APPENDIX I SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY It may be well to suggest a series of questions which the student can put to himself when he begins to study any play, ancient or modern. A. Has this play a single plot? - or is the story double or even treble? If there is more than one story, which is the main-plot? Is the under-plot worked into the structure of the play, or is it independent, being merely juxtaposed? Does the existence of more than one plot divide the interest of the play, or scatter it, or does the under-plot sustain the main story by adroit contrast? Does the play contain any non-dramatic elements, epic or lyric, oratorical or descriptive? If so, to what extent do these interfere with the dramatic interest? B. Has the play an essential struggle sustaining it from beginning to end? If so, what is this struggle? By what characters is this struggle maintained on the one side and on the other? Are both opponents justified in their own minds? Or is one of them absolutely right and the other absolutely wrong? With which character do you find yourself sympathizing? Why? Does the outcome of the struggle satisfy you? If not, why not? Has the author played fair with his characters? Or has he obviously intervened to make them do what they would not do? And, if so, has this interfered with your interest in the play? C. What happened before the play began? At what point in the story does the author choose to begin and at what point to end? Why did he choose between these points of beginning and ending? Was he well advised in both choices? How has he conveyed to you what you need to know about the past to enable you to follow the play from the beginning? What is his method of exposition? Has he massed his necessary explanations in the earlier scenes? or has he reserved some interesting disclosures for later acts? If so, was he right in so doing? Has he failed to tell you, early in the play, anything that you would have liked to know then to appreciate better what was being done on the stage? Does he at any time violate the principle of Economy of Attention? D. What is the main theme? Is this held to unswervingly? Or does the story digress into by-paths? Does the play contain any scene which could be omitted? If so, why was it inserted? Does the author fail to present any scene which he ought to have shown in action? If so, can you discover any sound reason for this omission? Has he led you to expect any scene which he has not given you? E. Does the interest of the play rise steadily from the beginning to the end? If not, where does it droop? And what is the cause of this flagging in each case? Draw the diagram of interest and use it to aid you in your analysis. F. What dramatic conventions does the author avail himself of? Which of these are permanent and necessary? Which of them are temporary and peculiar to the theater of his day? Has he a chorus? If so, what is the function of this chorus ? Does he employ the soliloquy? If so, is it for constructive purposes, to tell you facts? Or is it only to reveal the thoughts of a character alone on the stage? Does he use asides addressed directly to the audience? Does he employ the device of eavesdropping? And in these things is he merely accepting the traditions of his immediate predecessors? In other words, how far is his method of construction influenced by the conditions of the actual theater of his own time? G. Do you discover or suspect any evidence that the author had any special actors in mind in composing his play? Is there anything said or done by any character which is the result of the fitting of that part to the original performer ? |