It thus appears that I array myself neither with the aesthetic nor with the materialistic school of critics, but occupy middle ground. Nevertheless, my book is devoted, in the main, to a consideration of the more materialistic and external factors in the development of Greek drama. These factors are different manifestations of Environment, which is a far broader term than Aristotle’s Spectacle (ὄψις). I entertain no illusion as to the comparative importance of environment in the criticism of drama. It is distinctly of secondary importance. If it were possible to study Greek drama from but one point of view, perhaps this would not deserve to be that one. But since no such restriction obtains, it is my contention that a consideration of these factors, too, is not merely valuable, but essential to a complete survey of the field.
It will now be seen why I have no chapter on the “Influence of the Poet.” He can hardly be considered a part of his own environment. But there were also other reasons for the omission. Partly it was because every chapter shows the mastermind of the dramatist adapting himself to the situation therein outlined, and partly because an adequate treatment of this topic would involve a presentation of the poets’ ideas and teaching—a subject which is amply discussed in other treatises and which would swell this volume beyond the limits at my disposal. I am aware that to some the result will seem to give the uninitiated a lopsided view of the Greek drama. For example, a reviewer of Signor Francesco Guglielmino’s Arte e Artifizio nel Dramma Greco (Catania, 1912) maintains that “for the reader who is not technically a scholar” such a study of dramatic technique presents “a subtly distorted picture.”[9] To this criticism my reply would be that the standard handbooks are guilty of much the same error in largely ignoring the phase of the subject which is here presented. But however that may be, for the language and style or for the political, moral, ethical, and religious ideas of ancient playwrights, I must recommend such invaluable works as Haigh’s Tragic Drama of the Greeks (1896), Decharme’s Euripides and the Spirit of His Dramas, Croiset’s Aristophanes and the Political Parties at Athens, Legrand’s The New Greek Comedy (the last three translated by Loeb, 1906, 1909, and 1917), Sheppard’s Greek Tragedy (1911), Murray’s Euripides and His Age (1913), etc. I must add, however, that to a certain extent these books treat also of the matters discussed in this volume and have freely been consulted.
In this connection I wish to comment upon another objection. Several of my articles which are incorporated in the present volume antedate Guglielmino’s work, and my whole book was blocked out and large parts of it were written before his Arte e Artifizio came to my attention. Nevertheless my plan of treatment bears some points of resemblance to his. In particular, he employs the chauvinistic passages in Greek tragedy to show the poets striving for “immediate effects,” i.e., deliberately exciting the patriotic sentiments of their audiences. It will be observed that I go a step farther and maintain that the winning of the prize was the ultimate object, to which the other motive was contributory (see [pp. 213 ff.], below). I believe that the tag at the end of Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians, Orestes, and Phoenician Maids and the parallels from Greek comedy confirm my interpretation. But the reviewer just cited declares it
unfair to the dramatist and his art to forget that he and his audience were all Athenians together.... When the Athenian dramatist, sharing the Athenian pride in their country’s history or legend, makes a character express a common patriotic emotion or belief, we cannot properly call that flattery of the audience, or an artifice for effect, even though the words were sure to call out rapturous applause. The bit of truth in such a view is so partial as to be false.
But, as Professor Murray says of the choral ode in the Medea, “They are not at all the conventional glories attributed by all patriots to their respective countries.”[10] Moreover, these passages usually rest upon no popular belief, for the simple reason that they frequently corresponded neither to history nor to traditional mythology, but dealt with incidents that had been newly invented by the poet’s fancy or had at least been invested by him with new details and setting.
At the beginning of the European conflagration in August, 1914, London managers hastened to bring out such plays as Drake, Henry V, and An Englishman’s Home. Was this merely the prompting of genuinely patriotic fervor on their part, or a misdirected attempt to exploit the emotions of their countrymen? The fact that this class of plays was soon withdrawn after it became apparent that the public heard enough about the war elsewhere without being reminded of it also in the theaters favors the latter explanation. Now, that Aristophanes frankly angled for the suffrages of his audiences cannot be denied. When, then, we remember how Euripides began to write for the stage when he was only eighteen, how he had to wait for a chorus in the great contest until he was thirty and then gained only the last place, how his first victory was deferred until 441 B.C. when he was forty-four years of age, how few were the victories that he won, how he courted his public by seeking out unhackneyed themes, by inventing sensational episodes, by reverting to the mannerisms of Aeschylus, by introducing sex problems—when we remember all this, can it be doubted that his chauvinistic passages were part and parcel of the same policy and were deliberately written with the same motives as are revealed in the choice of plays by Sir Herbert Tree and the other London managers of today?
But perhaps it may be said that the psychology of managers is utterly unlike that of poets. In reply it would be possible and sufficient to cite the not infrequent concessions which Shakespeare and many another have made to the groundlings in their audiences, but I prefer to quote the words of a dramatist who has declared himself on the subject more explicitly. Mr. Henry Arthur Jones has recently written:
A dramatist is often reproached for producing plays that are obviously below the standard of his aspirations, and obviously below the level of his best work. This assumes that the dramatist is, like the novelist, always free to do his best work. There could not be a greater mistake. The dramatist is limited and curbed by a thousand conditions which are never suspected by the public. The drama will always remain a popular art.... The dramatist who writes plays too far ahead, or too far away from the taste and habits of thought of the general body of playgoers, finds the theatre empty, his manager impoverished, and his own reputation and authority diminished or lost. No sympathy should be given to dramatists, however lofty their aims, who will not study to please the general body of playgoers of their days.... The question to be asked concerning a dramatist is—“Does he desire to give the public the best they will accept from him, or does he give them the readiest filth or nonsense that most quickly pays?” He cannot always even give the public the best that they would accept from him. In sitting down to write a play, he must first ask himself, “Can I get a manager of repute to produce this, and in such a way and at such a theatre that it can be seen to advantage? Can I get some leading actor or actress to play this part for the benefit of the play as a whole? Can I get these other individual types of character played in such a way that they will appear to be something like the persons I have in my mind?” These and a hundred other questions the dramatist has to ask himself before he decides upon the play he will write. A mistake in the casting of a secondary character may ruin a play, so narrow is the margin of success.... I hope I may be forgiven for intruding this personal matter by way of excuse and explanation. In no case do I blame or arraign the public, who, in the theatre, will always remain my masters, and whose grateful and willing servant I shall always remain.[11]
It should be recognized that my book is intended for two very diverse types of readers, whose demands likewise are dissimilar:
First, for a general reading public which has little or no acquaintance with the Greek and Latin classics in the original but has a deep and abiding interest in the drama together with a desire to learn more of the prototypes and masterpieces of the genre. This situation has made necessary an amplitude of explanatory matter which, I fear, will at times prove irksome to my professional confrères. On the other hand, I have felt that intellectual honesty required me to treat the topics discussed in my Introduction and to meet the problems there raised at some length and without evasions. But to do so necessitated the interpretation of Greek texts and the presentation of much jejune material. Perhaps, therefore, some of my non-classical readers will prefer to omit the Introduction. By cross-references and slight repetitions I have endeavored to make the rest of the book intelligible without it. The English word “stage” is too convenient to be avoided in discussing theatrical matters, but those who omit the third section of the Introduction are to understand that its use in my text does not mean that I believe that the Greek theater of the fourth and fifth centuries B.C. had a raised stage for the exclusive use of actors.