union. Speaking of the Indian drama in the time of the semi-mythical
Bharata, the Indian Thespis, Sir Monier Williams writes:

The drama of these early times was probably
nothing more than the Indian Nautch of the present
day. It was a species of rude pantomime, in which
dancing and movements of the body were accompanied
by mute gestures of the hands and face, or by singing
and music. _Subsequently dialogue was added_....

In Greece the early lyric epoch is represented by the Paians,
Dithyrambs, etc., at the festivals of Apollo and Dionysos, rhythmic
dances to accompaniment of cithara or flute, with words generally
improvised. Out of the Bacchic dithyrambs grew the tragedy. In the
works of the great Attic tragedians the chorus, or dance-song, which
had descended from earlier times still remained the principal feature
of the representation. It was the drama that crystallized out of the
music and dance, not the music that was called in to support or adorn
the drama. Not until the time of Euripides did the chorus become a
secondary element of the representation, and from this time on the
drama begins to decline, becoming more and more a literary product.

It would be a worthy undertaking for a competent student to set
himself the task of bringing order into the chaos of Wagner's
theoretical writings. They are crowded with thoughts of the deepest
import, which seem to point the way to further inquiry, but which
remain suggestions only. The most tiresome quality in Wagner's
literary style is that he scarcely ever comes to the point. Whenever
he asserts a rule in clear and unmistakable language, it is either
brought in almost parenthetically amidst a mass of rhetoric, or--as,