Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/106

 88 A. w. schlegel's general survey of the drama. Wha,t is dramatic ? To many the answer may seem obvious: " Where different persons are introduced speaking, but the poet himself does not speak in his own proper person." But this is no more than the exterior pre-requisite of the form ; the form is that of dialogue. But the persons of a dialogue may express thoughts and sentiments without operating a change on each other, and so may leave off at last each in the same mind as at the beginning ; in such a case, however interesting the matter of the discussion may be, it cannot be said to excite any dramatic interest. I will exemplify this in the philosophic dialorjue, a quiet species of discussion not intended for the stage. In Plato, Socrates asks the inflated sophist Hippias, " What is the beautiful ? " He is forthwith prepared with his shallow answer, but presently finds himself compelled by Socrates' ironical objections to abandon his first definition, and stumble about clutching after other ideas, and finally to quit the field, shamed by the exposure of his ignorance, and out of temper at finding more than his match in the philosopher. Now, this dialogue is not merely instructive in a philosophical point of view, but entertaining as a drama in miniatui'e. And justly has this lively progress in the thoughts, this stretch of expectation for the issue, in one word, this dramatic character, been extolled in the dialogues of Plato. Hence already we are in a condition to apprehend wherein the great charm of dramatic poetry consists. Activity is the true enjoyment of life, nay more, is life itself. Mere passive enjoyments may lull into a listless complacency, which however, if there be any stirrings of interior sensibility, cannot long be free from the inroad of ennui. Now, most people by their position in life, or, it may be, from incapacity for extraordinary exertions, are tethered within a narrow round of insignificant engage- ments. Day follows day, one like another, under the sleepy rule of custom; life progresses without perceptible motion, the rushing stream of the youthful passions stagnating into a morass. From the self-dissatisfaction which this occasions, they seek to make their escape in all kinds of games, which always consist in some occu- pation, some self-imposed task, in which there are difl&culties to be overcome, but withal not troublesome. Now, of all games, the play is unquestionably the most entertaining. We see others act, if we cannot act to any great purpose ourselves. The highest subject of human activity is man, and in the play we see men measuring their powers upon each other as friends or foes ; influencing each other in their capa- city of rational and moral beings, through the medium of opinion, sentiment, and passion ; definitely ascertaining their mutual relations, and bringing them to a decisive position. By abstraction and pretermission of all that is not essential to the matter in hand, namely, of all those daily wants and consequent petty distractions which in real life break in upon the progress of essential actions, the poet contrives to con- dense within small compass much that excites attention and expectation. Thus he gives us a picture of life that resuscitates the days of j'^outh, an extract of what is moving and progressive in human existence. But this is not all. Even in lively oral narration it is common to introduce the persons speaking, and to vary tone and expression accordingly. But the gaps which these speeches would leave in the hearers' mental picture of the story, the narrator fills up by a desci-iption of the concomitant actions or other incidents, in his own name. The dramatic poet foregoes this assistance, but finds abundant compensation in the following invention. He requires that each of the characters of his story should be personated by a living individual; that this individual should, in sex, age, and form, come as near as may be to the fictitious individual of the story, nay, should assume his entire personality ; that he should accompany every speech with