STMBOLISM M MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA

fcrj iU ^ !S. STMBOLISM m MODERN ENGLISH DRAMA BY KATHARINE J. WORTH, M,A. ( BEDFORD COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OP LONDON ) P k 4. ProQuest Number: 10097991 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10097991 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Foreword. The title 'Symhollsm in Modem English Drama’ may appear somewhat misleading in view of the scope of this thesis. It has "been preferred, for the sake of neatness, to the clumsier, ’Symbolism in Drama written in the English Language’, which would in fact he a more accurate description since it includes the Irish and American contribution. A considerable proportion of this study has been devoted to the work of Ibsen, Strindberg and Maeterlinck, since nearly all subsequent developments must be referred back to them either by way of comparison or contrast. Quotations from Maeterlinck’s work are given in the original, those from other foreign drama in the standard translation. Dates of plays are those of the works’ first appearance, whether in production or publication: when relevant, attention has been called to any marked discrepancy between dates of writing and production or publication. When titles of works of reference are not followed by a place name, they are English publications. TABLE OF CONTENTS Section I INTRODUCTION: SYMBOLISM IN DRAMA I II a) IBSEN'S SYMBOLISM 13 h) MAETERLINCK 88 0) STRINDBERG 108 III SYMBOLISM IN IRISH DRAMA 149 IV SYMBOLISM IN ENGLISH DRAMA 213 V SYMBOLISM IN AMERICAN DRAMA 288 VI CONCLUSION 334 BIBLIOGRAPHY 343 Introduction: Symbolism in Drama The resurgence of symbolism in modern literature is no acciden tal phenomenon, nor is it prompted exclusively by the attempt to, formulate new techniques. As we know, the symbolising instinct is as old as mankind: symbolism is ’no mere idle fancy or corrupt degeneration: it is inherent in the very texture of human life'.^) The human mind functions symbolically, Whitehead tells us, ’when some components of its experience elicit consciousness, beliefs, emotions and usages, respecting other components of its experience. ’%) And it appears that man has, from time immemorial, felt the need to re late the components of his personal experience, as part of the attempt to understand something of the organisation of the universe itself. A symbol is ’a sign by which one knows or infers a thing’, *a material object representing or taken to represent something immaterial or abstract*.In his study of religious symbols^), Bevan distinguishes two main kinds, those behind which we can see, and those behind which we cannot see. The first kind are, essentially, an aid to understanding of the idea represented, it being possible, ! however, to present the idea in other ways, perhaps in the form of | i) & 2) A.N. Whitehead: Symbolism (1927) pp.73 and 9 3) New English Dictionary 4) E. Bevan: Symbolism and Belief (1938) abstract statement. The symbol here is a kind of shorthand, or a device by which the idea is brought home in more familiar or dramatic terms. We might instance the symbols of the ship, representing the Church, the cornucopia, representing fertility, the crown, representing Kingship^\ In Sevan's second category, the idea behind the symbol is so far beyond human understanding that we cannot do without the symbol: no statement of the idea will be better or truer than the symbolical statement. Symbols of this kind are often the legacy of a primitive form of religious expression in anthropomorphic terms, retained in more advanced epochs as symbolical imagery. Modern theology which has discarded anthropomorphism will yet accept, as figures, symbols such as ’the Hand and Eyes of Cod’, or ’the Wrath of God.’ Both kinds of symbols, we might call them the natural and the supernatural, are to be found in dramatic literature, but it is evident that the first kind will be easier to use, and that very special problems will confront the playwright attempting to use the second kind, particularly in the twentieth century. Let us consider for a moment why this should be so. The Greek and Elizabethan playwrights were able to use supernatural symbols freely; they were relying on the response of an audience still i) Su0h symbols frequently arise by a process of metonymy: as with the crown symbol, the whole is represented by one of its acutely aware of supernatural forces: they could draw on a stock of symbols in general acceptance: they were able to employ, quite naturally, poetic forms in which common life and supernatural life could, without violence, be brought together. None of these con ditions applies to-day. It is some considerable time since the verse drama has been considered ’natural’: the twentieth century audience is chary of the supernatural, and there is no universally accepted system of symbols still possessing that vitality which makes the playwright’s employment of them easy and, indeed, inevitable. Yet this very lack of a common system has made modern writers acutely aware of the need for such a framework. Civilised man does not believe, as primitive man once did, that symbols can give actual power over the natural forces of life: that, for example, the crowning of a Corn King will ensure fertility for the crops. The power he finds in symbols is a more abstract kind: the power to organise experience, to penetrate into the arcana of knowledge, to express truths, only faintly apprehended by the conscious mind, which may be beyond the reach of intellectual formulation. The greater the number of people who accept a convention of supernatural symbols, the greater potency, one might even say, ’magic’ the symbols seem to hold. When the system disintegrates, as the great Catholic system of the Middle Ages disintegrated in this country, the symbols may still retain something of their ancient magic in the hands of the poets, still being charged with countless supernatural and emotional associations. But they are, inevitably, more personal to the man who uses them than at the time when they held rheir place in an universally accepted convention. And the danger is that his use of them will become increasingly esoteric, particularly as the age becomes more scientifically minded and the distance between the poet and his audience stretches till it comes to seem an impassable chasm. This is the kind of process which, as we know, has been at work in this country since the seventeenth century. Many modern writers have found themselves in the position of W.B, Teats, recog nising in themselves a religious instinct which they were unable to release into traditional channels, being forced, instead, to seek out a new system of symbols, or a new mythology. It is no easy matter to construct a symbolic system which can satisfy, on various levels, both poet and audience. But the attempt to do so we shall find to be a characteristic of modern drama. Serious literature must, after all, be concerned to rise above the particular to the universal: symbols are one means of effecting this / X process, and, indeed, as we have suggested, certain aspects of human experience can only be suggested by supernatural symbols. The thinking writer needs to trace some kind of coherent pattern in experience, particularly in so disorderly and discordant an age as the present. The break down of religious belief, and the separatiom of poetry from common life, have thrown him back heavily on his own resources, so that he’must'face the risks’inherent’in any attempt to create a new convention. u We come to the heart of the matter when we compare, say, the symbolism of the Greek playwrights, which was largely unselfconscious, with the symbolism of the moderns which tends to be extremely self conscious. The playwrights and poets were very much aware of their dilemma and are frequently prepared to offer critical comments upon it. Having glanced at the nature of the symbolising process in general, we must now ask what precisely is the nature and function of symbolism in drama. When comparing the function of the symbol with that of the image, C, Day Lewis^^ points out that the image, as used in poetry, may evoke an infinite number of associations, while the symbol is denotative, representing one thing only. Further more, he suggests rhat when two things are being compared by means of imagery there must always be some similarity of quality to point the comparison];: whereas a symbol may be entirely arbitrary. Arthur Symons has a similar definition in mind when he says of symbolism that it is fa form of expression, at the best but approximate, essen tially but arbitrary, until it has obtained the force of a c o n v e n t i o n ’2) How while it may be true that, outside drama, the origin of a symbol may be entirely unlike that of the image - we might instance the fish symbol, with its esoteric origin in the initial letters of ! Christ’s title - yet it will be found that in drama symbolism can be used successfully ohly when the symbols have, like images, some 1) The Poetic Image (1947) pp.116 ff.

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