Without ever descending from
concrete art to the abstractions of mere moralising, without ever
attempting to substitute a verbal formula for the full and complex
perception that grows out of a representation of life, the ancient
dramatists were nevertheless, in the whole apprehension of their theme,
determined by a more or less conscious speculative bias; the world to
them was not merely a splendid chaos, it was a divine plan; and even in
its darkest hollows, its passes most perilous and bleak, they have their
hand, though doubtful perhaps and faltering, upon the clue that is to
lead them up to the open sky.
It is consonant with this account of the nature of Greek tragedy that it
should have laid more stress upon action than upon character. The
interest was centred on the universal bearing of certain acts and
situations, on the light which the experience represented threw on the
whole tendency and course of human life, not on the sentiments and
motives of the particular personages introduced. The characters are
broad and simple, not developing for the most part, but fixed, and
fitted therefore to be the mediums of direct action, of simple issues,
and typical situations.
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