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Among other modern European dramas the Dutch is interesting both in its beginnings, which to all intents and purposes form part of those of the German, and because of the special influence of the so-called chambers of the rederykers (rhetoricians), from the early years of the 15th century onwards, which bear some resemblance to the associations of the master-singers in contemporary higher Germany. The earliest of their efforts, which so effectively tempered the despotism of both church and state, seem to have been of a dramatic kind; and a manifold variety of allegories, moralities and comic entertainments (esbatementen or comedies, kluiten and factien or farces) enhanced the attractions of those popular pageants in which the Netherlands surpassed all other countries of the North. The Low Countries responded more largely to the impulse of the Renaissance than, with some local exceptions, any other of the Germanic lands. They necessarily had a considerable share in the cultivation of the modern Latin drama; and, while the author of Acolastus may be claimed as its own by the country of his adoption as well as by that of his birth, G. M. Macropedius (Langhveldt) (c. 1475–1508), who may be regarded as the foremost Latin dramatist of his age, was born and died at Hertogenbosch or in its immediate vicinity. Macropedius, who belonged to the fraternity of the Common Life, was a writer of great realistic power as well as of remarkable literary versatility. The art of acting flourished in the Low Countries even during the troubles of the great revolt; but the birth of the regular drama was delayed till the advent of quieter times. Dutch dramatic literature begins, under the influence of the classical studies cherished in the seats of learning founded before and after the close of the war, with the classical tragedies of S. Koster (c. 1585–c. 1650). The romantic dramas and farces of Gerbrand Bredero (1585–1618) and the tragedies of P. Hooft (1581–1647) belong to the same period; but its foremost dramatic poet was J. van den Vondel, who from an imitation of classical models passed to more original forms of dramatic composition, including a patriotic play and a dramatic treatment of part of what was to form the theme of Paradise Lost. But Vondel had no successor of equal mark. The older form of Dutch tragedy—in which the chorus still appeared—was, especially under the influence of the critic A. Pels, exchanged for a close imitation of the French models, Corneille and Racine; nor was the attempt to create a national comedy successful. Thus no national Dutch drama was permanently called into life.

 

Still more distinctly, the dramatic literature of the Scandinavian peoples springs from foreign growths. In Denmark, where the beginnings of the drama in the plays of the schoolmaster Chr. Hansen recall the mixture of religious and farcical elements in contemporary German efforts, the drama in the latter half of the 16th century remained essentially scholastic, and treated scriptural or classical subjects, chiefly in the Latin tongue. J. Ranch (1539–1607) and H. S. Sthen were authors of this type. But often in the course of the 17th century, German and French had become the tongues of Danish literature and of the Danish theatre; in the 18th Denmark could boast a comic dramatist of thorough originality and of a wholly national cast. L. Holberg, one of the most noteworthy comic poets of modern literature, not only marks an epoch in the dramatic literature of his native land, but he contributed to overthrow the trivialities of the German stage in its worst period, which he satirized with merciless humour, and set an example, never surpassed, of a series of comedies deriving their types from popular life and ridiculing with healthy directness those vices and follies which are the proper theme of the most widely effective species of the comic drama. Among his followers, P. A. Heiberg is specially noted. Under the influence of the Romantic school, whose influence has nowhere proved so long-lived as in the Scandinavian north, A. Ohlenschläger began a new era of Danish literature. His productivity, which belongs partly to his native and partly to German literary history, turned from foreign to native themes; and other writers followed him in his endeavours to revive the figures of Northern heroic legend. But these themes have in their turn given way in the Scandinavian theatre to subjects coming nearer home to the popular consciousness, and treated with a direct appeal to the common experience of human life, and with a searching insight into the actual motives of human action. The most remarkable movement to be noted in the history of the Scandinavian drama, and one of the most widely effective of those which mark the more recent history of the Western drama in general, had its origin in Norway. Two Norwegian dramatists, H. Ibsen and Björnsterne Björnson, standing as it were side by side, though by no means always judging eye to eye, have vitally influenced the whole course of modern dramatic literature in the direction of a fearlessly candid and close delineation of human nature. The lesser of the pair in inventive genius, and in the power of exhibiting with scornful defiance the conflict between soul and circumstance, but the stronger by virtue of the conviction of hope which lies at the root of achievement, is Björnson. Ibsen’s long career as a dramatist exhibits a succession of many changes, but at no point any failure in the self-trust of his genius. His early masterpieces were dramatic only in form. His world-drama of Emperor and Galilean was still unsuited to a stage rarely trodden to much purpose by idealists of Julian’s type. The beginnings of his real and revolutionary significance as a dramatist date from the production of his first plays of contemporary life, the admirable satirical comedy The Pillars of Society (1877), the subtle domestic drama A Doll’s House (1879), and the powerful but repellent Ghosts (1881), which last, with the effects of its appearance, modern dramatic literature may even to this day be said to have failed altogether to assimilate. Ibsen’s later prose comedies—(verse, he writes, has immensely damaged the art of acting, and a tragedy in iambics belongs to the species Dodo)—for the most part written during an exile which accounts for the note of isolation so audible in many of them, succeeded one another at regular biennial intervals, growing more and more abrupt in form, cruel in method, and intense in elemental dramatic force. The prophet at last spoke to a listening world, but without the amplitude, the grace and the wholeheartedness which are necessary for subduing it. But it may be long before the art which he had chosen as the vehicle of his comments on human life and society altogether ceases to show the impress of his genius.

 

As to the history of the Slav drama, only a few hints can be here given. Its origins have not yet—at least in works accessible to Western students—been authoritatively traced. The Russian drama in its earliest or religious beginnings is stated to have been introduced from Poland early in the 12th century; and, again, it would seem that, when the influence of the Renaissance touched the east of Europe, the religious drama was cultivated in Poland in the 16th, but did not find its way into Russia till the 17th century. It is probable that the species was, like so many other elements of culture, imported into the Carpathian lands in the 15th or 16th century from Germany. How far indigenous growths, such as the Russian popular puppet-show called vertep, which about the middle of the 17th century began to treat secular and popular themes, helped to foster dramatic tendencies and tastes, cannot here be estimated. The regular drama of eastern Europe is to all intents and purposes of Western origin. Thus, the history of the Polish drama may be fairly