Any movement is good
which helps to free art from the tyranny of a code of rules and
definitions. The only really valid definition of the dramatic is: Any
representation of imaginary personages which is capable of interesting
an average audience assembled in a theatre. We must say "representation
of imaginary personages" in order to exclude a lecture or a prize-fight;
and we must say "an average audience" (or something to that effect) in
order to exclude a dialogue of Plato or of Landor, the recitation of
which might interest a specially selected public. Any further attempt to
limit the content of the term "dramatic" is simply the expression of an
opinion that such-and-such forms of representation will not be found to
interest an audience; and this opinion may always be rebutted by
experiment. In all that I have said, then, as to the dramatic and the
non-dramatic, I must be taken as meaning: "Such-and-such forms and
methods have been found to please, and will probably please again.
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