20 Prosser Hall Frye 



If now we place eloquence at one pole of the genuinely poetic 

 tragedy, then at the other terminal we must as obviously set up 

 lyricism, a lyricism adapted — paradoxical as it may seem at first 

 sight — ^to the uses of the drama and adjusted to the nature of the 

 situation. The word lyricism, I should perhaps add, I use in its 

 fundamental sense to denote the essential quality of lyric poetry 

 and without recognition of the rather derogatory connotation it 

 has acquired recently from reactionary French criticism. But 

 lyric expression is the result of intense personal absorption ; hence 

 it would appear wholly incompatible with the gregariousness of 

 drama, except for the more or less anomalous soliloquy. From 

 the nature of the case, then, it can occur in non-choric tragedy 

 only at those rarer intervals when a character is rapt beyond the 

 consciousness of his neighbours and his immediate surroundings 

 either by recollection or by extreme excitement. And for the 

 sake of clearness I will illustrate both of these cases by Shake- 

 speare. Of the former variety Marcellus' speech in Hamlet 

 after the disappearance of the ghost is a good instance: 



It faded on the crowing of the cock. 

 Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes 

 Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 

 The bird of dawning singeth all night long : 

 And then, they say, no spirit dares walk abroad ; 

 The nights are wholesome ; then no planets strike, 

 No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm. 

 So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.^i 



This is a lovely example of the dramatic lyricism of recollec- 

 tion. While the speech of Claudio, in Measure for Measure, on 

 what he fancies to be the eve of his execution, though in another 

 key altogether, is an equally good example of the dramatic 

 lyricism of extreme excitement : 



Ay, but to die, and go we know not where ; 



To lie in cold obstruction and to rot ; 



This visible warm motion to become 



A kneaded clod ; and the delighted spirit 



To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside 



In thrilling regions of thick ribbed ice ; 



211, i. 



192 



