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no matter what you say, I remain unconvinced that the form, as such,
is impossible. What I find obnoxious is MacLeish's utter lack of poetic
inspiration, and his acceptance of cheap dramatic standards in retelling
one of the greatest stories of our
litera~ure.
NORTH: I think I'm against cheap dramatic standards as much
as you are.
SOUTH: What I am driving at is that the great affliction of
drama is not, as you seem to think, that people are trying to write plays
in verse. I'm inclined to think that type of effort a very commendable
one, no matter how great the difficulty is. What I can't stand about
MacLeish is his utter thoughtlessness. He has no point of view toward
the story of Job that could justify his retelling it. Here is what I mean:
a famous modern philosopher has said that the greatest tribute to being
is for someone to desire not to be. The greatest tributes to being in
literature, then, would be Job's curse of the day on which he was born,
the choruses in Oedipus, and Hamlet's famous soliloquy. These would
be the moments when being really
was,·
they happen to be the greatest
moments in our dramatic literature. Now from this point of view, we
could understand why God preferred Job's curse of his own birth to
the practical advice of Job's friends; also, why in response to Job's
curse, God asserts the mere fact that He is. Now I'm not saying that
a good drama about Job could be written from such a point of view,
interesting though the view is. I'm trying to suggest something else; all
the modern mind can add to the old story is reflection; now reflection is
not the basis for a dramatic work. On the other hand, why take up a
story of this kind
if
one has no significant thoughts about it? I do
think drama is only possible where the dramatist's thought is involved,
and where that thought is a direct, immediate, intuitively perceived
sense of the meaning of some action.
NORTH: How you're coming around to my point of view, that
poetry is impossible in drama when it is post-reflective. You're going
even further, saying that the dramatist's thought should be pre-reflective;
and I'm inclined to agree with you about that, too. But let me give you
an example of the kind of speeches we get in Djuna Barnes's
The
Antiphon:
That was the day that story-book Augusta
Feather-headed, fairy-tale Augusta
In her mind's wild latitude laid out
And armed such battlefield, tilt patch and list
As out-geare,d Mars. My maximed mind
