Types Of Tragic Drama

( Originally Published 1909 )

By C. E. Vaughan, Professor of English Literature in the University of Leeds. London : Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1908. Pp. vi, 275.

Professor Vaughan takes a wide view, ranging from AEschylus to Browning, Ibsen and Maeterlinck. Indeed perhaps the view taken is almost too wide, so that it has been impossible to give more than a sketchy outline in certain of the cases. The leading theme is the change from the Classical to the Romantic Drama; this, it is held, coincides in the main with the change from the outward to the inward, that is, with the shifting of interest away from those simpler elements in human nature that can be expressed clearly and symbolized readily by action, on to those subtler, more complex movements of the soul that can only be indicated in speech and sometimes escape speech itself. These are not Prof. Vaughan's own words, but this seems to be his drift. With this change of interest he connects the change from the simple, compact type of drama, marked by an admirable plot (using "plot" in the wide sense of the word, including "situation"), to the looser structure adopted by Shakespeare and the Romantic dramatists in general. Such a structure gives room for all kinds of episodes and scenes which do not, perhaps, help on the actual story or illuminate the external situation, but which do throw a penetrating light on the inner recesses of character. It was this prevailing interest in the subtleties of character that, above all, led to the revolt against the "unities." This is a fruitful idea; for it does seem clear that these laws, even when not interpreted pedantically, would fetter the full manifestation of character, especially character in "its capacity for growth or decay," "the highest and at the same time the most tragic " of all its qualities (p. 150).

Prof. Vaughan gives, very rightly, much space to the Greek drama. He is most in sympathy with AEschylus, whom he calls the greatest master of dramatic situation that ever lived, an illuminating phrase. But one is inclined to quarrel with him for his treatment of Euripides. He only understands that most human poet's effort "to bring the drama nearer to the actual interests and emotions of his own day" (p. 64) ; he says little or nothing of his passionate religious preoccupation, nothing of his passionate reaction against the cruel mythology that had come to him from the past. But this is surely the keynote of play after play, and if we do not catch it we are lost. In different ways Prof. Murray and Dr. Verrall have both called attention to this all-important feature. To miss it in Euripides is to miss the point of many of his most effective situations ; and leads almost inevitably to the old injustice of saying that "the dominant note in his dramas is the love of effect : that, so long as an effect was obtained, he was comparatively indifferent as to the means by which it was secured," etc. (p. 81).

In connection with the w hole question of character, Prof. Vaughan has some excellent remarks on "keenness and soundness of moral judgment" as "among the qualities that are in-dispensable to a great dramatist" (p. 57). This recalls Swinburne's admirable passage about Shakespeare's "implacable and impeccable righteousness of insight." And it suggests to a re-viewer that the real and fatal weakness of Calderon (whom Prof. Vaughan discusses at considerable length) lies in his perverted notions of "honor" and "religion." It may be pre-sumptuous in one who has n knowledge of Spanish to express an opinion here, but this is certainly the impression left by the translations ; and Prof. Vanghan's eloquent advocacy does nothing to dissipate it : perhaps he did not intend that it should.

London. F. MELIAN STAWELL.