In Ireland the Celtic renaissance resulted in the establishment of a literary theatre and the appearance of a national drama distinguished by the plays of Yeats, Synge and a group of en terprising lesser dramatists. In Russia, Tolstoi, Gorky and other novelists have enriched the drama, and the stage has attracted in Andreyev a writer of fantastic but powerful originality. In Scandinavia Ibsen's pessimism has been car ried on in the morbid work of Strindberg, who may perhaps be credited with bringing to the fore one of the characteristic dramatic forms of the time— the one-act play. In Germany neither Sudermann nor Hauptmann has quite realized his early promise, and in men like Fulda and Wedekind, or in the Austrian, Schnitzler, it is difficult to discover any notable advance. In French, however, among a multi tude of clever and intellectual playmakers there are at least three of great international in fluence — Brieux, Rostand and the Belgian Maeterlinck. Brieux is a propagandist who sac rifices art to moral causes, and to special causes at that, but he has succeeded in stirring the world. Rostand and Maeterlinck are romanticists, and the former by his poetic virtuosity, and the latter by the versatility of his theatrical experiments, have done much to maintain romance and fantasy on the modern stage. The problems of sex and the disasters of love continue to be the chief themes of continental drama, and this preoccupation with a neurotic eroticism finds its most sensational exponent in the Italian D'Annunzio, who mingles great lyrical beauty with abnormal brutality. In Spain the chief figure has been Echergaray, whose melodramatic and rhetorical romanticism was tinctured in his later works by Ibsen-like sym bolism; but a swarm of plays are maintaining the popularity of the threatres.
In England Jones and Pinero, who were among the first to feel the inspiration of Ibsen, have continued to write copiously; and brilliant studies of satire and contemporary manners have been contributed by Galsworthy and Bern ard Shaw, while romance and sentiment have found a notable spokesman in Barrie. Shaw's plays have been as successful in Germany as in England; and all three dramatists have found an enthusiastic public on this side of the ocean.
In the United States no dramatist of interna tional eminence has emerged, but the individual plays of Thomas, Gillette, Sheldon, Walter, Moody, Mackaye and others have given evi dence that the new methods and ideas are at work. There are many signs that America will take an active part in the further advances which seem sure to distinguish the drama of the 20th century.
For criticism of dramatic technic and theory: Schlegel, 'Lectures on Dra matic Art and literature> (English translation, London 1846) ; Freytag, 'The Technique of the Drama> (English translation, 1895) ; Price, 'The Technique of the Drama> (New York 1892) ; Archer, 'Play-Making' (1913) ; Hamil ton, W., 'Studies in Stagecraft' (1914) ; Matthews, 'A Study of the Drama> (1910); Faguet, Wrame ancien, drame moderne> (Paris 1898) ; Hennequin, 'The Art of Playwriting> (Boston 1890). For the history of the drama: Creizenach,. W.,
des neueren Dramas' (4 vols., 1893-1903, still incomplete, but the best work on the modern drama) ; Ward, A. W., 'A History of English Dramatic Literature> (new ed., 1899) ; Schelling, 'Eliza bethan Drama' (2 vols., 1908) ; Thorndike, 'Shakespeare's Theatre> (1916) ; Haigh, (The Attic Theatre> (new ed., 1E98) ; Haigh, 'The Tragic Drama of the Greeks> (Oxford 1896) d'Ancona,