And this
sense of superiority does not pall upon us. When Othello comes on the
scene, radiant and confident in Desdemona's love, our knowledge of the
fate awaiting him makes him a hundred times more interesting than could
any mere curiosity as to what was about to happen. It is our prevision
of Nora's exit at the end of the last act that lends its dramatic
poignancy to her entrance at the beginning of the first.
There is nothing absolutely new in this theory.[7] "The irony of fate"
has long been recognized as one of the main elements of dramatic effect.
It has been especially dwelt upon in relation to Greek tragedy, of which
the themes were all known in advance even to "first-day" audiences. We
should take but little interest in seeing the purple carpet spread for
Agamemnon's triumphal entry into his ancestral halls, if it were not for
our foreknowledge of the net and the axe prepared for him. But, familiar
as is this principle, I am not aware that it has hitherto been extended,
as I suggest that it should be, to cover the whole field of dramatic
interest.
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