Three Books About the Drama

BOOKS NEW AND OLD.

THE irresistible, perennial charm of looking in Nature’s mirror and the peculiar appeal which inheres in all that pertains to the mimic world of the stage lend an interest to writings about the drama which scholars in other departments of learning have envied. This interest is more than ordinarily marked in three recently published books¹ which differ radically in the avenues of their approach to the theatre, but which are at one in sincere concern about things dramatic. Mr. Chambers’s, Mr. Matthews’s, and Mr. Chase’s essays represent significantly the scholarly, the theatrical, and the belletristic methods by which a subject so opulent as the drama may be profitably studied.

The two stately volumes which contain the rich results of Mr. Chambers’s study of the Mediæval Stage are, to speak categorically, the most thoroughly satisfactory piece of dramatic scholarship in English which we have had since Dr. Ward published his monumental history. Any one caring, some half century hence, to know the scholarly ideals of the present decade will find Mr. Chambers’s work an important document. For while it is packed as full of erudition and the results of difficult research as even a Porson could wish, it is punctually of the hour in its exhibition of the evolutionary trend of scholarship at the present time. That Nature does nothing per saltum is an ancient dictum not continuously admitted. The search for origins, which but lately was the prime business of scholars the world over, is even now giving place to the tracing of a continuous evolution. Mr. Chambers’s real affair is to show the persistence of an unbroken dramatic tradition, however vague, between the fall of the Roman theatre and the emergence of the modern stage in the liturgical plays which have been so often named as its origin. This he does by a study of mediæval minstrelsy and the little known Folk Drama which is as learned as it is fresh and readable. It is a fair criticism that much of this study deals with the social forces behind the drama rather than with the drama itself. But the relation is vital and essential; and we derive a notion of the ramifications of the dramatic instinct, — of the part that it has played in “ the march of mind,” — that is extraordinarily vivid and stimulating. Mr. Chambers has much to say which is as important for the Folk-Lorist and for the historian of culture as for the student of the drama. Particularly good, for example, is his account of the mediæval cult of fertilization, which was little less important as a dramatic origin than the Dionysiac religion of Greece. It was a striking manifestation of that “ universal pagan sentiment ” of which Walter Pater wrote so sympathetically and well; “ a paganism which existed before the Greek religion, and has lingered far onward into the Christian world, ineradicable, like some persistent vegetable growth, because its seed is an element of the very soil out of which it springs.”

In his clever and lucid sketch of The Development of the Drama, Mr. Matthews’s concern is not about any such subterranean tradition ; he busies himself, rather, in tracing the larger evolution of what he chooses to call “ dramaturgic technic.” The result is a brief and eminently readable historical account of the acted drama. It must be confessed that Mr. Matthews’s arbitrary divorce of the “ stage” from “dramatic literature,” sound and suggestive as it often is, has certain accompanying disadvantages. In dealing with such “ great fellows ” — to adopt FitzGerald’s phrase — as Sophocles and Calderon, it leads to a baffling inadequacy and partiality of criticism, for it excludes any just discussion of the noble and moving poetry which, after all, is what such names mean to most of us. But in treating of the French theatre the advantage is naturally on the other side, and Mr. Matthews’s chapter on the Drama in France is a valuable piece of summary criticism. Perhaps Mr. Matthews is most interesting when, after his extensive observation of the theatre from Athens to New York, he rises to vaticination in a final chapter upon The Future of the Drama. It is encouraging that so devoted a student of the stage, so keen an observer of theatrical conditions today, is hopeful for the future ; and it is of moment that while he believes there may be less poetry found in the drama of the future, “ what there is will belong absolutely to the theme. It will be internal and integral; it will not be external or merely affixed.” That is to say, Mr. Matthews foresees for the drama a second Renaissance of enlightened classicism. We cannot, however, so readily agree with the implication of Mr. Matthews’s remark that “ the desire to know sympathetically other classes than our own ” will “ exert an obvious influence upon the drama of the immediate future.” Rather it would seem from such informing studies as Miss McCracken’s The Play and the Gallery, published in the Atlantic last year, that the numerous presence in the spectators’ seats of “ other classes than our own ” is the most hopeful symptom, — an indication that the good plays of the future, instead of betraying the sensibility of a college settlement, will exhibit as always the important and fundamental passions of humanity.

Mr. Chase’s account of the English Heroic Play is, more than either of the foregoing, a study of dramatic literature ; his critical description of the rhymed tragedy of the Restoration is wholly occupied with that tragedy as it is found in books. His examination of these fine old bombastic plays is carried on with excellent insight, and with a vein of covert humor which makes engaging reading. Mr. Chase in his preface promises two complementary studies, an inquiry into foreign origins and parallels, and a history of the type in England. It is to be hoped that these studies may be carried to completion and publication, and that the author may embody in them some of the curious biographic details which are involved in the history of the Heroic Play on the English stage, so to make the completed study as humane as it is comprehensive. It must be said that Mr. Chase’s close analysis of the plots, characters, and sentiments of heroic drama presents it in no favorable light. His reprobation of its artificiality and highfalutin is surely just, and his survey of its few virtues is, so far as it goes, convincing. “ It insisted,” says Mr. Chase, “ upon decency and decorum of language, it encouraged many of the virtues, such as generosity and bravery, and consistently kept aloof from the sordid cares of every-day life. To a public tainted with meanness and sensuality it presented a shadow, at least, of true heroic character.” This is true and well put, but with all respect to Mr. Chase’s wider and more exact information, there is, we think, for a few scattered readers a little more attraction in the Heroic Drama than he is disposed to allow. This is something more than the mere curious interest of the queer and out-of-date. It is the appeal of romantic story plus the perennial charm of the toplofty manner. In the main, of course, our interest in the top-lofty is ironic, but there is an expatiation of the mind caused by rhetorical extravagance, and by the “ heightened way of putting things,” which brings actual delight to many readers. Surely this contributes to our pleasure in Marlowe, or in Byron ; and in the Heroic Drama, at least in Dryden’s and D’Avenant’s contributions to it, there are not a few passages to afford such a gust. How enduring the mood of the heroics has been is seen in our own melodrama ; and even in the closet drama the tradition persists. Thus in a remarkable play recently published ² we find some striking lines which we herewith present to Mr. Chase for his consideration in writing of the persistence of the type : —

Surely the author of such sentiments — though they be broken into blank rather than forged into couplets — is of the heroic school. Nor do we discover in his lines much of that external and merely affixed poetry which Mr. Matthews is glad to think passing from our boards.

F. G.