Page:The thirty-six dramatic situations (1921).djvu/106

 This remarkable grouping has been in our day almost entirely ignored. Byronists as we still are, "bon gré mal gré" we might yet dream of this superb onslaught on the heavens. But no! — we treat even the evangelical subject of the Passion, while we pass by, like owls in broad daylight, this genuinely dramatic situation, and content ourselves with sanctimoniously intoning the idyllo-didactic phrases which preceded the sacred tragedy, — itself left unseen.

A (1) — Struggle Against a Deity: — "The Ædonians" and "The Bassarides," "Pentheus" and "The Wool-Carders" by Aeschylus; "The Bacchantes" of Euripides; the "Christ Suffering" of Saint Gregory Nazianzen. Epic: the sixth Homeric hymn (to Dionysos); the dream of Jacob.

(2) — Strife with the Believers in a God: — "The Exodus of the Hebrews" by Ezekiel; "L'Empereur Julien" (Miracle of Notre-Dame, XIV Century); "Athalie." Historic instances: various persecutions. Epic: "Les Martyrs."

B (1) — Controversy With a Deity: — "The Book of Job." I cannot give, it is true, the date nor the place of the "premier" of "Job." But the fact of actual representation by Messieurs A, B and C and Misses X, Y and Z is no more an indispensable condition to the existence of true drama than it is an all-sufficient one. We may hold that the "premier" was given in that great Theatre of which Brahmanic legend tells; a Theatre inaugurated long before that of man, and thanks to which the gods may occupy the leisures of their eternity.

(2) — Punishment for Contempt of a God: — "Tehitra Yadjgna" by Vedyantha Vatchespati; "Le Festin de Pierre" (meaning the real action, which from the beginning leads toward the enouement).

(3) — Punishment for Pride Before a God: — Aeschylus' "Ajax Locrian" (according to one hypothesis); Sophocles' "Thamiras;" Euripides' "Bellerophon." A Christian example: Simon the Magician.