The familiar phrase "closet-drama" is a contradiction of terms. The species
of literary composition in dialogue that is ordinarily so designated
occupies a thoroughly legitimate position in the realm of literature, but
no position whatsoever in the realm of dramaturgy. _Atalanta in Calydon_ is
a great poem; but from the standpoint of the theory of the theatre, it
cannot be considered as a play. Like the lyric poems of the same author, it
was written to be read; and it was not devised to be presented by actors on
a stage before an audience.

We may now consider the significance of the three concluding phrases of the
definition of a play which was offered at the outset of the present
chapter. These phrases indicate the immanence of three influences by which
the work of the playwright is constantly conditioned.

In the first place, by the fact that the dramatist is devising his story
for the use of actors, he is definitely limited both in respect to the kind
of characters he may create and in respect to the means he may employ in
order to delineate them. In actual life we meet characters of two different
classes, which (borrowing a pair of adjectives from the terminology of
physics) we may denominate dynamic characters and static characters. But
when an actor appears upon the stage, he wants to act; and the dramatist is
therefore obliged to confine his attention to dynamic characters, and to
exclude static characters almost entirely from the range of his creation.
The essential trait of all dynamic characters is the preponderance within
them of the element of will; and the persons of a play must therefore be
people with active wills and emphatic intentions. When such people are
brought into juxtaposition, there necessarily results a clash of contending
desires and purposes; and by this fact we are led logically to the
conclusion that the proper subject-matter of the drama is a struggle