T.S.Eliot : In a pursuit of form

In the nineteenth century another mentality manifested itself. It is evident in a very able and brilliant poem, Goethe's Faust. Marlowe's Mephistopheles is a simpler creature than Goethe's. But at least Marlowe has in a few words concentrated him into a statement. He is there, and (incidentally) he renders Milton's Satan superfluous. Goethe's demon inevitably sends us back to Goethe. He embodies a philosophy. A creation of art should not do that: he should replace the philosophy. Goethe has not, that is to say, sacrificed or consecrated his thought to make the drama; the drama is still a means. And this type of mixed art has been repeated by men incomparably smaller than Goethe. We have had one other remarkable work of this type: Peer Gynt. And we have had the plays of M. Maeterlinck and M. Claudel. (I should except the Dynasts. This gigantic panorama is hardly to be called a success, but it is essentially an attempt to present a vision and "sacrifices" the philosophy to the vision as all great dramas do. Mr Hardy has apprehended his matter as a poet and an artist.) ...

The essential is not, of course, that drama should be written in verse, or that we should be able to extenuate our appreciation of broad farce by occasionally attending a performance of a play of Euripides where Professor Murray's translation is sold at the door. The essential is to get upon the stage this precise statement of life which is at the same time a point of view, a world; a world which the author's mind has subjected to a process of simplification. I do not find that any drama which "embodies a philosophy" of the author's (like Faust) or which illustrates any social theory (like Shaw's) can possibly fulfil the requirements -- though a place might be left for Shaw if not for Goethe. And the world of Ibsen and the world of Chekhov are not enough simplified, universal.

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