Halleck's New English Literature Part 74

George Bernard Shaw.--Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1856. He was willful and took "refuge in idleness" at school. His education consisted mainly in studying music with his talented mother, in haunting picture galleries, and in wide reading. At the age of twenty, he went to London and began his literary career. He was at various times a journalist, a critic of art, music, and the drama, a lecturer, a novelist, and a playwright. Shaw describes himself as a man "up to the chin in the life of his times." He is a vegetarian, an anti-vivisectionist, an advocate for woman's suffrage, and a socialist.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE BERNARD SHAW.]

_Arms and the Man, Candida, You Never Can Tell_, and _The Man of Destiny_, published (1898) in the second volume of _Plays, Pleasant and Unpleasant_; and _The Devil's Disciple_, published (1900) in _Three Plays for Puritans_, are among his best dramas. With their stage directions and descriptions, they are as delightful to read as novels. Of these plays, _Candida_ is first in character drawing and human interest. The dramatic action is wholly within the mental states of the three chief actors, but the situations are made intense through a succession of unique, absorbing, entertaining, and well-developed conversations.

Shaw is more destructive than constructive in his philosophy as expressed in his plays; and he criticizes so many of the inst.i.tutions held sacred by society that people have refused to accept him seriously, even when he has written expository prefaces to his dramas.

In _Arms and the Man_, he satirizes the romantic admiration for the soldier's calling; in _The Doctor's Dilemma_ (1906), he attacks the professional man; in _Widowers' Houses_ (1898), he a.s.sails the rich property holder with his high rents on poor people's houses: and in _Man and Superman_ (1903), he dissects love and home until the sentiment is entirely taken out of them.

Shaw's chief object is to place before his audience facts, reasons, and logical conclusions. He will not tolerate romantic emotions or sentimentalism, which he ridicules with a reckless audacity, a literal incisiveness, and a satiric wit that none of his contemporaries can excel. His chief claim to his present important position among playwrights is based on his originality and fearlessness of thought, the unfailing sprightliness of his conversation, the infectious spirit of raillery in his comedies, and his mastery of the requirements of the modern stage.

J.M. Barrie.--With the successful stage production of _The Little Minister_ (1897), Barrie pa.s.sed from novelist to playwright. The qualities of humor, fancy, and quaint characterization, which were such a charm in his novels, reappear in his plays.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE.]

_The Admirable Crichton_, produced in 1903, is one of Barrie's most successful comedies. He displays skill and humor in handling the absurd situation of a peer's family wrecked on a desert island, where the butler, as the most resourceful member of the party, takes command. In _Peter Pan_ (1904), the dramatization of the novel, _The Little White Bird_, care-free, prankish Peter Pan visits three children in their sleep and teaches them to fly away with him. He carries them to the little people of the fairy world, to the pirate ship, to other scenes dear to children's hearts, and finally to his home in the tree tops. The play is a mixture of fancy, symbolism, and realism. These are woven into a bright phantasy by an imagination that is near to childhood and has not lost its morning's brightness.

_What Every Woman Knows_ (produced in 1908) shows Barrie's dramatic art at its height. He knows how to introduce variety and to give his characters an opportunity to reveal themselves. Every word, every movement of the heroine, Maggie Shand, adds to the unfolding of a fascinating personality. A period of intensely dramatic action may be followed by a comparative pause, such as occurs when the audience sees Maggie's husband slowly realize her cleverness and helpfulness, --qualities that had been long apparent to every one else.

Barrie shows the ability to present dramatically situations that are emotionally appealing or delightfully humorous. His plays exhibit admirably the deep feelings, the momentary moods, the resourcefulness, or the peculiar whimsicalities of men and women.

John Galsworthy.--As a means of presenting social problems, Galsworthy utilizes the drama even more than the novel. Faulty prison systems, discords between labor and capital, discrepancies between law and justice, are some of the themes he chooses to dramatize. _The Silver Box_ (1906) ironically interprets Justice as blind rather than impartial. The poor man is often punished while the more fortunate man goes free. _Strife_ (1909), in some respects the most powerful of his plays, ill.u.s.trates the clash between capital and labor. In _The Eldest Son_ (1912), the conflict is between two social orders. _Justice_ (1910), which secured reforms in the English prison system, shows how a young man is affected by an inflexible but legal punishment; and how such a method fails to a.s.sist him humanely to a better manhood, but drives him to lower and lower depths.

In _Joy_ (1907), a delightful play, Galsworthy momentarily relinquishes social problems for a drama of more personal emotion. In the mystical, poetical composition, _The Little Dream_ (1911), he presents an allegory of the maiden in the Alps, dreaming first of the simple mountain life and then of the life in cities. With its spiritual note and delicate fancy, _The Little Dream_ turns a golden key on the ideal world beyond the strife and gloom dramatized in the sociological plays.

Galsworthy has good stagecraft. His characterization is distinct and consistent. His plays are simple in construction and direct in movement. He strictly avoids rhetorical and theatrical effects, but his dramatic economies often sacrifice all charm and aesthetic appeal.

His gray world leaves no hope save the desperate one that conditions so grim may shame and spur society to reform.

Stephen Phillips.--This dramatist and poet was born at Somerton, near Oxford, in 1864. The boy was sent to Shakespeare's birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon, to attend school. He entered Cambridge, but at the end of his first term he left the university to join a company of Shakespearean players. His six years with them initiated him into the technique of stagecraft, which he later applied in the writing of his poetic dramas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STEPHEN PHILLIPS.]

Before producing the plays for which he is known, he wrote some narrative and lyric verse. _Marpessa_ (1890), a blank verse poem, is a beautiful treatment of the old Greek myth, in which Apollo, the G.o.d, and Idas, the mortal, woo Marpessa. Marlowe might have written the lines in which Apollo promises to take her to a home above the world, where movement is ecstasy and repose is thrilling. In some of his non-dramatic poems, _Christ in Hades_ (1896), _Cities of h.e.l.l_ (1907), and _The New Inferno_ (1896), Phillips shows how the subject of life and punishment after death attracts him.

With the appearance of his _Paolo and Francesca_ in 1899, the poetic drama seemed phoenix-like to arise from its ashes. Tennyson and Browning had failed to write successful plays. In fact, since the death of Dryden, poetry and drama had seemed to be afraid to approach each other. Phillips effected at least a temporary union. His several plays have distinctly dramatic qualities and many pa.s.sages of poetic beauty. From both a dramatic and a poetic point of view, _Paolo and Francesca_ is Phillips's best play. Its dramatic values lie chiefly in its power to create and sustain a sense of something definitely progressing toward a certain point. The poetic elements of the play consist in the beauty of atmosphere and the charm of the lines.

Giovanni Malatesta, the ugly tyrant of Rimini, being at war when his marriage draws near, sends his young brother Paolo to escort Francesca to Rimini. On the journey Paolo and Francesca fall in love with each other. When Giovanni discovers this, his jealous hand slays them. To such a tragic climax, Phillips drives steadily onward from the first scene, thus focusing the interest on a concrete dramatic situation.

_Herod_ (1900) is a drama of ambition versus love. Herod, the great historic king of the Jews, though pa.s.sionately in love with his wife Mariamne, sacrifices her brother Aristobulus to his suspicions, fearing that this young prince, the last of the Maccabees, may supplant him on the throne. This sacrifice, prompted by evil counselors, results in a train of tragic episodes, including Mariamne's death and Herod's madness. The lines in which Herod speaks of thinking in gold and dreaming in silver call to mind the hyperbole and music of Marlowe's mighty line.

_Ulysses_ (1902), more of a panorama than a play, is founded on the Homeric story. Its scenes are laid in Olympus, in Hades, on Calypso's isle, and finally in Ithaca. Calypso tries to retain Ulysses upon her isle, beautiful--

"With sward of parsley and of violet And poplars shimmering in a silvery dream."[15]

He struggles against her enchantment, returns home, finds his wife surrounded by her suitors, joins in their bow-drawing contest, and, in a most exciting and dramatic scene, surpa.s.ses all rivals and claims his faithful, beautiful Penelope.

The plays of Phillips not infrequently lack that clinching power that stretches the interest taut. Many scenes are admirably spectacular, suggestive of richly decorated tapestries, which hang separately in s.p.a.cious rooms; but the plays need more forceful dramatic action, moving through changes to a climax. Phillips's diction, though sometimes rhetorical, is also often ornately beautiful and highly poetical. We feel that even in his plays, he is greater as a poet than as a dramatist.

CELTIC DRAMATISTS

Strong national feeling, interest in the folklore and peasant life of Ireland, and ambition to establish a national theater, have led to a distinct and original Irish drama. In 1899, with a fund of two hundred and fifty dollars, Lady Gregory, William Butler Yeats, G.W. Russell, and other playwrights and patrons succeeded in establishing in Dublin the Irish Literary Theater now known as the Irish National Theater.

The object of this theater is twofold. In the first place, it aims to produce "literary" plays, not the vapid, panoramic kind that merely pa.s.s away the time. In the second place, the Irish plays present fabled and historical Irish heroes and the humble Irish peasant.

Patriotism inspired many writers to a.s.sist in this national movement.

Some gathered stories from the lips of living Irish-speaking peasants; others collected and translated into English the old legends of heroes. Dr. Douglas Hyde's translations of _The Five Songs of Connacht_ (1894) and _The Religious Songs of Connacht_ (1906) are valuable works and have greatly influenced the Irish writers.

Lady Augusta Gregory.--Lady Gregory, born in 1852, in Roxborough, County Galway, has made some of the best of these translations in her works, _Cuchulain of Muirthemma_, and _G.o.ds and Fighting Men_. "These two books have come to many as a first revelation of the treasures buried in Gaelic literature, and they are destined to do much for the floating of old Irish story upon the world. They aim to do for the great cycles of Irish romance what Malory did for the Arthurian stories."[16]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LADY GREGORY.]

Lady Gregory wrote also for the Irish Theater plays that have been acted successfully not only in Ireland but in England and in America.

Among her best serious plays are _The Gaol Gate_ (1906), a present-day play, the hero of which dies to save a neighbor, _The Rising of the Moon_ (1907), and _Grania_ (1912). _McDonough's Wife_ (1913) is an excellent brief piece with an almost heroic note at the close. The great vagabond piper, McDonough, master of wonderful music, returns from wandering, to find his wife dead, and, because of his thriftlessness, about to be denied honorable burial. McDonough steps to the door, pipes his marvelous tunes, and immediately the village flocks to do homage to his wife.

Lady Gregory's farces have primarily made her fame. _Spreading the News_ (1904), _Hyacinth Halvey_ (1906), _The Image_ (1910), and _The Bogie Men_ (1913) are representative of her vigorous and well-constructed farces. They are varied in subject, the incidents are well developed, the characters are genuine Irish peasants and villagers, and the humor is infectious. It is interesting to note that Lady Gregory has continued to write farces because of the demand for them in the Irish National Theater, in order to offset the large number of tragedies by other authors.

William Butler Yeats.--In addition to delightful poetic fancy, Yeats possesses considerable dramatic ability and stagecraft. In _The Countess Cathleen_ (rewritten in 1912), the poor peasants are driven by a famine to the verge of starvation. Many die; but some are fed by the Countess Cathleen, while others sell their souls for the price of food to demons disguised as merchants. When these demons steal Countess Cathleen's stores in order to stop her charities, with instant Irish quickness and generosity, she sells her soul for a great price to the demons, in order to save her people here and hereafter.

Such a tremendous sacrifice, however, is not permitted. Because of the purity of her motive, armed angels save her soul in the last impressive act. Supernatural powers, both pagan and Christian, partic.i.p.ate in the play. Spirits haunt the woods, enter the peasants'

cottages, and cast spells on the inhabitants. The play is Irish in story, in symbolism, and in the fancifulness of the conception.

_The Land of Heart's Desire_ is another drama that has sprung from the soil and folklore of Ireland. This play was one of the first Celtic dramas to be produced, and in its present revised form (1912) it is one of the most engaging of the Irish plays. Partly in prose and partly in verse, it is the story of a young bride who tires of her monotonous life and calls upon the fairies to release her. The old parents tell her that duty comes before love of the fairies.

The good priest begs her not to forsake her faithful young husband; but the fairy wins, and, leaving a dead bride in the cottage, bears away the living bride to a land where--

"The fairies dance in a place apart, Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring, Tossing their milk-white arms in the air; For they have heard the wind laugh and murmur and sing Of a land where even the old are fair, And even the wise are merry of tongue."[17]

Patriotic love for Ireland is the very breath of _Cathleen ni Hoolihan_ (1902), a one-act prose play in which Cathleen symbolizes Ireland. _The Shadowy Waters_ (1900) and _Deirdre_ (1907) are more poetic than dramatic. The first of these with the mysterious harper, the far-sailing into unknown seas, the parting with everything but the loved one, shows Yeats in his deeply mystical mood. In _Deirdre_ is dramatized part of a popular legend of the great queen by that name, who was too beautiful for happiness. She has seven long years of joy and then accepts her fate in the calm, triumphant way of the old heroic times.

Yeats's plays reflect the childlike superst.i.tions and lively imagination of his country. He loves the fairies, the dreams of eternal youth, the symbolizing of things of the spirit by lovely things of earth. His plays are poetical, fanciful, and romantic.

John Millington Synge.--One of the most notable of the Irish writers, J.M. Synge, was born near Dublin in 1871 and died in that city in 1909. His brief span of life has yielded only scanty biographical data. He came of an old Wicklow family; he was graduated from Trinity College, Dublin; afterwards he wandered through much of Europe, finally settling in France.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN SYNGE.]

In 1899, William Butler Yeats discovered him in Paris, a "man all folded up in brooding intellect," writing essays on French authors,--on Moliere, for example, from whom he learned the trick of characterization; on Racine, who taught him concentration; on Rabelais, who infected him with love of deep laughter. Yeats, suspecting that Synge could be an original writer as well as an interpreter of others, persuaded him to go back to Ireland, to the Aran Islands, off Galway. Synge discovered there a lost kingdom of the imagination, a place where spontaneous feeling and primitive imagination had not been repressed by the outside world's customs and discipline, and where the constant voice of the ocean, the touch of the mysterious, all-embracing mist, and the gleam of the star through a rift in the clouds banished all sense of difference between the natural and the supernatural.

When Synge died in his thirty-eighth year, he had written only six short plays, all between 1903 and 1909. Two of these, _In the Shadow of the Glen_ and _Riders to the Sea_, contain only one act. _The Tinker's Wedding_ has two acts, and the rest are three-act plays.

_In the Shadow of the Glen, Riders to the Sea_, and _The Well of the Saints_, produced respectively in 1903, 1904, and 1905, show that Synge came at once into full possession of his dramatic power. Even in his earliest written play, _The Well of The Saints_, we find a style stripped of superfluous verbiage and vibrant with emotion. _In the Shadow of the Glen_, his first staged play, consumes only a half hour.

The scene is laid in a cabin far off in a lonely glen, and the four actors,--a woman oppressed by loneliness, an unfeeling husband who feigns death, and two visitors,--make a singularly well-knit impressive drama.

_Riders to the Sea_ has been p.r.o.nounced the greatest drama of the modern Celtic school. Some critics consider this the most significant tragedy produced in English since Shakespeare. Simple and impressive as a Greek tragedy, it has for its central figure an old mother whose husband and five sons have been lost at sea. The simple but poignant feeling of the drama focuses on the death of Maurya's sixth and last son, Bartley. This tragic episode, simply presented, touches the depths of human sympathy. In old Maurya, Synge created an impressive figure of what Macbeth calls "rooted sorrow."

_The Playboy of the Western World_, produced first in 1907, is a three-act play. It is as fantastically humorous as the _Riders to the Sea_ is tragical. Dread of his father ties this peasant to his stupid toil. A fearful deed frees the youth and throws him into the company of the lovely maiden, Pegeen, and admiring friends. The latent poetry and wild joy of living awake in him, and, under the spur of praise, he performs great feats. He who had never before dared to face girls, makes such love to Pegeen that poesy itself seems to be talking. The Playboy is one of the wildest conceptions of character in modern drama. His very extravagance compels interest. Pegeen is a fitting sweetheart for him. Her father is a stalwart figure, possessing a shrewd philosophy and rare strength of speech, as "fully flavored as nut or apple." Some critics object to such a boisterous play, but they should remember that it is intended to be an extravagant peasant fantasia.

_Deirdre of the Sorrows_, another three-act play, produced first in 1910, tells the story of the beautiful princess Deirdre, of her isolated young life, and her seven years of perfect union with her lover Naisi. When her lover is slain, this true and tender queen of the North loosens the knot of life to accompany him.

Synge belongs in the first rank of modern dramatists. The forty Irish characters that he has created reveal the basal elements of universal human nature. His purpose is like Shakespeare's,--to reveal throbbing life, not to talk in his own person, nor to discuss problems. Synge has dramatized the primal hope, fear, sorrow, and loneliness of life.

Although his plays are written in prose and have the distinctive flavor of his lowly characters, yet a recent critic justly says that Synge "for the first time sets English dramatic prose to a rhythm as n.o.ble as the rhythms of blank verse."

SUMMARY