[1]
Has the conception of the peripety, as an almost obligatory element in
drama, any significance for the modern playwright? Obligatory, of
course, it cannot be: it is easy to cite a hundred admirable plays in
which it is impossible to discover anything that can reasonably be
called a peripety. But this, I think, we may safely say: the dramatist
is fortunate who finds in the development of his theme, without
unnatural strain or too much preparation, opportunity for a great scene,
highly-wrought, arresting, absorbing, wherein one or more of his
characters shall experience a marked reversal either of inward
soul-state or of outward fortune. The theory of the peripety, in short,
practically resolves itself for us into the theory of the "great scene,"
Plays there are, many and excellent plays, in which some one scene
stands out from all the rest, impressing itself with peculiar vividness
on the spectator's mind; and, nine times out of ten, this scene will be
found to involve a peripety.
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