" Here it must of course be noted that the conception of
"specifically dramatic effect" varies in some degree, from age to age,
from generation to generation, and even, one may almost say, from
theatre to theatre. Scenes of violence and slaughter were banished from
the Greek theatre, mainly, no doubt, because rapid movement was rendered
difficult by the hieratic trappings of the actors, and was altogether
foreign to the spirit of tragedy; but it can scarcely be doubted that
the tragic poets were the less inclined to rebel against this
convention, because they extracted "specifically dramatic effects" of a
very high order out of their "messenger-scenes." Even in the modern
theatre we are thrilled by the description of Hippolytus dragged at his
own chariot wheel, or Creusa and Creon devoured by Medea's veil of
fire.[2] On the Elizabethan stage, the murder of Agamemnon would no
doubt have been "subjected to our faithful eyes" like the blinding of
Gloucester or the suffocation of Edward II; but who shall say that there
is less "specifically dramatic effect" in Aeschylus's method of
mirroring the scene in the clairvoyant ecstasy of Cassandra? I am much
inclined to think that the dramatic effect of highly emotional narrative
is underrated in the modern theatre.
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