Page:Prophets of dissent essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy (1918).djvu/46

Rh to undue lengths in this endeavor, exposed the diction of his dramas to much cheap ridicule. The extravagant use of repetition, in particular, made him a mark for facile burlesque. The words of the Queen in Princesse Maleine: "Mais ne répetez pas toujours ce que l'on dit" were sarcastically turned against the poet himself.

As a result of the extreme simplicity of his dialogue, Maeterlinck was reproached with having invented the "monosyllabic theatre, " the "theatre without words," and with having perpetrated a surrogate sort of drama, a hybrid between libretto and pantomime.

The fact, however, is, his characters speak a language which, far from being absurd, as it was at first thought to be by many of his readers, is instinct with life and quite true to life — to life, that is, as made articulate in the intense privacy of dreams, or hallucinations, or moments of excessive emotional perturbation.

The other principal requisite for the attainment of the inner dramatic vitalness in drama is a pervasive atmospheric mood, a sustained Stimmung. This, in the case of Maeterlinck, is brought about by the combined employment of familiar and original artistic devices.