(α) With regard to such an inquiry we may at once in the present work, which does not attempt to include an exhaustive history of art, leave out altogether those origins of dramatic art which we find among Oriental peoples. Despite the considerable progress made by Eastern poetry in the epic and certain types of lyrical composition the entire world-outlook of such peoples nevertheless from the first excludes an artistic development favourable to dramatic art. And the reason is that to genuine tragic action it is essential that the principle of individual freedom and independence, or at least that of self-determination, the will to find in the self the free cause and source of the personal act and its consequences, should already have been aroused; and we may observe that to a still more emphatic degree is this free claim of the personal life and its self-recognized imperium a necessary condition to the appearance of comedy. In the East we find in neither case such a condition satisfied. In particular remoteness from any and every attempt at real dramatic self-expression is that imposing sublimity of Mohammedan poetry, although from a certain point of view it is capable with real power of vindicating the claim of individual independence. But it necessarily fails, because it is an equally essential assumption of it that the One substantive Power overrules every created being and determines his irreversible destiny, and with all the more irresistible fatality in proportion as such a spirit is asserted. The justification of a particular content of individual action and of a personal life which explores its own most intimate substance, in the sense that dramatic art presupposes, is here impossible; indeed it is precisely in Mohammedanism that the subjugation of the individual self to the will of God is the more abstract in proportion as the One predominant Power, who rules the universe, is more abstractly conceived in his universality, and in the last instance will not tolerate one shred of particularity to remain. We consequently only find origins of dramatic composition among the Chinese and Hindoos. But here, too, so far as our present scanty evidence carries us, these do not so much amount to the execution of any free and individual action; they merely reflect the animated life of events and emotions under the mode of definite situations, which are displayed in their course as they actually happen.
(β) The true beginning of dramatic poetry we have consequently to seek among the Hellenes, with whom for the first time and in every respect the principle of free individuality renders the perfect elaboration of the classic type of art possible. Compatibly with this type of art, however, and in its relation to human action, individuality is only so far asserted as it directly demands the free animation of the essential content of human aims. That which pre-eminently is of valid force in ancient drama, therefore, whether it be tragedy or comedy, is the universal and essential content of the end, which individuals seek to achieve. In tragedy this is the ethical claim of human consciousness in view of the particular action in question, the vindication of the act on its own account. And in the old comedy, too, it is in the same way at least the general public interests which are emphasized, whether it be in statesmen and the mode in which they direct the State, questions of peace or war, the general public and its moral conditions, or the condition of philosophy and its decline. And it is owing to this that here neither the varied exposition of personal soul-life and exceptional character, nor the equally exceptional plot and intrigue can obtain the fullest play, nor does the main interest revolve so much around the fate of individuals. In the place of this interest for such particular aspects of the drama above all else sympathy is evoked and claimed for the simple conflict and issue of the essential powers of life, and for the godlike manifestations of the human heart,[38] as distinctive representatives of which the heroes of tragedy are set before us in much the same way as that in which the figures of comedy make visible the general perversity of mankind, to the expression of which, in the reality of the actual present, even the fundamental institutions of public life have been corrupted.
(γ) In modern romantic poetry, on the contrary, it is the individual passion, the satisfaction of which can only be relative to a wholly personal end, generally speaking the destiny of some particular person or character placed under exceptional circumstances, which forms the subject-matter of all importance.
From such a point of view the poetic interest consists in that greatness of characters, which, in virtue of their imaginative power or their disposition and talents, display a spiritual[39] elevation over their situations and actions no less than over the entire wealth of their soul-life, and show it as the real substance of political forces, though often, too, these may be obstructed and, indeed, annihilated in the stress of particular circumstances and the current of events; and we may add that in the greatness of such natures it is not infrequent to find that a power of recovery[40] is further contained. With regard to the particular content of the action in this style of composition it is not therefore the ethical vindication and necessity, but rather the isolated individual and his conditions to which our interest is directed. From a standpoint such as this, therefore, a fundamental motive will arise in such qualities as love and ambition; indeed, crime itself is not excluded. But in the latter case we may easily find rocks ahead difficult indeed to clear. For an out and out criminal, and irrevocably so when he is weak and a thoroughly mean scamp, as is the hero in Milliner's drama, "Crime," is something more than a sorry sight. What we require therefore above all in such cases is at least the formal[41] greatness of character and power of the personal life which is able to ride out everything that negates it, and which, without denial of its acts or, indeed, without being materially discomposed by them, is capable of accepting their consequences. And on the other side we find that those substantive ends, such as patriotism, family devotion, loyalty, and the rest, are by no means to be excluded, although for the individual persons concerned the main question of importance is not so much the substantive force as their own individuality. But in such cases as a rule they rather form the particular ground upon which such persons, viewed in the light of their private character, take their stand and engage in conflict, rather than have supplied what we may regard as the real and ultimate content of their volition and action.
And further, in conjunction with a personal self-assertion of this type we may have presented the full extension of individual idiosyncrasy, not merely in respect to the soul-life simply, but also in relation to external circumstances and conditions, within which the action proceeds. And it is owing to this that in distinctive form the simple conflicts which characterize more classical dramatic composition, we now meet with the variety and exuberance of the characters dramatized, the unforeseen surprises of the ever new and complicated developments of plot, the maze of intrigue, the contingency of events, and, in a word, all those aspects of the modern drama which claim our attention, and the unfettered appearance of which, as opposed to the overwhelming emphasis attached to what is essentially most fundamental in the content, accentuates the type of romantic art in its distinction from the classic type.
But again, even in the cases above indicated, and despite all this apparently untrammelled particularity, the whole ought to continue to be both dramatic and poetical. In other words, on the one hand, the harshness of the collision, which has to be fought through, ought to be visibly obliterated, and on the other, pre-eminently in tragedy, the predominant presence of a more exalted order of the world, whether we adopt the conception of Providence or Fatality, ought to plainly discover itself in and through the course and issue of the action.
(c) The Concrete Development of Dramatic Poetry and its Types