Freytag’s
Technique of the Drama
An Exposition of Dramatic Composition and Art
By Dr Gustav Freytag
An Authorized Translation from the Sixth German Edition
by
Elias J. MacEwan, M.A.
Third Edition.
Chicago – Scott, Foresman and Company 1900 Copyright 1894 by S.C. Griggs & Company
Contents
Biographical Note
Introduction:
Technique of the drama not absolute. Certain craftsman’s skill of earlier times. Condition of present time. Aristotle’s Poetics. Lessing. The great dramatic works as models.
Chapter I. – Dramatic Action.
1. The Idea. – How the drama originates in the mind of the poet. Development of the idea. Material and its transformation. The historian and the poet. The range of material. Transformation of the real, according to Aristotle.
2. What is Dramatic? – Explanation. Effects. Characters. The Action. The dramatic life of the characters. Entrance of the dramatic into the life of men. Rareness of dramatic power.
3. Unity. – The Law. Among the Greeks. How it is produced. How the unity of historical material is not secured. False unity. Where dramatic material is to be found. The character in the modern drama. Counter-play and its danger. Episodes.
4. Probability. – What is probable. Social effects of the drama. The strange. The marvellous. Mephistopheles. The irrational. Shakespeare and Schiller.
5. Importance and Magnitude. – Weakness of characters. Distinguished heroes. Private persons. Degrading the art.
6. Movement and Ascent. – Public actions. Inward struggles. Poet dramas. Nothing important to be omitted. Prince of Homburg. Antony and Cleopatra. Messenger scenes. Concealment and effect through reflex action. Effects by means of the action itself. Necessity of ascent. Contrasts. Parallel scenes.
7. What is Tragic? – How far the poet may not concern himself about it. The purging. Effects of ancient tragedy. Contrast with German tragedy. The tragic force (moment). The revolution and recognition.
Chapter II. – The Construction of the Drama.
1. Play and Counter-Play. – Two halves. Rise and fall. Two kinds of structure. Drama in which the chief hero leads. Drama of counter-play. Examples. Spectacle-play and tragedy.
2. Five Parts and Three Crises. – The introduction. The exciting force (moment). The ascent. The tragic force or incident. Falling action. The force or motive of last suspense. The catastrophe. Necessary qualifications of the poet.
3. Construction of the Drama in Sophocles. – Origin of tragedy. Pathos scenes. Messenger scenes. Dialogues. Representation. The three actors. Scope of their work compared with modern actors. Same actor used to strengthen effects. Cast of parts. Ideas of preserved tragedies. Construction of the action. The characters. Ajax as an example. Peculiarity of Sophocles. His relation to the myth. The parts of the tragedy. Antigone. King Oedipus. Oedipus at Colonos. The Trachinian Women. Ajax. Philoctetes.
4. Germanic Drama. – Stage of Shakespeare. Its influence on the structure of the pieces. Shakespeare's peculiarities. Its falling action and its weaknesses. Construction of Hamlet.
5. The Five Acts. – Influence of the curtain on the modern stage. Development of the act. The five parts. Their technical peculiarities. First act. Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Examples. Construction of the double drama, Wallenstein.
Chapter 3. – Construction of Scenes.
1. Members. – Entrances. Scenes. Units of the poet. Their combination into scenes. Structure of the scene. Intervals. Change of scenery. Chief scenes and subordinate scenes.
2. The Scenes According to the Number of Persons. – Conduct of action through the scenes. Monologues. Messenger scenes. Dialogue scenes. Different structure. Love scenes. Three persons. Ensemble scenes. Their laws. The galley scene in Antony and Cleopatra. Banquet scene in Piccolomini. Rütli scene. Parliament in Demetrius. Mass scenes. Distributed voices. Battles.
Chapter 4. – the Characters.
1. Peoples and Poets. – Assumptions of dramatic characterization, creation, and after-creation. Variety of peoples and characters. Germans and Latins. Difference according to poets. Shakespeare's characters. Lessing, Goethe, Schiller.
2. Characters in the Material and in the Play. – The character dependent on the action. Example of Wallenstein. Characters with portraiture. Historical characters. Poets and history. Opposition between characters and action. The epic hero intrinsically undramatic. Euripides. The Germans and their legends. Older German history. Nature of historical heroes. Inner poverty. Mingling of opposites. Lack of unity. Influence of Christendom. Henry IV. Attitude of the poet toward the appearances of reality. Opposition between poet and actor.
3. Minor Rules. – The characters must have dramatic unity. The drama must have but one chief hero. Double heroes. Lovers. The action must be based on characteristics of the persons. Easily understood. Mingling of good and evil. Humor. Accident. The characters in the different acts. Demands of the actor. The conception of the stage arrangement must be vivid in the poet's mind. The province of the spectacle play. What is it to write effectively?
Chapter 5. – Verse and Color.
1. Prose and Verse. – Iambic pentameter. Tetrameter. Trimeter. Alexandrine. Verse of the Nibelungen Lied. Dramatic element of verse. Color.
Chapter 6. – the Poet and His Work.
1. Poet of Modern Times. – Material. Work. Fitting for the stage. Cutting out. Length of the piece. Acquaintance with the stage.
Biographical Note.
Gustav Freytag, scholar, poet, novelist, critic, playwright, editor, soldier, publicist, was born in Kreuzberg, Silesia, in 1816. Still living in quiet retirement in Wiesbaden, he is one of the best known of modern German writers. His preliminary education was acquired at the Gymnasium of Oels, which he entered in 1829, at the age of thirteen. In 1835, he began the study of German philology under Hofmann, at the University of Breslau. Later he continued this line of study with Lachmann, at the University of Berlin, where, in 1838-9, he was given the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, on the presentation of a thesis on De initiis scenicae poeseos apud Germanos. Between this time and 1846, he was connected with the University of Breslau, as an instructor in the German language and literature. Having gained some notice, as the author of a comedy, The Bridal Journey (1844), and a volume of short popular poems, In Breslau (1845), he now (1847), in connection with Julian Schmidt, undertook the management of the political and literary newspaper, Die Grenzboten, in Leipzig. He continued his literary work, and entered in earnest upon what has proved a long and honorable career of a man of letters.
In 1847, Valentine appeared, followed the next year by Count Waldemir, both society plays, evincing the author's dramatic power, and with his inclination toward the spirit, the dialectics, and the sketchy manner of the younger writers, showing his delicate feeling for clearness and purity of style, his skill in the conduct of the action, in dialogue, and his genial fresh humor. His next play, The Scholar, he is rather a psychological study in a single act, than a drama. In 1854, his greatest piece, The Journalists, was first acted; and it is still one of the most popular modern society dramas represented on the German stage. Perfectly natural and healthful in tone, it abounds in striking situations, depicts with fidelity many important types of German character, amusingly exhibits social rivalries and political machinations, and affords abundant opportunity for the author's effective satire. Another play, The Fabii, appeared in 1859.
Freytag's first great novel, Soll und Haben (1858), translated into English under the title of Debit and Credit (1859), has become a classic. In this, his view of human life is broader and his insight into the springs of human action deeper than in his plays. Its purpose is to show the value and dignity of a life of labor. It attempts to show that the active, vigorous life of a great German merchant is purer, nobler, more beneficent than the life of a haughty aristocrat, relying only on the traditional merits of his family; and, in this attempt, the author weaves a web of glory about the life of the ordinary citizen. A second novel, The Lost Manuscript (1864), in like manner shows the superiority of the scholar over the nobleman.
The Technique of the Drama was written in 1863, and dedicated to the author's friend – Wolf, Count of Baudissin. The book has passed through six editions, and attained the rank of a first-class authority on the matters of which he treats, though now for the first time translated into English.
In 1862, Freytag began his famous series of connected historical tales, in New Pictures from the Life of the German People, continued the next year in Pictures from the German Past, and still further in 1876 and later, in The Ancestors, including Ingo and Ingraban; The Nest of the Hedge-sparrows; The Brothers of the German House; Marcus King; The Brothers and Sisters; From a Little City, etc. These are all descriptions of the German life, based on accurate research, and including periods from the fourth to the nineteenth century. Devoted to the glory of the German people, this, the author's most extensive work, makes an entertaining exposition of some of the noblest traits of German character. In 1870, he published a striking biography of his intimate friend, entitled Karl Mathy; Story of His Life.
Freytag continued to edit Die Grenzboten four at twenty-three years, when he went over to a new journal called Im Neuen Reich. His political writings having introduced him to public life, he became in 1867, a representative of the Liberal party in the North-German Parliament. On the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, he entered the imperial army as an officer on the staff of the Crown Prince, remaining in military service till after the Battle of Sedan. He gave up public life in 1879.
Introduction.
That the technique of the drama is nothing absolute and unchangeable scarcely need be stated. Since Aristotle established a few of the highest laws of dramatic effect, the culture of the human race has grown more than two thousand years older. Not only have the artistic forms, the stage and method of representation undergone a great change, but what is more important, the spiritual and moral nature of men, the relation of the individual to the race and to the highest forces of earthly life, the idea of freedom, the conception of the being of Divinity, have experienced great revolutions. A wide field of dramatic material has been lost; a new and greater range has been won. With the moral and political principles which control our life, our notion of the beautiful and the artistically effective has developed. Between the highest art effects of the Greek festivals, the autos sacramentales, and the drama of the time of Goethe and Iffland, the difference is not less great than between the Hellenic choral theater, the structure for the mystery play, and the complete inclosed room of the modern stage. It may be considered certain that some of the fundamental laws of dramatic production will remain in force for all time; in general, however, not only the final requisites of the drama have been found in continuous development, but also the artistic means of producing its effects. Let no one think that the technique of poetry has been advanced through the creations of the greatest poets only; we may say without self-exaltation that we at present have clearer ideas upon the highest art effects in the drama and upon the use of technical equipment, then had Lessing, Schiller and Goethe.
The poet of the presence is inclined to look with amazement upon a method of work in which the structure of scenes, the treatment of characters, and the sequence of effects were governed by a transmitted code of fixed technical rules. Such a limitation easily seems to us the death of free artistic creation. Never was a greater error. Even an elaborate system of specific rules, a certain limitation founded in popular custom, as to choice of material and structure of the peace, have been at different periods the best aid to creative power. Indeed, they are, it seems, necessary prerequisites of that rich harvest of many past periods, which has seemed to us so enigmatical and incomprehensible. We recognize still that Greek tragedy possessed such a technique, and that the greatest poets worked in according to craftsman's rules which were in part common, and in part might be the property of distinct families and guilds. Many of these were well-known to Attic criticism, which judge the worth of a piece according to them – whether the revolution scene were in the right place and the pathos scene aroused the desired degree of sympathy. That the Spanish cloak-and-dagger drama artistically wove the threads of its intrigue likewise according to fixed rules, no poetics of a Castilian informs us; but we are able to recognize very well many of these rules in the uniform construction of the plays, and in the ever recurring characters; and it would not be very difficult to formulate a code of peculiar rules from the plays themselves. These rules, of course, even to contemporaries, to whom they were useful, were not invariable; through the genius and shrewd invention of individuals, these gradually learned how to improve and remodel, until the rules became lifeless; and after a period of spiritless application, together with the creative power of the poets, they were lost.
It is true, an elaborate technique which determines not only the form, but also many aesthetic effects, barks out for the dramatic poetry of a period a limited boundary within which the greatest success is attained, and to transgress which is not allowed even to the greatest genius. In later times such a limitation is considered a hindrance to a versatile development. But even we Germans might be well content with the unappreciative judgment of posterity if we only possessed now the aid of a generally useful technique. We suffer from the opposite of narrow limitations, the lack of proper restraint, lack of form, a popular style, a definite range of dramatic material, firmness of grasp; our work has become in all directions casual and uncertain. Even to-day, eighty years after Schiller, the young poet finds it difficult to move upon the stage with confidence and ease.
If, however, we must deny ourselves the advantage of composing according to the craftsman's traditions which were peculiar to the dramatic art as well as to the plastic arts of former centuries, yet we should not scorn to speak, and intelligently to use, the technical rules of ancient and modern times, which facilitate artistic effects on our stage. To be sure, these rules are not to be prescribed at the dictation of a single person, not established through the influence of one great thinker or poet; but drawn from the noblest effects of the stage, they must include what is essential – they must serve criticism and creative power not as dictator but as honest helper; and under them a transformation and improvement according to the needs of the time is not to be excluded.
It is remarkable that the technical rules of a former time, in accordance with which the playwright must construct the artistic framework of his piece, have been so seldom transmitted in writing to later generations. Two thousand two hundred years have passed since Aristotle formulated a part of these laws for the Hellenes. Unfortunately his Poetics has come down to us incomplete. Only in outline has been received, which unskilled hands have made – a corrupt text with gaps, apparently disconnected chapters, hastily thrown together. In spite of this condition, what we have received is of highest value to us. Today is our science of the past is indebted for a glance into the remains of the Hellene's theater world. In our text-books on aesthetics, this still affords the foundation for the theory of our dramatic art, and to the growing poet, some chapters of the little work are instructive; for besides a theory of dramatic effects, there's the greatest thinker of antiquity explained them to his contemporaries, and besides many principles of a popular system of criticism, as the cultured Athenian brought it into use in considering a new production, the work contains many fine appliances from the workshops of antiquity, which we can use to great advantage in our labors. In the following pages, so far as the practical purpose of the book will allow, these will be the subject of our discussion.
It is a hundred and twenty years since Lessing undertook to decipher for the Germans this stenography of the ancients. His Hamburgische Dramaturgie was the avenue to a popular comprehension of the dramatically beautiful. The victorious battle which he waged in this book, against the tyranny of French taste, will secure to him forever to respect and affection of the German people. For our time, the polemic past is of most importance. Where Lessing elucidates Aristotle, his understanding of the Greek does not seem entirely sufficient for our present time, which has at hand a more abundant means of explanation; where he exposes the laws of dramatic creation, his judgment is restricted by the narrow conception of the beautiful and effective, which he himself accepted.
Indeed, the best source of technical rules is the plays of great poets, which still to-day, exercise their charm alike on reader and spectator, especially the Greek tragedies. Whoever accustoms himself to look aside from the peculiarities of the old models, will notice with real joy that the skillful tragic poet of the Athenians, Sophocles, use the fundamental laws of dramatic construction, with enviable certainty and shrewdness. For development, climax, and return of the action, he presents us a model seldom reached.
About two thousand years after Oedipus at Colonos, Shakespeare, the second mighty genius which gave immortal expression to dramatic art, wrote the tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. He created the drama of the Germanic races. His treatment of the tragic, is the regulation of the action, his manner of developing character, and his representation of soul experiences, have established for the introduction of the drama, and for the first half to the climax, many technical laws which still guide us.
The Germans came in a roundabout way to a recognition of the greatness and significance of his service. The great German poets, easily the next models after which we have to fashion, lived in [line missing bottom of p 7 in scan] … with the inheritance of the old past. There was lacking therefore, to the technique which they inherited, something of certainty and consistency in effects; and directly because the beautiful which they discovered has been infused into our blood, we are bound, in our work, to reject many things which with them rested upon an incomplete or insecure foundation.
The examples brought forward in the following discussion are taken from Sophocles, Shakespeare, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller, for it has seemed desirable to limit examples to universally known works.
