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DRAMA (literally "action," from Gr. S...

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 507 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DRAMA (literally "See also:action," from Gr. See also:Snail, See also:act or do)  , the See also:term applied to those productions of See also:Art which imitate or, to use a more See also:modern term, " represent " See also:action by introducing the personages taking See also:part in them as real, and as employed in the action itself . There are numerous varieties of the See also:drama., differing more or less widely from one another, both as to the See also:objects imitated and as to the means used in the See also:process . But they all agree in the method or manner which is essential to the drama and to dramatic art, namely, See also:imitation in the way of action . The See also:function of all Art being to give See also:pleasure by See also:representation (see See also:FINE ARTS), it is clear that what is distinctive of any one See also:branch or See also:form must be the manner in which this function is performed by it . In the epos, for instance, the method or manner is narrative, and even when See also:Odysseus tells of his action, he is not acting . I . THEORY OF THE DRAMA, AND DRAMATIC ART The first step towards the drama is the See also:assumption of See also:character, whether real or fictitious . It is caused by the See also:desire, inseparable odR9a of from human nature, to give expression to feelings and the drama. ideas . These See also:man 'expresses not only by See also:sound and gesture, like other animals, and by speech significant by its delivery as well as. by its purport, but also by imitation superadded to these . To imitate, says See also:Aristotle, is instinctive in man from his See also:infancy, and no pleasure is more universal than that which is given by imitation . Inasmuch as the aid of some sort of See also:dress or decoration is usually at See also:hand, while the See also:accompaniment of See also:dance or See also:song, or other See also:music, naturally suggests itself, especially on joyous or See also:solemn occasions, we find that this preliminary step is taken among all peoples, however See also:primitive or remote . But it does not follow, as is often assumed, that they possess a drama in germ .

Boys playing at soldiers, or men walking in a See also:

pageant—a shoemaker's See also:holiday in See also:ribbons and See also:flowers, or a See also:Shetland See also:sword-dance—none of these is in itself a drama . This is not reached till the imitation or representation extends to action . An action which is to See also:present itself as such to human minds must enable them to recognize in it a See also:procedure from cause to Dramatic effect . This of course means, neither that the cause action. suggested must be the final cause, nor that the result shown forth need pretend to be the ultimate result . We look upon an action as ended when the purpose with which it began is shown to have been gained or frustrated; and we trace the beginning of an action back to the human will that set it on See also:foot—though this will may be in bondage to a higher or stronger will, or to See also:fate, in any or all of its purposes . Without an action in the sense stated—without a See also:plot,,in a word—there can be no drama . But the very simplest action will satisfy the dramatic test; a See also:mystery representing the See also:story of See also:Cain and See also:Abel without a deviation from the See also:simple biblical narrative, a See also:farce exhibiting the stalest See also:trick played by designing sobriety upon oblivious See also:drunkenness, may each of them be a See also:complete drama . But even to this point, the imitation of action by action in however crude a form, not all peoples have advanced . But after this second step has been taken, it only remains for the drama to assume a form regulated by certain See also:literary See also:laws, in See also:order that it may become a branch of dramatic literature . Such a literature, needless to say, only a limited number of nations has come to possess; and, while some are to be found that have, or have had, a drama with-out a dramatic literature, it is quite conceivable that a nation should continue in See also:possession of the former after having ceased to cultivate the latter . It is self-evident that no drama which forms part of a dramatic literature can ignore the use of speech; and however closely music, dancing and decoration may See also:associate themselves with particular forms or phases of the drama, their aid cannot be more than See also:adventitious . As a See also:matter of fact, the beginnings of dramatic See also:composition are, in the See also:history of such literatures as are well known to us, preceded by the earlier stages in the growth of the lyric and epic forms of See also:poetry, or by one of these at all events; .and it is in the continuation of both that the drama in its literary form takes its origin in those instances which See also:lie open to our study .

While the aid of all other arts—even, strictly speaking, the aide of the literary art—is merely an See also:

accident, the co-operation of the art of acting is indispensable to that of the drama . The dra-The dramatic writer may have reasons for preferring to matic and leave the See also:imagination of his reader to See also:supply the the his-See also:absence of this co-operation; but, though the term trioah: " literary drama " is freely used of See also:works kept away from the See also:stage, it is in truth either a misnomer or a self-condemnation . It is true that the actor only temporarily interprets, and sometimes misinterprets, the dramatist, while occasionally he reveals dramatic possibilities in a character or situation which remained hidden from their literary inventor . But this only shows that the courses of the dramatic and the histrionic arts do not run parallel; it does not contradict the fact that their See also:conjunction is, on the one See also:side as well as on the other, indispensable . No drama is more than potentially such till it is acted . To See also:essay, whether in a brief See also:summary or in more or less elaborate detail, a statement of the See also:main laws of the drama, has often been regarded as a superfluous, not to say, futile effort . But the laws of which it is proposed to give Laws and of of some indication here are not so much those which any the drama particular literature or See also:period has chosen to set up and follow, as those abstracted by See also:criticism, in pursuit of its own See also:free See also:comparative method, from the process that repeats itself in every drama adequately See also:meeting the demands upon it . Aristotle, whom we still justly See also:revere as the originator of the theory of the drama, and thus its See also:great vop.oOEr,7s, was, no doubt, in his See also:practical knowledge of it, confined to its See also:Greek examples, yet his See also:object was not to produce another See also:generation of great See also:Attic tragedians, but rather to show how it was by following the necessary laws of their art that the great masters, true to them-selves and to their See also:artistic ends, had achieved what they had achieved . Still more distinctly was such the aim of the greatest modern See also:critical writer on the drama, Leasing, whose See also:chief See also:design was to combat false dramatic theories and to overthrow laws demonstrated by him to be artificial inventions, unreal figments . He proved, what before him had only been suspected, that See also:Shakespeare, though in hopeless conflict with certain rules dating from the siecle de See also:Louis XI V, was not in conflict with those laws of the drama which are of its very essence, and that, accordingly, if Shakespeare and the rules in question could not be harmonized, it was only so much the worse for the rules . To illustrate from great works, and expound with their aid, the organic processes of the art to which they belong, is not only amcng the highest, it is also one of the most useful functions of literary and artistic criticism . Nor is there, in one sense at least, any finality about it .

Neither the great authorities on dramatic theory nor the resolute and acute apologists of more or less transitory phases of the drama —See also:

Corneille, See also:Dryden and many later successors—have exhausted the statement of the means which the drama has proved, or may prove, capable of employing . The multitude of technical terms and formulae which has gathered See also:round the practice of the most living and the most Protean of arts has at no See also:time seriously interfered with the operation of creative See also:power . On theotherhand, no dramaturgic theory has (though the See also:attempt has been often enough made) ever succeeded in giving rise to a single dramatic See also:work of enduring value, unless the creative force was there to animate the form . It is therefore the operation of this creative force which we are chiefly interested in noting; and its task begins with the beginning of the dramatist's labours . He must of choice of course start with the choice of a subject; yet it is subject . obvious that the subject is merely the dead material out of which is formed that living something, the action of a See also:play; and it is only in rare instances—far rarer than might at first sight appear—that the subject is as it were self-moulded as a dramatic action . The less experienced a playwright, the more readily will he, as the phrase is, See also:rush at his subject, more especially if it seems to him to possess prima facie dramatic capabilities; and the consequence will be that which usually attends upon a precipitate start . On the other hand, while the quickness of a great dramatist's See also:apprehension is See also:apt to suggest Dramatic literature . to him an See also:infinite number of subjects,.and insight and experience may See also:lead him See also:half instinctively in the direction of suitable themes, it will often be See also:long before in his mind the subject converts itself into the initial conception of the action of a play . To See also:mould a subject—be it a Greek See also:legend, or a portion of a Tudor See also:chronicle, or one out of a See also:hundred See also:Italian tales, or a true story of modern See also:life—into the action or See also:fable of a play, is the See also:primary task of the dramatist, and with this all-important process the creative part of his work really begins . Although his conception may expand or modify itself as he executes it, yet upon the conception the See also:execution must largely depend . The range of subjects open to a dramatist may be as wide as the See also:world itself, or it may be restricted by an endless variety of causes, conven- tions and considerations; and it is quite true that even the greatest dramatists have not always found time for contemplating each subject that occurs to them till the See also:ray is caught which proclaims it a dramatic See also:diamond .

What they had time for, and what only the playwright who entirely misunderstands his art ignores the See also:

necessity of finding time for, is the transformation of the dead material of the subject into the living action of a drama . What is it, then, that makes an action dramatic, and without which no action, whatever maybe its nature—serious or ludicrous, stately or trivial, impetuous as a See also:flame of See also:fire, or See also:light Unity of as a western See also:breeze—can be so described ? The See also:answer action . to this question can only suggest itself from an attempt to ascertain the laws which determine the nature of all actions corresponding to this description . The first of the laws in question is in so far the most noteworthy among them that it has been the most amply discussed and the most pertinaciously misunderstood . This is the See also:law which requires that a dramatic action should be one—that it should possess unity . What in the subject of a drama is merely an approximate or supposititious, must in its action be an actual unity; and it is indeed this requirement which constitutes the most arduous part of the task of transforming subject into action . There is of course no actual unity in any See also:group of events in human life which we may choose to See also:call by a single collective name—a See also:war, a revolution, a See also:conspiracy, an intrigue, an imbroglio . The events of real life, the facts of history, even the imitative incidents of narrative fiction, are like the waves of a ceaseless See also:flood; that which binds a group or See also:body of them into a single action is the See also:bond of the dramatic See also:idea; and this it is See also:incumbent upon the dramatist to supply . Within the limits of a dramatic action all its parts should (as in real life or in history they so persistently refuse to do) flow into its current like tributaries to a single stream; or, to vary the figure, everything in a drama should form a See also:link in a single See also:chain of cause and effect . This law is incumbent upon every See also:kind of drama—alike upon the tragedy which sets itself to solve one of the problems of a life, and upon the farce which sums up the follies of an afternoon . Such is not, however, the See also:case with certain more or less arbitrary rules which have at different times been set up for this or that kind of drama .

The supposed necessity that an action should consist of one event is an erroneous See also:

interpretation of the law that it should be, as an action, one . For an event is but an See also:element in an action, though it may be an element of decisive moment . The assassination of See also:Caesar is not the action of a Caesar tragedy; the loss of his treasure is not the action of The See also:Miser . Again, unity of action, while excluding those unconnected episodes which Aristotle so severely condemns, does not prohibit the introduction of one or even more subsidiary actions as contributing to the progress of the main action . The See also:sole indispensable law is that these should always be treated as what they are—subsidiary only; and herein lies the difficulty, which Shakespeare so successfully overcame, of fusing a See also:combination of subjects taken from various See also:sources into the idea of a single action; herein also lies the danger in the use of that favourite See also:device of the See also:Spanish. and other modern dramas—" by-plots " or ., under-plots." On the other hand, the modern See also:French drama has largely employed another device—quite legitimate in itself—for increasing the See also:interest of an action without destroying its unity . This may be called the dramatic use of backgrounds, the depiction of surroundings on which the action or its chief characters seem sympathetically to reflect themselves, back-biting " See also:good villagers " or academicians who inspire one,another —with tedium . But a really See also:double or multiple action, logically carried out as such, is inconceivable in a single drama, though many a play is palpably only two plays knotted into one . It was therefore not all pedantry which protested against the multiplicity of action which had itself formed part of the revolt against the too narrow interpretation of unity adopted by the French classical drama . Thirdly, unity of action need not imply unity of See also:hero—for hero (or heroine) is merely a conventional term signifying the See also:principal personage of the action . It is only when the See also:change in the degree of interest excited by different characters in a play results from a change in the conception of the action itself, that the consequent duality (or multiplicity) of heroes recalls a faulty uncertainty in the conception of the action they carry on . Such an objection, while it may hold in the case of See also:Schiller's See also:Don See also:Carlos, would therefore be erroneously urged against Shakespeare's See also:Julius Caesar . Lastly, as to the theory which made the so-called unities of time and See also:place constitute, together with that of action, the Three Unities indispensable to the (tragic) drama, the following See also:note must suffice .

Aristotle's supposed exaction of all the Three Unities, having been See also:

expanded by See also:Chapelain and approved by See also:Richelieu, was stereotyped by Corneille, though he had (as one might say) got on very well without them, and was finally set forth in Horatian See also:verse by Boileau . Thus it came to be overlooked that there is nothing in Aristotle's statement to show that in his See also:judgment unity of time and place are, like unity of action, See also:absolute dramatic laws . Their object is by representing an action as visibly continuous to render its unity more distinctly or easily perceptible . But the imagination is capable of constructing for itself the See also:bridges required for preserving to an action, conceived of as such, its character of continuousness . In another sense these rules were convenient usages conducing to a concise and clear treatment of a limited kind of themes; for they were a Greek invention, and the repeated resort tq the same group of myths made it expedient for a Greek poet to seek the subject of a single tragedy in a part only of one of the myths at his disposal . The observance of unity of place, moreover, was suggested to the Greeks by certain outward conditions of their stage—as assuredly as it was adopted by the French in accordance with the construction and usages of theirs, and as the neglect of it by the Elizabethans was in their case encouraged by the established form of the See also:English See also:scene . The palpable artificiality of these laws needs no demonstration, so long as the true meaning of the term " action " be kept in view . Of the action of Othello part takes place at See also:Venice and part at See also:Cyprus, and yet the whole is one in itself; while the limits of time over which an action—See also:Hamlet's progress to resolve, for instance—extends cannot be restricted by a revolution of the See also:earth round the See also:sun or of the See also:moon round the earth . In a drama which presents its action as one, this action must be complete in itself . This Aristotelian law, like the other, distinguishes the dramatic action from its subject . The former may be said to have a real artistic, while the Complete' latter has only an imaginary real, completeness . The ness or action .

historian, for instance, is aware that the complete ex- position of a body of events and transactions at which he aims can never be more than partially accomplished, since he may present only what he knows, and all human knowledge is imperfect . But Art is limited by no such uncertainty . The dramatist, in treating an action as one, comprehends the whole of it in the form of his work, since, to him who has conceived it, all its parts, from cause to effect, are equally clear . It is his See also:

fault if in the action of his drama anything is See also:left unaccounted for—not See also:motive; though a dramatic motif might not always prove to be a sufficient explanation in real life . Accordingly, every drama should represent in organic sequence the several stages of which a complete action consists, and which are essential to it . This law of completeness, therefore, lies at the See also:foundation of all systems of dramatic " construction." Every action, if conceived, of as complete, has its causes, growth, height, consequences and See also:close . There is no binding systems of law to prescribe the relative length or proportion at constr., which these several stages in the action should be See also:lion based treated in a drama; or to regulate the treatment of on this law such subsidiary actions as may be introduced in aid o/c-See also:tun- of the main plot, or of such more or less directly conpleteness . nected " episodes " as may at the same time advance and relieve its progress . But experience has necessarily from time to time established certain rules of practice, and from the See also:adoption of particular systems of See also:division for particular See also:species of the drama—such as that into five acts for a See also:regular tragedy or See also:comedy, which See also:Roman example has caused to be so largely followed—has naturally resulted a certain uniformity of relation between the conduct of an action and the outward sections of a play . Essentially, however, there is no difference between the laws regulating the construction of a Sophoclean or Shakespearian tragedy, a comedy of See also:Moliere or See also:Congreve, and a well-built modern farce, because all exhibit an action complete in itself . The " introduction " or " exposition " forms an integral part of the action, and is therefore to be distinguished from the prologues " See also:prologue " in the more See also:ordinary sense of the term, and which like the See also:epilogue (and the Greek 7rap(i$ao s) epilogues stands outside the action, and is a See also:mere address to the outside the public from author, rpresenter or actor occasioned action . ' by the play .

Prologue and epilogue are mere See also:

external, though at times effective, adjuncts, and have, properly speaking, as little to do with the construction of a play as the See also:bill which announces it or the musical prelude which disposes the mind for its reception . A See also:special kind of See also:preface or See also:argument is the " dumb-show," which in some old plays briefly rehearses in See also:pantomime the action that is to follow . The introduction or pens of exposition belongs to the action itself; it is, as the the action . See also:Hindu critics called it, the See also:seed or circumstance from introduc- which the business arises . Clearness being its primary tton or ex- requisite, many expedients have been at various times position. adopted to secure this feature . Thus the Euripidean prologue, though spoken by one of the characters of the play, took a narrative form, more acceptable to the See also:audience than to the critics, and placed itself half without, half within, the action . The same purpose is served by the See also:separate " inductions " in many of the old English plays, and by the preludes or prologues, or whatever name they may assume, in numberless modern dramas of all kinds—from See also:Faust down to the favourites of the See also:Ambigu and the Adelphi . More facile is the See also:orientation supplied in French tragedy by the opening scenes between hero and confidant, and in French comedy and its derivatives by those between observant See also:valet and knowing See also:lady's-maid . But all such expedients may be rendered unnecessary by the art of the dramatist, who is able outwardly also to present the introduction of his action as an organic part of that action itself; who seems to take the spectators in medias res, while he is really See also:building the See also:foundations of his plot; who touches in the opening of his action the chord which is to vibrate throughout its course—" Down with the Capulets ! down with the Montagues !"—" With the See also:Moor, sayest See also:thou ? ' The exposition, which may be See also:short or long, but which should always prepare and may even seem to necessitate the action, ends openiagof when the See also:movement of the action itself begins . This movement. transition may occasionally be marked with the utmost distinctness (as in the actual meeting between the hero and the See also:Ghost in Hamlet), while in other instances sub- sidiary action or See also:episode may judiciously intervene (as in See also:King See also:Lear, where the subsidiary action of Gloster and his sons oppor- tunely prevents too abrupt a sequence of cause and effect) . Growth .

From this point the second stage of the action—its " growth "—progresses to that third stage which is called its " height " or " See also:

climax." All that has preceded the attainment of this constitutes that half of the drama—usually its much larger half—which Aristotle terms the divas, or tying of the See also:knot . The varieties in the treatment of the growth or second stage of the action are infinite; it is here that the greatest freedom is manifestly permissible; that in the See also:Indian drama the personages make long journeys across the stage; and that, with the help of their under-plots, the masters of the modern tragic and the comic drama—notably those unequalled weavers of intrigues, the Spaniards—are able most fully to exercise their inventive faculties . If the growth is too rapid, the climax will fail of its effect; if it is too slow, the interest will be exhausted before the greatest demand upon it has been made—a fault to which comedy is specially liable; if it is involved or inverted, a vague uncertainty will take the place of an eager or agreeable suspense, the action will seem to See also:halt, or a fall will begin pre-maturely . In the contrivance of the " climax " itself lies one of the chief tests of the dramatist's art; for while the transactions of real life often fail to reach any hclimaxeight or . climax at all, that of a dramatic action should present itself as self-evident . In the See also:middle of everything, says the Greek poet, lies the strength; and this strongest or highest point it is the task of the dramatist to make See also:manifest . Much here depends upon the niceties of constructive See also:instinct; much (as in all parts of the action) upon a thorough dramatic transformation of the subject . The See also:historical drama at this point presents See also:peculiar difficulties, of which the example of See also:Henry VIII. may be cited as an See also:illustration . From the climax, or height, the action proceeds through its " fall " to its " close," which in a drama with an unhappy ending we still call its " See also:catastrophe," while to termina- Fall tions in See also:general we apply the term denouement . This latter name would, however, more properly be applied in the sense in which Aristotle employs its Greek See also:equivalent Xboasthe untying of the knot—to the whole of the second part of the action, from the climax downwards . In the management of the climax, everything depends upon producing the effect; in the fall, everything depends upon not marring it . This may be ensured by a rapid advance to the close; but neither does every action admit of such treatment, nor is it in accordance with the character of those which are of a more subtle or complicated kind .

With the latter, therefore, the " fall " is often a revolution or " return," i.e. in Aristotle's phrase a change into the See also:

reverse of what is expected from the circumstances Return . of the action (ireporereta)—as in See also:Coriolanus, where the Roman story lends itself so admirably to dramatic demands . In any case, the art of the dramatist is in this part of his work called upon for the surest exercise of its tact and skill . The effect of the climax was to concentrate the interest; the fall must therefore, above all, avoid dissipating it . The use of episodes is not even now excluded; but, even where serving the purpose of See also:relief, they must now be such as help to keep alive the interest, previously raised to its highest See also:pitch . This may be effected by the raising of obstacles between the height of the action and its expected consequences; in tragedy by the See also:suggestion of a seemingly possible recovery or See also:escape from them (as in the wonderfully powerful construction of the latter part of See also:Macbeth) ; in comedy, or wherever the interest of the action is less intense, by the See also:gradual removal of incidental difficulties . In all kinds of the drama " See also:discovery " will remain, as it was in the judgment of Aristotle, a most effective expedient; but it should be a discovery prepared by that method of treatment which in its consummate See also:master, See also:Sophocles, has been termed his " See also:irony." Nowhere should the close or catastrophe be other than a consequence of the action itself . Sudden revulsions from the conditions of the action—such as are supplied with the aid of the See also:deus ex machina, or the revising officer of the See also:emperor of See also:China,or the See also:nabob returned from See also:India, or a virulent See also:malaria—condemn themselves as unsatisfactory makeshifts . However sudden, and even in manner of accomplishment surprising, may be the catastrophe, it should, like every other part of the action, be in organic connexion with the whole preceding action . The sudden suicides which terminate so many tragedies, and the unmerited paternal blessings which close an equal number of comedies, should be something more than a " way out of it," or a See also:signal for the fall of the See also:curtain . A catastrophe may conveniently, and even (as in Close or catastrophe . Faust) with powerful effect, be left to the imagination; but to substitute for it a deliberate See also:blank is to leave the action incomplete, and the drama a fragment ending with a—possibly interesting—See also:confession of incompetence .

The action of a drama, besides being one and complete in itself, ought likewise to be probable . The See also:

probability or necessity (in the Aristotelian sense of the terms) required of a drama Prof'- is not that of actual or historical experience—it is a ability of action. conditional probability, or in other words an See also:internal consistency between the course of the action and the conditions under which the dramatist has chosen to carry it on . As to the former, he is fettered by no restrictions See also:save those which he imposes upon himself, whether or not in deference to the usages of certain accepted species of dramatic composition . Ghosts seldom appear in real life or in dramas of real life; but, the introduction of supernatural agency is neither enjoined nor prohibited by any general dramatic law . The use of such expedients is as open to the dramatic as to any other poet; the judiciousness of his use of them depends upon the effect which, consistently with the general conduct of his action, they will exercise upon the spectator, whom other circumstances may or may not predispose to their See also:acceptance . The Ghost in Hamlet belongs to the action of the play; the Ghost in the Persae is not intrinsically less probable, but seems a less immediate product of the surrounding' See also:atmosphere . Dramatic probability has, how-ever, a far deeper meaning than this . The See also:Eumenides is probable, with all its mysterious commingling of cults, and so is Macbeth, with all its barbarous See also:witchcraft . The proceedings of the feathered builders of Cloudcuckootown in the Birds of See also:Aristophanes are as true to dramatic probability as are the pranks of See also:Oberon's fairies in Midsummer See also:Night's See also:Dream . In other words, it is in the See also:harmony between the action and the characters, and in the consistency of the characters with themselves, in the appropriateness of both to the atmosphere in which they have their being, that this dramatic probability lies . The dramatist has to represent characters affected by the progress of an action in a particular way, and contributing to it in a particular way, because, if consistent with themselves, they must be so affected, and must so See also:act . Upon the invention and conduct of his characters the dramatist must therefore expend a great proportion—even a preponderance —of his labour .

His treatment of them will, in at least as high character. a degree as his choice of subject, conception of action, ization: and method of construction, determine the effect which his work produces . And while there are aspects of the dramatic art under which its earlier phases already ekhibit an unsurpassed degree of perfection, there is none under which its Advance of advance is more notable than this . Many causes have the drama contributed to this result; the chief is to be sought in -n this the multiplication of the opportunities for mankind's . respect: study of man . The theories of the Indian critics on the subject of dramatic character are little more than an elaborate scaffolding . Aristotle's remarks on the subject are scanty; nor indeed is the strength of the dramatic literature from whose examples he abstracted his See also:

maxims to be sought in the fulness or variety of its characterization . This relative deficiency was beyond doubt largely caused by the outward conditions of the Greek See also:theatre—the remoteness of actor from spectator, and the consequent necessity for the use of masks, and for the raising, and consequent conventionalizing, of the tones of the See also:voice . Later Greek and Roman comedy, unable or unwilling to resist the force of See also:habit, limited their range of characters to an accepted See also:gallery of types . Nor is it easy to ignore the fact that the See also:influence of these classical examples, combined with that of See also:national tendencies of mind and temperament, have all along inclined the dramatists of the See also:Romance nations to attach less importance to characterization of a closer and more varied kind than to interest of action and effectiveness of construction . The Italian and the Spanish drama more especially, and the French during a great part of its history, have in general shown a disposition to present their characters, as it were, ready made—whether in the case of tragic heroes and heroines, or in that of comic types, often moulded, as in the commedia dell' arte " and beyond," according to a Tong-lived See also:system of See also:local or national selection . These types, expanded, heightened and modified, are recognizable in some of the triumphs of comic characterization achieved by the Germanic drama, and by its master, Shakespeare, above all; but this fact must not obscure one of more importance than itself . In the matter of comic as well as of serious characterization—in the individualizing of characters and in evolving them as it were out of the progress of the action—the modern drama has not only advanced, but in a sense revolutionized, the dramatic art, as inherited from its See also:ancient masters .

Yet, however the method and See also:

scope of characterization may vary under the influence of different historical epochs and different tendencies or tastes of races or nations, the laws of this branch of the dramatic art remain based on orq"isltes the same essential requirements . What interests us in character. a man or woman in real life, or in the impressions we form of historical personages, is that which seems to us to give them individuality . A dramatic character must therefore, whatever its part in the action, be sufficiently marked by features of its own to interest the imagination; with these features its subsequent conduct must be consistent, and to them its participation in the action must correspond . In order to achieve such a result, the dramatist must have, in the first instance, distinctly conceived the character, however it may have been suggested to him . His task is, not to paint a copy of some contemporary or " historical " personage, but to conceive a particular kind of man, acting under the operation of particular circumstances . This conception, growing and modifying itself with the progress of the action, also invented by the dramatist, will determine the totality of the character which he creates . The likeness which the result bears to an actual or historical personage may very probably, from secondary points of view, affect the immediate stage success of the creation; upon its dramatic result this likeness can have no influence whatever . In a wider sense than that in which Shakespeare denied the See also:charge that Falstaff was See also:Oldcastle, it should be possible to say of every dramatic character which it is sought to identify with an actual personage, " This is not the man." The See also:mirror of the drama is not a photographic apparatus; and not even the most conscientious combination of See also:science and art can bring back even a " phase " of the real See also:Napoleon . Distinctiveness, as the primary requisite in dramatic characterization, is to be demanded in the case of all personages introduced into a dramatic action, but not in all cases in an equal degree . Schiller, in adding to the dramatis Uiveaessistinctpersonae of his See also:Fiesco superscriptions of their chief characteristics, labels Sacco as " an ordinary See also:person," and this, no doubt, suffices for Sacco . But with the great masters of characterization a few touches, of which the true actor's art knows how to avail itself, distinguish even their lesser characters from one another; and every man is in his See also:humour down to the " third See also:citizen." Elaboration is necessarily reserved for characters who are the more important contributors to the action, and the fulness of elaboration for its heroes . Many expedients may lend their aid to the higher degrees of distinctiveness .

Much is gained by a significant introduction of hero or heroine—thus See also:

Antigone is dragged in by the watchman, See also:Gloucester enters alone upon the scene, Volpone is discovered in See also:adoration of his See also:golden See also:saint . Nothing marks character more clearly than the use of contrast—as of Othello with lago, of Ottavio with Max See also:Piccolomini, of See also:Joseph with See also: