between Shakespeare and the classic drama. Some anticipation of this comprehensiveness of plot may be found here and there in Euripides. But his attempt to extend the action, so far as it went, was injurious to unity of impression, coinciding as it did with an inevitable decline of that heroic or ideal nobility which constituted the chief excellence of ancient tragedy. 3. The most striking of all differences between Greek tragedy and the Shakespearian drama consists in the number, variety, and complexity of the characters. It is sometimes said that the characters in a play of Aeschylus or Sophocles are typical, while those of an Elizabethan play are individual.1 The statement rests upon undoubted facts, but, as thus broadly put, is apt to be understood in a sense which is erroneous. The modern is more complicated, but the ancient not less real; while both are equally ideal. The point is, Whether does the author convince us, or does he not, of the reality of his persons? That the personality of Hamlet has more of range and elasticity than that of Eteocles or Ajax, for example, is manifest enough. Complexity of situation involves complexity of motive and of feeling. But Ajax and Eteocles are not the less alive; they are human beings of whose vitality no one who sees and hears the dramas can 1 See, for example, A. Ward in Ency. Brit. vol. vii. p. 394. D entertain a doubt-more convincing, from the very fact of their solidity, than many "complex" characters in Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. Nor is every character in ancient tragedy so entirely simple. There are differences in this respect between the three great tragedians, which will appear in the sequel; and in the personality of the Sophoclean Oedipus or Philoctetes there are diverse elements which the poet's art has brought together and harmonised. It 4. The multiplicity of characters in Shakespeare makes up in some degree for the absence of the chorus in so far as they represent the average bystander, while a substitute for those lyrical passages where emotion is reflected and magnified, in which the Chorus approaches more nearly to the character of the "ideal spectator," is found in the frequent use of the soliloquy—a conventional expedient for which the objective cast of ancient tragedy gave less of scope. may be urged, however, that the Chorus supply an element for which no perfect substitute exists in the modern drama. While they mediate between the spectators and the scene before them, they collect into one focus many rays of feeling and reflection which must otherwise be scattered up and down the play. On the other hand, it must be admitted that the presence of the Chorus, while suited on the whole to the representation of ancient life which passed chiefly in public and in the open day, either precludes or renders improbable many confidential scenes which greatly assist the totality of impression, and which no modern playwright can afford to omit. 5. It was the presence of the Chorus, as already said, that made necessary within certain limits the continuity of the action. But the limits were less narrow than has been sometimes assumed. A recent critic1 has objected to the received understanding of the Agamemnon, that the King could not arrive from Troy within the day. The assertion is indisputable, but the objection is not to be sustained. For in other plays, and not in the Agamemnon only, the lapse of time is, through the illusion of the scene, in part idealised and in part ignored. On the other hand, no ancient dramatist could indulge in the inconsistencies which have led interpreters to puzzle themselves over the age of Hamlet, or which gave occasion for Professor Wilson's brilliant Time-analysis of Othello. The difficulty of the task which the ancient playwright had to fulfil is obvious. In about half the time that is occupied by a Shakespearian play, the hearts of thousands were to be drawn forth and fixed on a supreme crisis, in which some serious aspect of human destiny was typified. The 1 Dr. Verrall in his edition of the Agamemnon. crowning issues of one or more representative lives had to be summed up and manifested in a few scenes. And this must be done with completeness of effect. The struggle of man with fate must be displayed in its rise, its culmination, and its close. When in addition to this it was required that the action should seem literally continuous, so that the presence of the Chorus throughout should not be felt as improbable, the severity of requirement was extreme. The difficulty was met by choosing the most critical moment for representation; and in so far the imagination of the spectator was less exercised than when, as in Shakespeare, he is called upon to witness a series of actions more or less widely separated in time. The ancient drama is thus characterised by intense concentration. And this has the further advantage of helping proportion, and giving depth to the composition by a sort of perspective. The necessity for employing narrative spares the audience such incidental scenes as the blinding of Gloucester and the murder of Banquo on the stage. The great size of the Dionysiac theatre, with the consequent use of the mask, speaking-tube, and buskin, may well seem at first sight to have constituted a serious impediment to naturalness in the ancient drama. But mechanical obstacles are the artist's opportunities. And while all these causes conspired to maintain simplicity and to intensify concentration, it cannot be alleged that they betrayed the great tragic poets into offences against nature. Each seems to have been present in spirit, not in the theatre itself, but at the imagined scene; and, strange though it may appear, it is certainly true that a speech of Ajax or of Oedipus may be broken up and varied in declamation to a moderate-sized audience without any essential departure from the meaning of the poet, but rather with the effect of interpreting him more faithfully. Similarly, there are delicate shades and turns of feeling in Euripides to which the mask and speaking-tube cannot have given adequate effect. It is clear that some conventions were discounted, and that much was left to the imagination, including many of the horrors described as present in the scene.1 But where this is so, a great poet, instead of clipping the wings of his own fancy, rather indulges it the more. Witness the description of the English and French camps in Henry V., where the author was well aware that the representation on the stage would much disgrace With four or five most vile and ragged foils There must always be some correlation between 1 Stapfer, Shakespeare et les Tragiques Grecs, p. 24. |