POETRY AND DRAMA
Other books by T.
S. Eliot
if
COLLECTED POEMS 1909-1935
FOUR QUARTETS THE WASTE LAND AND OTHER POEMS
SWEENEY AGONISTES
MURDER
IN THE
CATHEDRAL
THE FAMILY REUNION
THE COCKTAIL PARTY SELECTED ESSAYS
THE USE OF POETRY AND THE USE OF CRITICISM
THOUGHTS AFTER LAMBETH THE IDEA OF
WHAT
CHRISTIAN SOCIETY IS
CLASSIC?
NOTES TOWARDS THE DEFINITION OF CULTURE POINTS OF VIEW
OLD POSSUM'S BOOK OF PRACTICAL CATS
POETRY
AND DRAMA by
T. S.
ELIOT
The Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture
HARVARD UNIVERSITY November
FABER
21, 1950
FABER'LTD
24 Russell Square
London
First
published
in
mcmli
by Faber and Faber Limited 24 Russell Square, London,
W.C.i
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by William Clowes and Sons, Limited
London and All
Beccles
rights reserved
customary act of respect that the lecturer on
is
It
tion should
founda-
nwn
begin by saying something about the
whose name the
in
was founded. The fact that between Theodore Spencer and myself there had long terminated only by death, was the friendship (I believe) reason
lectureship
my being asked to inaugurate this my primary reason for accepting the
for
Certainly
series: as
it
was
honour.
Except when there has been some accident to fix it in my memory, find that seldom remember the occasion of my first meeting or
with anyone
am
friend.
not
who
now
has subsequently become an associate sure whether
first
met Theodore
Spencer while he was an undergraduate at Trinity College,
Cambridge, or on some
later visit that
he loved Cambridge and liked
met him
in
he paid
to return there.
to
Englandfor had
certainly
England, and probably several times, before
came
Harvard as Norton Professor in 1932.- But it was during that when saw him almost every day at Eliot House, or in year, to
his
own home,
were
closely
or in the
associated;
company of mutual friends, and it was through this
that
we
constant
frequentation
put
self
with
course
of
life
my
in
and
was not anxious
duller
day than the
in
to
to
and
we
visits,
remember
carried
on
economies were
the
pleasure
was
that he
being effected,
to
He
was
visited
present,
Between
In 1938, or per-
in
England
which might be adverse
him
Lectureship
in
in
doctor's
the event.
in
manoeuvres of some of his friends
was appointed
And the
received
rumour reached us
land, toward obtaining for
and no
aid,
at intervals.
promotion or security of tenure at Harvard, and to the
detail
before lunch,
desultory correspondence.
in 1939,
haps early
his
give
anticipate.
Cambridge, at the Encaenia at which degree,
every
others.
remember
England several times
at
was no
there
chat
for
saw him) of course, only
After 1933
me
small class which he him-
selecting;
day on which he did not drop
He
man.
the
disposal; helped
which he was not ready
in
material need which he
always
and appreciate
lectures to
had been instrumental
of daily
love
to
most generously at
his time
juncture
came
that
was
that
to his
party
Cambridge, Eng-
In 1939 he Lectureship there. at
Cambridge University, but
owing to the outbreak of war, the immediate reduction in the numbers of students in the English Tripos, and the consequent reduction in the number of tutors, it was deemed best that his appointment
ment the
to his
should be deferred. This was
friends
in
England; but on the other hand, we had
pleasure of hearing of
'visiting
lecturer
should like
When
to
reappointment
from Cambridge
the
to
add
It
University.
note which
hope
is
august position ofBoylston Professor
Ted Spencer was not one
me
his
Harvard
as
was not long
he received promotion.
before
to
great disappoint-
privately,
to
to covet that
ask whether
not indiscreet.
became vacant,
postfor himself.
would
He
consider the
wrote
position
name were putforward. Well,
if my
both
and
private
public,
there
were several reasons,
could not
why
regard myself
as
of which was my lack of scholarship him that should have had to spend all
not the least think
time
told
reading
leisure
my
the books
left for
when
writing.
read that he
My
have read, and would have no
to
ought
delight
and
satisfaction
had received
himself
spare
that
were great
distinguished
appointment.
do not remember ourfirst meeting,
Though our
clearly
was
It
last.
in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, just
my return to London, and only few He was full of enthusiasm for the work
before death.
take that
year;
he
had ever seen him; and
many
both
infl in flue uenc nc
to
who were even his
personality,
humour and
he was
scholarly
and
thought
his
under-
that he
had
work and of useful
creative
remind those who knew him, or indeed those
slightly acquainted his interest in
conviviality
with him, of the charm of
human
with
beings,
his
gaiety,
or their
dignity
respect.
He
sense
of
such that he could
bearing
put his pupils on terms of informal equality, losing
to
his
him.
befo be fore re
do not need
weeks before
and more radiantly appeared in better health,
happy, than years of
remember very
without ever
had several
traits,
in
teacher. His stanhappy combination, which made him good were high, and his view of English studies dards of scholarship was humane; he mixed with men of letters in New York and
London, as well as in
society,
whether
his students degrees.
porary poetry P.D.
in the universities;
He
as
intellectual
human
had
literature;
society
beings,
not
and was perfectly
or not, so that he
merely
sensitive
appreciation of
and
own
his
had developed, and would
at ease
poetic gift believe
knew
as candidates
for
the best in contem-
was genuine. His
have gone on
to still
greater strength after
the
he had
further
assimilated
powerful influence of Yeats. But
of those
tion
characteristics
have
left
and
re-created
to the last,
men-
which most endeared him as
friend: humility, charity, generosity,
and what
can
only
call
fundamental goodness. In
choosing
subject
and
in
that
it
subject,
some way should be
have had in mind that
related to subject
it
should be
Theodore Spencer's
interests,
on which he himself would have
liked to hear me.
10
eviewing
-^^
-JL.
odd
my
critical
am
years,
output for the
surprised to find
^^J have returned
last
thirty-
how constantly
to the drama, whether
by ex-
amining the work of the contemporaries of Shakespeare, or by reflecting on the possibilities of the future. It may
even be that people are weary of hearing me on this find that have been composing subject. But, while variations on this theme all my life, my views have
been continually modified and renewed by increasing am impelled to take stock of the experience so that situation afresh at every stage
of my own experimentation.
have gradually learned more about the problems of poetic drama, and the conditions which it must fulfil
As
if it
is
to justify
not only my form, but the restored to
its
itself,
own
have made
little
clearer to myself,
reasons for wanting to write in this to see it general reasons for wanting
place.
And
think that if
say something
about these problems and conditions, it should make clearer to other people whether and if so why poetic 11
drama has anything potentially to offer the playgoer, that start with the assumption that prose drama cannot. For if
poetry
is
decoration, an added embellishment,
merely
merely gives people of literary tastes the pleasure of to listening poetry at the same time that they are witness-
if it
ing
play,
then
dramatically,
it
is
and not merely be
dramatic form,,. From
be written in verse
audience,
emotions
its
must
this
justify
itself
fine
which prose follows,
it
attention held
stirred
It
poetry shaped into follows that no play should
this it
for
And from
adequate.
superfluous.
by
is
dramatically
again,
that
the
the dramatic action,
its
the situation between the characters,
by
should be too intent upon the play to be wholly conscious
of the medium.
Whether we
use
prose or verse on the stage, they are
both but means to an end. The difference, from one point of view, is not so great as we might think. In those prose
and produced on the in which the characlater generations, the prose stage by ters speak is as remote, for the best part, from the vocab-
plays
which
ulary,
with
which
survive,
syntax and
are read
rhythm of our ordinary speech
cons nsta ta ecou ec ours rs to fumbling for words, its co approximation, its disorder and its unfinished sentences its
as verse
written.
is.
Like verse,
Our two
has been written, and re-
it
greatest prose stylists
in the
drama
from Shakespeare and the other Elizabethans who mixed prose and verse in the same play are, believe,
apart
character of speech by Congreve and Bernard Shaw. however clearly the characCongreve or of Shaw has ters
may
be differentiated
rhythm' which
is
the
that unmistakable
mark of 12
personal
prose style, and of which
who only the most accomplished conversationalists are for that matter show any usually monolo.guists trace in their talk. have all heard (too often!) of
We
Moliere's character
who
expressed surprise
when
told
he spoke prose. But it was M. Jourdain who was and not his mentor or his creator he did not speak right, he only talked. For mean to draw disprose triple
that
between prose, and verse, and our ordinary speech which is mostly below die level of either verse or at it in this way, it will appear that prose. So if you look
tinction:
gro^,onthe
stage
isjis
artificial as
that yerse_can3jJLL^
But while the
appreciate,
sensitive
when he hears
or alternatively,
verse
member of fine prose
the audience will
spoken in
play,
that
something better than ordinary conversation, he does not regard it as wholly different language from this
is
that
which he himself speaks,
for that
would
interpose barrier between himself and the imaginary characters on
Too many people, on the which they know to be in
other hand, approach
the stage.
play
sciousness are
of the
repelled
by
difference. It
is
verse,
it
if that
when they be deplorable when
unfortunate
verse, but can also
they are attracted by
with the con-
means
that they are pre-
the play pared to enjoy the play and the language of
two
separate things.
in dramatic speech,
*-_,
..
as
Thejchief effect of style and rhythm
whether in prose or
should be verse, -.'-.-'--'
unconscious.
From
mixture of prose and verse transition in the same play is generally to be avoided: each makes the auditor aware, with jolt, of the medium. It is,
this it
we may
follows that
say, justifiable
when 13
the author wishes
to
produce
this
jolt
when,
that
he wishes to transport the
is,
audience violently from one plane of reality to another.
kind of transition suspect that this to an Elizabethan audience, to
came
verse
^"**** **-
Jn*^, J^^ tojk
comedy
i,
naturally; u.
in the
who
same play
was
whose
easily acceptable
ears
bodhjgrosejind
lite3TiigEfaIutin and *"^
and to
whom
it
low
seemed per-
haps proper that the more humble and rustic characters should speak in homely language, and that those of
more
exalted rank should rant in verse.
But even
in the
of Shakespeare some of the prose passages seem to be designed for an effect of contrast which, when
plays
achieved,
is
fashioned.
something that
The knocking
can never
at the
become
gate in Macbeth
oldis
an
example that comes to everyone's mind but it has long seemed to me that the alternation of scenes in prose with scenes in verse in Henry IV points an ironic contrast be-
tween the world of high
mon
life.
politics
and the world of com-
The audience probably thought they were
getting their accustomed chronicle play garnished with
amusing scenes of low life and Part II provide Part
yet the prose scenes of both sardonic
comment upon
the
in the inthe chiefs of the parties bustling ambitions of
surrection of the Percys.
Today, however, because of the handicap under which believe that prose should be used verse drama suffers, very sparingly indeed
that
we
should aim at
which everything can be said that has and that when we find some situation which is
verse in
if
verse,
to be said intractable
is inelastic. merely that our form of verse there prove to be scenes which we cannot put in
in verse,
And
form of
it is
we must
either develop
14
our verse, or avoid having
to introduce such scenes. For
we
have. to accustom our,
audiences to verse to the^oiat at which to be conscious of it and to introduce prose
would only be to have so
wide
be
follows that
said, it
expression.
our verse
it
when
the dramatic situation has
it is
the only language in
which the emotions can be expressed
at all.
indeed necessary for any long poem,
monotony,
out bathos,
is
it
natural utterance, because then
escape
if
point of intensity that poetry becomes the
reached such
It is
But
the play
can say anything that has to will not be 'poetry' all the time.
range that
will only be 'poetry'
It
from
to distract their attention
medium of its
itself to the
dialogue,
as
to be able to say
homely
well as to take the highest
if
it
is
to
things with-
flights
without
sounding exaggerated. And it is still more important in if it is concerned with contemporary life. play, especially
The
more
reason for writing even the
verse play in verse instead of prose :o
is,
pedestrian parts of
however, not only
avoid calling the audience's attention to the fact that it at other moments listening to poetry. It is also that the
verse
rhythm should have
its
effect
without their being conscious of it. scene of Shakespeare's may illustrate ing scene of Hamlet
upon
brief analysis this
the theatre,
by
The open-
an opening
that
is
superfluous,
of one
has the advantage
everybody knows. do not notice, when we witness
What we
justified
point.
as well constructed
scene as that of any play ever written
of being one
the hearers,
scene in
the great variation of style. Nothing
and there
its
this
is
no
line
dramatic value. 15
of poetry which
The
first
is
twenty-two
is
not
lines
of the simplest words in the most homely idiom. long time in the theatre, Shakespeare had worked for
are built
and written
good many
plays,
before reaching the
point at which he could write those twenty-two
There
nothing quite so simplified and sure in
is
vious work.
He
lines.
his
pre-
first
developed conversational, colloquial verse in the Faulconmonologue of the character part
bridge in King John, and later the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet.
It
was
into the
much further
step
to carry
dialogue of brief replies.
No
You
lines
which,
like
are consciously at-
tending, not to the poetry, but to the poetry. If
unobtrusively
poet has begun to
master dramatic verse until he can write these in Hamlet, are transparent.
it
you were hearing Hamlet
meaning of the
for the
first
time,
without knowing anything about the play, do not think that it would occur to you to ask whether the speakers
were speaking different effect
what we
in verse or prose.
upon
us
The
from prose
verse
but
is
at the
having
moment,
aware of is the frosty night, the officers keeping watch on the battlements, and the foreboding of anominous action. do not say that there is no place for the are
situation in
which
ment of hearing author gives
it,
be the enjoypart of one's pleasure will
providing that the in that dramatic inevitability. And place,
of course, when
beautiful poetry
we
have both seen
play several times
between performances, we begin to analyse the means by which the author has produced his effects. But in the immediate impact of this scene we are uncon-
and read
scious
it
of the medium
From
its
expression.
the short, brusque ejaculations at the beginning,
suitable to the situation
and to the character of the guards 16
but not
expressing
their function in the
movement with
more
character than
the verse
play
is
glides
required for
into
slower
the appearance of the courtiers Horatio
and Marcellus. Horatio
says
't is
but our
fantasy,
and the movement changes again on the appearance of Royalty, the ghost of the King, into the solemn and sonorous
What
st this time art thou, that usurp'
of night,
this anticipation of the plot con(and note, by the way, veyed by the use of the verb usurp) and majesty is sug-
gested
So frown'
He
whose ghost
reference reminding us
in
this is
he once, when, in an angry park,
smote the sledded Polacks on the
ice.
an abrupt change to staccato in Horatio's words to the Ghost on its second appearance; this rhythm
There
is
changes again with the words
We To
do
offer
For
it
the
show of violence;
as the air, invulnerable,
it is,
And The
wrong, being so majestical,
it
our vain blows malicious mockery.
scene
reaches
resolution
with
the
Marcellus It
the cock. faded on the crowing of
Some say
that ever
'gainst
Wherein our Saviour's
The P.D.-3
bird
that season comes
birth is celebrated,
of dawning singeth I?
all
night long;
words
of
and Horatio's answer heard and do in
have
But
part
believe
it.
look, the morn, in russet mantle clad
Walks
dew of yon high
er the
eastern hill.
Break we our watch up;
This
is
great
poetry,
and
being poetic and dramatic,
it is
emerges,
it,
when we
which
also
ment.
It
analyse
reinforces
and
is
but besides
dramatic;
something more. There kind of musical design
one with the dramatic move-
has checked and accelerated the pulse of our
tion without our
knowing
of Marcellus there
is
it.
Note
that in these last
deliberate brief
poetic into consciousness.
When we
emo-
words
emergence of the
hear the lines
But) look) the morH) in russet mantle clad)
Walks
we
er the
are lifted for
dew of yon high
eastern hill
moment beyond
character, but with
no
of unfitness of the words coming, and at this moment, from the lips of Horatio. The transitions in the
sense
scene obey laws of the music of dramatic poetry.
two
lines
are preceded
by 'a
that the
of Horatio which line
Note
quoted twice
of the simplest speech which might
be either verse or prose So have
heard and do in part believe
and that he follows them abruptly with is
hardly
more than
it
half line
which
stage direction
Break we our watch up. It
would be
this
interesting
to pursue,
problem of the double pattern 18
by in
similar
analysis,
great poetic
drama
which may be examined from the point of view of stagecraft or from that of the music. But think the pattern
of this one scene
that the examination
us that verse
is
not merely
decoration, but that
it
is
enough to show
formalization, or an added
intensifies the
drama.
It
should in-
importance of the unconscious effect of the do not think that this effect verse upon us. And lastly,
dicate also the
is
only by those members
felt
audience
who
like
by those who go for the play alone. By the people who do not like poetry, mean those who cannot sit down with book of poetry and enjoy reading it poetry' but also
these people also,
when
they go to
play in verse, should
the audiences be affected by the poetry. And whom the writer of such play ought to keep in mind. word about those plays At this point might say
which we
The
plays
case,
call
of
poetiCj
are written in
John Millington Synge form
because they are~baseJ
people whose speech
and
though they
is
upon
rather
the idiom^of
prose. special
rural
naturally poetic, both in imagery
rhythm. believe that he even incorporated phrases which he had heard from these country people of Ireland. in
The language of Synge set
among
not available except for plays can draw more general that same people.
conclusions
my
from the
youth, and
now
is
plays
We
in
prose, so
much admired
in
hardly even read, by Maeterlinck. restricted in their subdifferent
These plays are in way and to say that the characterization in them ject matter; do not deny that they have is dim is an understatement. some poetic quality. But in order to be poetic in prose, dramatist has to be so consistently poetic that his scope is
very limited. Synge wrote plays about characters whose 19
in life talked poetically, so he could
originals talk
make them
The poetic prose poetry and remain real people.
who
dramatist
The
poetic.
to be too has not this advantage, has
poetic
drama
poetic convention or ject matter really
Yeats
is
Synge.
of his
poetic,
prose
is
more
limited
by
by our conventions as to what subthan is the poetic drama in verse.
dramatic verse can be employed, as Shakespeare
employed
show,
is
in
it,
to
say the
most matter-of-fact
things.
very different case, from dramatist would study of his development as
he went, and the triumph he wrote plays in period,
think, the great distance last
plays.
In his
first
about subjects co as suitable for conv nven enti tion onal ally ly ac acce cept pted ed metric which verse, in though even at that early stage
having the personal Yeats rhythm
is
not really
form
of speech quite suitable for anybody except mythical kings and queens. His middle-period Plays for Dancers are very beautiful, but they do not solve any problem for the dramatist in verse they are poetic prose plays with im-
was only
portant interludes in verse.
It
Purgatory that he solved his
problem of speech
and
laid all his successors
in his last
in verse,
under obligation to him.
20
play
am
Now,
going to venture to make some ob-
which
tions, failures
will lead
and
my own
on
based
servations
me
experience,
comment on my
to
in partial successes,
my own
inten-
plays.
do
any explorer or experimenter in new territory may, by putting on record kind of journal of his explorations, say something of use to those who this in the
follow
go
belief that
him
into the
same regions and
who
will perhaps
farther.
The
was
first
writer
that
some
thing of any importance that
who
has
worked
for years,
discovered,
and achieved
of verse, has to apdifferent frame of proach the writing of verse play in mind from that to which he has been accustomed in his
one the
For
success, in writing other kinds
previous work. In writing other verse, is
writing, so to speak, in terms of one's
way it
cation,
it
is
sounds
when you
yourself speaking.
read
The
of what
it
own
voice
to yourself is the
question of
will 21
think that
get
from
test.
communiit,
is
not
if
paramount hope
your poem
that the readers will
The poem can wait
little
sympathetic and judicious
and
it is
way.
is
you can only come to accept it.
right to you,
eventually
the approval of
while
few
begin with for future readers to meet the poet more than half
Itotjjn jtjhe theatre,
critics is
enough
theproblem of communication
presents jtself imm^
are
verse for other voices, not for your
know whose
to
deliberately writing
own, and you do not
You
aiming to which will have an immediate effect upon an
write lines
voices
they will be.
are
unknown and unprepared audience, to be interpreted to :hat audience by unknown actors rehearsed by an unknown producer. And the unknown audience cannot be show any indulgence towards
expected to poet cannot
name
to.
to
He
who know
his
nondramatic work and are
his favourably anything he puts ic must write with an audience in ie
receive
knows nothing and
nothing, about any previous the have had before he ventured
success
he
theatre.
Hence one
may
likes to do,
The
write his play merely for his ad-
mirers, those
prepared
the poet.
cares
finds out that
and knows
that every line
how
many of the
to do, are out
must be judged by
new
things
one
of place; and law, that of
dramatic relevance.
When
wrote Murder
ject generally it
subject
had the advan-
called for beginner, of an occasion which
tage for
plays,
in the Cathedral
sub-
admitted to be suitable for verse. Verse
has been generally held, should either take their
matter from some mythology, or
about some remote
from the present
historical
period,
far
else
should be
enough away
for the characters not to need to be
22
recognizable as
human
and therefore for them to
beings,
be licensed to talk in verse. Picturesque period costume
much more
renders verse
acceptable. Furthermore,
play was to be produced for
rather
special
my
kind of
an audience of those serious people who go to 'festivals' and expect to have to put up with poetry
audience
though perhaps on quite prepared
this
occasion
what they
for
religious play,
and people
gious play at
religious
bored and to
satisfy
some of them were not
got.
who go
festival
And
finally
deliberately
it
was
to
reli-
expect to be patiently
themselves with the feeling that they
have done something meritorious. So the path was made easy.
was only when put my mind to thinking what sort of play wanted to do next, that realized that in Murder It
had not solved any general problem but dead end. For point of view the play was
in the Cathedral
that
from
my
one thing, the problem of language which that play had me was special problem. Fortunately, did presented to not have to write in the
the twelfth century,
knew Norman French and
because that idiom, even if
Anglo-Saxon, would have been unintelligible. But the vocabulary and style could not be exactly those of
modern conversation using
as in
some modern French
the plot and personages of Greek
had to take
my
drama
plays
because
audience back to an historical event;
and they could not afford to be archaic, first because archaism would only have suggested the wrong period,
and second because
wanted
to
bring
home
to
the
audience the contemporary relevance of the situation.
The
style therefore
had to be 23
neutral,
committed neither
to the present nor to the past.
As
for the versification,
was only aware at this stage that the essential was was persuaded any echo of Shakespeare, for
to avoid that the
primary failure of nineteenth-century poets when they wrote for the theatre (and most of the greatest English
hand
drama) was not in their theatrical technique, but in their dramatic language and that this was due strict largely to their limitation to poets had tried their
at
blank verse which, after extensive use for nondramatic lost the flexibility poetry, had
which blank verse must
of conversation. The rhythm of regular blank verse had become too remote from the movement of modern speech. Therefore what kept in
have
if it
is
mind was
to give the effect
the versification of Everyman, hoping that any-
thing unusual in the sound of it
advantageous.
An
would
avoidance of too
be,
much
on
the whole,
iambic,
some
use of alliteration, and occasional unexpected
rhyme, from that of the
helped to distinguish the versification nineteenth century.
The
versification
of the dialogue
Cathedral has therefore, in
merit
but it it
it
it
my
no
Murder
opinion, only
in
the
negative
had to be avoided,
succeeded in avoiding
arrived at
in
positive novelty
in short, in so far as
solved the problem of speech in verse for writing today, solved
it
for this
clue to the verse
Here, then, were that
play only, and provided me with no should use in another kind of play.
two problems
of the metric
(it
left is
unsolved
really
that
of the
one and the same
might want to problem), for general use in any play write in future. next became aware of my reasons for
depending, in that play, so heavily upon the assistance of 24
the chorus. There
were two reasons
circumstances justified action of the play ter
which
The
it.
both the
first
for this,
was
in the
that the essential
historical facts
was somewhat
invented
which
and the mat-
man
limited.
he will be
kiUed,jmd hejs did not want to increaseme number of charac-
killed...
did not want to write
ters,
want
nor did
politics,
the meagre records as
Rosamund, and
in
chronicle of twelfth-century
to tamper unscrupulously with
Tennyson did suggesting
crossed in love in early youth).
(in
that
introducing Fair
Becket had been
wanted
to concentrate
on death and martyrdom. The introduction of of excited and sometimes their
emotion the
derfully.
hysterical
significance
The second
women,
of the
chorus
reflecting
action, helped
reason was this
in
won-
poet writing
time for the stage, is much more at home in felt sure, choral verse than in dramatic dialogue. This,
for the
first
could do, and perhaps the dramatic was something weaknesses would be somewhat covered up by the cries
of the women. The use of and
power,
technique.
would
concealed
For
this
the
chorus strengthened the defects
of
my
theatrical
decided that next time
reason
the chorus try to integrate
more
closely
into the
play.
wanted
to find out also,
the use of prose.
dispense altogether passages
in
Murder
whether
in the
could learn to
The two
prose
Cathedral could not have been
written in verse. Certainly, with the kind of dialogue the audience would have used verse which play,
been uncomfortably aware that it was verse they were sermon cast in verse is too unusual an hearing. P.D.
25
experience for even the most regular churchgoer
could have responded to
it
sermon
as
at all.
nobody
And
in the
of the knights, who are quite aware that they are an audience of people living 800 years after addressing
speeches
they themselves are dead, the use of platform prose is ineffect to shock the tended of course to have special audience out of their complacency. But trick: that
no
for
may,
under the influence of
do not wish rule out
kind of
is
device tolerable only in one play and of
is,
use for any other.
slightly
this
to give
you
know, have been
aught
St.
Joan.
the impression that
of dramatic poetry these three things
would
historical
or mythological subject-matter, the chorus, and tradido not wish to lay down any law tional blank verse. that the only suitable characters
and
modern life, or
should consist of dialogue
only,
am
or that
that
verse
wholly
new
situations are those
versification
is
of
necessary.
only tracing out the route of exploration of one
writer,
and that
reconquer
its
one, myself. If the poetic
place,
it
must, in
my
are
As
have
prepared to put up with verse from the dressed in the fashion of
personages they should be
made
to hear
it
is
to
opinion, enter into
overt competition with prose drama.
people
drama
some
said,
lips
distant
of
age
frorr/people dressed like
and apartments like ours, and and motorcars and radio sets. Audiences using telephones
ourselves, living in houses
are prepared to accept poetry recited is
kind of poetry
enjoy.
cause
And
it is
recital,
which
audiences (those
it
by
does them credit to
who go
to
in verse) expect poetry to be in
26
chorus, for that
verse play be-
rhythms which
with colloquial speech. What we have to bring poetry into the world in which the
Jiave lost touch
to
do
is
audience lives and to which
it
returns
when
leaves the
it
not to transport the audience into some imaginary world totally unlike its own, an unreal world in which poetry is tolerated. What should hope might theatre
be achieved, by generation of dramatists having the benefit of our experience, is that the audience should find,
moment of
at the
that
it
is
awareness that to
saying
'I
itself:
Then we should not be
too
on
it
is
could
hearing poetry, talk
in
poetry
transported into an arti-
own
ficial
world
daily
world would be suddenly illuminated and
the contrary, our
sordid, dreary trans-
figured.
was determined,
theme of contemporary time living in our the result. Here
in
wherever particular
first
we
wo^ld. The Family Reunion was concern was the problem of the
rhythm
which the
stresses
could be
syllables,
is
the
particular
substantially
made
to
come
occasion.
What
have continued to em-
what
number of of varying length and varying caesura and three stresses. The caesura with
the stresses
where
may come
in the line; the stresses
must be one
stress
on one
the other. In retrospect,
attention to
versification,
almost anybe close together or
at different
may
well separated by light syllables
on
contemporary
line
ploy
there
close to
should naturally put them, in uttering the
phrase
worked out
md
my
to find
versification,
speech,
own
life,
my
next play to take with characters of our own
therefore, in
places,
the only rule being that
side
of the caesura and two
soon saw that at
27
had given my and the expense of plot
character.
made some progress in dispensing
had, indeed,
but the device of using four of the minor personages, representing the Family, sometimes
with the chorus
as individual character
parts
as chorus,
does not seem to
thing, the
immediate
terized
part to
much of the
and sometimes
me
it is
one which, even
applicable
from
transition
very
complish. For another thing, trick,
very satisfactory. For one
membership of
actors
in another
collectively
individual, charac-
chorus
asking too
is
difficult transition to ac-
it
me
seemed to
if successful,
could not have been
had
play. Furthermore,
passages used the device of
lyrical
from
by being written
the rest of the dialogue
with only two
another
in
two
duet further isolated in shorter
sense These passages are in be presented as 'beyond character,' the speakers have kind of trance-like state in order to speak into falling
lines
stresses.
them. But they are so remote from the necessity of the action that they are hardly more than passages of poetry
which might be spoken by anybody they are too much The member of the audience, if he enlike operatic arias.
joys
this sort
of thing,
is
putting
in order to enjoy
up with
suspension of
poetic fantasia
these
pas-
to the action than are the sages are really less related
choruses in Murder
observed that plays,
introduces
or passage,
it
character, but
supports
in the Cathedral.
when
Shakespeare,
what might seem
in
one of his mature purely poetic line
never interrupts the action, or
on
out of
some mysterious way and character. When Macbeth
the contrary, in
both action
is
speaks his so often quoted words beginning
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow 28
when
or
Othello, confronted at night with his angry
father-in-law and friends, utters the beautiful line
Keep up your
we do
the bright swords, for
dew
will rust them
Shakespeare has thought of lines which are beautiful poetry and wishes to fit them in
not
that
feel
somehow, or
that
he has for the
moment come
to the
end of his dramatic inspiration and has turned to poetry to fill up with. The lines are surprising, and yet they fit in
we
with th ch char arac acte te
or else
conception of th
ha ac acte te
compelled to adjust our in such way that the lines
The
are
spoken by Macbeth reveal the weariness of the weak man who had been forced will be
by
his
appropriate to
it.
wife to realize his
ambitions, and
lines
own
half-hearted desires and her
who, with her
motive to continue. The
is
left
without the
of Othello expresses irony, and incidentally reminds us of
line
dignity and fearlessness the time of night in
death,
which the scene
takes
place.
Only\
poetry could do this but it is dramatic poetry that is, does not but intensifies the dramatic situation. interrupt
it
was not only because of the introduction of passages which called too much attention to themselves as poetry, It
and could not be dramatically justified, that found The Family Reunion defective: there were two weaknesses
which came was, that
to strike
had taken
time allowed to
me
far
as
too
more
serious
much of the
dramatist, in presenting
still.
The
strictly
first
limited
situation,
and
myself enough time, or provided myself with enough material, for developing it in action. had written left
what was, on the whole, good first act except that for first act it was much too the curtain rises long. When 29
again, the audience that
is
expecting,
as it has
right to expect,
going to happen. Instead, it finds itself further exploration of the background in is
something
treated to
other words, to what ought to have been given earlier if at
much
all.
The beginning of the second
most
the
difficult
act
much
presents
problem to producer and
cast:
beginning to wander. And then, after what must seem to the audience an intermin-
for the audience's attention
able time of ly that
we
is
comes so abruptunready for it. This was an
conclusion preparation, the after
are,
all,
elementary fault in mechanics. But the deepest flaw of all, was in
failure
of adjust-
between the Greek story and the modern situation. should either have stuck closer to Aeschylus or else taken his myth. One evigreat deal more liberty with dence of
this
the Furies.
is
the appearance of those ill-fated figures,
They must,
in future, be omitted
and be understood to be characters, sible
and not
visible
and they looked
strayed in
from
only to certain of my
We tried every posWe put them on the
to the audience.
manner of presenting them.
stage,
like uninvited
fancy dress
ball.
behind gauze, and they suggested
We
We
guests
who had
concealed
them
out of
Walt
still
made them dimmer, and they looked shrubbery just outside the window. have seen other
Disney film. like
from the
have seen them signalling from across football the garden, or swarming onto the stage like team, and they are never right. They never succeed in
expedients tried
being either Greek goddesses or modern spooks. But their
symptom of the merely ancient with the modern.
failure
is
30
failure to
adjust
the
more
serious evidence
is
that
we
divided
are left in
frame of mind, not knowing whether to consider the play the tragedy of the mother or the salvation of the son. The
two
situations are
confirmation
find
sympathies now have come to with the mother, who seems to me, except perhaps
of this in the be
not reconciled.
all
fact that
my
for the chauffeur, the only complete
being in the
my hero now strikes me as an insufferable prig.
and
play
human
had made some progress in learning how to the one write the first act of play, and had thing of made deal of progress in findwhich felt sure Well,
form of
ing serve
all
my
versification
and an idiom which would
purposes, without recourse to prose, and be
transition between the most intense capable of unbroken
speech and the most relaxed dialogue. stand, after
Reunion, in
my
making
some of the
for
tist
merely
ghosts.
my as
so well that
them out for
was
theme,
of The Family endeavoured to avoid
errors that
To
begin with, no chorus,
inclined to
still
will under-
these criticisms
designing The Cocktail Party.
and no
You
but
Greek drama-
go to
was determined
do so
to
point of departure, and to conceal the origins
nobody would
myself.
identify
In this at least
them
until
pointed
have been successful;
no one of my acquaintance (and no dramatic the
recognized
source of
my
critics)
the Alcestis of
story
have had to go into detailed explanation to convince them mean, of course, those who
Euripides.
were ness
In fact^
familiar with the plot
of the
inspiration.
of that play
But those who
of the genuinewere at first dis-
turbed by the eccentric behaviour of my
un^o
and
apparently intemperate habits and tendency to burst into song, have found some consolation after have his
called
attention to the behaviour
their
Euripides' play.
In the second place,
laid
down
of Heracles in
for myself the ascetic
poetry which could not stand the test of dramatic utility with such success, indeed, that it
rule to avoid strict is
perhaps an open question whether there
And
is
any poetry
keep in mind that in from time to time, something should happen play, that the audience should be kept in the constant expectain the
play at
all.
going to happen and that, when should be different, but not too differ-
tion that something it
does happen,
ent,
from what
it
tried to
finally,
is
the audience had been
expect.
have not yet got to the end of my investigation of the weaknesses of this play, but hope and expect to find
more than
those of
which
am
yet aware.
because while one can never repeat fore
success,
must always try to find something
hope
say
and there-
different,
even
if
the desire to write something which popular, to do, will be free of the defects of one's last work is very
less
incentive. powerful and useful
am aware that the last act
of my play only just escapes, if indeed it does escape, the last act but an accusation of being not epilogue and
am determined respect.
to
do something
also believe that
different, if
can, in this
while the self-education of
to write for the theatre seems to require poet trying
long
and putting it, so to his poetry, period of disciplining on very thin diet in order to adapt it to the needs speak, of the
stage,
there
may be
later
stage,
when
(and
if)
the
understanding of theatrical technique has become second
32
which he can dare
nature, at
to
make more
liberal use
with ordinary colloquial base that belief on the evolution of Shakespeare,
and take greater
poetry speech.
liberties
and on some study of the language in his late plays. In devoting so much time to an examination of
own
have,
plays,
poetic drama,
learning
how
been animated by
believe,
motive than egotism. it
is
It
seems to
more
likely
how
to write
man who
that
plays,
some poets can
and write good ones,
has started
how
by writing
and
until the verse play
possible source
public as likely
get his
after
only the
to
first
is
prose
under present-day condirecognized by the larger
of entertainment, the poet
opportunity to
making some
successful
but
good poetry, seems
to write
me extremely unlikely. And,
tions,
may be
not unreasonable hope
believe
learn plays should then to
poets
write plays, than from skilful prose
to
hope, but
only
have
come from
to
my
better
me that if we
dramatists learning to write poetry. That learn
of
sort
author of
work
is
for the stage
of reputation for himself as
of
verse.
have therefore
wished to put on record, for what it may be worth to others, some account of the difficulties tered,
and the mistakes into which
have
fallen,
and the
have had to try to overcome. should not like to close without
weaknesses
before you, though only in
which
poetic
ideal
and that
dim
drama should is
why
it
attempting to set outline, the ideal towards
strive. It is
interests
an unattainable
me, for
it
provides an
incentive towards further experiment and exploration,
beyond any goal which there is prospect of attaining. It is function of all art to give us some perception of an P.D.-S
35
imposing an order upon it. The painter works by selection, combination and emphasis among the elements of the visible world the musician in the order in
life,
world of sound. classifiable
when
seems to
me
beyond the namable, emotions and motives of our conscious life It
that
the part of
directed towards action
drama
life
which
there is wholly adequate to express of indefinite extent, of feeling which we can only fringe detect, so to speak, out of the corner of the eye and
prose
is
never completely focus; of feeling of which we are only kind of temporary detachment from action. aware in
There are great prose dramatists such^ a^ JIbsen and Cheldhovj-- who have at times done things of which
would not otherwise have supposed prose to be but who seem to me, in spite of their success,
capable, to have
been hampered in expression by writing in prose. This of sensibility can be expressed by dramatic peculiar range poetry, at
moments of
its
greatest intensity.
moments, we touch the border of those only music can express.
We
feelings
which
can never emulate music,
because to arrive at the condition of music
of poetry, and
At such
would be
the
of dramatic poetry. have before my eyes kind of mirage of Nevertheless, the perfection of verse drama, which would be design of human action and of words, such as to present at once
annihilation
the to
two
me
especially
of dramatic and of musical order.
aspects
It
seems
that Shakespeare achieved this at least in certain
scenes
even rather
of Romeo and
Juliet
early,
for there
and that
this
in his late plays. striving towards
direction
as
it
is
possible
to
34
go,
the
balcony scene was what he was
is
To go
as far in this
without losing that
contact with the ordinary everyday world with which
drama must come
to terms, seems to
of dramatic poetry. For in imposing
it is
me
the
proper aim
ultimately the function of art,
credible order
upon ordinary
reality,
and
thereby eliciting some perception of an order in reality, condition of serenity, stillness and reconto bring us to ciliation
and then leave
ceed toward
Dante, to proregion where that guide can avail us no us, as Virgil left
farther.
35
