act with skill and determination, we must make up our minds that we have
somehow or other become masters of our subject, and not be perpetually
recurring to an examination of the theory on which it rests; we must, as
it were, have settled down and contented ourselves with a certain partial
apprehension of the idea. But now in the invention and conduct of a drama
the practical spirit must prevail: the dramatic poet is not allowed to
dream away under his inspiration, he must take the straightest road to his
end; but the Germans are only too apt to lose sight of the object in the
course of their way to it. Besides, in the drama the nationality does
usually, nay, must show itself in the most marked manner, and the national
character of the Germans is modest and retiring: it loves not to make a
noisy display of itself; and the noble endeavour to become acquainted
with, and to appropriate to itself whatever is excellent in others, is not
seldom accompanied with an undervaluing of its own worth. For these
reasons the German stage has often, in form and matter, been more than
duly affected by foreign influence. Not indeed that the Germans propose to
themselves no higher object than the mere passive repetition of the
Grecian, the French, the Spanish, or the English theatre; but, as it
appears to me, they are in search of a more perfect form, which, excluding
all that is merely local or temporary, may combine whatever is truly
poetical in all these theatres. In the matter, however, the German
national features ought certainly to predominate.

After this rapid sketch of what may be called the map of dramatic
literature, we return to the examination of its fundamental ideas. Since,
as we have already shown, visible representation is essential to the very
form of the drama; a dramatic work may always be regarded from a double
point of view,--how far it is _poetical_, and how far it is _theatrical_.
The two are by no means inseparable. Let not, however, the expression
_poetical_ be misunderstood: I am not now speaking of the versification