The Foundations of a National Drama: A Collection of Lectures, Essays and Speeches, Delivered in the Years 1896-1912Chapman & Hall, 1913 - 358 pages Essays examining the development of an intellectual drama in England and how to make English theatre an object of national pride and esteem. |
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acting action actors actors and actresses American drama amongst arbitrator artistic audience body Brander Matthews Censor Censorship Committee delight distinct doubtless dramatist Edipus England English drama English playgoers English plays English stage English theatre established fact feeling France French give hope human character idea immoral indecency intellectual interest judge judgment leading actors licence literary living London Lord Chamberlain Lord Chamberlain's office manager matter means ment modern drama modern English modern plays Molière morality music halls musical comedy national drama National Theatre nature performance perhaps piece playgoing public playwright pleasure popular amusement present production provinces question reason repertory scarcely scene scheme Shakespeare Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Shakespearean Sir Herbert Tree Sophocles speak success suppose surely tastes theatres and music theatrical things tion to-day West End theatres whole wise wish
Popular passages
Page 19 - ... methinks I see her as an eagle, mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam, — purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance, while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.
Page 41 - He is great who can live by me: The rough and bearded forester Is better than the lord; God fills the scrip and canister, Sin piles the loaded board. The lord is the peasant that was, The peasant the lord that shall be; The lord is hay, the peasant grass, One dry, and one the living tree.
Page 87 - Thou thyself must break at last. Let the long contention cease! Geese are swans, and swans are geese. Let them have it how they will! Thou art tired; best be still. They out-talked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?
Page 277 - December, 175'2, any house, room, garden, or other place kept for public dancing, music, or other public entertainment of the like kind...
Page 68 - God ! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times...
Page 77 - ... and whatever other qualities one might, enumerate. But when we find all these qualities, not only in the dramatic works that have come down to us, but also in lyrical and epic works, in the philosophers, the orators, and the historians, and in an equally high degree in the works of plastic art that have come down to us, we must feel convinced that such qualities did not merely belong to individuals, but were the current property of the nation and the whole period.
Page 215 - Then, ah! then, moreover, will the novelist's Art, now neither blushless infant nor executive man, have attained its majority. We can then be veraciously historical, honestly transcriptive. Rose-pink and dirty drab will alike have passed away.
Page 35 - whatsoever things are true," and '-honest," and "just," and "pure," and "lovely," and "of good report," are esteemed by men outside of the sects as really as by men inside of them.
Page 77 - I repeat that, if a talent is to be speedily and happily developed, the great point is that a great deal of intellect and sound culture should be current in a nation. " We admire the tragedies of the ancient Greeks ; but, to take a correct view of the case, we ought rather to admire the period and the nation in which their production was possible than the individual authors ; for though these pieces differ a little from each other, and...
Page 216 - Peruse your Realists — really your castigators for not having yet embraced philosophy. As she grows in the flesh when discreetly tended, nature is unimpeachable, flowerlike, yet not too decoratively a flower; you must have her with the stem, the thorns, the roots, and the fat bedding of the roses. (pp. 15, 16) Since