Apparently it was a false dawn; but I still
believe that our orientation was right when we looked for the daybreak
in the lyric quarter of the heavens. The very summits of Shakespeare's
achievement are his glorious lyrical passages. Think of the exquisite
elegiacs of Macbeth! Think of the immortal death-song of Cleopatra! If
verse has any function on the stage, it is that of imparting lyric
beauty to passionate speech. For the mere rhetorical "elevation" of
blank verse we have no use whatever. It consists in saying simple things
with verbose pomposity. But should there arise a man who combines
highly-developed dramatic faculty with great lyric genius, it is quite
possible that he may give us the new poetic drama for which our
idealists are sighing. He will choose his themes, I take it, from
legend, or from the domain of pure fantasy--themes which can be steeped
from first to last in an atmosphere of poetry, as _Tristan und Isolde_
is steeped in an atmosphere of music. Of historic themes, I would
counsel this hypothetical genius to beware.
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