Excerpt from The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist

Why it is that the drama cannot at any time wholly break away from the prejudices, tastes, [and ideals of the public for which it is written, M. Edelstand Du Méril has clearly stated 1 In the drama the per sonality of the author is effaced even more completely than in the epic or other forms of poetry. It is no longer he who speaks. All the figures return suc cessively to life, a little more talkative than they were originally, and express in orderly sequence their feelings and their desires. Each of the dramatis persona) acts for himself and speaks according to the ideas and sentiments that are peculiarly his own. You assist at a genuine representation of life, and follow step by step the consequences of acts you see the characters developing by Vivid and convincing action in which each will is expressed by its acts, each act is related to its causes, and is brought to completion in its first results. But the inspiration of the work hasn't at all that ego tistical spirit, disdainful of the outside world, which characterizes the other forms of art, this is no longer a monologue of the poet singing to himself for his own pleasure, this author tries by what his drama represents to awake in others the poetical ideas which have.

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