{"product_id":"2940011845109","title":"THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MODERN DRAMA","description":"This ebook edition has been proofed and corrected for errors and compiled to be read with without errors!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExcerpts fromt the Foreword and beginning of the first chapter:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs to the native drama, America has so far produced very little worthy to be considered in a social light. Lacking the cultural and evolutionary tradition of the Old World, America has necessarily first to prepare the soil out of which sprouts creative genius.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe hundred and one springs of local and sectional life must have time to furrow their common channel into the seething sea of life at large, and social questions and problems make themselves felt, if not crystallized, before the throbbing pulse of the big national heart can find its reflex in a great literature — and specifically in the drama — of a social character. This evolution has been going on in this country for a considerable time, shaping the wide-spread unrest that is now beginning to assume more or less definite social form and expression.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTherefore, America could not so far produce its own social drama. But in proportion as the crystallization progresses, and sectional and national questions become clarified as fundamentally social problems, the drama develops. Indeed, very commendable beginnings in this direction have been made within recent years, among them \"The Easiest Way,\" by Eugene Walter, \" Keeping Up Appearances,\" and other plays by Butler Davenport, \"Nowadays\" and two others volumes of one-act plays, by George Middleton,— attempts that hold out an encouraging promise for the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Modern Drama, as all modern literature, mirrors the complex struggle of life,— the struggle which, whatever its individual or topical expression, ever has its roots in the depth of human nature and social environment, and hence is, to that extent, universal. Such literature, such drama, is at once the reflex and the inspiration of mankind in its eternal seeking for things higher and better. Perhaps those who learn the great truths of the social travail in the school of life, do not need the message of the drama. But there is another class whose number is legion, for whom that message is indispensable. In countries where political oppression affects all classes, the best intellectual element have made common cause with the people, have become their teachers, comrades, and spokesmen. But in America political pressure has so far affected only the \"common\" people. It is they who are thrown into prison; they who are persecuted and mobbed, tarred and deported. Therefore another medium is needed to arouse the intellectuals of this country, to make them realize their relation to the people, to the social unrest permeating the atmosphere.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe medium which has the power to do that is the Modern Drama, because it mirrors every phase of life and embraces every strata of society,— the Modern Drama, showing each and all caught in the throes of the tremendous changes going on, and forced either to become part of the process or be left behind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIbsen, Strindberg, Hauptmann, Tolstoy, Shaw, Galsworthy and the other dramatists contained in this volume represent the social iconoclasts of our time. They know that society has gone beyond the stage of patching up, and that man must throw off the dead weight of the past, with all its ghosts and spooks, if he is to go foot free to meet the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis is the social significance which differentiates\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003emodern dramatic art from art for art's sake. It is the dynamite which undermines superstition, shakes the social pillars, and prepares men and women for the reconstruction.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHENRIK IBSEN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIN a letter to George Brandes, shortly after the Paris Commune, Henrik Ibsen wrote concerning the State and political liberty:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The State is the curse of the individual. How has the national strength of Prussia been purchased? By the sinking of the individual in a political and geographical formula. . . . The State must go! That will be a revolution which will find me on its side. Undermine the idea of the State, set up in its place spontaneous action, and the idea that spiritual relationship is the only thing that makes for unity, and you will start the elements of a liberty which will be something worth possessing.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe State was not the only bête noire of Henrik Ibsen. Every other institution which, like the State, rests upon a lie, was an iniquity to him. Uncompromising demolisher of all false idols and dynamiter of all social shams and hypocrisy, Ibsen consistently strove to uproot every stone of our social structure. Above all did he thunder his fiery indictment against the four cardinal sins of modern society: the Lie inherent in our social arrangements; Sacrifice and Duty, the twin curses that fetter the spirit of man; the narrow-mindedness and pettiness of Provincialism, that stifles all growth; and the Lack of Joy and Purpose in Work which turns life into a vale of misery and tears.","brand":"OGB","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47073381023984,"sku":"2940011845109","price":1.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940011845109_p0.jpg?v=1763550433","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940011845109","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}