Experiments in form in modern symbolist drama

Abstract

This study examines, with special reference to the theme of the spiritual progress towards Reality, some of the directions in which dramatic form has been developed during the last hundred years. The Introduction specifies the elements which I consider essential to dramatic form, and explains what is meant by the word 'symbolist' and how the selection of material has been made. The first part of the thesis considers in detail some of the methods by which religious experience can be translated into dramatic terms. The traditional presentation of such experience through recognizable, individual characters is seen, in Chapter 1, to involve a number of difficulties; the attempted solution of these by development of new techniques is examined in two subsequent chapters under the general headings of allegory and dream-play. One aspect of the theme of spiritual progress is found to be particularly intractable as dramatic material and this, the 'moment of vision', is the subject of Chapter 4, where its treatment in the novel is also briefly considered. The literary movement of Symbolism was based on a belief in this state as a means of making contact with a spiritual Reality and in the ultimate aim of art being to create such an experience. In the light of this, Part II examines the dramatic theory and practice of two symbolist writers who attempted to perfect dramatic form in order to evoke a spiritual response. The Conclusion summarizes the most notable ways in which the symbolist experiments have modified the general conception of dramatic form. NOTE Quotations from the French are given in the original; for plays in other languages recognized translations are used. Dates in the text are approximate dates of completion of plays, and in the footnotes, of the editions consulted. Since most of the plays are not divided into Acts and Scenes, page references only are given in all cases.