The Changing Drama: Contributions and Tendencies |
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achieved acter action actor actually Aristotle artist audience Brieux Brunetière char character comedy conception conflict consciousness contemporary drama conventions creative Doll's House dram drama of to-day dramatic art dramatic criticism dramatist effect emotions Emperor and Galilean employed epoch esthetic evolution exhibit expression force Galsworthy genius Greek Hauptmann Hedda Gabler Henrik Ibsen hero human Ibsen ideal ideas illusion imagination indispensable individual influence intellectual interpretation John Gabriel Borkman justice L'Intruse laws less literary species literature Little Eyolf Maeterlinck matic means ment modern drama modern dramatist Molière moral natural novel Oscar Wilde passions play playhouse poetic poetic justice principle produced protagonist reader realize rôle says scene scientific sense sentiment Shakespeare Shaw Shaw's social dramas society soliloquy spectator spirit stage directions Strindberg technic theater theatrical theory thought three unities tion tive tragedy treatment true unity of impression Warren's Profession Wilde words
Popular passages
Page 142 - A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents — he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect.
Page 161 - Tis a great mistake in us to believe the French present no part of the action on the stage; every alteration or crossing of a design, every new-sprung passion and turn of it is a part of the action, and much the noblest, except we conceive nothing to be action till the players come to blows...
Page 32 - The great artist is he who goes a step beyond the demand, and, by supplying works of a higher beauty and a higher interest than have yet been perceived, succeeds after a brief struggle with its strangeness, in adding this fresh extension of sense to the heritage of the race.
Page 270 - It is seldom that cries are heard now; bloodshed is rare, and tears not often seen. It is in a small room, round a table, close to the fire, that the joys and sorrows of mankind are decided. We suffer, or make others suffer, we love, we die, there in our corner; and it were the strangest chance should a door or a window suddenly, for an instant, fly open, beneath the pressure of extraordinary despair or rejoicing.
Page 103 - To set before the public no cut-and-dried codes, but the phenomena of life and character, selected and combined, but not distorted, by the dramatist's outlook, set down without fear, favor, or prejudice, leaving the public to draw such poor moral as nature may afford.
Page 27 - The true,' to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as 'the right' is only the expedient in the way of our behaving.
Page 149 - Now character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse. Dramatic action, therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character: character comes in as subsidiary to the actions. Hence the incidents and the plot are the end of a tragedy; and the end is the chief thing of all.
Page 231 - A spacious, handsome, and tastefully furnished drawing-room, decorated in dark colours. In the back, a wide doorway with curtains drawn back, leading into a smaller room decorated in the same style as the drawing-room. In the right-hand wall of the front room, a folding door leading out to the hall. In the opposite wall, on the left, a glass door, also with curtains drawn back. Through the panes can be seen part of a veranda outside, and trees covered with autumn foliage.
Page 39 - All passes. ART alone Enduring stays to us: The Bust out-lasts the throne — The Coin, Tiberius; Even the gods must go; Only the lofty Rhyme Not countless years o'erthrow — Not long array of time.