But
dramatists do not, as a matter of fact, take pupils or write
handbooks.[2] When they expound their principles of art, it is generally
in answer to, or in anticipation of, criticism--with a view, in short,
not to helping others, but to defending themselves. If beginners, then,
are to find any systematic guidance, they must turn to the critics, not
to the dramatists; and no person of common sense holds it a reproach to
a critic to tell him that he is a "stickit" playwright.
If questions are worth discussing at all, they are worth discussing
gravely. When, in the following pages, I am found treating with all
solemnity matters of apparently trivial detail, I beg the reader to
believe that very possibly I do not in my heart overrate their
importance. One thing is certain, and must be emphasized from the
outset: namely, that if any part of the dramatist's art can be taught,
it is only a comparatively mechanical and formal part--the art of
structure. One may learn how to tell a story in good dramatic form: how
to develop and marshal it in such a way as best to seize and retain the
interest of a theatrical audience.
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