Dramatic Criticism; Three Lectures Delivered at the Royal Institution, February 1903

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903. Excerpt: ... verity or captiousness, or even malice, of what is written about them by the responsible "official" critics; but if they only heard what is said about them by the irresponsible viva voce critics! We come now, then, to the class of critics properly so called, who differ from all these other classes in that it is their business not only, like the others, to enjoy, but to appraise and to justify their enjoyment. And this appraising and justification have to be made systematic and to be presented in literary form. Hence the critics proper are in the peculiar position of being at once consumers and producers; they are consumers of one art, the art of drama, and producers of another art, the art of criticism. In other words, the critic has something more to do than to approximate as closely as may be to the ideal spectator--though that to be sure is a very important, perhaps the fundamental, part of his task--he has, over and above that, to be an artist. This claim of criticism to be an art is viewed with some jealousy by other artists, who are fond of making the distinction that their arts--the poem, the novel, the play--are "creative" arts, whereas criticism is not "creation." This distinction, I cannot but think, is shallow and lamentably unscientific. Science teaches us that there is no such thing as creation; only change, transmutation. But accepting the word "creation," we must apply it to all producers of literary art, whether they be poets or novelists or playwrights or critics. They are all creators, and what they all create is aesthetic feeling. And the raw material out of which they all create this is the same, namely, themselves. Criticism, like any other art--whatever else it may be--is a mode of self-expression. M. Anatole France has given a famou...