DRAMATIC AND UNDRAMATIC


It may be well, at this point, to consider for a little what we mean
when we use the term "dramatic." We shall probably not arrive at any
definition which can be applied as an infallible touchstone to
distinguish the dramatic from the undramatic. Perhaps, indeed, the
upshot may rather be to place the student on his guard against troubling
too much about the formal definitions of critical theorists.

The orthodox opinion of the present time is that which is generally
associated with the name of the late Ferdinand Brunetière. "The theatre
in general," said that critic, "is nothing but the place for the
development of the human will, attacking the obstacles opposed to it by
destiny, fortune, or circumstances." And again: "Drama is a
representation of the will of man in conflict with the mysterious powers
or natural forces which limit and belittle us; it is one of us thrown
living upon the stage, there to struggle against fatality, against
social law, against one of his fellow-mortals, against himself, if need
be, against the ambitions, the interests, the prejudices, the folly, the
malevolence of those who surround him."[1]

The difficulty about this definition is that, while it describes the
matter of a good many dramas, it does not lay down any true
differentia--any characteristic common to all drama, and possessed by no
other form of fiction. Many of the greatest plays in the world can with
difficulty be brought under the formula, while the majority of romances
and other stories come under it with ease. Where, for instance, is the
struggle in the _Agamemnon_? There is no more struggle between
Clytemnestra and Agamemnon than there is between the spider and the fly