Excerpt from Studies of the Greek Poets, Vol. 2 of 2 Two conditions, both of which the Greeks enjoyed in full per fection at the moment of their first dramatic energy, seem to be requisite for the production of a great and thoroughly national drama. These are, first, an era of intense activity or a period succeeding immediately to one of excitement, by which the na tion has been nobly agitated; secondly, a public worthy of the damatist 'spurring him on by its enthusiasm and intelligence to the creation of high works of art. A glance at the history of the drama in modern times will prove how necessary these con ditions are. It was the gigantic effort which we English people made in our struggle with Rome and Spain, it was the rousing of our keenest thought and profoundest emotion by the Reforma tion, which prepared us for the Elizabethan drama, by far the greatest, next to the Greek, in literature. The nation lived in ao tion, and delighted to see great actions imitated. Races in repose or servitude, like the Hebrews under the Roman empire, may, in their state of spiritual exaltation and by effort of pondering on the mysteries cf God and man, give birth to new theosophies; but it requires a free and active race, in Which young and turbulent blood is flowing, to produce a drama. In England, again, at that time, there was a great public. All classes crowded to the thea tres. London, in whose streets and squares martyrs had been burned, on whose quays the pioneers of the Atlantic and Pacific, after disputing the Indies with Spain, lounged and enjoyed their leisure, supplied an eager audience, delighting in the dreams of poets which recalled to mind the realities of their own lives, ap preciating the passion of tragedy, enjoying the mirth of comic in eident. _the men who listened to Othello had both done and suf fered largely; their own experience was mirrored in the scenes of blood and struggle set before them. These two things, therefore - the awakening of the whole English nation to activity, and the presence of a free and haughty audience - made our drama great. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.