there the man destined by her parents to be her bridegroom, kills him, and upon the coffin of his beloved, drinks the fatal poison. The loved one awakes, sees her dying hus- band, and stabs herself with his dagger.* This narrative is a simple account of a striking occurrence. The fact, that all this so happened, is told ; how and why it so came about, does not mat- ter. The sequence of narrated incidents possesses no close connection. Chance, the caprice of fate, an unaccountable conjunction of unfortunate forces, occasions the progress of events and the catastrophe. Indeed, just this striking sport of chance is what gives enjoyment. Such a material appears specially unfavorable for the drama ; and yet a great poet has made from it one of his most beautiful plays. The facts have remained, on the whole, un- changed; only their connection has become different. The task of the poet was not to present the facts to us, on the stage, but to make them perceptible in the feeling, desire, and action of his persons, to make them more evident, to develop them in accord- ance with probability and reason. He had, in the first place, to set forth what was naturally prereq- uisite to the action ; the brawls in an Italian city, in a time when swords were carried, and combative- ness quickly laid hand to weapon, the leaders of both parties, the ruling power which had trouble to 32 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. restrain the restless within proper limits ; then the determination of the Capulets to give a banquet. Then he must represent the merry conceit which brought Romeo and his attendants into the Capu- lets' house. This exciting impulse, the beginning of the action, must not appear an accident ; it must be accounted for from the characters. Therefore it was necessary to introduce the companions of Romeo, fresh, in uncontrolled, youthful spirits, play- ing with life. To this necessity for establishing motives, Mercutio owes his existence. In contrast with his mad companions, the poet had fashioned the dejected Romeo, whose nature, even before his entrance into the excited action, must express its amorous passion. Hence his vagaries about Rosa- lind. This availed to make probable the awakening passion of the lovers. For this, the masque-scene and the balcony-scene were constructed. Every enchantment of poetry is here used to the greatest purpose, to make apparent, conceivable and as a matter of course, that henceforward the sweet pas- sion of the lovers determines their lives. The accessory figures, which enter into the piece from this point, must forward the complication, and aid in giving motive toward the tragic outcome. For the narrative, it was sufficient that a priest per- formed the marriage rites, and gave direction to the unfortunate intrigue ; -such aids have always been at hand ; as soon, however, as he himself has stepped upon the stage, and by his words has entered the action, he must receive a personality which accounts THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 33 for all that follows ; he must be good-hearted and sympathetic, and through his goodness of heart, merit full confidence ; he must be unpracticed, and inclined to quiet artifices as frequently the better priests of the Italian church are, in order to venture later, the doubtful play of death for his penitent. Thus originated Laurence. After the wedding, the unfortunate affair with Tybalt comes into the story. Here the dramatic poet had special motive in taking from the charac- ter entering so suddenly, all that was merely casual. It could not suffice for him to introduce Tybalt as a hot-headed brawler; without letting the spectator see his purpose, he must lay the foundation in what had gone before, for the peculiar hatred toward Romeo and his companions. Hence the little side scene at the masked ball, in which Tybalt's anger flames up at the intrusion of Romeo. And in this scene itself, the poet had to bring to bear the strongest motive, to compel Romeo to engage in the duel. Mercutio must first be slain for this reason, and for the further purpose of heightening the tragic power of the scene, and accounting for the wrath of the prince. To send Romeo immediately into banishment, as is done in the narrative, would be impossible in the drama. To show the spectator that the loving pair were bound inseparably to each other, there was the most pressing necessity to give to their excited pas- sion the deepest intensity. How the poet succeeded in this is known to all. The scene on the marriage 34 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. eve is the climax of the action ; and by poetic elab- oration, which need not be explained here, it arises to the highest beauty. But this scene was neces- sary on other grounds. Juliet's character renders necessary a rising into what is noble. It must be shown that the lovely heroine is capable of magnif- icent emotion, of mighty passion in order that her later, despairing determination may be found con- sistent with her nature. Her marvellous inward conflict over Tybalt's death and Romeo's banish- ment must precede the wedding night, to impart to her nuptial longing the beautifully pathetic element which increases the interest in this always delicate scene. But even the possibility of this scene must be made clear. Its accessory persons, Friar Lau- rence and the nurse, are again significant. The character of the nurse, one of Shakespeare's unsur- passable inventions, is, likewise, not fashioned acci- dentally ; just as she is, she is a suitable accomplice ; and she makes explicable Juliet's inward withdrawal from her and the catastrophe. Immediately after her wedding night, the com- mand is given to Juliet to be married to Paris. That the beautiful daughter of the wealthy Capulet would find a distinguished suitor, and that her father, foi whose hot-headedness a sufficient ground has already been laid, would exercise harsh compulsion in the matter, would be conceded by the hearer without further preparation, as probable and a matter of course. But it is a matter of much consequence to the dramatist, to lay beforehand the foundation for THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 35 this important event. Already, before the marriage of Juliet, he has Paris receive her father's promise ; he would throw this dark shadow upon the great love scene ; and he would account right distinctly, and to the common understanding for the approach- ing calamity. Now the fate of the loving pair has been put into the weak hands of Friar Laurence. Up to this point, the drama has carefully excluded every intrusion of any chance. Even to- the most minute accessory fact, all is accounted for by the kind of characters. Now a tremendous destiny is weighing down upon two unfortunates : spilled blood, deadly family hate, a clandestine marriage, banishment, a new wooing, all this is pressing upon the hearer's sensibility with a certain compulsion. The intro- duction of little explanatory motives is no longer effective, and no longer necessary. Now the strata- gem of the stupid visionary priest can be thwarted by an accident; for the feeling that it was des- perate and presumptuous in the highest degree, to expose a living person to the incalculable chances of a sleep -potion and burial, has become so strong in the hearer's mind, that he already considers an unhappy result as probable. Thus the catastrophe is introduced and given a foundation. But that the hope of a happy outcome may entirely vanish from the mind of the spectator, and that the inherent necessity of ruin may yet at the last moment overtop the foreboding of unavoid- 36 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. able fatalities in the burial vault, Romeo must slay Paris before the tomb. The death of this stranger is the last force fur- thering the sad end. of the lovers. Even when Juliet now in a fortunate moment awakes, her path and Romeo's is so overflowed with blood, that any good fortune, or even life, has become improbable to them. The task undertaken here has been only to point out in a few chief particulars the contrast between inner dramatic unification and epic narration. The piece contains still an abundance of other motives ; and even the minute details are so dovetailed and riveted as to evince the dramatist's special pur- pose. The internal unity of a dramatic action is not secured merely by making a succession of events appear as the deeds and sufferings of the same hero. No great fundamental law of dramatic creation is more frequently violated, even by great poets, than this one ; and this disregard has always interfered with the effects of even the power of genius. The Athenian stage suffered on this account ; and Aris- totle attempted to meet the evil, when in his firm way he said: "The action is the first and most important thing, the characters only second;" and, "The action is not given unity by being made to concern only one person." Especially, we later ones, who are most frequently attracted by the charm of historical material, have urgent reason to cling to the law, that union about a person alone THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 37 does not suffice to gather and bind the events into unity. It still frequently happens that a poet undertakes to present the life of an heroic prince, as he is at variance with his vassals, as he wages war with his neighbors and the church, and is again reconciled to them, and as he finally perishes in one of these con- flicts; the poet distributes the principal moving forces of the historical life among the five acts and three hours of the acting play, makes in speech and re- sponse an exposition of political interests and party standpoints, interweaves well or ill a love episode, and thinks to have changed the historical picture into a poetic one. He is positively a weak-hearted destroyer of history, and no priest of his proud god- dess. What he has produced is not history, and not drama. He has, sure enough, yielded to some of the demands of his art ; he has omitted weighty events which did not suit his purpose ; he has fash- ioned the character of his hero simply and accord- ing to rule, has not been sparing in additions, small and great, has here and there substituted for the complicated connections of historical events, invented ones. Through all this, however, he has attained a general effect which is at best a weak reflection of the sublime effect that the life of the hero would have produced, if well presented by the historian; and his error has been in putting the historic idea in the place of the dramatic idea. Even the poet who thinks more worthily of his art, is in danger, when busied with historical matter, 38 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. of seeking a false unity. The historical writer has taught him that the shifting events of historic life are accounted for by the peculiarities of characters, which assume results, which conjure up a fatality. The effect which the intimate connections of an his- toric life produce, is powerful, and excites wonder. Determined by such a force of the real, the poet seeks to comprehend the inner connections of events in the characteristic elements of the hero's life. The character of the hero is to him the last motive in laying the foundation for the various vicissitudes of an active existence. A German prince, for ex- ample, powerful and high spirited, is forced by sheer violence into conflicts and submission; in heart-rend- ing humiliation and deepest abasement, he finds again his better self, and subdues his soaring pride ; such a character may possess all the qualities of a dramatic hero, what is universally comprehensible and significant gushes forth powerfully from the casual in his earthly life ; and his lot in life shows a relation between guilt and punishment, which takes hold of men's minds ; he appears as the artif- icer of his own happiness or misery ; the germ and essence of his life may be very like a poetic idea. But just before such a similarity, let the poet pause in distrust. He has to ask himself whether through his art he can infuse anything more powerful or effective than the story itself offers ; or, indeed, whether he is at all in a position to enlarge through his art any part of the effects which, perceiving in advance, he admires in the historical material. Of THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 39 course he may intensify the character of his hero. What was working in the soul of Henry IV. as he journeyed toward Canossa and stood in his peni- tential garment by the castle wall, is the secret of the poet ; the historian knows very little to tell about it. To such impelling forces of a real life, the poet has an inalienable right. But the dispo- sition and transformations of the historical hero do not fashion themselves completely in short periods of personal isolation ; and what the poet was lured by was exactly an heroic nature whose original texture showed itself in various occurrences. Now these occurrences which the historian reports, are very numerous. The poet is obliged to limit him- self to a very few. He is obliged to remodel these few in order to give them the significance which in reality the course of the whole had. He will see with astonishment how difficult this is, and how by this means his hero becomes smaller and weaker, and that his historic idea is completed with so little. But, even in the representation of these selected events, the poet is poorer than the historian. Every one of his impelling forces must have an introduc- tion that will account for it ; he must introduce to the spectator his Hannos, his Ottos, his Rudolphs and Henrys ; he must to a certain extent make their affairs attractive ; two or three times in the piece he will create excitement, then allay it ; the persons will throng and conceal each other on the narrow stage ; the rising interest of hearers will every now and then relapse. He will make the 40 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. astonishing discovery that the hearer's suspense is usually not produced by the characters, however interesting these may be, but only through the prog- ress of the action ; and he will at best attain only one or the other greatly elaborated scene with pure dramatic life, which stands alone in a desert of sketchy, brief suggestions of mutilated history, and cramped invention. Engaged in such labor upon the abundant beau- tiful material offered in history, the poet has proba- bly often abandoned the material without seeing its beauty. To idealize an entire political human life is a prodigious undertaking. Cyclic dramas, trilo- gies, tetralogies, may in most cases scarcely suffice for this. A single historic movement may give the dramatist superabundant material. For, as faith begins when knowledge ends, so poetry begins when history leaves off. What history is able to declare can be to the poet only the frame within which he paints his most brilliant colors, the most secret revelations of human nature ; how shall space and inward freedom remain to him for this, when he must toil and moil to present a succession of his- torical events? Schiller has made use, in his two greatest historical pieces, of the historical catas- trophe only, the last scenes of a real historical life ; and for so small an historic segment he has required in Walicnstein three dramas. Let this example be taken to heart. It is true Gotz von Bcrlichingen will always be considered a very commendable poem, because the chivalric anecdotes which are excel- THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 41 lently presented with short, sharp strokes, hold the reader spellbound ; but upon the stage the piece is not an effective drama ; and the same is true of Egmont, although its feeble action, and the lack of characterization of its hero, is to a certain extent compensated for in the greater elaboration of its vigorous female characters. Concerning the artless treatment of historical material through the epic traditions of our old stage, Shakespeare, above all others, has given hints to the Germans. His historic plays, taken from Eng- lish history, the structure of which, except Richard III. we should not imitate, had a far different justi- fication. At that time there was no writing of his- tory, as we understand the term ; and as the poet made use of material from historic resources for his artistic figures, he wrought from an abundance, and opened up the immediate past to his nation, in a multitude of masterly character sketches. But he, himself, achieved for the stage of his time the wonderful advance to a complete action ; and we owe to him, after he began to make use of the material in Italian novels, our comprehension of how irreplaceable the noble effects are which are pro- . duced by a unified and well-ordered action. His Roman plays, if one makes allowance for a few of the practices of his stage, and the third act of Antony and Cleopatra, are models of an established construction. We do not do well to imitate what he has overcome. Without doubt, the influence of the characters on 42 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. the texture of the action, is greater in the modern drama than on the stage of the ancients. As the first impulse toward creation comes to the Germanic mind frequently through the characteristic features of an historic hero ; as the delineation of the charac- ters and their representation by actors have received a finer finish than was possible in the Greek masque tragedy, so will the character of the hero exert greater influence on the structure of the action, but only that we may thereby account for the inner, consistent, unified action through the characteristic peculiarities of the hero. Such an establishing of motive was not unknown to the Greeks. Already in one of the older plays of yEschylus, The Suppli- ants, the vacillating character of the King of Argos is made so prominent that one distinctly recognizes how, in the missing piece which followed, the poet had laid the motive in this for the surrender of the Danaids, who were begging protection. Sophocles is specially skilful in introducing as controlling motive some marked trait of his characters, for example,. Antigone, Ajax, Odysseus. Indeed, Euripides is even more like the Germans than Sophocles in this, that he delights in making more prominent the peculiarities of his characters. In general, however, the epic trend of the fable was much stronger than with us ; as a rule the persons were fashioned according to the demands of a well known and already prepared network of events, as in the case of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Orestes. This was an advantage to the Greeks, but to us it THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 43 seems a restraint. With us the poet not seldom finds himself in the position, that his hero is seeking an action which shall be a luminous center, throw- ing light on everything that approaches it. We will be able to explain, from his nature, what is more profound and hidden. But however rigidly we con- struct the action according to his needs, it must always be composed of individual parts which belong to the same event, and this must extend from the beginning to the end of the piece. Among the Greeks, Sophocles is our master in the management of this dramatic unity, Euripides unconscionably against it. How, in his serious plays, Shakespeare disclosed this law to himself, and gradually to us, in the face of the sixteenth century stage, has already been mentioned. Among the Germans, Lessing preserves the unity with great care ; Goethe, in the short action of Clavigo, "and in the later plays in which he had thought of the stage Tasso and Ipliigcnia. Schiller has observed the law faithfully in Love and Intrigue. Is it an accident that in his last plays, in Tell, and in Demetrius, so far as this play may be judged from notices of it, he has neglected the law? Whenever he approached the bounds of license, it occurred through his delight in episodes and in double heroes, as in Don Carlos, Mary Stuart, and \\ 'alien stein. Of kinds of material, those taken from epic leg- ends make it not difficult to preserve the unity of action ; but their action does not easily permit dra- matic elaboration of characters. Material from 44 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. novels preserves well the unity of action, but the characters, on account of the entangled action, are easily thrown about with too little freedom of move- ment, or they are restrained in their movement through the portrayal of situations. Historical material offers the greatest and most beautiful opportunities ; but it is very difficult to combine it into a good action. The poet's interest in the characters of his counter-players easily mounts so high that to them is accorded a rich, detailed portrayal, a sympathetic exposition of their striving and their righting moods, and a peculiar destiny. Thereby arises a double action for the drama ; or the action of the piece may be of such a nature as to require for its illu- mination and completion a subordinate action, which through the exposition of concurrent or opposing relations brings into 'greater prominence the chief persons, with what they do and what they suffer. Various defects especially one-sidedness in material, may make such a completion desirable. One play is not to run through the whole wide range of affecting and thrilling moods ; it is not to play from its sober ground color, through all the possible color-tones ; but a variation in mood and modest contrasts in color are as necessary to the drama as it is that in a painting in which there are many figures, the swing of the lesser lines should be in contrast with the greater lines and groups, and that in contrast with the ground color, use should be made of dependent, supplementary colors. A THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 45 specially somber material renders necessary the introduction of bright accessory figures. To con- trast with the defiant characters of Iphigenia and Creon, the milder counterparts, Ismene and Harmon, were invented ; through the introduction of Tec- messa, the despair of Ajax receives an affecting tone, the magic charm of which we still feel to-day. The gloomy, pathetic Othello requires opposed to him some one in whom the unrestrained freedom of humor is apparent. The somber figure of Wal- lenstein and his companions in intrigue imperatively demands that the brilliant Max be joined with them. If, for this reason, the Greeks classed their plays into those with single action, and those with double action, the modern drama has much less avoided the extension of counter-play into an accessory action. The interweaving of this with the main action has occurred sometimes at the expense of the combined effect. The Germans, especially, who are always inclined, during their labor, to grasp the significance of the accessory persons with great ardor, must guard themselves against too wide an extension of the subordinate action. Even Shakes- peare has occasionally, in this way, injured the effect of the drama, most strikingly in Lear, in which the whole parallel action of the house of Gloucester, but loosely connected with the main action, and treated with no particular fondness, retards the movement, and needlessly renders the whole more bitter. The poet allowed the episodes in both parts of Henry IV. to develop into an 46 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. accessory action, the immortal humor of which out- shines the serious effect of the play ; and this has made these dramas favorites of the reader. Every admirer of Falstaff will grant, however, that the general effect on the stage has not the correspond- ing power, in spite of this charm. Let it be noticed, in passing, that in Shakespeare's comedies the double action belongs to the nature of the play ; he strives to take from his clowns the episodical, while he interweaves them with the serious action. The genial humor which beams from their scenes must sometimes conceal the harder elements in the material ; as when the constables must help to pre- vent the sad fate threatening the heroine. Among German poets, Schiller was most in danger of injury from the double action. The disproportion of the accessory action in Don Carlos and Mary Stuart rests upon this, that his ardor for the character set in contrast to the hero, becomes too great ; in Wal- lenstcin, the same principle has extended the piece to a trilogy. In Tell, three actions run parallel. 5 It is the business of the action to represent to us the inner consistency of the event, as it corresponds to the demands of the intellect and the heart. Whatever, in the crude material, does not serve this purpose, the poet is in duty bound to throw away. And it is desirable that he adhere strictly to this principle, to give only what is indispensable to unity. Yet he may not avoid a deviation from this ; for there will be occasional deviations desirable which may strengthen the color of the piece, in a manner THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 47 conformable to its purpose ; which may intensify the meaning of the characters, and enhance the gen- eral effect by the introduction of a new color, or a w contrast. These embellishing additions of the poet are called episodes. They are of various kinds. At a point where the action suffers a short pause, a characterizing moment may be enlarged into a situ- ation ; opportunity may be given a hero to exhibit some significant characteristic of his being in an attractive manner, in connection with some subordi- nate person ; some subordinate role of the piece may, through ampler elaboration, be developed into an attractive figure. By a modest use, which must not take time from what is more important, these may become an embellishment to the drama. And the poet has to treat them as ornaments, and to com- pensate for them with serious work, if they ever retard the action. The episodes perform different duties, according to the parts of the drama in which they appear. While at the beginning they enter into the roles of the chief persons to delineate these in their idiosyncracies, they are allowed in the last part as enlargements of those new roles which afford les- ser aids to the movement of the action ; in each place, however, they must be felt to be advantageous additions. 8 The Greeks understood this word in a somewhat broader sense. That which in the plays of Sopho- cles his contemporaries called episode, we no longer so name : for the ingenious art of this great master consisted, among other things, in this, that he inter- 48 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. wove his beautifying additions very intimately with his action, for the most part to set the characters of the chief heroes in a stronger light, by means of contrast. Thus, in Elcctra, in addition to the Ismene scene, mentioned later, Chrysomethis is indispensa- ble according to our feeling for the chief heroine, and no longer as episode, but as part of the action. Moreover, where he paints a situation more broadly, as in the beginning of CEdipus at Colonos, such a por- trayal corresponds throughout to the customs of our stage. Shakespeare treats his episodes almost exactly in the same way. Even in those serious plays, which have a more artistic construction, there are, in almost every act, partly extended scenes, partly whole roles of episodical elaboration ; but there is so much of the beautiful worked in and with this, so much that is efficient for the combined effect, that the severest manager of our stage, who may be compelled to shorten the drama, rarely ever allows these passages to be expunged. Mer- cutio, with his Queen Mab, and the jests of the nurse, the interviews of Hamlet with the players and courtiers, as well as the grave-digger scene, are such examples as recur in almost all his plays. Almost superabundantly, and with apparent carelessness, the great artist adorns all parts of his piece with golden ornaments ; but he who approaches to unclasp them, finds them fastened as if with steel, grown inseparably into what they adorn. Of the Germans, Lessing, with a reverential regularity joined his epi- sodes to the carefully planned structure of his piece, THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 49 according to his own method, which was transferred to his successors. His episodes are little character roles. The painter and countess Orsina, in Emilia Galotti (the last, the better prototype of Lady Mil- ford), Riccault, in Minna von Barnhelm, indeed, even the Dervise in Nathan The Wise, became models for the German episodes of the eighteenth century. Goethe has not honored them with a place in his regular plays, Clavigo, Tasso, Iphigcnia. In Schiller, they throng abundantly in every form, as portrayals, as detailed situations, as accessory figures in the conjoined action. Frequently, through their pecul- iar beauty, they are adapted to be effective adjuncts to the stilted, tedious movement, but not always; for we would gladly spare some single ones, like Parricida in William Tell, just because in this case the understood purpose is so striking; and The Black Knight in the Maid of Orleans; and not sel- dom the long-drawn observations and delineations in his dialogue-scenes. IV. PROBABILITY OF THE ACTION. The action of the serious drama must be probable. Poetic truth is imparted to material taken from real life, by its being raised above its casual connec- tions and receiving a universally understood mean- ing and significance. In dramatic poetry, this transformation of reality with poetic truth is effected thus : the essential parts, bound together and unified by some causative connection, and all the accessory 50 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. inventions, are conceived as probable and credible motives of the represented events. But more than this, poetic truth is needed in the drama. The entertained hearer surrenders himself gladly to the invention of the poet ; he gladly lets the presump- tion of a piece please him, and is in general quite inclined to approve of the invented human relations in the world of beautiful illusion ; but he is not able entirely to forget the reality ; he holds close to this poetic picture, which rises full of charm before him, the picture of the real world in which he breathes. He brings with him before the stage a certain knowledge of historical relations, definite, ethical and moral demands upon human life, presages and a clear knowledge of the course of events. To a certain extent, it is impossible for him to renounce this purport of his own life ; and sometimes he feels it very strongly when the poetic picture contradicts it. That ocean vessels should land on the coast of Bohemia, that Charlemagne should use cannon, appears to our spectators a serious mistake. That the Jew, Shylock, is promised mercy if he will turn Christian, shocks the moral sense of the spectator, and he is probably not inclined to concede that a just judge has so decided. That Thoas, who in so refined and dignified a manner seeks the hand of the priestess Iphigenia, allows human sacrifices in his kingdom, appears as an internal contradiction between the noble personality of the characters and the presuppositions of the piece ; and however shrewdly the poet conceals this irrational element, it THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 51 yet may be injurious to the effect of the play. That CEdipus rules many years without troubling himself about the death of Laius, appears to the Athenians, even at the first presentation of the play, as a doubt- ful supposition. Now it is well known that this picture of the real, which the spectator holds up against the single drama, docs not remain the same in every century, but is changed by each advance of human culture. The interpretation of past times, moral and social demands, the social relations, are nothing firmly established ; but every spectator is a child of his time ; for each the comprehension of what is com- monly acceptable, is limited through his personality and the culture of his age. And it is further clear that this picture of real life shades off differently in the mind of each per- son, and that the poet, however fully and richly he has taken into his own life the culture of his race, still is confronted with conceptions of reality in a thousand different tones. He has, indeed, the great calling to be, in his time, the apostle of the highest and most liberal culture, and without posturing as a teacher, to draw his hearers upward toward himself. But to the dramatic poet there are for this reason private bounds staked out. He must not exceed these bounds. He must not, in many cases, leave vacant any of the space which they enclose. Where they arise invisible, they may be divined in each single case only through delicate sensibility and trustworthy feeling. 52 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. The effects of dramatic art are, so to speak, sociable. As the dramatic work of art, in a combination of several arts, is represented through the general activity of numerous adjuncts, so is the audience of the poet a body composed of many changing individuals and yet, as a whole, a unit, which like every human congregation, might- ily influences the individuals who compose it; a certain agreement in feeling and contemplation develops, elevates one, depresses another, and to a great extent equalizes mood and judgment through a common opinion. This community of feeling in the audience expresses itself continually by its reception of the dramatic effects ; it may increase their power prodigiously, it may weaken them in an equal degree. Scarcely will a single hearer escape the influence which an unsympathetic house or an enthu- siastic audience exercise? on him. Indeed, everyone has felt how different the impression is which the same piece makes, equally well presented on different stages before a differently constituted audience. The poet, while composing, is invariably directed, perhaps without knowing it, by his conception of the intelligence, taste, and intellectual requirements of his audience. He knows that he must not attribute too much to it, nor dare he offer it too little. He must, moreover, so arrange his action that it shall not bring into collision with its presup- positions a good average of his hearers, who bring these from actual life before the stage ; that is, he must make the connection of events and the motives THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 53 and outlines of his heroes probable. If he succeeds in this respect with the groundwork of his piece, the action and the outlines of his characters, as for the rest, he may trust to his hearers the most refined culture and the keenest understanding which his performance contains. This consideration must guide the poet most when he is tempted to put forward what is strange or marvellous. To make charming what is strange, is, indeed, possible. The dramatic art specially has rich means of making it understood, and of laying stress upon what is intelligible to us ; but for this there is needed a special expenditure of force and time; and frequently the question is justified, whether the effect aimed at warrants the expenditure of time and compensates for the limitation of the essentials occasioned. Especially the newer poets, with no definitely marked out field of material, in the midst of a period of culture to which the ready reception of extraneous pictures is peculiar, can easily be enticed to gather material from the culture-relations, the civilization of a dark age, of remote peoples. Perhaps just what is marvellous in such material has appeared peculiarly valuable for sharply delineating individual portraiture. Already a minute observa- tion of early times in Germany, or of the old world, offers numerous peculiarities, circumstances unknown to the life of later times, in which a striking and significant meaning is manifested of highest import to the historian of culture. These can be used by the poet, however, only in exceptional cases, 54 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. with most skilful treatment, and as accessories which deepen a color. For not out of the pecul- iarities of human life, but out of its immortal import, out of what is common to us and to the old times, blossom his successes. Still more he will avoid presenting such strange peoples as stand entirely outside the great forward move- ments of civilization. That which is unusual in their manners and customs, their costumes, or even the color of their skins, is distracting and excites attendant images which are unfavorable to serious art effects. In a crude way, the ideal world of poetry is joined in the hearer's mind with a picturing of real circumstances, which can claim an interest only because they are real. But even the inner life of such foreigners is unsuitable for dramatic expres- sion ; for, without exception, the capability is in reality wanting in them of presenting in any fulness the inner mental processes which our art finds necessary. And the transferring of such a degree of culture into their souls, rightly arouses in the hearer a feeling of impropriety. Anyone who would lay the scene of his action among the ancient Egypt- ians or the present-day fellahs, among the Japanese or even Hindoos, would perhaps awaken an ethno- graphic interest by the strange character of his people ; but this interest of curiosity in the unusual would not increase for the hearer before the stage the real interest in what may be the poetical mean- ing, but would thwart it and prejudice it. It is no accident that only such peoples are a fitting basis THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 55 for the drama as have advanced so far in the devel- opment of their intellectual life that they themselves could produce a popular drama Greeks, Romans, cultured peoples of modern times ; after these, a people nearly like them, whose nationality has grown up with ours, or with the ancient culture, like the Hebrews scarcely yet the Turks. How far the marvellous may be deemed worthy of the drama, cannot be doubtful even to us Ger- mans, upon whose stage the most spirited and most amiable of all devils has received citizenship. Dra- matic poetry is poorer and richer than her sisters, lyric and epic, in this respect, that she can represent only men, and, if one looks more closely, only cul- tivated men, these, however, fully and profoundly as no other art can. She must arrange historical relations by inventing for them an inner consistency which is thoroughly comprehensible to human under- standing. How shall she embody the supernatural? But granted that she undertakes this, she can do it only in so far as the superhuman, already poet- ically prepared through the imagination of the peo- ple, and provided with a personality corresponding to the human, is personifiable through sharply stamped features even to details. Thus given form, the Greek gods lived in the Greek world among their people ; thus hover among us still, fashioned with affection, images of many of the holy ones of Christian legend, almost numberless shadowy forms, from the household faith of German primitive times. Not a few of the images of fancy have, through poetry, 56 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. legend, painting, and the spirit of our people, which, credulous or incredulous, is still busied with them, received so rich an amplification, that they sur- round the creating artist during his labor like old, trusted friends. The Virgin Mary, St. Peter at the gate of heaven, many saints, archangels, and angels, and not last the considerable swarm of devils, live among our people, credulously associated with women in white, the wild huntsman, elves, giants and dwarfs. But, however alluringly the colors gleam which they wear in their twilight, before the sharp illumination of the tragic stage, they vanish into unsubstantial shadows. For it is true they have received through the people a sh:-re in human feeling, and in the conditions of human life. But this participation is only of the epic kind ; they are not fashioned for dramatic mental processes. In some of the most beautiful legends, the Germans make the little spirits complain that they cannot be happy ; that is that they have no human soul. The same difference, which already in the middle ages the people felt, keeps them in a different way from the modern stage inward struggles are wanting in them, freedom fails to test and to choose, they stand outside of morals, law, right ; neither a complete lack of changeableness, nor perfected purity, nor complete wickedness are presentable, because they exclude all inward agitation. Even the Greeks felt this. When the gods should rather be represented on the stage than speak a command ex machina, they must either become entirely men, with all the THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 57 pain and rage, like Prometheus, or they must sink beneath the nobility of human nature, without the poets being able to hinder, down to blank generali- zations of love and hate, like Athene, in the pro- logue of Ajax, While gods and spirits have a bad standing in the serious drama, they have far better success in the comedy. And the now worn-out magic tricks give only a very pale representation of what our spirit world could be to a poet, in whimsical and humorous representation. If the Germans shall ever be ripe for political comedy, then will they learn to use the wealth, the inexhaustible treasure of motives and resistance which can be mined from this world of phantasy, for droll freaks, political satire, and humorous portraiture. For what has been said, Faust is the best proof ; and in this play, the role of Mephistopheles. Here the genius of the greatest of German poets has created a stage problem which has become the favorite task of our character players. Each of them seeks in his own manner to solve, with credit to himself, the riddle which can not be solved ; the one brings out the mask of the old wood-cut devil, another, the cavalier youth Voland ; at best, the player will succeed with the business who contents himself prudently and with spirit to render intel- ligible the fine rhetoric of the dialogue, and exhib- its in the comic scenes a suitable bearing and good humor. The poet has indeed made it exceedingly difficult for the player, of whom, during the com- 58 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. position of the piece, he did not think at all ; for the role changes into all colors, from the true- hearted speech of Hans Sachs, to the subtle dis- cussion of a Spinozist, from the grotesque to the terrifying. And if one examines more closely how the representation of this piece still becomes pos- sible on the stage, the ultimate reason is the entrance of a comic element. Mephistopheles appears in some serious situations, but is a comic figure treated in a grand style ; and so far as he produces an effect on the stage, he does it in this direction. By this is not meant that the mysterious, that which has no foundation in human reason, should be entirely banished from the province of the drama. Dreams, portents, prophesyings, ghost-seers, the intrusion of the spirit world upon human life, every- thing for which there may be supposed to be a cer- tain susceptibility in the soul of the hearer, the poet may employ as a matter of course for the occasional strengthening of his effects. It is understood in this that he must appreciate rightly the susceptibil- ity of his contemporaries ; we are no longer much inclined to care for this, and only very sparing use of side effects is now accorded to the poet. Shake- speare was allowed to use this kind of minor accessories with greater liberty ; for in the senti- ments of even his educated contemporaries, the popular tradition was very vivid, and the connection with the world of spirits was universally conceived far differently. The soul-processes of a man strug- gling under a heavy burden, were, not only among THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 59 the people but with the more pretentious, very dif- ferently thought of. In the case of intense fear, qualm of conscience, remorse, the power of imagin- ation conjured up before the sufferer the image of the frightful, still as something external ; the mur- derer saw the murdered rise before him as a ghost ; clutching into the air, he felt the weapon with which he committed the crime ; he heard the voice of the dead ringing in his ear. Shakespeare and his hear- ers conceived, therefore, Macbeth's dagger even on the stage, and the ghosts of Banquo, Caesar, the elder Hamlet, and the victims of Richard III., far differently from ourselves. To them this was not yet a bold, customary symbolizing of the inward struggles of their heroes, an accidental, shrewd invention of the poet, who supported his effects by this ghostly trumpery ; but it was to them the nec- essary method, customary in their land, in which themselves experienced, dread, horrar, struggles of soul. Dread was not artistically excited by recol- lection of nursery tales ; the stage presented only what had been frightful in their own lives, or what could be. For while young Protestantism had laid the severest struggles in men's consciences, and while the thoughts and the most passionate moods of the excited soul had been already more carefully and critically observed by individuals, the mode of thinking natural to the middle ages, had not, for that reason, quite disappeared. Therefore Shake- speare could make use of this kind of effects, and expect more from them than we can. 60 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. But he furnishes at the same time the best example of how these ghost-like apparitions may be rendered artistically worthy of the drama. Who- ever must present heroes of past centuries accord- ing to the view of life of their time, will not entirely conceal men's lack of freedom from and dependence on legendary figures ; but he will use them as Shake- speare used his witches in the first act of Macbeth, as arabesques which mirror the color and mood of the time, and which only give occasion for forcing from the inner man of the hero what has grown up in his own soul, with the liberty necessary for a dra- matic figure. It is to be observed that in the work of the mod- ern poet, such accessories of the action serve espe- cially to give color and mood. They belong also to the first half of the play. But even when they are interwoven with the effects of the later parts, their appearance must be arranged for in the first part, by a coloring in harmony with them ; and besides this, the way must be paved for them other- wise, with great care. Thus the appearance of The Black Knight in the Maid of Orleans is a disturbing element, because his ghostly form comes to view with no preparation of the audience, and is thor- oughly unsuitable to the brilliant, thoughtful lan- guage of Schiller, to the tone and color of the piece. The time and the action would, in themselves, have very well allowed such an apparition ; and it appeared to the poet a counterpart to the Blessed Virgin who bears banner and sword in the play. THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 61 But Schiller did not bring the Blessed Virgin her- self upon the stage ; he only had her reported in his magnificent fashion. Had the prologue presented the decisive interview between the shepherdess and the Mother of God in such language and with such naive address as the material from the middle ages would suggest, then there would have been a better preparation for the later appearance of the evil spirit. In costume and speech, the role is not advantageously equipped. Schiller was an admira- ble master in the disposition of the most varied his- torical coloring ; but the glimmer of the legendary was not to the taste of one who always painted in full colors, and if a playful simile is allowed, used most fondly, gleaming golden yellow, and dark sky blue. On the other hand, Goethe, the unrestrained master of lyric moods, has made an admirable use of the spirit-world to give color to Faust, but not at all with a view to its presentation on the stage. V. IMPORTANCE AND MAGNITUDE OF THE ACTION. The action of the serious drama must possess import- ance and magnitude. The struggles of individual men must affect their inmost life ; the object of the struggle must, accord- ing to universal apprehension, be a noble one, the treatment dignified. The characters must corre- spond to such a meaning of the action, in order that the play may produce a noble effect. If the action 62 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. is constructed in conformity with the stated law, and the characters are inadequate to the demands thus created, or if the characters evince strong pas- sion and extreme agitation, while these elements are wanting to the action, the incongruity is painfully apparent to the spectator. Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis contains what affords to the stage the most frightful struggles of the human soul ; but the char- acters, at least with the exception of Clytemnestra, are poorly invented, disfigured either through unnec- essary meanness of sentiment, or through lack of force, or through sudden, unwarranted change of feeling ; thus Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles, Iphigenia. Again, in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, the character of the hero, from the moment when he is aroused to activity, has an ever-increasing energy and power, to which a gloomy grandeur is not at all lacking, but idea and action stand in incongruity with it. That a warm-hearted, trusting spendthrift should, after the loss of external possessions, become a misanthrope through the ingratitude and meanness of his former friends, presupppses the weakness of his own character and the pitiableness of his sur- roundings ; and this instability, lamentableness of all the relations represented, restrains the sympathy of the hearer in spite of great poetic skill. But even the environment, the sphere of life of the hero, influences the dignity and magnitude of the action. We demand rightly that the hero whose fate is to hold us spellbound, shall possess a character whose force and worth shall exceed the THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 63 measure of the average man. This force of his being, however, does not lie wholly in the energy of his will and the violence of his passion, but as well in his possessing a rich share of the culture, man- ners, and spiritual capacity of his time. He must be represented as superior in the important relations of his surroundings ; and his surroundings must be so created as easily to awaken in the hearer a keen interest. It is, therefore, no accident that when an action is laid in past time, it always seeks the realm in which what is greatest and most important is contained, the greatest affairs of a people, the life of its leaders and rulers, those heights of humanity that have developed not only a mighty spiritual sig- nificance, but also a significant power of will. Scarce any but the deeds and destinies of such com- manding figures have been handed down to us from the former times. With material from later times, the relations, of course, are changed. No longer are the most pow- erful passions and the sublimest soul-struggles to be recognized at courts and among political rulers alone, nor even generally. There remains, however, to these figures for the drama a pre-eminence which may be, for their life and that of their contempo- raries, a positive disadvantage. They are now less exposed to the compulsion which middle-class society exercises on the private citizen. They are not, to the same degree as the private citizen, sub- jected to civil law, and they know it. In domestic and foreign conflicts, their own self has not greater 64 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. right but greater might. So they appear exposed to freer, more powerful temptation, and capable of greater self-direction. It must be added that the relations in which they live, and the directions in which they exert influence, offer the greatest wealth of colors and the most varied multiplicity of fig- ures. Finally the counterplay against their char- acters and against their purposes is most effective ; and the sphere of the interests for which they should live, embraces the most important affairs of the human race. The life of the private citizen has also been for centuries freeing itself from the external restraint of restricting traditions, has been gaining nobility and spiritual freedom, and become full of contradictions and conflicts. In any realm of reality, where worldly aims and movements resulting from the civilization of the times have penetrated, a tragic hero may be generated and developed in its atmos- phere. It depends only on whether a struggle is possible for him, which, according to the general opinion of the audience, has a great purpose, and whether the opposition to this develops a corre- sponding activity worthy of consideration. Since, however, the importance and greatness of the con- flict can be made impressive only by endowing the hero with the capability of expressing his inmost thought and feeling in a magnificent manner; with a certain luxuriance of language ; and since these demands increase among such men as belong to the life of modern times, to the hero of the modern THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 65 stage a suitable measure of the culture of the time is indispensable. For only in this way does he receive freedom of thought and will. Therefore, such classes of society as remain until our own time under the sway of epic relations, whose life is specially directed by the customs of their circle ; such classes as still languish under the pressure of circumstances which the spectator observes and decides to be unjust ; finally, such classes as are not specially qualified to transpose, in a creative man- ner, their thoughts and emotions into discourse, such are not available for heroes of the drama, however powerfully passion works in their natures, however their feeling, in single hours, breaks out with spontaneous, native force. From what has been said, it follows that tragedy must forego grounding its movement on motives which the judgment of the spectator will condemn as lamentable, common, or unintelligible. Even such motives may force a man into violent conflicts with his environment ; but the dramatic art, con- sidered in general, may be in a position to turn such antagonisms to account. He who from a desire for gain, robs, steals, murders, counterfeits ; who from cowardice, acts dishonorably ; who through stu- pidity, short-sightedness, frivolity, and thoughtless- ness, becomes smaller and weaker than his relations demand, he is not at all suitable for hero of a serious play. If a poet would completely degrade his art, and turn to account in the action of a play full of con- 66 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. tention and evil tendency, the social perversion of real life, the despotism of the rich, the torments of the oppressed, the condition of the poor who receive from society only suffering, by such work he would probably excite the sympathy of the audi- ence to a high degree ; but at the end of the play this sympathy would sink into a painful discord. The delineating of the mental processes of a com- mon criminal belongs to halls where trial by jury is held ; efforts for the improvement of the poor and oppressed classes should be an important part of our labor in real life ; the muse of art is no sister of mercy. VI. MOVEMENT AND RISE OF THE ACTION. The dramatic action must represent all that is im- portant to the understanding of the play, in the strong excitement of the characters, and in a continuously pro- gressive increase of effects. The action must, first of all, be capable of the strongest dramatic excitement ; and this must be universally intelligible. There are great and impor- tant fields of human activity, which do not make the growth of a captivating emotion, a passionate desire, or a mighty volition easy ; and again, there are violent struggles which force to the outside men's mental processes, while the subject of the struggle is little adapted to the stage, though impor- tance and greatness are not lacking to it. For example, a politic prince, who negotiates with the THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 67 powerful ones of his land, who wages war and con- cludes peace with his neighbors, will perhaps do all this without once exhibiting the least excited pas- sion ; and if this does come to light as secret desire or resentment toward others, it will be noticeable only by careful observation, and in little ripples. But even when it is allowed to represent his whole being in dramatic suspense, the subject of his volition, a political success or a victory, is capable of being shown only very imperfectly and fragmen- tarily in its stage setting. And the scenes in which this round of worldly purposes is specially active, state trials, addresses, battles, are for technical rea- sons not the part most conveniently put on the stage. From this point of view, warning must be given against putting scenes from political history on the boards. Of course the difficulties which this field of the greatest human activity offers, are not unsurmountable ; but it requires not only maturity of genius but very peculiar and intimate knowledge of the stage to overcome them. But the poet will never degrade his action by reducing it to an imper- fect and insufficient exposition of such political deeds and aims ; he will need to make use of a single action, or a small number of actions, as a background, before which he presents and in this he is infinitely superior to the historian a most minute revelation of human nature, in a few per- sonages, and in their most intimate emotional rela- tions with each other. If he fails to do this, he will in so far falsify history without creating poetry. 68 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. An entirely unfavorable field for dramatic mate- rial is the inward struggles which the inventor, the artist, the thinker has to suffer with himself and with his time. Even if he is a reformer by nature, who knows how to impress the stamp of his own spirit on thousands of others ; indeed, if his own material misfortunes may lay claim to unusual sym- pathy, the dramatist will not willingly conclude to bring him forward as the hero of the action. If the mental efforts, the mode of thought of such a hero, are not sufficiently known to the living audience, then the poet will have first to show his warrant for such a character by artful discourse, by a fulness of oral explanation, and by a representation of spiritual import. This may be quite as difficult as it is undramatic. If the poet presupposes in his auditors a living interest in such personages, acquaintance with the incidents of their lives, and makes use of this interest in order to avail himself of an occur- rence in the life of such a hero, he falls into another danger. -On the stage the good which is known beforehand of a man, and the good that is reported of him, have no value at all, as opposed to what the hero himself does on the stage. Indeed, the great expectations which the hearer brings with him in this case, may be prejudicial to the unbiased recep- tion of the action. And if the poet succeeds, as is probable in the case of popular heroes, in promoting the scenic effects through the already awakened ardor of the audience for the hero, he must credit his success to the interest which the audience brings THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 69 with it, not to the interest which the drama itself has merited. If the poet is conscientious, he will adopt only those moments from the life of the artist, poet, thinker, in which he shows himself active and suffering quite as significantly toward others as he was in his studio. It is clear that this will be the case only by accident ; it is quite as clear that in such a case it will be only an accident, if the hero bears a celebrated name. Therefore, the making use of anecdotes from the life of such great men, the meaning of which does not show itself in the action but in the non-represcntable activity of their labor- atory, is intrinsically right undramatic. The great- ness in them is non-representable ; and what is represented borrows the greatness of the hero from a moment of his life lying outside the piece. The personality of Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, is in this respect worse on the stage than in a novel or romance, and all the worse the more intimately their lives are known. Of course, opinions as to what may be repre- sented on the stage, and what is effective, are not the same in all ages. National custom as well as the arrangement of the theatre direct the poet. We have no longer the susceptibility of the Greeks to epic narratives which are brought upon the scene by a messenger ; we have greater pleasure in what can be acted, and risk upon our stage the imitation of actions which would have appeared entirely impossible on the Athenian stage, in spite of its machines, its devices for flying and its perspective 70 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. painting, popular tumults, collision of armies, and the like. And as a rule the later poet will be inclined to do too much rather than too little in this direction. It may happen to him rather than to the Greek, therefore, that through full elaboration of the action, the inner perturbation of the chief figures may be disproportionately restricted, and that an important transition, a portentous series of moods, remains unexpressed. A well known example of such a defect is in Prince of Hamburg, the very piece in which the poet has superbly achieved one of the most difficult scenic tasks, the disposition of an army for battle and the battle itself. The prince has taken his imprisonment light-heartedly ; when his friend, Hohenzollern, brings him the news that his death-warrant is awaiting the signature, his mood naturally becomes serious, and he determines to entreat the intercession of the electoral princess. And in the next scene, the young hero throws him- self powerless, and without self-control, at the feet of his protectress, because, as he relates, he has seen on his way to her, men digging his grave by torchlight ; he begs for his life, though he may be shamefully degraded. This sudden plunge to a cowardly fear of death, does painful violence to the character of a general. It is certainly not untrue in itself, even if we unwillingly tolerate lack of self- control in a general under such circumstances. And the drama demanded the severest humiliation of the hero; just this lack of courage is the turning point THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 71 of the piece ; in his confusion he must plunge down to this, in order to redeem himself worthily in the second part of the action. It was therefore a chief task to present the abasement of a youthful heroic nature even to the fear of death, and indeed, in such a manner that the sympathy of the hearer should not , be dissipated through contempt. That could happefi only by an accurate exhibition of the inner pertupa- tions, even to the bursting forth of the death anguish, which terminated in the prostration at the princess's feet a difficult task for even powerful poetic genius, but one which must be performed. And here a rule may be mentioned, which has force for the poet as well as for the actor : it is pre- posterous to hasten over parts of the action which for any reason are necessary to the play, but have not the merit of pleasing motives ; on the con- trary, upon such passages, the highest technical art must be expended, in order to give poetic beauty to what is in itself unsuitable. Before just this kind of tasks, the artist must achieve the proud feel- ing that for him there are no unconquerable difficulties. Another case in which the forcing forward of the chief effect has been neglected, is the third act of Antony and Cleopatra. A defect in Shakespeare does not, indeed, originate in want of insight, nor in haste. The striking thing is that the piece lacks climax. Antony has withdrawn from Cleopatra, has been reconciled with Octavianus, and has re-estab- lished his authority. But the spectator has long 72 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. had a presentiment that he will return to Cleopatra. The inner necessity of this relapse is amply motived from the first act. Notwithstanding this, one demands rightly to see this momentous relapse, with its vio- lent passions and mental disturbances ; it is the point on which all that has gone before is suspended, and which must account for all that follows, the degradation of Antony, even to his cowardly flight, and his death. And yet, it is presented in only brief sections ; the culmination of the action is divided up into little scenes, and the joining of these into one well-executed scene was the more desirable, because the important occurrence in the last half of the play, that flight of Antony from the naval bat- tle, cannot be represented on the stage, but can be made intelligible only through the short account of the subordinate commander and the thrilling strug- gle of the broken-down hero which follows. 7 But the poet has not the task, let it be under- stood, of representing through what is done on the stage every individual impulse which is necessary to the inner connection of the action as actually occurring. Such a representation of accessories would rather conceal the essentials than make them impressive, by taking time from the more important ; it would also divide up the action into too many parts and thereby injure the effects. Upon our stage, also, many heroic accounts of events are nec- essary in vivid representation. Since they always produce resting places in the action, however excit- edly the declaimer may speak, the law applies to THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 73 them, that they must come in as relief from a strongly worked-up suspense. The spectator must be pre- viously aroused by the excited emotion of the per- sons concerned. The length of the narration is to be carefully calculated ; a line too much, the least unnecessary elaboration, may cause weariness. If the narrative contains individual parts of some extent, it must be divided and interspersed with short speeches of other characters, which indicate the narrator's mood; and the parts must be carefully arranged in the order of climax, both as to mean- ing and style. A celebrated example of excellent arrangement is the Swedish captain's story in Wal- Icnstcin. An elaborate narrative must not occur when the action is moving forward with energy and rapidity. One variety of messenger scene is the portrayal of an occurrence thought of as behind the scenes, when the persons on the stage are represented as observers; also the presentation of an occurrence from the impressions which it has made on the char- acters. This kind of recital allows more easily of dramatic excitement ; it may be almost a mere, tjuiet narrative ; it may possibly occasion or increase passionate excitement on the stage. The grounds upon which the poet has some- thing happening behind the scenes, are of various kinds. First of all, occasion is given by unavoid- able incidents which, because of their nature, cannot be represented on the stage at all, or only through elaborate machinery a conflagration, a naval bat- 74 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. tie, a popular tumult, battles of cavalry and chariot- eers everything in which the mighty forces of nature or great multitudes of men are active in widespread commotion. The effect of such reflected impressions may be greatly enhanced by little scenic indications : calls from without, signals, lurid lights, thunder and lightning, the roar of cannon, and sim- ilar devices which excite the fancy, and the appro- priateness of which is easily recognized by the hearer. These indications and shrewd hints of something in the distance, will be most successful when they are used to show the doings of men ; not so favorable are the representation of the unusual operations of nature, descriptions of landscape, all spectacles to which the spectator is not accustomed to give himself over before the stage. In such a case the designed effect may entirely fail, because the audience is accustomed to strive against attempts to produce strange illusions. This representation of mirrored impressions, the laying a part of the action behind the scene, has peculiar significance for the drama in moments when what is frightful, terrifying, or horrible is to be exhibited. If it is desired by the present-day poet that he should follow the example of the Greeks, and discreetly lay the decisive moment of a hideous deed as much as possible behind the scenes, and bring it to light only through the impressions which it makes on the minds of those concerned, then an objection must be made against this restriction in favor of the newer art; for an imposing deed is THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 75 sometimes of the greatest effect on our stage, and is indispensable to the action. First, if the dra- matically presentable individual parts of the deed give significance to what follows ; next, if we recog- nize in such a deed the sudden culmination of an inner process just perfected ; third, if only through the contemplation of the action itself the spectators may be convinced how the affair really happened, nowhere need we fear the effects on the stage, of death, murder, violent collision of figures, though in themselves not the highest effects of the drama. While the Greek stage was developed out of a lyric representation of passionate emotions, the German has arisen from the epic delineation of events. Both have preserved some traditions of their oldest con- ditions ; the Greek remained just as inclined to keep in the background the moment of the deed, as the Germans rejoiced to picture fighting and rapine. But if the Greeks avoided violent physical efforts, blows, attacks, wrestlings, overthrows, per- haps not the foresight of the poet, but the need of the actors was the ultimate reason. The Greek theatre costume was very inconvenient for violent movements of the body ; the falling of a dying per- son in the cothurnus must be gradual and very carefully managed if it would not be ridiculous. " And the mask took away any possibility of repre- senting the expression of the countenance, indispen- sable in the moments of highest suspense. /schy- lus appears to have undertaken something also in this direction ; and the shrewd Sophocles went just 76 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. as far as he dared. He ventured to have even Antigone dragged by an armed force from the grove of Colonos, but he did not venture, in Electra, to have ./Egisthos killed on the stage ; Orestes and Pylades must pursue him with drawn swords behind the scenes. Perhaps Sophocles perceived, as well as we, that in such a place this was a disadvantage, a restriction which was laid upon him by the leather and padding of his actors, and, too, by the religious horror which the Greeks felt for the moment of death. Then this is one of the places in the drama where the spectator must see that the action com- pletes itself. Even if pursued by two men, &gis- thos could either have defended himself against them or have escaped them. Through the greater ease and energy of our imi- tation, we are freed from such considerations; and in our pieces, numerous effects, great and small, rest on the supreme moment of action. The scene in which Coriolanus embraces Aufidius before the household altar of the Volscians, receives its full significance only through the battle scene in the first act, in which the embittered antagonists are seen to punish each other. The contest is necessary between Prince Henry and Percy. And again in Love and Intrigue, how indispensable, according to the premises, is the death of the two lovers on the stage. In Romeo and Juliet, how indispensable the death of Tybalt, of Paris, and of the loving pair, before the eyes of the spectators. Could we believe it, were Emilia Galotti stabbed by her father behind the scenes? And THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 77 would it be possible to dispense with the great scene in which Caesar was murdered? On the other hand, again, there is an entire series of great effects, when the deed itself does not busy the eye, but is so concealed that the attend- ing circumstances stimulate the imagination, and cause the terrible to be felt through those impres- sions which fall into the soul of the hero. Wherever there is room to make impressive the moments preparatory to a deed ; wherever the deed does not enter into the sudden excitement of the hero ; finally, wherever it is more useful to excite horror, and hold in suspense, than sorrowfully to relax excited suspense, the poet will do well to have the deed itself performed behind the scenes. We are indebted to such a concealment for many of the most powerful effects which have been produced at all. When in the Agamemnon of ^schylus, the cap- tive Cassandra announces the individual circum- stances of the murder which occurs in the house ; when Electra, as the death shrieks of Clytemnestra press upon the stage, cries to her brother behind the scene, "Strike once more !"- the fearful power of these effects has never been surpassed. Not less magnificent is the murdering of King Duncan in Macbeth the delineating of the murderer's frame of mind before and after the deed. For the German stage, the suspense, the unde- fined horror, the unearthly, the exciting, produced by skilful treatment, through this concealing of momentous deeds, are especially to be esteemed in 78 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. the part of the action tending toward climax. In the more rapid course and the more violent excite- ment of the second part, they will not be so easily made use of. At the last exit of the hero, they can be used only in cases where the moment of death itself is not capable of presentation on the stage, execution on the scaffold, military execution, and where the impossibility of any other solution is a matter of course, on account of the undoubtedly greater strength of the death-dealing antagonist. An interesting example of this is the last act of Wallenstein. The gloomy figure of Buttler, the soliciting of the murderers, the drawing together of the net about the unsuspecting one, all this is impressed upon the soul of the spectator, in a long and powerfully exciting climax ; after such a prepar- ation, the accomplishment of the murder itself would not add intensity ; one sees the murderer press into the sleeping room ; the creaking of the last door, the clanking of arms, the succeeding sudden silence, hold the imagination in the same unearthly suspense which colors the whole act; and the slow awakening of the fancy, the anxious expectation, and the last concealment of the deed itself, are exceedingly well adapted to what is visionary and mysterious in the inspired hero, as Schiller has conceived him. The poet has not only to exhibit, but as well to keep silence. First of all, there are certain illogical ingredients of the material, which the greatest art is not able always to manage, this will be further treated in the discussion of dramatic rmterial. THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 79 Then there is the repulsive, the disgusting, the hideous, all that shocks dramatic taste, which depends on the crudeness of otherwise serviceable material ; what, in this respect may be repugnant to art, the artist must himself feel ; it cannot be taught him. But further, the poet must continually heighten his effects from the beginning to the end of his play. The listener is not the same in every part of the performance. At the beginning of the piece, he acquiesces with readiness, as a rule, in what is offered, and with slight demands ; and as soon as the poet has shown his power by some respectable effect, and has shown his manly judgment, through his language, and a firm kind of characterization, the hearer is inclined to yield himself confidently to the poet's leading. This frame of mind lasts till toward the climax of the piece. But in the further course, the listener becomes more exacting; his capability for receiving what is new becomes less ; the effects enjoyed have been exciting more powerfully, have in many respects afforded satisfaction ; with increas- ing suspense, comes impatience ; with the greater number of impressions received, weariness comes more easily. With all this in view, the poet must carefully arrange every part of his action. Indeed, so far as the import of the play is concerned, he need not, with a skilful arrangement of tolerable material, be anxious about the listener's increasing interest. But he must see to it, that the perform- ance becomes gradually greater and more impres- 8o FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. sive. During the first acts, in general, a light and brief treatment may be made possible ; and here sometimes the heavy exaction is laid on the poet, perhaps even to moderate a great effect ; but the last acts from the climax on, require the summon- ing of all his resources. It is not a matter of indifference, where a scene is placed, whether a messenger recites his narrative in the first or in the fourth act, whether an effect closes the second or the fourth act. It was wise foresight that made the conspiracy scene in Julius Ccesar so brief, in order not to prejudice the climax of the piece, and the great tent scene. Another means of heightening effects lies in the multiplicity of moods that may be aroused, and of characters which may bear forward the action. Every piece, as has been said, has a ground mood, which may be compared to a musical chord or a color. From this controlling color, there is neces- sary a wealth of shadings, as well as of contrasts. In many cases the poet does not find it essential to make this necessity apparent by cool investigation ; for it is an unwritten law of all artistic creation, that anything discovered suggests its opposite, the chief character, his counterpart, one scene effect, that which contrasts with it. Among the Germans, particularly, there is need that they fondly and care- fully infuse into everything which they create, a cer- tain totality of their feeling. Yet, during the work, the critical examination of the figures, which by natural necessity have challenged one another, will THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 81 supply many important gaps. For in our plays, rich in figures, it is easily possible, by means of a subordinate figure, to give a coloring which materi- ally aids the whole. Even Sophocles is to be admired for the certainty and delicacy with which, in every tragedy, he counterbalances the one-sided- ness of some of his characters, by means of the sug- gested opposites. In Euripides, again, this feeling for harmony is very weak. All great poets of the Germanic race, from Shakespeare to Schiller, con- sidered all together, create, in this direction, with admirable firmness ; and in their works we seldom find a character which is not demanded by a coun- terpart, but is introduced through cool deliberation, like Parricida in William Tell. It is a peculiarity of Kleist that his supplementary characters come to him indistinctly ; here and there arbitrariness or license violates, in the ground lines of his figures. From this internal throng of scenic contrasts in the action, there has originated what, to the Ger- mans, is the favorite scene of tragedy the lumin- ous and fervid part which, as a rule, embraces the touching moments, in contrast with the thrilling moments of the chief action. These scenic con- trasts, however, are produced not only through a variation of meaning, but also through a change of amplified and concise scenes, of scenes of two, and of many persons. Among the Greeks, scenes moved in a much narrower circle, both as to matter and form. The variation is made in this way : the scenes have a peculiar, regular, recurring construction, each 82 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. according to its contents ; dialogues and messenger scenes are interrupted by pathos scenes ; for each of these kinds there arose, in essentials, an established form. Not only sharp contrast, but the repetition of the same scenic motive, may produce a heightened effect, as well through parallelism as through fine contrarieties in things otherwise similar. In this case, the poet must give diligent care, that he lay peculiar charm in the returning motive, and that before the recurrence, he arouse suspense and enjoy- ment in the motive. And in this he will not be allowed to neglect the law, that on the stage, in the last part of the action, even very fine work will not easily suffice to produce heightened effects by means already used, provided the same receive a broader elaboration. There is special danger if the performer wants the peculiar art of setting in strong contrast the repeated motive, and one that has pre- ceded it. Shakespeare is fond of repeating a motive to heighten effects. A good example is the heavy sleepiness of Lucius in Julius Casar, which in the oath scene shows the contrast in the temper of the master and the servant, and in the tent scene is repeated almost word for word. The second sound- ing of the chord has to introduce the ghost here, and its soft minor tone reminds the hearer very pleasingly of that unfortunate night and Brutus's guilt. Similarly, in Romeo and Juliet, the repetition of the deed with fatal result, works as well through consonance as through contrasted treatment. Fur- THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 83 ther, in Othello, the splendid recurring variations of the same theme in the little scenes between lago and Roderigo. But success with these effects is not always accorded to even great poets. The repe- tition of the weird-sister motive, in the second half of Macbeth, is no strengthening of the effect. The ghostly resists, indeed, a more ample elaboration in the second place. A very remarkable example of such a repetition is the repeated wooing of Richard III., the scene at the bier, and the interview with Elizabeth Rivers. 8 That the repetition stands here as a significant characterizing of Richard, and that a strong effect is intended, is perfectly clear from the great art and full amplification of both scenes. The second scene, also, is treated with greater fond- ness ; the poet has made use of a technique, new to to him, but very fine ; he has treated it according to antique models, giving to speech and response the same number of lines. And our criticism is accustomed to account for a special beauty of the great drama from this scene. It is certainly a dis- advantage on the stage. The monstrous action presses already toward the end, with a power which takes from the spectator the capability of enjoying the extended and artistic battle of words in this interview. A similar disadvantage for our specta- tors, is the thrice-repeated casket scene in the Merchant of Venice. The dramatic movement of the first two scenes is inconsiderable, and the ele- gance in the speeches of those choosing has not sufficient charm. Shakespeare might gladly allow 84 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. himself such rhetorical niceties, because his more constant audience found peculiar pleasure in polite, cultured discourse. VII. WHAT IS TRAGIC ? It is well known how busily the German poets since Lessing's time, have been occupied in explor- ing that mysterious property of the drama which is called the tragic. It should be the quality which ' v the poet's moral theory of life deposits in the piece ; and the poet should be, through moral influences, a fashioner of his time. The tragic should be an ethical force with which the poet has to fill his action and his characters ; and in this case, there have been only diverse opinions as to the essential nature of dramatic ethical force. The expressions, tragic guilt, inner purification, poetic justice, have become convenient watchwords of criticism, conveying, how- ever, a different meaning to different persons. BuFl in this all agree, that the tragic effect of the drama I depends on the manner in which the poet conducts his characters through the action, portions their fate to them, and guides and terminates the struggle of their one-sided desire against opposing forces. Since the poet with freedom joins the parts of his action so as to produce unity, and since he pro- duces this unity by setting together the individual elements of the represented events in rational, inter- nal consistency, it is, of course, clear that the poet's representations of human freedom and dependence, THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 85 his comprehension of the general consistency of all things, his view of Providence and destiny, must be expressed in a poetic invention, which derives from the inner nature of some important personage sus- taining great relations, his deeds and his sorrows. It is further plain that it devolves on the poet to con- duct this struggle to such a close as shall not shock the humanity and the reason of the hearer, but shall satisfy it ; and that for the good effect of his drama, it is not at all a matter of indifference whether in deducing guilt from the soul of the hero, and in deriving retribution from the compelling force of the action, he shows himself a man of good judg- ment and just feeling. But it is quite evident that the feeling and judgment of poets have been quite unlike in different centuries, and in individual poets, cannot be graduated in the same manner. Mani- festly he who has developed in his own life a high degree of culture, a comprehensive knowledge of men, and a manly character, will, according to the view of his contemporaries, best direct the destiny of his hero ; for what shines forth from the drama is only the reflection of the poet's own conception of the great world-relations. It cannot be taught ; it cannot be inserted into a single drama like a role or a scene. Therefore, in answer to the question, how the poet must compose his action so that it may be tragic in this sense, the advice, meant in all serious- ness, is given that he need trouble himself very little about it. He must develop in himself a capable 86 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. and worthy manhood, then go with glad heart to a subject which offers strong characters in great con- flict, and leave to others the high-sounding words, guilt and purification, refining and elevating. Unset- tled must is sometimes put into bottles worthy of the purest wine. What is, in truth, dramatic will have an earnest tragic effect in a strongly moving action if it was a man who wrote it ; if not, then assuredly not. The poet's own character determines the highest effects in an elevated drama more than in any other species of art. But the error of former art theories has been that they have sought to explain from the morale or ethics of the drama the combined effect in which sonorousness of words, gesture, costume, and not much else, are concerned. The word, tragic, is used by the poet in two different meanings ; it denotes, first, the peculiar general effect which a successful drama of elevated character produces upon the soul of the spectator ; and, second, a definite kind of dramatic causes and effects which in certain parts of the drama are either useful or indispensable. The first is the physiological signification of the expression ; the second, a technical denotation. To the Greeks, a certain peculiarity in the aggre- gate effect of the drama was well known. Aristotle has sharply observed the special influence of the dramatic effects on the life of the spectators, and has understood them to be a characteristic property of the drama ; so that he has included them in his THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 87 celebrated definition of tragedy. This explanation, " Tragedy is artistic remodeling of a worthy, undi- vided, complete event, which has magnitude," and so forth, closes with the words, " and effects through pity and fear the purification of such passions." In another place, he explains in detail (Rhetoric, II. 8) what pity is, and how it may be awakened. Awak- ening pity is to him exhibiting the whole realm of human sorrows, circumstances, and actions, the obser- vation of which produces what we call emotion and strong agitation. The word purification {katharsis}, however, which as an expression of the old healing art, denoted the removal of diseased matter, and, as an expression of divine worship, denoted the purging of man by atonement from what polluted, is evi- dently an art term adopted by him for the proper effect of tragedy on the hearer. These peculiar effects which the critical observer perceived upon his contemporaries, are not entirely the same which the representation of a great dramatic masterpiece produces upon our audience, but they are closely related ; and it is worth while to notice the differ- ence. Any one who has ever observed the influence of a tragedy upon himself, must have noticed with aston- ishment how the emotion and perturbation caused by the excitement of the characters, joined with the mighty suspense which the continuity of the action produces, take hold upon his nerves. Far more easily than in real life the tears flow, the lips twitch ; this pain, however, is at the same time accompanied 88 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. with intense enjoyment, while the hearer experi- ences immediately after the hero, the same thoughts, sorrows, calamities, with great vividness, as if they were his own. He has in the midst of the most violent excitement, the consciousness of unrestricted liberty, which at the same time raises him far above the incidents through which his capacity to receive impressions seems to be levied upon. After the fall of the curtain, in spite of the intense strain which he has been under for hours, he will be aware of a rebound of vital force; his eye brightens, his step is elastic, every movement firm and free. The dread and commotion are followed by a feeling of security ; in his mental processes of the next hour, there is a greater elevation ; in his collocation of words, emphatic force ; the aggregate production, now his own, has raised him to a high pitch. The radiance of broader views and more powerful feeling which has come into his soul, lies like a transfiguration upon his being. This remarkable affection of body and soul, this elevation above the moods of the day, this feeling of unrestrained comfort after great agi- tation, is exactly what, in the modern drama, corre- sponds to Aristotle's " purification." There is no doubt that such a consequence of scenic exhibitions among the finely cultured Greeks, after a ten hours' suspense, through the most powerful effects, came out all the more heightened and more striking. The elevating influence of the beautiful, upon the soul, is no entirely unusual art; but the peculiar effect which is produced by a union of pain, horror, THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 89 and pleasure, with a great, sustained effort of the fancy and the judgment, and through the perfect satisfying of our demands for a rational consistency in all things, this is the prerogative of the art of dramatic poetry alone. The penetrating force of this dramatic effect is, with the majority of people, greater than the force of effects produced by any other form of art. Only music is able to make its influence more powerfully felt upon the nerves ; but the thrill which the musical tone evokes, falls rather within the sphere of immediate emotions, which are not transfigured into thought ; they are more rapt- urous, less inspired. Naturally the effects of the drama are no longer the same with us as they were in Aristotle's time. He, himself, makes that clear to us. He who knew so well that the action is the chief thing in the drama, and that Euripides composed his actions badly, yet called him the most tragic of the poets, that is, one who knew how to produce most power- fully the effects peculiar to a play. Upon us, how- ever, scarcely a play of Euripides produces any general effect, however powerfully the stormy com- motions of the hero's soul, in single ones of his bet- ter plays, thrill us. Whence comes this diversity of conception? Euripides was a master in represent- ing excited passion, with too little regard for sharply defined personages and rational consistency of the action. The Greek drama arose from a union of music and lyric poetry ; from Aristotle's time for- ward, it preserved something of its first youth. The 9 o FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. musical element remained, not in the choruses, but the rhythmical language of the hero easily rose to climaxes in song; and the climaxes were frequently characterized by fully elaborated pathos scenes. The aggregate effect of the old tragedy stood between that of our opera and our drama, perhaps still nearer the opera; it retained something of the powerful inflammatory influence of music. On the other hand, there was another effect of the ancient tragedy, only imperfectly developed, which is indispensable to our tragedy. The dra- matic ideas and actions of the Greeks lacked a rational conformity to the laws of nature, that is, such a connecting of events as would be perfectly accounted for by the disposition and one-sidedness of the characters. We have become free men, we recognize no fate on the stage but such as proceeds from the nature of the hero himself. The modern poet has to prepare for the hearer the proud joy, that the world into which he introduces him corre- sponds throughout to the ideal demands which the heart and judgment of the hearerset up in comparison with the events of reality. Human reason appears in the new drama, as agreeing with and identical with divine ; it remodels all that is incomprehensible in the order of nature, according to the need of our spirit and heart. This peculiarity of the action specially strengthens for the spectator of the best modern plays, beautiful transparence and joyous elevation ; it helps to make himself for hours stronger, nobler, freer. Here is the point in which THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 91 the character of the modern poet, his frank manli- ness, exercises greater influence upon the aggregate effect than in ancient times. The Attic poet also sought this unity of the divine and the rational ; but it was very difficult for him to find it. This boldly tragical, of course, shines forth in single dramas of the ancient world. And that can be explained ; for the vital laws of poetical creation control the poet long before criticism has found rules for it ; and in his best hours, the poet may receive an inward freedom and expansion which raise him far above the restrictions of his time. Sophocles directed the character and fate of his heroes sometimes, almost in the Germanic fashion. In general, however, the Greeks did not free themselves from a servitude which seems to us, in the highest art effects, a serious defect. The epic source of their subjects was thoroughly unfavorable for the free direction of their heroes' destiny. An incomprehensible fate reached from without into their action ; prophecies and oracular utterances influence the conclusion; accidental misfortunes strike the heroes ; misdeeds of parents control the destiny of later generations ; personifications of deity enter the action as friends and as enemies ; between what excites their rage and the punish- ments which they decree, there is, according to human judgment, no consistency, much less a rational relation. The partiality and arbitrariness with which they rule, is frightful and terrifying; and when they occasionally grant a mild reconciliation, they remain 92 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. like something foreign, not belonging here. In contrast to such cold excess of power, meek-spirited modesty of man is the highest wisdom. Whoever means to stand firmly by himself in his own might, falls first before a mysterious power which annihi- lates the guilty as well as the innocent. With this conception, which in its ultimate foundation was gloomy, sad, devouring, there remained to the Greek poet only the means of putting even into the char- acters of his fettered heroes, something that to a certain degree would account for the horrors which they must endure. The great art of Sophocles is shown, among other things, in the way he gives coloring to his personages. But this wise disposi- tion of characters does not always extend far enough to establish the course of their destiny ; it remains not seldom an inadequate motive. The greatness which the ancients produced, lay first of all in the force of passions, then in the fierceness of the strug- gles through which their heroes were overthrown, finally in the intensity, unfeelingness, and inexora- bleness, with which they made their characters do and suffer. The Greeks felt very well that it was not advis- able to dismiss the spectator immediately after such effects of the efforts of the beautiful art. They therefore closed the exhibition of the day with a parody, in which they treated the serious heroes of the tragedy with insolent jest, and whimsically imi- tated their struggles. The burlesque was the THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 93 external means of affording the recreation which lies for us in the tragedy itself. From these considerations, the last sentence of Aristotle's definition, not indeed without limitation, avails for our drama. For him as well as for us, the chief effect of the drama is the disburdening of the hearer from the sad and confining moods of the day, which come to us through wretchedness and what- ever causes apprehension in the world. But when in another place, he knows how to account for this, on the ground that man needs to see himself touched and shaken, and that the powerful pacifying and satisfying of this desire gives him inward freedom, this explanation is, indeed, not unintelligible to us; but it accepts as the ultimate inner reason for this need pathological circumstances, where we recognize a joyous emotional activity of the hearer. The ultimate ground of every great effect of the drama lies not in the necessity of the spectator passively to receive impressions, but in his never- ceasing and irresistible desire to create and to fashion. The dramatist compels the listener to repeat his creations. The whole world of charac- ters, of sorrow, and of destiny, the hearer must make alive in himself. While he is receiving with a high degree of suspense, he is in most powerful, most rapid creative activity. An ardor and beatifying cheerfulness like that which the poet himself has felt, fills the hearer who repeats the poet's efforts ; therefore the pain with the feeling of pleasure ; therefore the exaltation which outlasts the con- 94 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. elusion of the piece. And this stimulation of the creative imagination is, in the new drama, pene- trated with still a milder light; for closely connected with it, is an exalting sense of eternal reason in the severest fates and sorrows of man. The spectator feels and recognizes that the divinity which guides his life, even where it shatters the individual human being, acts in a benevolent fellowship with the human race ; and he feels himself creatively exalted, as united with and in accord with the great world- guiding power. So the aggregate effect of the drama, the tragic, is with us related to that of the Greek, but still no longer the same. The Greeks listened in the green youth of the human race, for the tones of the pro- scenium, filled with the sacred ecstacy of Dionysus ; the German looks into the world of illusion, not less affected, but as a lord of the earth. The human race has since then passed through a long history ; we have all been educated through historical science. But more than the general effect of the drama is denoted by the word tragic. The poet of the present time, and sometimes also the public, use the word in a narrower sense. We understand by it, also, a peculiar kind of dramatic effects. When at a certain point in the action, there enters suddenly, unexpectedly, in contrast with what has preceded, something sad, sombre, frightful, that we yet immediately feel has developed from the original course of events, and is perfectly intelli- gible from the presuppositions of the play, this new THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 95 element is a tragic force or motive. This tragic force must possess the three following qualities: (i) it must be important and of serious consequence to the hero; (2) it must occur unexpectedly ; (3) it must, to the mind of the spectator, stand in a visible chain of accessory representations, in rational connection with the earlier parts of the action. When the con- spirators have killed Caesar and, as they think, have bound Antony to themselves, Antony, by his speech stirs up against the murderers themselves the same Romans for whose freedom Brutus had committed the murder. When Romeo has married Juliet, he is placed under the necessity of killing her cousin, Tybalt, in the duel, and is banished. When Mary Stuart has approached Elizabeth so near that a reconciliation of the two queens is possible, a quarrel flames up between them, which becomes fatal to Mary. Here the speech of Antony, the death of Tybalt, the quarrel of the queens, are tragic forces ; their effect rests upon this, that the spectator comprehends the ominous occurrences as surprising, and yet inseparably connected with what has preceded. The hearer keenly feels the speech of Antony to be a result of the wrong which the conspirators have done Caesar ; through the relation of Antony to Caesar, and his behavior in the pre- vious dialogue scene with the conspirators, the speech is conceived as the necessary consequence of the sparing of Antony, and the senseless and over- hasty confidence which the murderers place in him. That Romeo must kill Tybalt, will be immediately g6 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. understood as an unavoidable consequence of the mortal family quarrel and the duel with Mercutio ; the quarrel of the two queens, the hearer at once understands to be the natural consequence of their pride, hatred, and former jealousy. In the same technical signification, the word tragic is also sometimes used for events in real life. The fact, for example, that Luther, that mighty champion of the freedom of conscience, became in the last half of his life an intolerant oppressor of conscience, contains, thus stated, nothing tragic. Overweening desire for rule may have developed in Luther ; he may have become senile. But from the moment when it becomes clear to us, through a suc- cession of accessory ideas, that this same intolerance was the necessary consequence of that very honest, disinterested struggle for truth, which accomplished the Reformation ; that this same pious fidelity with which Luther upheld his conception of the Bible against the Roman Church, brought him to defend this conception against an adverse decision ; that he would not despair when in his position outside of the church, but remained there, holding obstinately to the letter of his writings ; from the moment, also, when we conceive of the inner connection of his intolerance with all that is good and great in his nature, this darkening of his later life produces the effect of the tragic. Just so with Cromwell. That the Protector ruled as a tyrant, produces, in itself, nothing tragic. But that he must do it against his will, because the partisan relations THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 97 through which he had arisen, and his participation in the execution of the king, had stirred the hearts of the conservative against him ; that the great hero from the pressure which his earlier life had laid upon him, could not wrest himself free from his office, this makes the shadow which fell upon his life through his unlawful reign, tragic for us. That Conradin, child of the Hohenstaufens, gath- ered a horde, and was slain in Italy by his adver- sary, this is not in itself dramatic, and in no sense of the word tragic. A weak youth, with slender support, it was in order that he should succumb. But when it is impressed upon our souls, that the youth only followed the old line of march of his ancestors toward Italy, and that in this line of march, almost all the great princes of his house had fallen, and that this march of an imperial race was not accidental, but rested on ancient, historical union of Germany with Italy, then the death of Conradin appears to us specially tragic, not for himself, but as the final extinction of the greatest race of rulers of that time. With peculiar emphasis, it must again be asserted that the tragic force must be understood in its rational causative connection with the fundamental conditions of the action. For our drama, such events as enter without being understood, incidents the relation of which with the action is mysteriously concealed, influences the significance of which rests on superstitious notions, motives which are taken from dream-life, prophesyings, presentiments, have 98 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. merely a secondary importance. If a family picture which falls from its nail, shall portentously indicate death and destruction ; if a dagger which was used in a crime, appears burdened with a mysterious, evil-bringing curse, till it brings death to the mur- derer, these kinds of attempts which ground the tragic effect upon an inner connection which is incomprehensible to us, or appears unreasonable, are for the free race of the present day, either weak or quite intolerable. What appears to us as an acci- dent, even an overwhelming one, is not appropriate for great effects on the stage. It is now several centuries since the adoption of such motives and many others, has been tried in Germany. The Greeks, it may be remarked incidentally, were somewhat less fastidious in the use of these irrational forces for tragic effect. They could be contented if the inner connection of a suddenly entering tragic force, with what had preceded, were felt in an ominous shudder. When Aristotle cites as an effective example in this direction, that a statue erected to a man, in falling down, kills him who was guilty of the man's death, we should feel in every-day life such an accident is significant. But in art, we should not deem it worthy of success. Sophocles understands how, with such forces, to make conspicuous a natural and intelligible connection between cause and effect so far as his fables allow anything of the sort. For example, the manner in which he explains, with realistic detail, the poison- THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 99 ous effect of the shirt of Nessos, which Dcianeira sends to Hercules, is remarkable. The tragic force, or incident, in the drama is one of many effects. It may enter only once, as usually happens ; it may be used several times in the same piece. Romeo and Juliet has three such forces : the death of Tybalt after the marriage ; the betrothal of Juliet and Paris after the marriage night ; the death of Paris before the final catastrophe. The position which this force takes in the piece, is not always the same ; one point, however, is specially adapted for it, so that the cases in which it demands another place, can be considered as exceptions ; and it is relevant in connection with the foregoing to speak of this here, though the parts of the drama will be discussed in the following chapter. The point forward from which the deed of the hero reacts upon himself, is one of the most impor- tant in the play. This beginning of the reaction, sometimes united in one scene with the climax, has been noted ever since there has been a dramatic art. The embarrassment of the hero and the momentous position into which he has placed himself, must be impressively represented ; at the same time, it is the business of this force to produce new suspense for the second part of the piece, and so much the more as the apparent success of the hero has so far been more brilliant, and the more magnificently the scene of the climax has presented his success. Whatever enters into the play now must have all the qualities which have been previously explained it must loo FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. present sharp contrasts, it must not be accidental, it must be pregnant with consequences. Therefore it must have importance and a certain magnitude. This scene of the tragic force either immediately follows the scene of the climax, like the despair of Juliet after Romeo's departure ; or is joined by a connecting scene, like the speech of Antony after Caesar's murder ; or it is coupled with the climax scene into scenic unity, as in Mary Stuart ; or it is entirely separated from it by the close of an act, as in Love and Intrigue, where Louise's writing the letter indicates the climax, and Ferdinand's convic- tion of the infidelity of his beloved forms the tragic force. Such scenes almost always stand in the third act of our plays, sometimes less effective in the beginning of the fourth. They are not, of course, absolutely necessary to the tragedy ; it is quite possible to bring along the increasing reaction by several strokes in gradual reinforcement. This will most frequently be the case where the catas- trophe is effected by the mental processes of the hero, as in Othello. It is worth while for us in modern times to rec- ognize how important this entrance of the tragic force into the action appeared to the Greeks. It was under another name exactly the same effect ; and it was made still more significantly prominent by the Attic critic than is necessary for us. Even to their tragedies, this force was not indispensable, but it passed for one of the most beautiful and most effective inventions. Indeed, they classed this THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 101 effect according to its producing a turn in the action itself or in the position of the chief characters rel- ative to one another ; and they had for each of these cases special names, apparently expressions of the old poetic laboratory, which an accident has preserved for us in Aristotle's Poetics. 9 Revolution (Peripeteia}, is the name given by the Greeks to that tragic force which by the sud- den intrusion of an event, unforeseen and over- whelming but already grounded in the plan of the action, impels the volition of the hero, and with it the action itself in a direction entirely different from that of the beginning. Examples of such revolution scenes are the change in the prospects of Neoptolemus in Philoctetcs, the announcement of the messenger and the shepherd to Jocasta and the king in King CEdipus, the account of Hyllos to Deia- neira, concerning the effect of the shirt of Nessos, in The Trachinian Women. Through this force spe- cially there was produced a powerful movement in the second part of the play ; and the Athenians distinguished carefully between plays with revolu- tion and those without. Those with revolution pre- vailed in general, being considered the better. This force of the ancient action is distinguished from the corresponding newer only in this, that it does not necessarily indicate a turning toward the disastrous, because the tragedy of the ancients did not always have a sad ending, but sometimes the sudden rever- sion to the better. The scenes claimed scarcely less significance, in which the position of the per- 102 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. sons concerned in the action was changed with relation to each other, by the unexpected revival of an old and important relation between them. These scenes of the anagnorisis, recognition scenes, it was especially, in which the agreeable relations of the heroes became apparent in magnificent achievement. And since the Greek stage did not know our love scenes, they occupied a similar position, though good-will did not always appear in them, and some- times even hatred flamed up. The subjects of the Greeks offered ample opportunity for such scenes. The heroes of Greek story are, almost without exception, a wandering race. Expedition and return, the finding of friends and enemies unexpectedly, are among the most common features of these leg- ends. Almost every collection of stories contains children who did not know their parents, husbands and wives, who after long separation came together again under peculiar circumstances, host and -guest, who prudently sought to conceal their names and purposes. There was, therefore, in much of their material, scenes of meetings, finding the lost, remi- niscences of significant past events, some of decisive importance. Not only the recognizing of former acquaintances but the recognition of a region, of an affair having many relations, could become a motive for a strong movement. Such scenes afforded the old-time poet welcome opportunity for the repre- sentation of contrasts in perception and for favorite pathetic performances in which the excited feeling flowed forth in great waves. The woman who will THE DRAMATIC ACTION. 103 kill an enemy, and just before or just after the deed recognizes him as her own son ; the son who in his mortal enemy finds again his own mother, like Ion ; the priestess who is about to offer up a stranger, and in him recognizes her brother, like Iphigenia ; the sister who mourns her dead brother, and in the bringer of the burial urn receives back again the living ; and Odysseus's nurse who, in a beggar, finds out the home-returning master by a scar on his foot, these are some of the numerous exam- ples. Frequently such recognition scenes became motives for a revolution, as in the case already men- tioned of the account of the messenger and the shepherd to the royal pair of Thebes. One may read in Aristotle how important the circumstances were to the Greeks through which the recognition was brought about ; by the great philosopher, they were carefully considered and prized according to their intrinsic worth. And it is a source of satisfac- tion to observe that even to the Greek, no acci- dental external characteristic passed for a motive suitable to art, but only the internal relations of those recognizing each other, which voluntarily and characteristically for both, manifested themselves in the dialogue. Just a glimpse assures us how refined and fully developed the dramatic criticism of the Greeks was, and how painfully conscientious they were to regard in a new drama what passed for a beautiful effect according to their theory of art. CHAPTER II. THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. I. PLAY AND COUNTERPLAY. In an action, through characters, by means of words, tones, gestures, the drama presents those soul-processes which man experiences, from the flashing up of an idea, to passionate desire and to a deed, as well as those inward emotions which are excited by his own deeds and those of others. The structure of the drama must show these two contrasted elements of the dramatic joined in a unity, efflux and influx of will-power, the accom- plishment of a deed and its reaction on the soul, movement and counter-movement, strife and counter-strife, rising and sinking, binding and loosing. In every part of the drama, both tendencies of dramatic life appear, each incessantly challenging the other to its best in play and counter-play ; but in general, also, the action of the drama and the grouping of characters is, through these tendencies, in two parts. What the drama presents is always a struggle, which, with strong perturbations of soul, the hero wages against opposing forces. And as 104 THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. 105 the hero must be endowed with a strong life, with a certain one-sidedness, and be in embarrassment, the opposing power must be made visible in a human representative. It is quite indifferent in favor of which of the contending parties the greater degree of justice lies, whether a character or his adversary is better- mannered, more favored by law, embodies more of the traditions of the time, possesses more of the ethical spirit of the poet ; in both groups, good and evil, power and weakness, are variously mingled. But both must be endowed with what is universally, intelligibly human. The chief hero must always stand in strong contrast with his opponents ; the advantage which he wins for himself, must be the greater, so much the greater the more perfectly the final outcome of the struggle shows him to be van- quished. These two chief parts of the drama are firmly united by a point of the action which lies directly in the middle. This middle, the climax of the play, js thejnost important place of the structure ; the action rjsesjto this ^JLhe-actioa ialls-Away from this. It is now decisive for the character of the drama which of the two refractions of the dramatic light shall have a place in the first part of the play, which shall fall in the second part as the dominating influence ; whether the efflux or influx, the play or the counter- play, maintains the first part. Either is allowed ; either arrangement of the structure can cite plays of the highest merit in justification of itself. And io6 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. these two ways of constructing a drama have become characteristic of individual poets and of the time in which they lived. By one dramatic arrangement, the chief person, the hero, is so introduced that his nature and his characteristics speak out unembarrassed, even to the moments when, as a consequence of external impulse or internal association of ideas, in him the beginning of a powerful feeling or volition becomes perceptible. The inner commotion, the passionate eagerness, the desire of the hero, increase; new cir- cumstances, stimulating or restraining, intensify his embarrassment and his struggle ; the chief character strides victoriously forward to an unrestrained exhi- bition of his life, in which the full force of his feel- ing and his will are concentrated in a deed by which the spiritual tension is relaxed. From this point there is a turn in the action ; the hero appeared up to this point in a desire, one-sided or full of conse- quence, working from within outward, changing by its own force the life relations in which he came upon the stage. From the climax on, what he has done reacts upon himself and gains power over him ; the external world, which he conquered in the rise of passionate conflict, now stands in the strife above him. This adverse influence becomes continually more powerful and victorious, until at last in the final catastrophe, it compels the hero to succumb to its irresistible force. The end of the piece follows this catastrophe immediately, the situation where the THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. 107 restoration of peace and quiet after strife becomes apparent. With this arrangement, first the inception and progress of the action are seen, then the effects of the reaction ; the character of the first part is deter- mined by the depth of the hero's exacting claims ; the second by the counter-claims which the violently disturbed surroundings put forward. This is the construction of Antigone, of Ajax t of all of Shake- speare's great tragedies except Othello and King Lear, of The Maid of Orleans, less surely of the double tragedy, Wallcnstcin. The other dramatic arrangement, on the con- trary, represents the hero at the beginning, in comparative quiet, among conditions of life which suggest the influence of some external forces upon his mind. These forces, adverse influences, work with increased activity so long in the hero's soul, that at the climax, they have brought him into ominous embarrassment, from which, under a stress of passion, desire, activity, he plunges downward to the catastrophe. This construction makes use of opposing charac- ters, in order to give motive to the strong excrte- ment of the chief character; the relation of the chief figures to the idea of the drama is an entirely different one; they do not give direction in the ascending action, but are themselves directed. Examples of this construction are King CEdipus, Othello, Lear, Emilia Galotti, Clavigo, Love and Intrigue. io8 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. It might appear that this second method of dramatic construction must be the more effective. Gradually, in a specially careful performance, one sees the conflicts through which the life of the hero is disturbed, give direction to his inward being. Just there, where the hearer demands a powerful intensifying of effects, the previously prepared domination of the chief characters enters ; suspense and sympathy, which are more difficult to sustain in the last half of the play, are firmly fixed upon the chief characters ; the stormy and irresistible pro- gress downward is particularly favorable to powerful and thrilling effects. And, indeed, subjects which contain the gradual rise and growth of a portentous passion which in the end leads the hero to his de- struction, are exceedingly favorable for such an action. But this method of constructing a play is not the most correct, dramatically ; and it is no acci- dent, that the greatest dramas of such a character, at the tragic close, intermingle with the emotions and perturbations of the hearer, an irritating feeling which lessens the joy and recreation. For they do not specially show the hero as an active, aggressive nature, but as a receptive, suffering person, who is too much compelled by the counter-play, which strikes him from without. The greatest exercise of human power, that which carries with it the heart of the spectator most irresistibly, is, in all times, the bold individuality which sets its own inner self, without regard to consequences, over against the THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. 109 forces which surround it. The essential nature of the drama is conflict and suspense ; the sooner these are evoked by means of the chief heroes themselves and given direction, the better. It is true, the first kind of dramatic structure conceals a danger, which even by genius, is not always successfully avoided. In this, as a rule, the first part of the play, which raises the hero through regular degrees of commotion to the climax, is assured its success. But the second half, in which greater effects are demanded, depends mostly on the counter-play ; and this counter-play must here be grounded in more violent movement and have comparatively greater authorization. This may distract attention rather than attract it more forcibly. It must be added, that after the climax of the action, the hero must seem weaker than the counteracting figures. Moreover, on this account, the interest in him may be lessened. Yet in spite of this difficulty, the poet need be in no doubt to which kind of arrangement to give the preference. His task will be greater in this arrangement; great art is required to make the last act strong. But talent and good fortune must overcome the diffi- culties. And the most beautiful garlands which dramatic art has to confer, fall upon the successful work. Of course the poet is dependent on his sub- ject and material, which sometimes leaves no choice. Therefore, one of the first questions a poet must ask, when contemplating attractive material, is "does it come forward in the play or in the counterplay ?" no FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. It is instructive in connection with this topic, to compare the great poets. From the few plays of Sophocles which we have preserved, the majority belong to those in which the chief actor has the direction, however unfavorable the sphere of epic material was for the unrestrained self-direction of the heroes. Shakespeare, however, evinces here the highest power and art. He is the poet of char- acters which reach conclusions quickly. Vital force and marrow, compressed energy and the intense virility of his heroes, impel the piece in rapid movement upward, from the very opening scene. In sharp contrast with him, stands the tendency of the great German poets of the last century. They love a broad motiving, a careful grounding of the unusual. In many of their dramas, it looks as if their heroes would wait quietly in a self-controlled mood, in uncertain circumstances, if they were only let alone ; and since, to most of the heroic charac- ters of the Germans, conscious power, firm self-con- fidence and quick decision are wanting, so they stand in the action, uncertain, meditating, doubting, moved rather by external relations than by claims that have no regard to consequences. It is signifi- cant of the refinement of the last century, of the culture and spiritual life of a people to whom a joy- ful prosperity, a public life, and a self-government, were so greatly lacking. Even Schiller, who under- stood so well how to excite intense passion, was fond of giving the power of direction to the THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. in counter-players in the first half, and to the chief actors only in the second half, from the climax downward. In Love and Intrigue, therefore, Ferdi- nand and Louise are pushed forward by the intriguers ; and only from the scene between Ferdi- nand and the president, after the tragic force enters, Ferdinand assumes the direction till the end. Still worse is the relation of the hero, Don Carlos, to the action ; he is kept in leading strings, not only through the ascending half, but as well through the descending half. In Mary Stuart, the heroine has the controlling influence over her portentous fate, up to the climax, the garden scene ; so far she con- trols the mental attitudes of her counter-players ; the propelling forces are, however, as the subject demanded, the intriguers and Elizabeth. Much better known, yet of less importance for the construction of the drama, is the distinction of plays, which originates in the last turn in the fate of the hero, and in the meaning of the catastrophe. The new German stage distinguishes two kinds of serious plays, tragedy and spectacle play {traucr- spiel and schauspiet). The rigid distinction in this sense is not old even with us ; it has been current in repertoires only since Iffland's time. And, if now, occasionally, on the stage, comedy, tragedy, and spectacle play are put in opposition as three differ- ent kinds of recitative representation, the spectacle play is no third, co-ordinate kind of dramatic crea- tion, according to its character, but a subordinate kind of serious drama. The Attic stage did not have H2 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. the name, but it had the thing. Even in the time of jCschylus and Sophocles, a gloomy termination was by no means indispensable to the tragedy. Of seven of the extant tragedies of Sophocles, two, Ajax and Philoctetcs, indeed also, in the eyes of the Athenians, (Ediptis at Colonos had a mild close, which turns the fate of the hero toward the better. Even in Euripides, to whom the critics attribute a love of the sad endings, there are, out of seventeen extant plays, four, besides Alcestis, Helena, Iphigenia in Tauris, Andromache, and Ion, the endings of which correspond to our spectacle play ; in several others, the tragic ending is accidental and without motive. And it seems, the Athenians already had the same taste which we recognize in our spectators ; they saw most gladly such tragedies as in our sense of the word were spectacle plays, in which the hero was severely worried by fate, but rescued at length, safely bore off his hide and hair. On the modern stage, it cannot be denied, the justification of the spectacle play has become more pronounced. We have a nobler and more liberal comprehension of human nature. We are able to delineate more charmingly, more effectively, and more accurately inner conflicts of conscience, oppos- ing convictions. In a time in which men have debated the abolition of capital punishment, the dead at the end of a play may be more easily dispensed with. In real life, we trust to a strong human power that it will hold the duty of living very high, and expiate even serious crimes, not with death but by a THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. 113 purer life. But this changed conception of earthly existence does not bring an advantage to the drama in every respect. It is true the fatal ending is, in the case of modern subjects, less a necessity than in the dramatic treatment of epic legends, or older historical events ; but not that the hero's at last remaining alive makes a piece a spectacle play, but that he proceeds from the strife as conqueror, or by an adjustment with his opponent, goes away recon- ciled. If he must be the victim at last, if he must be crushed, then the piece retains not only the character but the name of tragedy. The Prince of Hamburg is a spectacle play, Tasso is a tragedy. The drama of modern times has embraced in the circle of its subjects, a broad field which was unknown to the tragedy of the ancient Greeks, indeed, in the main, to Shakespeare's art : the mid- dle-class life of the present time, the conflicts of our society. No doubt, the strifes and sufferings of modern life make a tragic treatment possible ; and this has fallen too little to their lot ; but what is full of incident, what is quiet, what is full of scruple, connected as a rule with this species of material, affords artistic conception full justification ; and just here it brings forward such strifes as in real life we trust to have and want to have adjusted peaceably. With the broad and popular expansion which this treatment has won, it is proper to propose two things : first, that the laws for the construction of the spec- tacle play and the life of the characters are, in the main, the same as for the tragedy, and that it is H4 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. useful for the playwright to recognize these laws as found in the drama of elevated character, where every violence done them may be dangerous to the success of the piece ; and second, that the spectacle play in which a milder adjustment of conflicts is necessary in the second part, has a double reason for laying motives in the first half by means of fine characterization, for the hero's stout-hearted and vigorous desire in the second half of the play. Otherwise, it is exposed to the danger of becoming a mere situation-piece, or intrigue-play ; in the first case, by sacrificing the strong movement of a uni- fied action to the more easy depiction of circum- stances and characteristic peculiarities ; in the sec- ond case, by neglecting to develop the characters, on account of the rapid chess-board performance of a restless action. The first is the tendency of the Germans ; the second of the Latins ; both kinds of preparation of a subject are unfavorable to a digni- fied treatment of serious conflicts ; they belong, according to their nature, to comedy, not to serious drama. II. FIVE PARTS AND THREE CRISES OF THE DRAMA. Through the two halves of the action which come closely together at one point, the drama pos- sesses if one may symbolize its arrangement by lines a pyramidal structure. It rises from the introduction with the entrance of the exciting forces to the climax, and falls from here to the catastro- THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. 115 phe. Between these three parts lie (the parts of) the rise and the fall. Each of these five parts may consist of a single scene, or a succession of con- nected scenes, but the climax is usually composed of one chief scene. These parts of the drama, (a) introduction, () rise, (<) cli- max, (d] return or fall, (e) catastrophe, have each what is peculiar in purpose and in con- struction. Between them stand three important scenic effects, through which the parts are separated as well as bound together. Of these three dramatic moments, or crises, one, which indicates the beginning of the stirring action, stands between the introduction and the rise ; the second, the beginning of the counter- action, between the climax and the return ; the third, which must rise once more before the catas- trophe, between the return and the catastrophe. They are called here the exciting moment or force, the tragic moment or force, and the moment or force of the last suspense. The operation of the first is necessary to every play ; the second and third are good but not indispensable accessories. In the following sections, therefore, the eight com- ponent parts of the drama will be discussed in their natural order. The Introduction. It was the custom of the ancients to communicate in a prologue, what was pre- supposed for the action. The prologue of Sophocles n6 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. and also of /Eschylus is a thoroughly necessary and essential part of the action, having dramatic life and connection, and corresponding exactly to our open- ing scene ; and in the old stage-management signifi- cation of the word, it comprised that part of the action which lay before the entrance song of the chorus. In Euripides, it is, by a careless return to the older custom, an epic messenger announce- ment, which a masked figure delivers to the audi- ence, a figure who never once appears in the play, like Aphrodite in Hyppolitus and the ghost of the slain Polydorus in Hecuba. In Shakespeare, the prologue is entirely severed from the action ; it is only an address of the poet ; it contains civility, apology, and the plea for attention. Since it is no longer necessary to plead for quiet and attention, the German stage has purposely given up the prologue, but allows it as a festive greeting which distin- guishes a single representation, or as the chance caprice of a poet. In Shakespeare, as with us, the introduction has come back again into the right place ; it is filled with dramatic movement, and has become an organic part of the dramatic structure. Yet, in individual cases, the newer stage has not been able to resist another temptation, to expand the introduction to a situation scene, and set it in advance as a special prelude to the drama. Well- known examples are The Maid of Orleans and Kdtchen of Heilbronn, Wallensteiris Camp, and the most beauti- ful of all prologues, that to Fanst. That such a severing of the opening scene is THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. 117 hazardous, will be readily granted. The poet who treats it as a separate piece, is compelled to give it an expansion, and divide it into members which do not correspond to their inner significance. What- ever seems separated by a strong incision, becomes subject to the laws of each great dramatic unit ; it must again have an introduction, a rise, a propor- tionate climax, and a conclusion. But such presup- positions of a drama, the circumstances previous to the entrance of the moving force, are not favorable to a strongly membered movement ; and the poet will, therefore, have to bring forward his persons in embellished and proportionately broad, elaborated situations. He will be obliged to give these situa- tions in some fulness and abundance, because every separate structure must awaken and satisfy an inde- pendent interest ; and this is possible only by using sufficient time. But two difficulties arise in this : first, that the time of the chief action, not too amply allotted on our stage without this, will be shortened ; and second, that the prelude, through its broad treatment and quiet subject matter, will probably contain a color which is so different from that of the drama, that it distracts and satisfies, instead of pre- paring the spectator for the chief part. It is nearly always the convenience of the poet and the defec- tive arrangement of the material, which occasion the construction of a prelude to an acting play. No material should keep further presuppositions than such as allow of reproduction in a few short touches. Since it is the business of the introduction of the n8 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. drama to explain the place and time of the action, the nationality and life relations of the hero, it must at once briefly characterize the environment. Besides, the poet will have opportunity here, as in a short overture, to indicate the peculiar mood of the piece, as well as the time, the greater vehemence or quiet with which the action moves forward. The mod- erate movement, the mild light in Tasso, is intro- duced by the brilliant splendor of the princely garden, the quiet conversation of the richly attired ladies, the garlands, the adornment of the poet painter. In Mary Stuart, there is the breaking open of closets, the quarrel between Paulet and Kennedy a good picture of the situation. In Nathan the Wise, the excited conversation of the returning Nathan with Daja is an excellent introduction to the dignified course of the action and to the contrasts in the inwardly disturbed characters. In Piccolomini, there are the greetings of the generals and Questenberg, an especially beautiful introduction to the gradually rising movement. But the greatest master of fine beginnings is Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet, day, an open street, brawls and the clatter of the swords of the hostile parties ; in Hamlet, night, the startling call of the watch, the mounting of the guard, the appearance of the ghost, restless, gloomy, desperate excitement ; in Macbeth, storm, thunder, the unearthly witches and dreary heath ; and again in Richard III., no striking surroundings, a single man upon the stage, the old despotic evil genius, who controls the THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRAMA. 119 entire dramatic life of the piece, himself speaking the prologue. So in each of his artistic dramas. It may be asserted that, as a rule, it is expedient soon after the opening scene, to strike the first chords firmly and with as much emphasis as the char- acter of the piece will allow. Of course, Clavigo is not opened with the rattle of the drum, nor William Tell with the quarrelling of children in the quiet life of the household ; a brief excited movement, adapted to the piece, conducts without violence to the more quiet exposition. Occasionally this first exciting strain in Shakespeare, to whom his stage allowed greater liberty, is separated from the suc- ceeding exposition by a scenic passage. Thus in Hamlet, a court scene follows it; in Macbeth, the entrance of Duncan and the news of the battle. So in Julius Casar, where the conference and strife between the tribunes and the plebeians form the first strong stroke, to which the exposition, the con- versation of Cassius and Brutus, and the holiday procession of Caesar, is closely joined. Also in Mary Stuart, after the quarrel with Paulet, comes the exposition, the scene between Mary and Ken- nedy. So in William Tell, after the charming, only too melodramatic opening situation, comes the con- versation of the country people. Now certainly this note, sounded at the begin- ning, is not necessarily a loud unison of the voices of different persons ; brief but deep emotions in the chief characters may very well indicate the first rip- ple of the short waves which has to precede the 120 FREYTAG'S TECHNIQUE OF THE DRAMA. storms of the drama. So in Emilia Galotti, the exposition of the restless agitation of the prince at the work-table goes through the greater beating of waves in the conversation with Conti even into the scene with Marinelli, which contains the exciting force, the news of the impending marriage of Emilia. Similarly but less conveniently in Clavigo, it goes from the conversation at Clavigo's desk, through Mary's dwelling, to the beginning of the action itself, the visit of Beaumarchais to Clavigo. Indeed, the action may arise so gradually that the quiet preserved from the beginning forms an effect- ive background, as in Goethe's Iphigenia. If Shakespeare and the Germans of the earlier times, Sara Sampson, Clavigo have not avoided the changing of scenes in the introduction, their example is not to be imitated on our stage. The exposition should be kept free from anything distracting; its task, to prepare for the action, it best accomplishes if it so proceeds that the first short introductory chord is followed by a well- executed scene which by a quick transition is con- nected with the following scene containing the exciting force. Julius C, 202, 205, 206, 207, 236, 305 Piccolomini 237, 238, 270 Pilsen 203 Play and counter play 1 14 order of parts 169 Shakespeare's 182 Sophocles' and Teutonic 155 spectacle in symmetry of 182 time of acting- . 167, 360, 361 Player, first- -i 49, 154, 158, 178 second 150, 154,158, 178 third -,-150, 154, 1 80, 228, 229 Players, number limited-- 234 of Shakespeare's time - 182 Players and poets -300, 317, 3'9. 321, 355 Plot of Ajax - 176 Antigone 170 Electro. 172 CE ili pus King 171 (Edipus at Colonos 174 Philoctetes .- 177 Trachinian Women 176 and poet 351 Poet as actor and director 342 and audience 354 books 351 character 86, 134 field 342 hero.- --35. 35 1 historian -.67, 266, 274, 347 limit 51 material 346, 347 people 246 plan 351 resources 340 stage -- --343, 362, 363 task _ 31 tragedy 86 work .. 341,344, 354 Poetic energy 253 truth _ 50 Poetics, Aristotle's 5, 6, 101 Poetics, Greek 247 Political history 66 Polydorus 116 Polymnestor - 26 Polynices 170, 175 Pompey 235, 236 Posa 306 Premises, monstrous of Sophocles 309 Presuppositions 117 in Sophocles- -.155, 168, 309 in Teutonic drama 159 Prince of Hamburg, 38, 70, 112, 139, 324 Probability of action . 49 Prolixity -_ 359 Prologue - 115, 168 Prometheus 57, 166 Properties 338 Prose and drama 323, 328 Protagonist 154 Public, influence of 309 Purification --87, 93 Pylades 76 Pyramidal structure, 114, 153, 218, 225 Qualities of action 27 Queen Mab 48 Questenberg, 118, 203, 207, 269 378 INDEX. Raumer... 275 Reaction, beginning of.-- 99 Reaction in poet's mind-- 354 Reading drama 344 Recognition scenes 101, 145, 169 Recha 259 Reflex action 74 Reformation 288 Relief before catastrophe. 136 Religious changes... 292 Repetition of motive 82 Return action 115, 133, 166, 177, 186, 187, 188, 200 Revolution 101,145, 169 Riccault 49 Richard III. ... 27, 41, 1 1 8, 121, 122, 1 86, 229, 244, 256, 276 Richard III 59, 83, 136, 148, 186, 253, 304, 308, 316 Richmond 37 Rise of action 69, 115 scenes of.- 128 Rising movement- 125, 126 rules for 125 Roderigo 83, 121 Roles, celebrated 223 chief 306 collective 162, 341 distribution of- -149, 156, 162 great, limited 304 kinds of 143 length of -- 148 not interchangeable 320 number of 133 of Euripides 283 of second half of play-- 316 subordinate --- 256 Romans 24, 28, 95, 279, 289, 290, 308 Roman stage 195, 343 Romeo and Juliet--?], 30, 76, 82, 99, 1 1 8, 122, 123, 124, 187,258,305, 311 Romeo- -.32, 33, 34, 36, 95, 100, 123, 124, 127, 135, 136, 165, 182, 183, 187, 226, 306, 311, 316 Romulus 338 Rosalind 32 Rudenz 200, 306 Rules, craftsmen's 3 minor 303 Riitli 108, 199 Sapieha -- 240 Sara Sampson 120,260, 261 Sara 259, 260 Saxon 347 Scenes 210, 211 balcony 227 changed relation 224 devices for 241 dialogue 221,223, 22 5 director 212 double 212 ensemble 229-245 battle 244 camp 244 devices 241 difficulties --.232,233, 241 galley- 235 mass 242 pageant - - 241 parliament-- 239, 240 populace- --240, 241 rules for 231, 232 INDEX. 379 Riitli 238, 239 signature _ 237 time of - 234 five parts of 217 in Mary Stuart - 212 jumble in 217 love--- 226-229,278, 298 danger in 228 monologue - 219 number of persons 216 order of parts 213 parallel 82 poets' -- 212 pyramidal form 225 sequence of 133, 353 structure 210 technique -- 223 third person in 228 Scenery 338 shifting 215 Scenic contrasts 81 Scythians 282 Schiller-2, 4, 8, 14, 17, 40, 43, 46, 49, 60, 6 1, 69, 78, 81, 107, no, 132, 195, 208, 220, 227, 236, 240, 242, 259, 262, 263, 265, 268, 269, 271, 272, 298, 306, 316, 324, 341, 348, 354, 356, 360 Bride of Messina - - - 228, 242 Demetrius- -43, 238, 239, 240, 263 Don Carlos 43,46, 348 Love and Intrigue 13, 28, 76, I oo, 107, 1 10, 127, 264, 305 Maid of Orleans-\c), 60, 107, 116, 241 Mary Stuart.. 13, 43, 46, loo, in, 118, 119, 120, 122, 124, 125, 130, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202, 204, 207, 208, 212, 348 Piccolomini, \ 18, 202, 205, 206, 207, 236, 305 Robbers 263, 306 7i>//-.-43, 46, 49. 81, 123, 197, 199, 2OO, 201, 202, 228, 238 Wallenstcin-- .40, 43, 46, 72, 78, 107, 116, 119, 120, 202, 206, 207, 208, 220, 223, 228, 308, 311, 316 Camp 209 Death -.206, 217 Scribe - 341 Semiramis 337 Sequence of scenes 133 Serious drama in Sesina 206 Shakespeare- --7, 8, 25, 27, 29,34,40,41,43,45,46, 48, 58, 59, 62,69,71,81, 82, 83, 107, no, 113, 116, 118, 119, 120, 123, 128, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 193, 196, 200, 227, 228, 235, . 237, 241, 244, 245, 252, 255, 256, 258, 259, 273, 298, 306, 310, 314, 330, 34i, 349, 354, 356, 360 Anthony and Cleopatra 41, 71, 189, 245, 306 Coriolanus-.T.'j, 130, 131, 135, 187, 258 Hamlet 118, 119, 186, 188, 190, 191, 192, 193, 258 Henry IV. 45 3 8o INDEX. Henry V. ..- 26 Henry VI. 27 Henry VIII. 273 Julius C&sar-zj, So, 82, 119, 120, 126, 132, 186, 244, 256 Lear. 27, 45, 107, 129, 186, 1 88, 258, 311 Macbeth- .27, 77, 83, 118, 1 19, 186, 258, 276 Merchant of Venice 83 Othello-- -it,, 27, 83, 100, 107, 121, 122, 123, 130, 258 Richard I I I. -27, 41, 118, 121, 122, 1 86, 229, 244, 256, 276 Romeo and Juliet '.27, 30, 76, 82, 99, 1 1 8, 122, 126, 133, 187,258,305, 311 Timon of A thens - 62 Shakespeare's actors 184 audiences... 183 ardor for heroes 187 change of scenes 185 characters 253 characteristics 186 drama 189 heroes and action 185, 252, 258 method 185, 189, 258 spirits 58 stage - 181 technique 184-193 times 184-194 Shylock 50, 253 Society of Dramatic Auth- ors 364 Sophocles. .7, 8, 25, 42, 43, 47, 75, 81, 91, 92, 98, no, M2, 115, 137, 140, 141, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 153. 155. 157, 158. 160, 163, 166, 168, 169, 173. 174, 176, 178, 179 Ajax..ii2, 153, 154, 156, 158, 161, 162, 176, 177 Antigone-- 107, 137, 153, 154, 155, 158, 170, 311 Electro, 48, 76, 152, 1 72 CEdipus at Colonos- 7, 48, 112, 156, 160, 167, 174 CEdipus, King--\Q\, 107, 155, 171, 178 Philoctetes-ioi, 112, 133, 153. 177, 178 Trachinian Women -\Q\, 153, 154, 176 episodes in 47 Soul processes 39, 104 Spanish 29, 222 Speech and reply 222, 229 Spectacle play in on modern stage 112 tragedyand 113 Spectator and dramatist- - 32 Spirits not dramatic 56 in comedy 57 in Shakespeare 58 Stauffacher 197, 238, 239 Stenzel 275 Stimulation 97 Structure of drama 104 of scenes 210 Struggle, tragic 85 of Greek hero 159 of Teutonic hero 159 Superhuman 55 Supernatural 55 Suppliants -.42, 141 INDEX. 3*' Suspense final 133 force of 135, 137 Swedes 204, 206,221, 311 Swiss 197, 198, 199, 201, 306 Tableaux 317 Tasso..\^, 49, 113, 118, 197, 108, 199, 201, 359 Tasso 197,201,202, 314 Tecmessa .45, 162, 177 Technique 4, 8 not absolute -- i not enough 322 pf versification 329 Tell.... 43, 49, 80, 197, 199, 200, 201, 202,228, 238 Tell 197, 198, 201, 265, 306 Tellheim 260, 262 Templer 260 Terzky 228,237, 273 Testing .. .359 Teucros 153, 162, 177 Teutonic-- --91,94,226,254 Theatre, modern 342 Thebes 103,171, 175 Thekla. -205, 206,221,228, 265 Theseus 158, 165, 175 Thoas .. . 50 Time of action ... 360 Ti/non of Athens . . - 62 Tiresias 152, 158, 171 Tonecolor 328 Trachinian Women- 153, 154, 176 Tragedy 81, 87 Athenian - 140 double 202 Greek 222, 282 influence of _. 87 kind of second in Tragic, what is 7, 84 aggregate effect 94 causal connection 97 force or moment -95, m, "5. '30, 13'. 13 2 in Greek drama 100 in real life 99 narrower sense 94 place of ico scene of 99 two meanings 86 Trilogy.. ..147, 157, 173 Tristan 285 Trochaic tetrameter 325 Two arrangements 105 Two heroes - 128 Tybalt -.33, 34, 76, 08, 99, 126, 127, 136 U Unit, logical -- 213 Unity of action 9,27, 36 place 29 time 29 Unity, false 38 Unusual, the... -- 54 Urians 238 Verona 30 Verse and color -.. 323 and drama 324 dramatic recital -- 330 Vienna 364 Virgin Mary -. 56,60, 61 Voices distributed 244 Volscians 76, 185 382 INDEX. Wallenstein . 107, 116, 202, 206, Camp Death five acts of Wallenstein 203, 204, 220, 265, w 40, 43. 72, 78, 119, 120, 165, 207, 220, 223, 228, 308, 311, 316 209 206, 207 203 -16, 17,40,45, 205, 206, 207, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 306, 316 Walter Furst 198 Weislingen 262 Will and deed 188 Witches in Macbeth .. -60, 188 Women's parts 184 Work, poet and his- 341 not easy 344 Worms 267 Wrangel-204, 206, 207,223, 269,272,311, 314 Wuoton 292 Wurm 127 NOTES. NOTE i, page 18. Even Aristotle comprehended most thoroughly this first part of the poet's work, the fashioning and developing of the poetic idea. If, in comparison with history, he makes poetry the more significant and philosophical, because poetry represents what is common to all men, while history gives an account of the incidental, or special detail ; and because his- tory presents what has happened, while poetry shows how it could have happened, yet we moderns, impressed with the weight and grandeur of historical ideas, must reject his com- parative estimate of the two fundamentally different kinds of composition ; we shall, however, concede the fine distinction in his definition. He indicates, in a sentence immediately follow- ing this and often misunderstood, the process of idealization. He says, IX., 4 : "That which in poetry is common to human- ity, is produced in this way, the speeches and actions of the characters are made to appear probable and necessary ; and that which is humanly universal poetry works out from the raw material and then gives to the characters appropriate names," whether using those already at hand in the raw material or inventing new ones. (Buckley's translation is as follows: But universal consists indeed in relating or performing certain things which happen to a man of a certain description, either probably or necessarily, to which the aim of poetry is directed in giving names.) Aristotle was of the opinion, too, that a poet would do well at the beginning of his work to place before him- self the material which had attracted him, in a formula stripped of all incidentals, or non-essentials; and he develops this idea more fully in another place, XVII., 6, 7 : "The Iphigenia and the Orestes of the drama are not at all the same as those in the material which came to the poet. For the poet who composed the play it is almost an accident that they bear these names. 383 384 NOTES. Only when the poet has raised his actions and his characters above the incidental, the real, that which has actually happened, and in place of this has put a meaning, a significance which will be generally received, which appears to us probable and neces- sary, only then is he again to make use of color and tone, names and circumstances, from the raw material." Therefore it is also possible that dramas which have been taken from very different realms of material, express, fundamentally, the same meaning, or, as we put it, represent the same poetical idea. This is the thought in the passages cited. NOTE 2, page 22. The few technical terms used in this book must be received by the reader without prejudice and without confusion. In their common use for the last century several of them have passed through many changes of meaning. What is here called action, the material already arranged for the drama (in Aristotle, myth ; in the Latin writers, fa^/e), Less- ing sometimes still calls fable, while the raw material, the praxis or the pragma of Aristotle, he calls action. But Lessing also sometimes uses the word action more correctly, giving it the meaning which it has here. NOTE 3, page 28. As is well known, unity of place is not demanded by Aristotle ; and concerning the uninterrupted con- tinuity of time he says only that tragedy should try as far as possible to limit its action to one course of the sun. Among the Greeks, as may be shown, it was only Sophocles and his school who, in the practice of their art, adhered to what we call the unity of place and of time. And with good reason. The rapid, condensed action of Sophocles, with its regular structure, needed so very short a part of the story or tradition that the events underlying it could frequently occur in the same brief space of a few hours which the representation on the stage required. If Sophocles avoided such a change of scene, as, for example, occurs in ./Eschylus's Eumenides, he had a peculiar reason. We know that he thought much of scenic decoration ; he had introduced a more artistic decoration of the back- ground ; and for his theatrical day he positively needed for the four pieces four great curtains, which with the gigantic pro- portions of the scene at the Acropolis occasioned an immense outlay. A change of the entire background during the repre- NOTES. 385 sentation was not allowable ; and the mere transposition of the periakte, if these had been introduced at all in the time of Sophocles, would be to the taste of an ancient stage director as imperfect an arrangement as the change of side curtains, with- out the change of background, would be to us. It may not be so well known that Shakespeare, who treats time and space with so much freedom, because the fixed architecture of his stage spared him from indicating, or made it easy for him to indicate the change of scenes, presented his pieces on a stage which was the unornamented successor of the Attic proscenium. This proscenium had been gradually transformed by slight changes into the Roman theater, the mystery-platform of the middle ages, and the scaffold of Hans Sachs. On the other hand, the same classical period of the French theater, which so rigidly and anxiously sought to revive the Greek traditions, has bequeathed us the deep, camera-like structure of our stage, which had its origin in the needs of the ballet and the opera. NOTE 4, page 31. The details of the novel, and what Shakespeare changed in it, may be here passed over. NOTE 5, page 46. It is a poor expedient of our stage direc- tors to neutralize or render harmless the weakest of these groups, the Attinghausen family, by cutting their roles as much as possible, and then depreciating them still more by commit- ting them to weak actors. The injury is by this means all the more striking. This play of Schiller's should either be so pre- sented as to produce most completely the effects intended by the author, in which case the three barren roles, Freiherr, Rudenz, Hertha, must be endowed with sufficient force, our actors can thus express their gratitude to the poet who has done so much for them ; or else, the Tell action only should l>e presented as it may be most easily made effective on our stage, and the three roles should be entirely stricken out, a thing that is possible with very slight changes. NOTE 6, page 47. Even in the time of the Greeks the word, episode, had a little history. In the earliest period of the drama it denoted the transition from one choral song to the fol- lowing: then, after the introduction of actors, first, the short speeches, messenger-scenes, dialogues, and so forth, which com- 386 NOTES. prised the transitions and motives for the new moods of the chorus. After the extension of these recited parts the word remained, in the developed drama, as an old designation of any part of the drama which stood between two choral songs. In this meaning it nearly corresponds to our act, or more accur- ately, to our elaborated scene. In the workshop of the Greek poet it became a designation of that part of the action which the poet with free invention inserted as a richer furnishing, as a means of animating his old mythological material ; for instance, in Antigone, that scene between Antigone, Ismene, and Creon, in which the innocent Ismene declares herself an accomplice of her sister. In this signification, an episode might fill the entire interval between two choral songs ; but as a rule it was shorter. Its places were generally in the rising action, only occasionally in the return action our second, and fourth act. Because with this meaning it denoted little portions of the action, which might indeed have originated in the most vital necessities of the drama, but which were not indispensable for the connection of the events ; and because since Euripides, poets have sought more and more frequently for effect-scenes which stood in very loose connection with the idea and the action, there came to be attached to the word this secondary meaning of an unmotived and arbitrary insertion. In The Poetics the word is used in all of the three meanings: in XII., 5, it is a stage-manager's term; in XVII., 8-10, it is a technical expression of the poet; in X., 3, it has its secondary significance. NOTE 7, page 72. The structure of the drama is disturbed by this irregularity in the ordering of the action, which appears like a relapse into the old customs of the English popular thea- ter. The action offered in the material and the idea was as follows : Act I. Antony at Cleopatra's, and his separation from her. Act II. Reconciliation with Caesar, and restoration to power. Act III. Return to the Egyptian woman, with cli- max. Act IV. Sacrifice of principle, flight, and last struggle. Act V. Catastrophe of Antony and of Cleopatra. But the deviation of Shakespeare's play from the regular structure is for a more profound reason. The inner life of the debauched Antony possessed no great wealth, and in its new infatuation offered the poet little that was attractive. But his darling NOTES. 387 dramatic figure, Cleopatra, in the development of which he had evinced his consummate, masterly art, was not a character adapted to great dramatic emotion and excitement ; the various scenes in which she appears full of passionate demeanor with- out passion, resemble brilliant variations of the same theme. In her relations with Antony she is portrayed just often enough and from the most diverse points of view to present a rich pic- ture of the vixenish coquette. The return of Antony gave the poet no new task with respect to her. On the other hand, the exaltation of this character in a desperate situation, under the fear of death, was a fascinating subject for him, and to a certain extent rightly so; for herein was an opportunity for a most peculiar, gradual intensification. Shakespeare, then, sacrificed to these scenes a part of the action. He threw together the climax and the return action, indicating them in little scenes, and accorded to the catastrophe two acts. For the aggregate effect of the play, this is a disadvantage. We are indebted to him, however, for the scene of Cleopatra's death in the monu- ment, of all that is extraordinary in Shakespeare, perhaps the most astonishing. That the accessory persons, Octavianus and his sister, just at the summit of the action, were more important to the poet than his chief person, is perhaps due to the fact that to the poet in advanced life, any single person with his joy and his sorrow must seem small and insignificant, while the poet was contemplating, prophetically and reverentially, the historical and established order of things. NOTE 8, page 83. The scene is, however, by no means to be omitted, as indeed happens. Moreover, an abbreviation must make prominent the contrast with the first, the imperial hardness of the tyrant, the lurking hostility of the mother, and Richard's deception by a woman whom he despises. If our stage directors would not endure more, they might tolerate the following: Of the lines in the passage beginning, Stay, madam, I must speak a word with you, and extending to the end of the scene, to Richard's words, Bear her my true-love's kiss; and so farewell, numbered consecutively from 198 to 436, Globe Edition, the fol- lowing lines might remain: 198-201; 203-206; 251-256; 257; 388 NOTES. 293-298; 300; 301 ; 310, 311; 320-325; 328; 330; 340-357; 407- 418; 420; 422-424; 433-43 6 - NOTE 9, page 101. Both of these expressions of the craft are still occasionally misunderstood. Peripeteia does not always denote the last part of the action from the climax downward, which in Aristotle is called Katabasis ; but it is only what is here called "tragic force," a single scene-effect, sometimes only a part of a scene. The chapter on the Anangorisis, how- ever, one of the most instructive in the Poetics, because it affords a glimpse into the craftsman's method of poetic work, once appeared to the publishers as not authentic. NOTE 10, page 147. That the choruses did not, as a rule, rush in and off again, but claimed a good share of the time, may be inferred from the fact that in Sophocles sometimes a brief chorus fills up the time which the player needs to go behind the scenes to change his costume, or to pass from his door to the side-entrance, through which he must enter in a new role. Thirteen lines and two strophes of a little chorus suffice for the deuteragonist whose exit, as Jocasta, has been made through the back-door, to change costume and reappear upon the stage as shepherd from the field side. Upon the stage of the Acropolis this was no little distance. NOTE ii, page 147. That a favorite order of presentation was from the gloomy, the horrible, to the brighter and more cheerful, we may infer from the circumstance that Antigone and Electro, were first pieces of the day. This is known from Antigone not only by the first choral-song, the first beautiful strophe of which is a morning song, but also from the character of the action which gives to the great role of the pathos actor only the first half of the piece, and thus lays the center of gravity toward the beginning. In the most beautiful poem it would not have been advisable to entrust to the so-little- esteemed third actor (who, nevertheless, is sometimes shown a preference by Sophocles) the closing effects of the last piece, so important in securing the decision of the judges. In the prologue of Electra, also, the rising sun and the festal Bacchic costume are mentioned. The beautiful, broadly elaborated situation in the prologue of King QLdipus and the structure of NOTES. 389 Ajax, the center of gravity of which lies in the first half, and which distinctly reveals the early morning, seem to point to these as first pieces. The Trachinian Women probably en- tered the contest as a middle piece ; (Ettiflus 'at Colonos, with its magnificent conclusion, and Philoctetes with its splendid pathos role and reconciling conclusion, as closing pieces. The conjectures which are based upon the technical character of the pieces, have at least more probability than conjectures which are drawn from a comparison or collation of dramas which have been preserved, with such as have not been. NOTE 12, page 148. Six pieces of Sophocles contain an average of about 1,118 verses, exclusive of the speeches and songs of the chorus. Only (Edipus at Colonos is longer. If, again, the number of verses of each of the three players is on the average about equal, the tragedies of a day, together with a burlesque of the length of The Cyclops (about 500 verses for three players) would give to each player a total of about 1,300 verses. But the task of the first player was already, on account of the affecting pathos scenes and on account of the songs, dis- proportionately greater. Besides, much more must be expected from him. If in the three pieces of Sophocles in which the hero suffers from a disease inflicted by the gods (Ajax, The Trachin- ian Women, Philoctetes} the parts of the first player are summed up, (Ajax, Teucros, Heracles, Lichas, Philoctetes) there will be about 1,440 verses; and with the burlesque, there will be about 1,600 verses: and there is the effort required to carry through six roles and sing about six songs. There is no doubt that, in the composition of his tetralogies, Sophocles gave attention to the pauses for rest for his three players. Each last tragedy demanded the most powerful effort ; and it must also, as a rule, have demanded most from the first actor. That The Trachin- ian Women was not a third piece may be inferred from the fact that in it the second actor had the chief role. NOTE 13, page 153. In the extant plays of Sophocles, the assignment of roles among the three actors is as follows, Pro- tagonist, Deuteragonist, Tritagonist, being indicated by the numbers i, 2, 3, respectively: King (Edipus: i, (Edipus. 2, Priest, Jocasta, Shepherd, Messenger of the catastrophe. 3, Creon, Tiresias, Messenger. 390 NOTES. CEdipus at Colonos : i, CEdipus, Messenger of the catas- trophe. 2, Antigone, *Theseus (in the climax scene). 3, Colon- ians, Ismene, Theseus (in the other scenes), Creon, Polynices. Antigone: *i, Antigone, Tiresias, Messenger of the catas- trophe. 2, Ismene, Watchman, Haemon, *Eurydice, Servant. 3, Creon. The Trachinian Women: i, *Maid-servant, Lichas, Hera- cles. 2, Deianeira, Nurse (as messenger of the catastrophe), Old man. 3, Hyllos, Messenger. Ajax : i. Ajax, Teucros. 2, Odysseus, Tecmessa. 3, Athene, Messenger, Menelaus, Agamemnon. Philoctetes : i, Philoctetes. 2, Neoptolemos. 3, Odysseus, Merchant, Heracles. Electra : i, Electra. 2, Warden, Chrysothemis, ^tgisthos. 3, Orestes, Clytemnestra. The roles marked * are uncertain. Besides the three act- ors, the Attic stage always had several accessory players for dumb-show roles : thus in Electra, Pylades ; in The Trachin- ian Women, the especially distinguished role of lole in which perhaps Sophocles would present to the public a young actor whom he esteemed. It is probable that these accessory players sometimes relieved the actors of less important subordinate roles, for example, in Antigone, Eurydice, which is treated very briefly ; and in The Trachinian Women, the maid-servant of the prologue. How else could they test their voices and their powers ? Such aid as was rendered by characters dis- guised from the audience by masks, was not reckoned playing. The accessory actors were also needed as representatives of the three players upon the stage, if the presence of a mask was desirable in a scene, and the player of this scene must at the same time assume another role ; then the accessory player fig- ured in like costume and the required mask, as a rule without saying any lines; but sometimes single lines must be given him. Thus Ismene, in the second half of CEdipus at Colonos, is represented by an accessory player, while the player himself represents Theseus and Polynices. This piece has the peculiar- ity that at least at the climax, one scene of Theseus is presented by the second actor, the player of Antigone, while the remain- ing scenes of this role are presented by the third actor. If the NOTI.S. 391 player had practiced the voice, and so forth, this substitution for a single scene di and down in her mask. If even in this play, a fourth actor had taken part, in any role of importance, some account would have come to us of what even at that time would have been a striking innovation. NOTE 14, page 155. Upon our stage every play has one first hero, but more chief roles; not frequently is one of these more ample and of deeper interest than that of the first hero, as, for example, the role of Falstaff in Henry IV. NOTE 15, page 156. The presuppositions of The Trachin- ian Women are, so far as Deianeira is concerned, very simple; but Heracles is the first hero, ami his preparation for being received among the gods was the master-stroke of the play. NOTE 16, page 156. It is impossible just in Sophocles, from the extant names of lost plays and from scattered verses, to come to any conclusion as to the contents of the plays. What one might think from the tradition to be the contents of the play, could often prove to be only the contents of the prologue. NOTE 17, page 178. Prologue: Neoptolemos, Odysseus. Chorus and Neoptolemos in Antiphone II. Messenger scene with recognition, Philoctetes, Neoptolemos. 2. Messenger scene, The same, and Merchant. 3. Recognition scene (of the bow), Philoctetes, Neoptolemos. Choral song Climax, i. Double pathos scene, Philoctetes, Neoptolemos. Tragic Force, 2. Dialogue scene, The same, Odysseus. 39 2 NOTES. Chorus and Philoctetes in Antiphone i. Dialogue scene, Neoptolemos, Odysseus. r . 2. Dialogue scene, Philoctetes, Neoptolemos; .mil afterward Odysseus. h 3' Announcement and conclusion, Philoctetes, Neoptolemos, Heracles. NOTE 1 8, page 183. The "balcony scene" belongs, on our stage, at the end of the first act, not in the second ; but this makes the first act disproportionately long. It is a disadvant- age that our (German) division of plays often makes a break in the action where a rapid movement is demanded, or only a very short interruption is allowed. NOTE 19, page 208. Let this structure be represented by means of lines. (See page 115.) 1. A DRAMA, such as did not lie in Schiller's plan. Idea: A perfidious general endeavors to make the army desert its commander, but is deserted by his soldiers and put to death. a. Exciting force: inciting to treason. b. Rising action : certain stipulations with the enemy. c. Climax : apparent success ; the subtly sought signature of the generals. d. Return action : the conscience of the army is awakened. e. Catastrophe : death of the general. 2. SCHILLER'S Wallenstein without The Piccolomini. Idea : Through excessive power, intrigues of opponents, and his own proud heart, a general is betrayed into treason ; he seeks to make the army desert its commander, etc. In this a, b, c, rising action to climax ; inner struggles and temptations. a. Questenberg in camp, and separation from emperor. b. Testing the generals ; banquet scene. c. Climax : the first act of treason ; for example, the treating with Wrangel. cd. Attempts to mislead the army. d. Return action : the conscience of the soldiers is awak- ened. e. Catastrophe : death of Wallenstein. NOTES. 393 A 3. THK Dorm.K DRAMA. A. The Piccolomini, indicated by the dotted lines. H. li'ti//i-nsti-in's Death, indicated by plain lines. aa. The two exciting forces, a', the gen- erals and Questen- bcrg, for the com- bined action ; a-, Max's and Thekla's arrival for The Pic- coloHiini. cc. The two climaxes, c, release of Max from Octavio, at the same time, catastrophe of The Piccolomini ; c 2 , Wallenstein and Wrangel, at the same time the excit- ing force of \\ r allcnslcin s Death. ee. The two concluding catastrophes, e', of the lovers, and e*, of Wallenstein. Further, b, the love scene between Max and Thekla is the climax of The Piccolomini ; f and g are the scenes interwoven from \Vallenstein s Death : audience of Questenberg, and banquet, the second and fourth acts of The Piccolomini ; h, d, and e' are scenes interwoven from The Piccolomini and Wallenstein s Death : Octavio's intrigue, the departure of Max, the announcement of his death, together with Thekla's flight, the second, third, and fourth acts, d, is the scene of the cuirassiers, at the same time the climax of the second drama. NOTE 20, page 212. In printing our plays, it frequently happens that within acts, only those scenes are set off and num- bered which demand a shifting of scenery. The correct method, however, would be to count and number the scenes within an act according to their order of succession ; and where a change of scenery is necessary, and must be indicated, add to the cur- rent scene number the word "change," and indicate the charac- ter of the new stage setting. /, i! l; I J NOTES. NOTE 21, page 237. The act is in two parts. The first preparatory part contains three short dramatic components : the entrance of Max, the submitting of the forged documents by the intriguers, Buttler's connection with them. At this point the great conclusion begins, introduced by the conversa- tion of the servants. The carousing generals must not be seen during the entire act in the middle and back ground : the stage presents to better advantage an ante-room of the banquet hall, separated from this by pillars and a rear wall, so that the com- pany, previous to its entrance at the close, is seen only indis- tinctly and only an occasional convenient call and movement of groups are noticed. In Wallenstein, Schiller was still a care- less stage director; but from the date of that play he became more careful in stage arrangement. Among the peculiarities of clear portrayal in this scene, belongs the unfeeling degradation of Max. It is wonderfully repeated by Kleist in The Prince of Hamburg. Shakespeare does not characterize dreamers by their silence, but by their distracted and yet profound speeches. NOTE 22, page 308. Of course Emilia Galotti must be represented in the costume of the time, 1772. The piece demands another consideration in acting. From the third act, the curtain must not be dropped for pauses between acts ; and these should be very short. NOTE 23, page 361. Twenty of our great dramas have the following lengths in verses : Don Carlos - 5,471 Othello . - - 3,*33 Maria Stuart - 3,927 Coriolanus - 3,124 Wallenstein' s Death - 3,865 Romeo and Juliet 2,979 Nathan the Wise - 3,847 Bride of Messina - 2,845 Hamlet - - - 3,715 The Piccolo-mini - 2,669 Richard III. - - 3,603 Merchant of Venice 2,600 Torqu'ato Tasso - 3,453 Julius Ccesar - - 2,590 Maid of Orleans - 3,394 Iphigenia - - 2,174 William Tell - - 3,286 Macbeth - - - 2,116 King Lear - - 3,255 Prince of Hamburg 1.854 These figures do not pretend to absolute correctness, since the incomplete verses are to be deducted ; and the prose pas- sages, in which Shakespeare is especially rich, admit of only a ru NOTES. 395 rough estimate. The prose plays, Emilia Galotti, Claingo. I:giont, /.<'7v e, enumerated above, only the last three can he presented entire, without that abbreviation which is necessary on other grounds. It would require six hours to play all of Don Carlos, which in length exceeds all bounds. Since \\'allfii$teins Camp together with the lyric lines has 1,105 rapid verses, the three parts of the dramatic poem, \\'alli /is/e-itt, contain 7,639 verses ; and their representation on the stage, the same day, would require about the same time as the ObtramHifrgtiu Passion Play. No single chief role is so comprehensive that it would place an excessive burden upon an actor to carry it through in a single day. ,, . ill : : : ' -V 1