Old Drama and The New

The Old Drama and the New (1923) is a major contribution of Archer’s matured scholarship. The book con¬tains “with slight additions and ret¬renchments” the substance of the two courses of lectures he delivered to audiences mainly composed of teachers. The work is an example of principled criticism. Dealing with the essence of drama, Archer observes that the two sources from which drama arose are imitation and pas¬sion. By passion he means “the lyri¬cal or rhetorical expression of feel¬ing”. The contrasting basic elements of drama are naturalism or realism and prose, on the one hand, and artificiality and poetry, on the other. Archer’s thesis is that ‘the modern realistic drama is a pure and logical art form. The other elements of pri¬mitive drama, the lyrical and the saltatory, have been sloughed off and have taken independent form in music drama, commonly known as opera, and in ballet”. He sees Ibsen’s and Shaw’s work as the cul¬mination of an evolutionary process governing the development of Eng¬lish drama. From this theoretical position, Archer has presented a critical sur¬vey of English drama from the Eliza¬bethan times to the end of the second decade of the present cen¬tury. His discussion is marked by a close analysis of scene and dialo¬gues as well as dramatic devices. He exposes the weakness of such devices as soliloquy and aside and calls many old reputations into ques¬tion—those of Webster and Tourneur, for example—excepting, of course, Shakespeare, whose genius is unapproachable to his critical tools. T.S. Eliot calls The Old Drama and the New a “brilliant and stimulating book”, although he makes penetra¬ting remarks to point out the weak¬nesses in Archer’s argument. The debate ended prematurely with the death of Archer in 1924, but the issues involved are very much alive today and the controversy has by no means been settled. The failure of poetic drama to strike firm roots and its poor performance upon the stage compel us to give a serious thought to Archer’s views. Apart from the theoretical insights, the book presents a critical history of English drama marked by a wealth of information and profound state¬ments as regards form and content. Everywhere in the book we find evidence of dramatic competence, independent enquiry and sincerity.

Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION LECTURE I. The Essence of Drama THE ELIZABETHAN LEGEND LECTURE II. Three Centuries in Outline—Elizabethan Facilities and Licenses—Indeterminate Place and Time—The So¬liloquy and the side—The Convention of Disguise —Horrors—Blank Verse. LECTURE III. Five Elizabethan Masterpieces—The Duchess of Malfy -The Broken Heart—The Maid’s Tragedy—Philaster—The Revenger’s Tragedy. LECTURE IV. Five Elizabethan Masters—Jonson—Chapman—Marston —Middleton—Massinger. LECTURE V. The Elizabethans and the Moderns—Pinero—Stanley Houghton—Shaw—Barrie —Galsworthy—Granville-Barker.— Three Test Questions. THE RESTORATION TO THE RENASCENCE LECTURE VI. Restoration Romance and Tragedy—Dryden—Lee—Otway—Rowe—Southerne—The Betterton School of Acting. LECTURE VII. Restoration Comedy— An Insanitary Product—Latter-day apologetics—The Convention of Wit—Etherege—Wycherley—Congreve—Vanbrugh—The Comic Actors. LECTURE VIII. The Short View and After—Farquhar—Cibber—Steele —Fifty Years of Stagnation—Label Names—Gold¬smith and Sheridan. LECTURE IX. Reasons for Stagnation—The “Palmy Days” of Acting—Prose Melodrama—Lillo—Moore—Cumberland German Romanticism—Colman the Younger, Holcroft and Morton—Sheridan Knowles—Bulwer Lytton—The Drama at its Apogee. LECTURE X. The Adaptive Age—Influence of Scribe— Glimmer of Dawn—Thomas William Robertson—Relapse to Adaptation and Puerility—James Albery—H.J. Byron—W.S. Gilbert as Playwright and Librettist. LECTURE XI. Daybreak at Last—Heralds of the Renascence—The Melodramatists—Sydney Grundy—The Early Pinero—Henry Arthur Jones—Haddon Chambers—R.C. Carton—Oscar Wilde. LECTURE XII. The Coming of Ibsen—The Theatre Libre—Pinero’s Maturity—The Second Mrs. Tanqueray to Mid-Channel—James Matthew Barrie. LECTURE XIII. The Intellectuals—The Stage Society—The Vedrenne-Barker Management—George Bernard Shaw—H. Granville-Barker—John Galsworthy—John Masefield. LECTURE XIV. The Repertory Movement—Local Drama—The Irish Theatre—Synge, Yeats and Lennox Robinson—The Manchester School—Stanley Houghton—The Little Theatre in America—Recapitulation—The Evolu¬tion of Modern Drama—An art of Pure Imitation.