Dramatic Criticism

DRAMATIC CRITICISM extends from dramatic theory on the one hand to theatrical criticism on the other. Its founder was Aristotle, whose Poetics (c. 325 B.c.) laid down, miraculously for its time, the basis of all dramatic theory. His definition of tragedy as "an imitation of an action that • is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude . . . in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear affecting the proper purgation of these emotions" lies behind all subsequent discussion. For comedy the Tractcitus Coislinianus, conjecturally related to Aris totle, gives an analysis that can be supported from Aristophanes, Shakespeare and Moliere. Roman theory is represented by Horace's Ars Poetica (c. 10 B.e.), a clever and superficial work suggesting "good sense," entertainment combined with instruction and a five act division, as the road to success. Horace first, and Aristotle when he was accessible, formed the basis of Renaissance criticism, and ultimately of modern theory. Ancient dramatic criticism in action may be seen at its most amusing in Aristoph anes' Frogs. Mediaeval theory was in the main concerned with the still popular formal distinction between tragedy, with its unhappy, and comedy with its cheerful, ending. Dante calls his epic a Divine Comedy because "in its beginning it is horrible and foul, because it is Hell; in its ending, fortunate, desirable, and joyful, because it is Paradise." With the Renaissance the rediscovery of Aristotle's Poetics gave a new and fierce life to dramatic discussion. A Latin transla tion by Valla appeared in 1498, the editio princeps of the Greek text in 1508, Robertelli's critical edition in 1548, and an Italian translation, the first in any modern tongue, in 1549• Aristotle's cryptic lecture notes needed clarifying, and most commentators loyally interpreted, altered and expanded in accordance with contemporary theatrical conditions. Plays were composed on Aristotelian principles. Theorists were intimidated, but practical men revolted. Dryden later put the matter at its clearest. "It is not enough that Aristotle has said so, for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides; and if he had seen ours, might have changed his mind." Ludovico Castelvetro was the powerful and individual founder of the Renaissance neo classical doctrine, which survived until the Romantic movements of the mid-18th, century. In his Aristotelian commentary cf 157o he insisted that plays must be acted and not read, that tragedy is concerned with kings and public characters, and comedy with low and private people, that tragedy might have either a happy or miserable end, as well as comedy, and in so doing looked back, unwittingly, to Plato's concluding comment in his Symposium "that the genius of comedy was the same with that of tragedy," and forward to the practice of Chekhov, Benavente and Pirandello. His farthest reaching contribution was the formulation of the doctrine of the three unities. Aristotle has only the unity of action, and a part of that of time. Castelvetro gave definite shape to the unities of action, time and place.

The Age of Shakespeare.

On the threshold of the great national dramas of England and Spain, Renaissance theory was epitomized in Sidney's Defence of Poesie and in Cervan tes' Don Quixote (1605). But the world of practice became in sistent, and Shakespeare's point of view in England was matched by Lope de Vega's New Art of Writing Plays (1609) in which, on the experience gained from writing 483 plays, he put forward the first classic of box-office criticism. "Since the crowd pays for the comedies, it is fitting to talk foolishly to it to satisfy its taste," give plenty of variety, let women wear men's costumes, keep up the suspense and mystery to the last scene, and don't bore your audience with pregnant silences. There is surprisingly little criticism in the Elizabethans. Ben Jonson's is largely second-hand, and Shakespeare's advice on acting, bold and vivid as it is, has Italian forerunners.

With the 17th century, the age of criticism, important changes occur. There was a vast body of drama to discuss. Theatre-going became fashionable, and coffee-house and bookshop comment was a matter of course. Pepys's Diary illustrates the tone of lay criticism. In France, Chapelain, the Abbe D'Aubignac, Racine, and above all Corneille, contributed to serious theory. Corneille, in his Discours and Examens of 166o, for which he claimed "50 years of practical experience of the theatre," took up the problems of decorum, verisimilitude, and the three unities, which had already occupied Castelvetro, and gave them new and live inter pretation. It was Corneille's alertness of mind and not his dull po sition, to please according to the rules, that stimulated Dryden to his Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668) and his prefaces modelled after Corneille's Examens. Dryden, as befits an individual Eng lishman, was torn between the formalist or "good sense" view con tinued by Boileau and Rapin in France, and Milton and Rymer in England, and the saner view based on practice, of which he was perhaps the only representative. His views on tragicomedy and on character-drawing, by giving chapter and verse, laid the founda tion of modern criticism in England, and his definition of action foreshadowed something of Ibsen's attitude. For comedy, Moliere in his scanty utterances, and Congreve, in his Concerning Humour in Comedy (1696), express urbanely what can be more robustly gathered from their works.

The 18th Century.

With the decline of drama, adjacent criticism, largely of morals and of theatrical art, becomes more insistent. Jeremy Collier's Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698) is an important landmark, and Colley Cibber's Apology (174o) contains some of our earliest and finest descriptions of acting. The i 7th century was the age of the fash ionable, Baroque theatre, the 18th the age of great or much applauded actors. Diderot's Paradoxe sur le comedien (not pub lished till 183o), and Lichtenberg's descriptions of Garrick, not only exemplify the interest in acting, but, together with Lessing's Hamburgische Dramaturgie (1767-68) give proof of the growing international interest already shown by St. Evremond and Vol taire. The chief contributions of the 18th century are the flood of Shakespearian criticism and the spread of the theatrical periodical. In Germany alone 133 periodicals have been traced between the Hamburgische Dramaturgie and the end of the 18th century. Lessing, leaning heavily on English example, did much to over throw French post-Cartesian standards in favour of Shakespearian grandeur and liberty, and in his Laokoon (1766) gave so powerful a thrust and so rigid an integrity to critical procedure as to earn him a position second to none but Aristotle.

The Romantic rejection of neo-classical dogma in favour of a misty and grandiose Nature, and a grotesque mediaevalism, gave a new dignity to the emotions and their representation. Lessing, Diderot and Schlegel on the Continent, Dr. Johnson (in one out burst against the unities), Lamb, Hazlitt, and above all Coleridge, in England, expressed, more or less ripely, the doctrines of the individual, and from their utterances emerged principles which unfortunately were not exemplified in the new drama. The chief materialization of this activity was the new conception of Hamlet as an amalgam of Byron, Prometheus and Werther. In France alone, with the theory and practice of Victor Hugo (Prefaces to Cromwell, 1827, and Hernani, 183o), was there a satisfactory Romantic drama. Joanna Baillie, with her dramas of the passions, and Kotzebue with his pre-Pirandellian metaphysics, left little impression after their popularity had died down.

The 19th century was dominated by the "well made play" of Scribe and Sardou, and Sarcey was its critical prophet. His Essai d'une esthetique de theatre (1876) discusses the principles by which, for the average audience, reality is replaced by illusion. The newer schools of Naturalism and Realism endeavoured to restore reality to the theatre, and criticism followed in their wake. Zola wrote much on the theatre and wished his characters to live rather than perform. Brunetiere's La Loi du theatre (1894) in troduced a new topic of discussion. "In drama or farce what we ask of the theatre is the spectacle of a will striving towards a goal and conscious of the means which it employs." In Germany Hebbel and Freytag contributed to non-European movements. Ibsen's practice rendered theory unnecessary. The best comments for English readers can be found in C. E. Montague's Dramatic Values (1911) and the prefaces and writings of Bernard Shaw.

Theories of the aoth century follow dramatic fashions. Most harm, perhaps, has been done by the writings in which Maeter linck invites us "to draw nearer to the spheres" in which echoes and whispers and silences reign. Theory has, for the most part, been side-tracked into discussion of scenery, or into the phil osophical abstractions of Pirandello and Benavente. Expression ism has not yet found its critic. Its theory must be sought in Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy (1877) and in the writings of Strind berg and Wedekind.

addition to works mentioned in the article, see Barrett H. Clark, European Theories of the Drama (1919) ; J. E. Spingarn, Literary Criticism in the Renaissance (1908) ; H. J. Chaytor (ed.), Dramatic Theory in Spain (1925) ; D. Klein, Literary Criticism from the Elizabethan Dramatists (191o) ; F. Michael, Die Anfdnge der Theaterkritik in Deutschland (1918) ; W. Folkierski, Entre le Classi cisme et le Romantisme (1925). (J. Is.)