THE BEGINNING




_CHAPTER VI_

THE POINT OF ATTACK: SHAKESPEARE AND IBSEN


Though, as we have already noted, the writing of plays does not always
follow the chronological sequence of events, in discussing the process
of their evolution we are bound to assume that the playwright begins at
the beginning, and proceeds in orderly fashion, by way of the middle, to
the end. It was one of Aristotle's requirements that a play should have
a beginning, middle and end; and though it may seem that it scarcely
needed an Aristotle to lay down so self-evident a proposition, the fact
is that playwrights are more than sufficiently apt to ignore or despise
the rule.[1] Especially is there a tendency to rebel against the
requirement that a play should have an end. We have seen a good many
plays of late which do not end, but simply leave off: at their head we
might perhaps place Ibsen's _Ghosts_. But let us not anticipate. For the
moment, what we have to inquire is where, and how, a play ought
to begin.

In life there are no such things as beginnings. Even a man's birth is a
quite arbitrary point at which to launch his biography; for the
determining factors in his career are to be found in persons, events,
and conditions that existed before he was ever thought of. For the