III.

THE ART OF DRAMATIC COMPOSITION.

PART I.

WHEN Horace was asked whether art or inspiration is the more important factor in the composition of a dramatic work, he replied, "I cannot see what one can accomplish without the assistance of the other." Art may be considered to be the body or machine in which genius is the soul or motive power; lacking the soul, the body is helpless; and, without the body, the soul has no expression. But in these impatient times many artists grudge the diligence and patient devotion necessary to acquire a thorough knowledge of their craft; affecting to be all soul, they feel contempt for what they call the mechanical part. They aspire to succeed by effusion, and to produce, by a kind of divine visitation, without condescending to the vulgar process of labor.

The writer of these lines has been reproached with exhibiting too much workmanship in his dramas, and too little genius. He made the most of the little he had. But the reproach induces him, while remembering the many years of patient and ardent study he devoted to acquire the craft with which he ekes out his meagre gifts, to reflect how vainly he sought for sources of artistic instruction or advice. Therefore he proposes to place such experience as he has gathered, during his artistic life, at the disposal of those more gifted than himself. So, as the Roman critic has it, "I will serve as a grindstone, where others may sharpen their wits-though I am incapable of cutting."

No art becomes respectable until its principles are acknowledged, methodized, and housed in a system. All arts, the

drama excepted, possess such a home; but this, the greatest of all, remains a vagrant.

If a young dramatist desire to study the art of dramatic composition, there is no work wherein its precepts may be found. If a young actor seek for the elementary rules of his craft, there is no work of accepted authority on the art of acting to which he can apply.

The system and discipline of a theatre are unwritten traditions, yet they form the process by which the drama is translated from the poet's mind to the stage.

But there are precepts for the dramatist, and rules for the actor; and there are a system and good discipline in a theatre. They lie scattered over the stage. Let us gather them, and set them in order. And if some things of which we speak shall appear wanting in dignity and importance toward the rest of the subject, let it be remembered that the good builder thinks no part of his building beneath his care, and he stoops to handle the meanest ingredient to be employed in his work: so let nothing that concerns a drama, from its conception in the mind of the poet to its performance in the presence of the public, be deemed too small a matter for attention and for record.

A drama is the imitation of a complete action formed by a sequence of incidents designed to be acted, not narrated, by the person or persons whom such incidents befall.*

Its object is to give pleasure by exciting in the mind of the spectator a sympathy for fellow-creatures suffering their fate.

A complete action is one that has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and is composed of matters which relate to each other and not to any other action. The beginning is a thing which requires nothing antecedent to account for it, but causes an expectation of something to follow. The end is that which is natural

• In defining tragedy, Aristotle labors under a self-imposed difficulty, of including two things within one definition-drama, and a particular kind of drama. He says: "Tragedy is an imitation of an action, important, entire, and of a proper magnitude, by language embellished and rendered pleasurable, but by different means in different parts, in the way not of narration but of action, effecting through pity and terror a correction and refinement of such passions." The obscurity of this interpretation seems to be owing to the complexity of the matter. By a definition of drama in the first place, each kind of dramatic composition may be subsequently more clearly distinguished.

ly after something else, but requires nothing beyond. The middle is that which requires something to precede, and something to follow it.*

By a sequence of incidents we mean such a succession that each incident composing it, except the first and last, is the result of some one of the preceding incidents, and the cause of one of the incidents coming after it in the series.

The action is designed to be acted, not narrated, the essential object of a drama being to imitate human creatures suffering their fate; and we feel more deeply for those whose sufferings we see, and we believe in a thing we see done to a greater degree than if we heard the same things narrated.

The sequence of incidents must befall a person or persons; for, if they befall an animal or inanimate objects, as may happen during a convulsion of Nature, such an imitation is not a drama. It is sufficient that one person shall be the sufferer, for a sequence of incidents may happen to a single individual; as indeed was the plan of all tragedies written before the days of Eschylus, who first introduced a second person, and thus invented dialogue. And no other things beyond these are necessary to constitute a drama.t

The drama, therefore, has two parts: The action which causes suffering, and the persons who suffer. But persons differ by their natures, and suffer differently both in manner and degree according to their natures; this self-distinction defines the char acter of each. Yet character is only a quality issuing from and belonging to the persons. And, as the sequence of incidents is supposed to take place somewhere, scenery becomes convenient to represent such places; or articles, such as costume, weapons,

* Arist. Poet.

Some few years ago, during a trial before the Court of Queen's Bench, in London-and the bench was a full one, the presiding judge being the Lord Chief-Justice Sir Alexander Cockburn-the question arose what was a dramatic composition, and how it was to be distinguished from a "variety" entertainment; the case before the court being the managers of the London theatres versus the Alhambra Music Hall, the managers complaining that dramas were represented at the Alhambra, which building was not duly licensed for a theatre. The Alhambra, in defense, contended that its exhibitions were not dramas. The question seemed to puzzle the counsel on both sides, and it was left by the bench unsettled.

and furniture, are used: so another part is produced, and this is the decoration: it belongs to and issues from the action. Yet neither character nor the decoration is necessary, but only for the better.

Of these two parts, essential to each other, the action is the more important. It is the cause of the suffering; for persons suffer in consequence of what they do, or of what is done to them, and not because they are of a particular character. A group of persons uttering a series of noble thoughts, or engaged in passionate discussion, does not afford so momentous a consideration as the same group enduring the visitation of a series of calamities, or engaged in a battle.

Again: because of the greater difficulty which poets find in making the action-for many succeed in expressing fine ideas, and in depicting characters, who fail in composing a plot—they can readily spin thoughts, but fail in weaving them into a pattern. By these a tragedy is regarded as a series of noble thoughts, expressing a passion, instead of a sequence of important incidents producing a suffering, of which noble thoughts are the issue.

Again if from a drama we strip away all but the action, there still remains something important. But if from the same work we take away the action only, all the rest signifies nothing. A pantomime is a drama; but a conversation between two persons, although each of them should develop his character in such dialogue, is not a drama.

Second in order are the persons, each distinguished by his character. By character we mean that individuality in a person made by the consistency of feelings, speech, and physiognomy.

Of least importance to the drama is the decoration. But this least essential part, like wine at a feast, though neither the most wholesome nor necessary, is the part in which all take the most delight, and with which we come away the most impressed.

If such an imitation of human beings, suffering their fate, be well contrived and executed in all its parts, the spectator is led

to feel a particular sympathy with the artificial joys or sorrows of which he is the witness. This condition of his mind is called the theatrical illusion. The craft of the drama is to produce it, and all its concerns conduce to, and depend upon, this attain

ment.

These may be considered the component parts essential to a dramatic work. Let us now examine each part, and perceive what is proper:

First, of the action. This should have a certain length. It is too short when the incidents composing it produce so small an amount of suffering in the persons that the end arrives before the theatrical illusion is established in the mind of the spectator, or, being established, then before his sympathy is satisfied. For example: a man returns to his home and finds a robber in the act of breaking into his house. He slays him. He discovers in the robber his own son. Here is a complete action, composed of a sequence of three incidents only; but the catastrophe arrives too hurriedly, and the effect is insignificant. The action is too long when the subject presents so many incidents that it ceases to be perspicuous. The mind should comprehend the whole at one view: the entire design being under regard as a picture, or a statue, is to the eye; for, like these, a drama is a thing to be seen.* For example: if the career of Napoleon Bonaparte were taken for the subject of a drama, so great a number of incidents and personages would of necessity appear, and so many places be visited, that the spectator must become confused with the variety. Again, there is a limit to sympathy; and, if a variety of calamities happen to many persons, the spectator cannot feel simultaneously sympathy with them all; and, if the variety of incidents prolongs the troubles of one person, he will become weary of an inexorable fortune. The action is

Thus, in the painting by Horace Vernet, representing the "Capture of the S'mala of Abd-el-Kader," the subject is so large that, to comprehend it, the spectator must remove himself to a certain distance, that the whole may be brought within the scope of his eye; but there he loses the value of the details. To appreciate these, he is obliged to approach the picture, but here he loses the value of the design. To obviate this error, the artist has apparently split his plan into several subordinate designs, each capable of forming a separate picture, subserving indeed the whole, but depriving it of unity, an element of grandeur.