Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/508

* DRAMA. 440 DKAMA. in the appreoiation of the laws of dramatic com- position, vet through the end of the seventeenth and the bepinnin<; of the eiphti^enth I'eiituries the (Jeriiirtn theatre was little more than a feeble re- tle. of Krenoh influence. Lessinjr, however, tauj;ht (Jerniany to appreciate the produetions of the ro- mantic drama, both by his creations and by his criticisms. His .Hi.ts Sura pSiniipsoii, his eomedy Minna ion Harnhclm, and his later tragedies opened a new era lor the llerman drama, while in his Haniburffischc Dramaturgic he attacked French classicism, jjraiscd Shakespeare, and pro- fessed his adherence to the princii)lcs of Aris- totle. Goethe, his great successor, is without doubt one of the world's foremost geniuses: yet it is debaUible whether his rank among writers for the stage is quite so high. His I'aust must always retain its i)lace as one of the greatest of modern compositions: but his chief purpose was complete self-cultivation, and in the pro- logue to this, his last, and by far his most fa- mous production, lie sets forth why, although writing in the dramatic form, lie could not al- together accommodate himself to the demands of a popular theatre. Schiller was more expressly the dramatic poet of (lerniaiiy than (loethe. While Goethe's genius was fuller and more com- plete. Schiller made up for what he wanted in breadth of vision by the practical intensity of his powers. From his wild play of Die Riiuher down to his last drama of iri//ie/Hi TrU, he worked with a vehemence that made an enduring impression upon the national theatre. His con- temporary Iftland, actor and manager as well as dramatist, should not be left unmentioncd; nor such actors as the Dcvrients, Schroder, Dawison, Friedridi llaase, and others who have maintained the traditions of the drama before the jiuhlic. Leading German dramatists of to- day are Sndermann. who is counted a member of the naturalistic school, a writer of problem ])lays in which, however, theatrical efTect is no less carefully studied: Hanptmann, in whom the evidences of symbolistic tendencies are more apparent : and, among the younger men, Halbe and Hartleben. DiTCEi, St ANniNAVi.vx, .xn Hki.gian Drama. Among the Dutdi. the drama has had but slight independent growth. In the sixteenth and seven- teenth centuries, van den Vondel and others par- ticipated in the dramatic revival that followed the Renaissance: but the later Dutch stage large- ly imitated that of France. The Scandinavian countries have more recently developed a drama of importance. In the first half of the nineteenth century. Oehlenschliiger. in Denmark, with his use of the heroic figures of the northern mythol- ogy, lielongs among the followers of the roman- tic school. The Norwegians Bjdrnson and Ibsen, following later tendencies, have b.'come very dis- tinctive figures in the drama of psychological and social problems, the work of Ibsen especiallv having become a battle-ground of the critics. In Belgium, which has been counted, from an artis- tic point of view, as a province of France, the most noted work of recent years has been that of the poet Maeterlinck, whose plays have scred as an extreme type of some of the features of the Symbolist movement. IJrssiAX DiiAMA is also of late development. Though there had been Russian religious plays of an earlier day, the first Russian theatre in Saint Petersburg was established in 17.">0, and there its director, Sumarokolf, and Kniaznin and others of the time wrote pieces in the French style. Catharine II. herself wrote satirical comedies, and GzierolT is a writer of tragedies of some reputation. To the nineteenth century be- long tJriboycdoir, the author of (lort. ot Z'ama (•The Misfortune of Being too Clever") ; Gogol, whose comedy Itirizor ("The Iii~i>ector") made a great sensation: Pushkin, whose liori.t Codu- noff shows the change from French to Shake- spearean inrtucnce; and Ostrovski, a writer of numerous comedies. KxtiUSH Drama. In Kngland, as elsewhere, the early dranmtic exhibitions were ivnne<tcd with the Church. Ecclesiastics were at first not only the authors but the actors of the miracle- plays and mysteries by which religious instruc- tion was combined with a good deal of grotesque amusement. The moralities, in which abstract qualities were personified, marked an imagina- tive advance, and it has been questioned whether the regular comedy was not to some extent an evolution from them, through the gradual sub- stitution of real and strongly characterized per- sons for mere abstractions. It was about the middle of the sixteenth century, however, when the influence of the Renaissance had l«een felt, that tlic drama extricated itself from these an- cient fetters. The earliest known English com- edy (before ISol) is Ralph Roister Doi.ttrr, WTJt- tcn by Nicholas Idall, a learned master of Eton, A few years afterwards appeared the first trage- dy, called florhnihir. nr »nr,r and Purrcx, a dull and declamatory production in blank verse by Sackville and Norton. From this time dramatic production was rapid, though at first without great imiirovement. To pass by the names of iJisho]! Still and of Kyd, Lodge, Lyly, Peele, Green, and Nasli. mention is due to Christopher ilarlowe as the greatest of Shakesp'are's prede- 'cessors. He is the author who first introduced npon the public stage blank verse, the vehicle of English drama, and there are passages in his tragedies of Doctor Fauxtun and Edicard II. which are accounted not unworthy of Shakespeare himself. But all these earlier playwrights are obscured by their nearness to the great luminary oi the Engli'^h drama. Shakespeare is almost univer- sally acknowledged to have been the greatest dra- matic genius that has apjx-ared in the world. Dis- regarding or ignorant of the 'unities.' and writing for a stage as yet unaided by any but the slight- est scenic accessories, he brought the romantic drama to its highest perfection. His writings present the finest example of the depth, sublim- ity, refinement, and variety of which the drama is capable : and they are abundantly marked by those peculiar characteristics whiih s|irang from the union in their author of such wonderful power* of conception with such familiar experi- ence of theatrical management. (For a more detailed discussion of liis plays, see the siieclal article Shakespeare.) Of the other actors of Shakespeare's time we know less: but Burbage and .Ilcyn are among those whose names have come down to us. Among dramatists, the liest of Shakespeare's contemporaries were Ben .lonson. Beaumont, and Fletcher. Like Shake- speare, .lonson wrote both comedies and tragedies; but he showed more of the influence of the classic models. Milton speaks of 'Jonson'H learned sock,'