Chief Contemporary Dramatists Twenty Plays from the Recent Drama of England, Ireland, America, Germany, France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, and Russia (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Chief Contemporary Dramatists: Twenty Plays From the Recent Drama of England, Ireland, America, Germany, France, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, and Russia Perhaps little complaint will be raised against the decision to omit Ibsen from the book. Ibsen has paid the price of the pioneer in aging more rapidly than some of his fellows. For this reason he is not, strictly speaking, a contemporary even in the broad sense in which that word is used in this book. Furthermore, though himself the source and exemplar of the movement, he cannot be represented by a single play. No fair view of Ibsen's place in the era would be presented in a collection which made Ibsen one of many. It is the editor's purpose, in omitting Ibsen from the book, only the more to emphasize his outstanding position in the drama of the age. Some will charge that there is an excess of serious plays in this book. It would, of course, have been possible to include many romantic and fanciful plays, but only at the ex pense of the surrender of principles. The way was closed to the inclusion of many plays of the lighter sort through the strongly marked characteristics of the era itself, which on the side of absolute achievement has been so fixed in type that few noteworthy plays have been written outside the type. These considerations, as well as the natural limitations upon the translation of verse plays, have made it necessary to exclude even those few verse dramatists who might justly claim a leading place among the playwrights of the time. 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.