Ibsen would
often change a name three or four times in the course of writing a play,
until at last he arrived at one which seemed absolutely to fit the
character; but the appropriateness of his names is naturally lost upon
foreign audiences.
One word may perhaps be said on the recent fashion--not to say fad--of
suppressing in the printed play the traditional list of "Dramatis
Personae." Bjoernson, in some of his later plays, was, so far as I am
aware, the first of the moderns to adopt this plan. I do not know
whether his example has influenced certain English playwrights, or
whether they arrived independently at the same austere principle, by
sheer force of individual genius. The matter is a trifling one--so
trifling that the departure from established practice has something of
the air of a pedantry. It is not, on the whole, to be approved. It adds
perceptibly to the difficulty which some readers experience in picking
up the threads of a play; and it deprives other readers of a real and
appreciable pleasure of anticipation.
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