William Archer
Published: 2015-06-26
Total Pages: 431
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Excerpt from English Dramatists of to-Day Before asking the reader to follow me through the detailed examination of the works of our present-day dramatists contained in these pages, I wish to define my point of view and lay down clearly the latitude and longitude of my position. A very short glance at any of the following essays will show that I take a somewhat gloomy view of the present state of the drama. In this I am not singular. Pessimism is the prevailing attitude of the critical mind with regard to the theatre. The higher criticism despises and ignores it. One might examine the volumes of our great quarterlies ever since their foundation and find scarcely a word in which the existence of an English theatre is recognized. In one or two of the more modern reviews the weight of a name like Mr. Matthew Arnold's procures at long intervals the admission of a thoughtful but unpractical paper upon the theatre of the day. The lower criticism, again, in its more serious moods, inclines to despondency and lamentation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
