704 



THE DRAMA 



from the historic and traditional standpoint, tragedy is more likely 

 to concern itself with Glamys Castle, Melrose Abbey, Carisbrooke, 

 or even with Carlton House Terrace. 



Behind some of the grandiose tragedies of Shakespeare, there is 

 the suggestion of a world-catastrophe as if palsied King Lear shaking 

 his menacing finger at the waterspouts was the crazy prophet of a 

 cosmic ruin. Such an atmosphere never surrounds the Ibsen drama. 

 For instance, " The Enemy of the People " is a play on much the 

 same subject as " Prometheus Vinctus." In both there is a pic- 

 ture of the one man, never so strong as when he is all alone waging 

 on the ground of his superior knowledge and insight, war against the 

 forces of ignorance, and blind, unreasoning force. Dr. Stockmann 

 is a Prometheus, a Prometheus who has his front windows broken, 

 instead of having his liver eaten by Zeus' eagle. In the one case the 

 scene is laid in the Caucasus with winged messengers of Heaven, 

 with patient or impatient victims of divine injustice, thronging the 

 stage; in the other case the scene is laid in the editorial room of 

 a provincial newspaper, with disputes between the business manager 

 and a contributor, and a general apparatus of printer's devils to take 

 the place of lo and the daughters of Oceanus. There is something 

 in the " grand manner " after all ! 



The same result is arrived at if we study most of the social dramas, 

 by which Ibsen has made himself notorious. There is that triumphant 

 masterpiece of squalid obscurity, with all its incisive analysis of a 

 petty woman's soul, which is called " Hedda Gabler," or there is that 

 dreary record of provincial meanness and pessimism enshrined in the 

 exceedingly clever play " The Wild Duck." Neither the heroines nor 

 the heroes are really great. Perhaps Ibsen has taken pecu- 

 liar pains to destroy the titles of his heroes and heroines to great- 

 ness. Was, for instance, Master-Builder Solness an architect of com- 

 manding rank? Was John Gabriel Borkman a real Napoleon of 

 finance? In both instances you have a peculiarly poignant picture of 

 success followed by failure; but are the characters typical enough to 

 make us feel that they are decisive examples of masterful skill or 

 masterful rapacity? Solness is almost a symbolical figure, and the 

 symbolic character tends to failure as an ordinary human being. 

 Just as a mere phase of individual idiosyncrasy will not necessarily 

 make a personage dramatic, so, too, will character in a tragedy 

 fail to bring home to us the desolation of failure, unless he be in a 

 real sense not symbolic but typical. 1 



What, in fact, is Ibsen's idea of tragedy ? As far as I can see, it 

 is the failure on the part of a given individual to achieve his mission. 



i It is necessary to distinguish between a symbolic figure and a typical 

 figure. A symbolic figure is an abstraction; a typical figure may be full of 

 the ripe juices of humanity. 



