The Old English Dramatists

In my first lecture I spoke briefly of the deficiency in respect of Form which characterizes nearly all the dramatic literature of which we are taking a summary survey, till the example of Shakespeare and the precepts of Ben Jonson wrought their natural effect. Teleology, or the argument from means to end, the argument of adaptation, is not so much in fashion in some spheres of thought and speculation as it once was, but here it applies admirably. We have a piece of work, and we know the maker of it. The next question that we ask ourselves is the very natural one -- how far it shows marks of intelligent design. In a play we not only expect a succession of scenes, but that each scene should lead, by a logic more or less stringent, if not to the next, at any rate to something that is to follow, and that all should contribute their fraction of impulse towards the inevitable catastrophe. That is to say, the structure should be organic, with a necessary and harmonious connection and relation of parts, and not merely mechanical, with an arbitrary or haphazard joining of one part to another. It is in the former sense alone that any production can be called a work of art.

And when we apply the word Form in this sense to some creation of the mind, we imply that there is a life, or, what is still better, a soul in it. That there is an intimate relation, or, at any rate, a close analogy, between Form in this its highest attribute and Imagination, is evident if we remember that the Imagination is the shaping faculty. This is, indeed, its preëminent function, to which all others are subsidiary. Shakespeare, with his usual depth of insight and the precision that comes of it, tells us that "imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown. " In his maturer creations there is generally some central thought about which the action revolves like a moon, carried along with it in its appointed orbit, and permitted the gambol of a Ptolemaic epicycle now and then. But the word Form has also more limited applications, as, for example, when we use it to imply that nice sense of proportion and adaptation which results in Style. We may apply it even to the structure of a verse, or of a short poem in which every advantage has been taken of the material employed, as in Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn," which seems as perfect in its outline as the thing it so lovingly celebrates. In all these cases there often seems also to be something intuitive or instinctive in the working of certain faculties of the poet, and to this we unconsciously testify when we call it genius. But in the technic of this art, perfection can be reached only by long training, as was evident in the case of Coleridge. Of course, without the genius all the training in the world will produce only a mechanical and lifeless result; but even if the genius is there, there is nothing too seemingly trifling to deserve its study. The "Elegy in a Country Church-yard" owes much of the charm that makes it precious, even with those who perhaps undervalue its sentiment, to Gray's exquisite sense of the value of vowel sounds.