Page:The Tragic Drama of the Greeks (1896).djvu/14

2 unfolding a story by means of the mutual conversation of actors, without any aid from narrative, is not one which readily presents itself to the human imagination. It is true that the love of mimicry and imitation is one of the most universal of instincts, and that mimetic performances of some kind or another have been found to exist in almost every part of the world. But to evolve out of these primitive elements an orderly and continuous drama was a work of the greatest creative genius. The magnitude of the task is proved by the fact that it has never been fully and satisfactorily accomplished except by a single nation—the Greeks. It is from the Greeks that every drama, both ancient and modern, which has attained to anything like perfection of form, is ultimately derived. Other nations have occasionally, by their own unaided efforts, made some approximation towards a like result; but unless they have come under Hellenic influence, either directly or indirectly, their drama has never advanced beyond a rudimentary stage. A brief survey of existing dramatic literatures will exemplify the truth of this statement.

To take the eastern nations first. Both the Indians and the Chinese, it is well known, possess a national drama which dates from remote antiquity. But the plays of the Chinese, though apparently of native growth, are so childish and elementary in their general character, that they can scarcely be regarded as belonging to the same species as the productions of the European stage. The Hindu dramas, on the other hand, while superior to the Chinese in literary merit, have far less claim to rank as indigenous creations. None of them belong to an earlier date than the first century before Christ. But long before that period the Hindus had been brought into contact with the influences of Greek civilisation by means of the Hellenic dynasties established in the north-western districts of India. The effect of that contact may still be traced in the style of their early architecture; and it is not improbable that the expansion of their drama was due to the same original cause. In confirmation of this view it has been pointed out by recent scholars that the most ancient of the Indian plays