PART II – TECHNIQUE
CHAPTER I – THE TWO TYPES OF DRAMA
Thus far we have been considering the drama with reference to the general principles which govern it. We have distinguished drama from other literary forms; have considered those qualities which have always been deemed indispensable for good dramatic effect, namely, truth, unity, proportion, seriousness; and have determined, at least in part, what are the essential elements of tragedy and comedy.
Turning now from these fundamental principles, which apply with more or less exactness to other forms of art than the drama, we come to consider in detail the way in which the dramatic form works itself out, – the rules of its technique.
But here, too, before proceeding to those more mechanical regulations which are a part of the craft and are somewhat variable, we ought first to emphasize such laws as are a part of the art and are basic, and therefore permanent.
The serious drama, as we have seen, presents a struggle between two forces. Like any struggle, it proceeds from the first repose to the first grappling, then follows the tug and strain of the wrestle, until a moment comes when the advantage begins to go with one side or the other. From that moment on, the struggle moves inevitably, though perhaps not in a direct line, on to the final overthrow of one of the contestants. Such is. the course of every drama. The character of the contest may be of various kinds; it may be single combat, – man against fellow-man or man against society and social law; or man against himself; while the sphere of the contest may be in the physical or the spiritual world, or in both.
In any case, the play falls logically into two parts, called the rising and the falling action, whose point of junction and division is this decisive moment just spoken of, called in dramatic terms the climax or turning-point. In these two parts are set forth respectively the action of the two contestants, the rising action being devoted predominantly to the one that is the aggressor, the falling action to the other. There are evidently two possibilities: (1) the hero takes the initiative, is the aggressor, or (2) he is in the beginning relativelv passive and acts only when he is drawn or driven into action bv the attack of the opposing force. In the first case, the hero is most prominent in the rising action, in the second, he does not come to his fullest expression until the falling action. Of the first sort, we may take as examples Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, Antigone. Of the second, Othello, more doubtfully, Lear.
Thus in Macbeth: in Act I, Scene 3 suggests his aggressive attitude toward his king, and hence toward the political and social law; Scene 4 further emphasizes this; Scenes 5 and 7 clinch his definite determination to kill the king, a determination in which Lady Macbeth is even more prominent than Macbeth himself. In Act II we have the murder of Duncan; in Act III the murder of Banquo. But in Scene 4 of this act, i.e. almost the exact mechanical middle of the play, occurs the banquet-scene, which presents the beginning of the reaction in Macbeth’s own spirit; in Scene 5 Hecate dooms him with the authority of her magic power; in Scene 6 we have the beginning of the political reaction. (Note the beautiful completeness of this scene-group, wherein the triple reaction – the spiritual, the supernatural, the political – is foreshadowed.) [1] After the banquet-scene Macbeth ceases to have prominence. In Act IV his activity does overlap a little in the murder of Macduff’s children, but it is significant that Macbeth himself does not appear here, and the bulk of the act is taken up with the opposition, – hence the elaboration of the scene in Macduff’s castle and in the English court between Malcolm and Macduff. In Act V we have a simple working out of the double catastrophe, for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and except for the sleepwalking scene, the act oscillates between Macbeth and the insurgent army. [2]
[1 Cf. infra, p. 83.]
[2 Cf. infra, p. 73.]
Thus, resuming, we have the first two acts and half of the third devoted to exposition of the double hero’s activity; the last half of the third act and all of the fourth and fifth to exposition of the reaction of this activity. The play illustrates, with diagrammatic clearness, the essential character of this type of drama.
Compare with this Othello. In the first scene we have the arch enemy, Iago, with his fellow-conspirator and tool, Roderigo. Their opposition is stated, and its activity begun. In Scene 2 Iago is still the central figure, in Scene 3 comes Othello’s great speech before the council, but the scene ends again with Iago and Roderigo, concerting their villany:
“I have’t, it is engender’d. Hell and night, Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.”
In Act II, Scene 1, Desdemona and Othello appear, but are quiet, almost colorless. The illumination is still focussed brilliantly upon Iago, and the scene closes with his elaboration of his plan of revenge. Scene 3 witnesses his first decisive move, in working out that part of his scheme that concerns Cassio. In the first half of Act III Iago strikes directly at Othello, and the end of this scene leaves him now in his turn thoroughly roused, with all his untamable passions inflamed. From this point on Othello receives greater and greater emphasis, though Iago is not allowed to fall into the background. In Scene 4 occurs the first encounter between Othello and Desdemona, which involves the question of the handkerchief. In Act IV, Scene 1, Iago still works up his evidence; Scene 2 has the second interview of Othello with Desdemona, and ends with the plan of Iago and Roderigo for Cassio’s death; Scene 3 gives Desdemona her needed prominence. Act V, Scene 1, has the murder of Cassio by Roderigo, which means the perfecting of Iago’s plans, but which also ultimately involves his own ruin. Scene 2 has the catastrophe.
Thus it will be seen that, in contrast to Macbeth, this play begins by presenting its hero at poise, in a state of repose from which he is not roused until the third act, while from the third act on his passionate activity moves forward in a continuous and tremendous crescendo. Any one who remembers the part as acted by the elder Salvini will remember the overwhelming effect of this crescendo as brought out by the almost brutally titanic power of the actor.
The two types of drama possess each its peculiar advantages and drawbacks, and each makes its different and characteristic impression. In the first, the interest of the audience is more immediately enlisted for the hero, who appears as aggressive and defiant. But the last half of the play is harder to make effective, because the opposing force is apt to be less concentrated and less able to focus the attention. It is, in general, less interesting to see the hero acted upon, than to see him acting. In Macbeth we must all feel the weakness of the second half compared with the first, the immediate falling off in effectiveness after the banquet-scene. Yet it was necessary, as we have seen, to set forth the activity of the opposition, and Shakespeare was forced to do this in a series of scenes which tend to scatter the attention and dissipate the interest of the audience. In Othello, on the other hand, the interest constantly rises throughout the play, beginning on a low and unemphatic note, and rising through scene after scene to the final clashing chords of the catastrophe. The play can scarcely even be said to have its climax in the third act. [1] It is rather a steady ascent through a series of scenes, each more intense and decisive than the preceding. Possibly, however, it may be said that the contrast with Macbeth is not quite fair, because in Othello the opposing force is also concentrated in one person, – is embodied in the genius of Iago, – so that it is as if the play had two heroes, one for each half of the action. On this basis the drama might after all be classed with Macbeth, because Iago is in one sense the hero, and his activity begins at once. This may be so, but perhaps it only shows that a drama of the highest power will have the strength of each type and avoid the weakness of each. But, on the whole, the Macbeth type has been the one oftenest adopted by the great dramatists. Shakespeare’s plays almost all conform to it, and this is one of the reasons why his plays are so often weak in their working out, why the second half often fails to fulfil the promise of the first. It is significant that two of his plays of which this is not true, Othello and Lear, are of the other type.
[1 Cf. infra, pp. 77-78, and p. 84.]
In the Greek drama we find both types. To begin with, however, we must remember that the Greek tragedy often leaves out what would be our rising action, and begins somewhere about our turning-point, or even beyond that, in the falling action, at the fourth or fifth act. Thus, when Freytag places the Oedipus Tyrannus in the second class with Lear and Othello, he is using an inapplicable standard. For, to the Greek mind, what went before the written play was also a part of it. Thus, the real plot of the Oedipus may be stated, for our purposes, as follows: A young man slays his father and marries his mother, and by this double crime, committed in ignorance, gains possession of a throne. As a result, misfortune descends upon his people, ruin upon him. That is to say, he first acts, boldly and decisively; then he suffers the results of his acts. The parallel with Macbeth is apparent, though disguised by the circumstance that whereas the Englishman took his hero at the beginning of his crime and followed him through to the end, the Greek began near the end, presupposing the earlier acts. The Oedipus Tyrannus may be considered as beginning at a point corresponding to the banquet-scene in Macbeth; that proviso made, the correspondences become clear, and the play is seen to be one of the first type. To class it with Othello is to miss its significance.
The Philoctetes and the Ajax may, however, properly be so classed; probably, also, the Electra. In each of these the hero appears as reacting against forces that have been in long-continued opposition to him. On the other hand, Antigone is plainly of the first type, like Macbeth and Oedipus, only here there is no difficulty, because the play includes within itself, formally, and not by implication merely, both the deed and the result.
