And he ended with this reference to the constructive skill of Ibsen:
Another thing strikes me in connection with this subject: the praise of Ibsen, the Scandinavian dramatist, is abroad in England; and again, as so often before, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord in the direction of Boston. But some of the loudest worshippers of this truly great man in both countries either wilfully ignore, or else they know nothing about, his real greatness.
Ibsen holds in his hand the terrible power, in dealing with the evils of society, which dramatic construction gives to a genius like his; he has not laid this power aside and reduced his own stage to a mere lecture platform. A man armed with a sword who should lay it down in the heat of battle and take up a wisp of straw to fight with, would be a fool. Ibsen, like his great predecessors and contemporaries in France, deals his vigorous blows at social wrongs thru dramatic effects and the true dramatic relations of his characters. I know of no writer for the stage, past or present, who depends for his moral power more continuously at all points on the art of dramatic construction than Ibsen does. He, himself, would be the first to smile at those who praise him as if he were a writer of moral dialogs or the self-appointed lecturer for one of those psychological panoramas which are unrolled in acts, at a theater, or in monthly parts in a periodical.
In conclusion: to all who argue that careful construction is unnecessary in literary art, I will say only this: it is extremely easy not to construct.
It may be noted also that Bronson Howard returned to the topic of his lecture in a contribution to the Dramatic Mirror in 1900; he called this
A MERE SUGGESTION.
So much is written in critical notices of plays, about their "construction," that I should like to suggest a few of the considerations which that term involves. It is possible that some of the beginners, who are to become the future dramatists of America, will see the necessity of thinking twice before using the term at all. Some of the more general considerations to be kept in view, when a careful and properly educated critic feels justified in using the word "construction," may be jotted down as follows:
I. The actual strength of the main incident of a play.
II. Relative strength of the main incident, in reference to the importance of the subject; and also to the length of the play.
III. Adequacy of the story in relation to the importance and dignity of the main incident and of the subject.