"Well, in general, I think whatever is agreeable is called a folly. But you have not left off hunting, I hear."

(Pause, wherein Gwendolen recalled what she had heard about Grandcourt's position, and decided that he was the most aristocraticlooking man she had ever seen.)

"One must do something."

"And do you care about the turf ?—or is that among the things you have left off ?"

(Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm, cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men, and not likely to interfere with his wife's preferences.)

"I run a horse now and then; but I do not go in for the thing as some men do. Are you fond of horses ?"

"Yes, indeed: I never like my life so well as when I am on horseback, having a great gallop. I think of nothing. I only feel myself strong and happy."

(Pause, wherein Gwendolen wondered whether Grandcourt would like what she said, but assured herself that she was not going to disguise her tastes.)

Now, all this is stage dialogue, and stage dialogue intensified: as if the presentative function of stage directions were being enlarged to cover unspoken thoughts and feelings. Dramatic presentation, then, unites with the discussional power of the essay to widen the literary range for this modern epic of life.

We must not, among formative influences for the modern novel, pass over the Romantic revolution of the eighteenth century, especially after the leadership of this revolution had passed into the hands of Sir Walter Scott. The Romantic epic may be a distinct type, but it is one closely related to the epic of life. It had brought epic poetry once more to the front rank of literature; it had also vindicated the claims of prose to an equality, if not more than an equality, with verse as a medium for narrative creation.

Under such widening influences as these has been developed the modern novel, as the great contribution of our own age to

the epic poetry of the world. It takes the position in the fulness of our world literature that was occupied by the organic epic in earlier stages. Many of these novels are themselves organic epics. To take the first illustration that occurs: the plot scheme of Middlemarch obviously includes a number of independent stories. We have Dorothea and the tangled threads of her life; Celia and a picture of stationary bliss; Fred Vincy developed out of his rawness by force of attraction to a girl of simple good sense; Lydgate with his professional ambition wrecked by a shallow-hearted wife; Bulstrode and his spiritual tragedy. Each of these can be abstracted, as a separate story, with full plot and human interest: in the novel they are intertwined by accidental links, and all merged in Middlemarch provincial society, with its characteristic provincial humors, and a faint suggestion of the struggle of the Reform Bill for enveloping action. But the accent is no longer laid upon interest of plot; it is the subject-matter which stands out, and makes the novel the epic of human life.

Two special tendencies of the modern novel are worth noting as we conclude this part of our subject. One is the tendency of the novel to become cosmopolitan in its interest. In this form more than in any other we draw into our English world literature from abroad. The great English masters are not more to us than Victor Hugo, Balzac, Dumas, Turgenieff, Tolstoi, Dostoyevsky, Daudet, Björnsen. The different peoples of Europe read one another's novels, if they read nothing else that is foreign. Novel-reading tends to become a form of international intercourse.

A second tendency is suggested by the term 'current fiction.' We are constantly hearing this phrase, and are continually having thrust upon us astonishing statistics of circulating libraries and 'best sellers.' It is often made a reproach against particular novelists, whose literary skill is not disputed, that they hanker after a certain set of social problems, or cater to

certain tastes and fancies, simply because these have popularity at the moment; and it is freely prophesied that such novels as these will not live. The prophecy may prove true in fact: but all this complaint seems a misreading of a literary phenomenon. The point to which current fiction testifies is, not deficiency in the literature, but elasticity of the medium. It is part of the vitality of fiction as a literary form that it tends to become a floating literature of transient human interests. We have seen the natural progression of literature toward floating in the sense of periodical literature; we are not to limit this idea of 'floating' by regular recurrence such as weekly or monthly. In all ages there are types of literature that deal with matters of temporary prominence, and so have a literary existence that flames up and dies away. Our party newspapers of the present time were preceded by party pamphleteering and this by party controversies in ponderous Latin folios. The novelist who can diagnose the social problem of the moment need not complain if his work shares the fate of Smectymnuus and Areopagitica. Epic poetry began for our world literature in spontaneous rhapsodizings of today's achievements at tonight's supper. It reaches a natural goal in a floating literature of current fiction, that can bring the highest creative skill to give us kodak pictures of each folly, or piece of social wisdom, as it flies.

CHAPTER VIII

EVOLUTION IN DRAMA

It may be well, following the course taken in the previous chapter, to make a comprehensive survey of the whole dramatic field in our world literature before dealing in detail with particular parts.

1. Analogous to the position of Homer in epic poetry is the position held in our drama by Attic tragedy and comedy. This is remarkable, because, while Homer represents a natural course of evolution, Greek drama is a highly specialized type, the product of particular circumstances and disturbing influences in the evolution of literature. Yet, so great is the genius of the four poets-Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes— and so firm is the position of Greek as ancestral literature, that the Classical drama has maintained a powerful influence through nearly the whole of our literary history, and its masterpieces have hardly been surpassed even by the plays of Shakespeare.

2. With the passage to the Middle Ages drama undergoes a long eclipse. The Classical dramas are locked up in the monasteries, accessible only to the clergy, and to few of these. For the general public-a cultured, but not a reading class—the theater gives place to the minstrel, and epic poetry becomes the main literary interest.

3. At the same time a new evolution of drama from first beginnings takes place, this mediaeval drama being developed out of Christian worship as Greek drama had been developed out of the worship of Bacchus. It progresses through several interesting dramatic types, until it seems on the verge of becoming a fully developed poetic literature, when this dramatic dawn is swallowed up in the full sunrise of the Renaissance.

4. The revival of Classical drama that comes with the Renaissance operates in two ways. The more immediate effect is that the recovered sense of dramatic form is brought to bear upon the mediaeval accumulation of romantic material: by this marriage of epic and drama we get the Romantic Drama of Shakespeare, the highest point to which the drama of our world literature has ever attained or is likely to attain.

5. Later on, and mainly by influence of French literature, there is a more direct revival of Classical drama by conscious imitation: this Modern Classical drama has for its great masters Racine and Molière.

6. The differentiation of varied dramatic types has, naturally, been in evidence throughout our history: at last differentiation comes to have free course as the Classical and Romantic types lose their paramount position. In modern times no drama is placed at an advantage or a disadvantage by its admitting the influences we call Romantic and Classical.

I

We have to consider first the evolution of Classical drama. In this portion of the literary field, more perhaps than elsewhere, evolutionary processes in literature are clearly revealed: the unfolding of stages, the disturbing forces, the traces of transition steps in the fully developed product. In a separate work1 I have dealt at full length with this subject. Here we can note only prominent points in the whole process of evolution; and these are suggested in tabular form on page 166.

It is well that the reader should have in his mind a clear conception of the ballad dance, the starting-point of all these changes. I cite from my work already mentioned2 a specimen ballad dance; it is, of course, an imaginary reconstruction,

The Ancient Classical Drama: A Study in Literary Evolution (Oxford University Press).

Ancient Classical Drama, pages 18-20; compare pages 20-22.