SOURCE: "John Drinkwater," in Striking Figures among Modern English Dramatists, Levin & Munksgaard, 1931, pp. 69-88.

John Drinkwater continues the conscious revolt against the problem-play. His strong aversion to this school leads him to substitute the themes of a remote time for the present day affairs. In his study of William Morris, 1912, he calls attention to the danger for a poet in a too close contact with contemporary problems because

broadly speaking the things of immediate importance are the unimportant things.

Cognate feelings induce him to flee from the exterior world and take refuge in his own mind. His first poems and such plays as Cophetua, 1911, and Rebellion, 1914, extracted the following comment from his critics:

… writing contemporaneously with others of his own generation, he was not yet a contemporary poet. [Mary Sturgeon, Contemporary Poets]

And he soon realises that he has chosen a wrong method of revolt. This recognition is accompanied with regret and repentance. In his spiritually autobiographical poem, "The Fires of God", included in Poems, 1914, he promises amendment:

I see the years with little triumph crowned

And weary-eyed and desolate for shame
Of having been unstirred of all the sound
Of the deep music of the men that move
Through the world's days in suffering and in love,
Poor barren years that brooded over-much
On your own burden, pale and stricken years,
Go down to your oblivion, we part…

The practical value of art was pointed out by Morris in "The Earthly Paradise", where he argues that if man and his surroundings were made more artistic, all social evils would disappear, and life would become happier. In the purpose of making life artistic Morris and Wilde meet, in spite of their entirely different motives. We have seen Cannan attaching importance to art as a medium through which man may understand life, and as an embodiment of the ideal vision which practical politicians may imitate. From these points of view he quite logically infers that the aim of education must be to make children capable of understanding art.

To Drinkwater as to Morris art is a panacea with wonderful social effects. But his arguments are original. Morris accentuates the sweetening of life by art which will produce happiness, and happiness, he thinks, will produce love of one's neighbour. According to the theories of Drinkwater the supreme value of art does not lie in its being a source of happiness, but in its power to effect "a radical quickening of the spirit" of man. The sole source of social evils is, in the opinion of Drinkwater, injustice, injustice being identical with immorality. It is the result of mental inertia. As art has power to cure this, it becomes the universal and infallible social remedy. His syllogism put in a nutshell is this: art makes us alive, but to be alive is to be moral, consequently art makes us moral. From this point of view art is not a guide to life, it is the creator of life. But both Cannan and Drinkwater act logically on their theories in pleading the cause of art as a factor in education. Drinkwater not only proposes to give poetry a greater space on the time-tables of the schools, but also to send theatrical companies to the villages to play Shakespeare.

In this connection he turns against the old system of children's education in the schools and the system of adult education in theatres which prevailed during the preceding epoch:

We must turn from the enunciation of moral principles—as assertion dulls consciousness—to the fostering of man's spiritual activity. If we can contrive this, moral principles may safely be left to take care of themselves. [Prose Papers]

The shortcoming of the problem-play Drinkwater finds in the following fact:

If you show the ordinary lethargic human being the terror of the evil he is doing very vividly or directly in your drama or otherwise, you may occasionally shock him into perception, but in nearly every case the shock will be merely temporary and effect no radical quickening of the spirit.

For the negative aim of the problem-playwrights he then substitutes his own positive aim and trusts to achieve a more permanent effect.

On the same principles he solves the general problem of didacticism in art, or rather abstains from solving it, for it is a question that can "occupy but dull and unimaginative minds". He might make Cannan's remarks his own: "The purpose of the artist is so mightily passionate as to transcend consciousness". His study of the true nature of art, 1917, causes him to revoke his earlier principle of keeping aloof from his age. The question whether a poet should express his age or not, or whether he should choose his theme from his own time or any other time, proves too petty for a true poet to occupy himself with. He now accepts the theory of Oscar Wilde that a poet's vision is not related to any particular epoch; that it is not his business to express any age but to express himself. He is still conscious of the danger in being absorbed in petty ephemeral affairs, but he seeks contact with the vital current of contemporary life, and he is stirred by the great events which stir the minds of ordinary men.

The change in Drinkwater began before the war; but the war completed it. His despair at the waste of young lives, intensified by the death of his friend Rupert Brooke, April 23rd, 1915, wrung from him the cry of agony of which X equals 0 is the embodiment.

Yet it is the bitterness for youth,
When nothing should be but scrutiny of life,
Making and building towards a durable fame,
And setting the hearthstone trim for a lover's cares,
To let all knowledge of these things go, and learn
Only of death, that should be hidden from youth.

The tenor of Drinkwater's essays on art suggests that, speaking of art in general, his mind concentrates on two definite forms: poetry and drama. His writings also explain why he idealises these forms. In poetry he finds the best medium of expressing "passionate experience":

When the impulse to express the thing seen passes beyond a certain degree of urgency, the expression takes a new quality of rhythmical force, shaping itself generally into verse.

The difference between prose and fine verse is thus "fundamentally one of urgency and intensity rather than of beauty".

Drama appeals to him as the means of getting the largest possible audience. He notices that the more familiar the image, the wider will be the audience. The image nearest and most familiar to man is his fellow man, and in a higher degree than in the case of any other art the dramatic image is man.

From such remarks it may be inferred that the ideal form of art, to Drinkwater, is the poetic character-drama.

His technique is also characterised by search and experiment. As in the initial stages of his career he turns to remote ages for subject, so he imitates ancient forms of technique. In Cophetus he introduces figures corresponding to the Greek chorus, distinctly separated from the acting characters. On the model of Thomas Hardy's "The Dynasts" the choric comment is divided into several points of view. The captain represents "the point of view of the massed and blind power of the people" and the wise men that of "absolute confidence in the tradition of kingship". The comment on the action of Abraham Lincoln is laid in the mouths of two chroniclers. In Mary Stuart the purpose of a chorus is accomplished by a peculiar device. A short poem conveying the author's conception of Mary is placed under her picture. It is first read by one of the characters, then sung by a mysterious voice, and at last sung by Mary herself. As a means of accentuating her chief characteristics and summarising her case in general it is effective:

Not Riccio nor Darnley knew,
Nor Bothwell, how to find
This Mary's best magnificence
Of the great lover's mind.

Swinburne's "Mary Stuart" opens Drinkwater's eyes to a danger which threatens the dramatists who treat the historical theme, the danger of mixing up dramatic art with historical scholarship. This danger Swinburme did not avoid. As a dramatist he was interested in the presentation of character, and as a historian he wanted to draw the epoch. The consequence was the extraordinary copiousness of his play.

When a character speaks, he has not only to think of the utterance pertinent to the dramatic moment, which may need two lines, but also of the conduct of history to the next point, which may need thirty.

This is Drinkwater's criticism, and he is determined to keep clear of that error:

Kinsmen, you shall behold
Our stage, in mimic action, mould
A man's character.
This is the wonder, always, everywhere—
Not the vast mutability which is event.

In harmony with this opening speech by the chroniclers in Abraham Lincoln, the dramatist announces, in a prefixed note, that his purpose is that of a dramatist, not of a historian. He does not traverse history, but he freely cuts and supplements with a view to constructing an effective character.

Character is, then, the predominant element in Drinkwater's drama. He never tires of emphasising the supreme importance of this dramatic element:

As the image chosen by the truly imaginative artist is human character, the action which is subsequently invented is constructed, solely arising out of the natural demand of that character, and for the purpose of showing that character in operation, and never for its own isolated excitement.

The character-dramatist therefore limits himself to "those normal events which spring from character for the machinery of the drama"; and only decadent drama is constructed out of abnormal and sensational events. Drinkwater needs no events more exciting than such regular forms of everyday life as tea-parties, political conferences, rendez-vous between soldiers and officers, etc. The events have no interest in themselves; they are interesting only by their relevance to the psychological processes in the chief characters.

Abraham Lincoln may be chosen as an illustration of the author's constructional method. A definite character is selected for presentation. Next a series of events, suited to throw light successively on different sides of the central character, are linked together. The events are connected as closely as possible, but the author does not hesitate to insert isolated events to serve his main purpose. The tea-party in the third scene, and the confrontation of the condemned soldier with the president in the fifth scene have no apparent connection with the main action; but they give the president good opportunities of demonstrating his principles. This might seem disastrous to the unity of the play, but does not actually destroy it, as it is preserved by the dominating position of the central character. When the author makes character the unifying element of the play, he claims to observe the convention of native English drama:

The unity of this depends … upon the cohesion of the fabric of character built above the foundation of events.

It is true that the events have always been subservient to a "cohesive fabric of character" in great English drama, and also that in certain periods the demand for a logical connection between the events has not been emphatic. Yet broadly speaking, up to the time of the problem-play school, the theory according to which the action in itself must form a unity was always officially accepted in England. William Archer, for instance, would never have tolerated the insertion of events irrelevant to the main action, nor the momentary introduction of people, for the sole purpose of illuminating certain sides of the central character.

The method followed by Drinkwater forms an exact parallel with the formula of the problem-play. A psychological motif is substituted for an intellectual motif as the chief factor to which the rest of the play is subordinated.

Drinkwater is not so original in practice as in theory. In spite of his opposition to the realistic intellectualism of the preceding epoch his relationship to it is conspicuous. When in Cophetua he throws the light of modern philosophy on an old theme, he acts like so many other authors of the intellectual school. When Cophetua asserts his right to choose his mate without regard to imperial politics, his arguments are based on theories advocated by Nietzsche, Wedekind and Bernard Shaw:

… Shall a king then …

Be called a braggart and a knave
That he dares no less than a thrall to save
The shrine of his heart from shame?

You bid me mate. And shall it be
To make adultery a thing
Honoured from sea to shining sea
For that the sinner is a king?

Cophetua here identifies the customary royal marriage with prostitution, and refuses to stoop to it. Nietzsche, Wedekind, and Shaw did something quite corresponding before Drinkwater. His firm determination to comply with the demands of pure love is almost the sole trait in the character of Cophetua.

Rebellion, Drinkwater's next play, is governed by a similar intellectual motif. Shuba, a Greek queen, and Narros, the leader of a rebellious party in her country, both recognise the supreme value of human life and insist on the necessary compromises in exterior circumstances to favour its growth. The King and the rebels quarrel on a trifling question of wages, and it seems that blood is going to flow. Narros dissociates himself from his comrades, for although their cause may be just, the attainment of petty material advantages is unimportant compared with the enormous waste of lives which is its cost. "Some barren right, not worth a day's remembrance" is an inadequate excuse for releasing the "eagles of desire" that

Cry up the wind in sinewy flight
Not shamed of the immoderate fire
That feeds the crucibles of lust,

with the consequence that

The ploughs of reason rust
In reason's night.

He does not succeed in dissuading the rebels, and in a moment of weakness promises to espouse their cause and lead them against the King's forces, and as Shuba is equally unsuccessful in her attempt to influence the King, the war is breaking out.

As the cause of life in itself requires opposition against such destructive forces as barren pride and justice, not to speak of vengeance and hatred, so those factors of life that are conducive to its growth need defence against forces tending to check growth. The central vitalising factor is found to be love, and consequently in the conclusive parts of the play the supreme right of love as compared with all other phenomena of existence is vindicated.

At the moment fixed for the attack, Narros is told that Shuba is prepared to grant him her favour and has gone to meet him in a certain place. Instantly he leaves the army to its fate and goes in search of Shuba. The plea of duty does not count:

Now comes to me
A call out of the life I spoke of then,
And now must be my answer.
A Captain objects: You are sworn.
But Narros retorts: Light things are lightly sworn.

When Drinkwater in this play pleads the cause of life against an irrational ideal of justice and honour, and when he declares that love justifies the violation of the most sacred duties in other respects, he is in harmony with the central tendencies of Continental naturalism and rationalism. He stages a conflict of ideas rather than a character-conflict, and the conflicting ideas as well as the issue are customary.

Mary Stuart is closely related to Rebellion by its glorification of love in its naturalistic sense. Continental naturalism not only raises love above irrelevant duties, it also releases love from duties towards its objects, vindicates its right to change objects in accordance with its most unreasonable caprices, in short allows it to develop absolutely freely.

This theory is defended already in Rebellion in the relation between Narros and Shuba. But the figure of Mary Stuart is its chief embodiment. This play shows a fusion of problem-study and character-study, just as we may see it in English and Continental problem-plays.

On the analogy of a large section of English and Continental plays of the school which Drinkwater in theory attacks, the case of Mary is used as an illustration of a modern theory. Hunter complains that his wife has fallen in love with somebody else, yet without having ceased to love him. This is the answer:

BOYD. Who are you, who should be glad of this woman's love, that you should presume to confine it, to dictate its motions?

HUNTER. … I won't share.

BOYD. Boy—will you not share the sun of heaven, the beauty of the world? What arrogance is this?

A moment later Mary appears in order to illustrate this typical naturalistic theory. Mary is a woman with a great capacity for loving, tied to an unworthy husband, in restless search of an object matching the dimensions of her love. Yet history forbids the author to make the illustration quite relevant, as there is no fit object within her reach. This is, from the point of view of the author, fortunate, for the consequence is that the personal tragedy of Mary becomes more effective than her illustrative significance.

In the portrayal of her character, irrespective of theories, the author again seems to look towards models in the dramatic literature of the past epoch. The woman whose tragedy arises out of spiritual and physical starvation in dwarfish environments is a common figure in Continental and English drama. Wedekind's Lulu, Synge's Pegeen, and Masefield's Nan, are typical examples. Mary is, according to Drinkwater, such a woman. darnley, her husband, debases himself to the level of singing indecent songs outside her windows. She takes some comfort in the company of Riccio; but he is a poor substitute for a real lover, no more than a toy doll or a singing bird to her. The bold and virile Bothwell gratifies her senses, at least temporarily, but he has no food for her soul:

BOTHWELL. YOU want my love, burningly you want it.

MARY. I know—yes. But for an enterprise like this love must be durable. Yours would fail…

BOTHWELL. YOU have fires. Can you quench them? Mary, my beloved, I am stronger than you. Come. I bid it. (Mary stays a moment, bound in his arms. Then she slowly releases herself.)

MARY. It is magnificent. But I told you. I am wiser than my blood.

After all there is a difference between Drinkwater and the Continental naturalists. In Drinkwater the passion of the soul, which weighs little with Wedekind and Schnitzler, is the absolutely predominant element of love. It is even questionable whether the vague and melancholy longing for an opportunity of showing the strength of her sympathies may properly be called a passion. At least, sexual passion she does not know. Sinking into the arms of Both-well she quite coolly describes the feelings she experiences; but she does not even for a moment lose her self-control. When Bothwell declares that she has fires, we may trust his words. She does not show them. The figure suggested by the libellous songs which we learn through Darnley is not the Mary who acts in the play.

In the majority of his plays the author very wisely drops the subject of love as an isolated phenomenon, and pleads the cause of life in a general sense. In these plays he draws a series of quite effective characters who endeavour to create favourable conditions for the natural development of life, and who deeply regret the fact that they do not succeed. In these people the love for life grows to such a strength that "passion" is no improper designation.

The God of the Quiet includes two representatives of the passion for life: the King and the soldier. The soldier belongs to a besieged town, and the King has brought forces to relieve it. Both plead fervently against such destructive passions as pride and vengeance and greed for power, which produce the disastrous result of war:

Poor clay that would excel in power,
Made frantic by some silly pride.

Anger blunts us and destroys.
… though my friend is death, I will not go
Courting a vain death for my renown.

War is entirely irrational:

… much disputing is but foolishness— A ploughing of sown fields.
We wake, a generation turns,
We learn to love, and we have done …
And shall we spend these little days
Disputing till our veins are cold?

As resistance seems useless, the King and the soldier both are determined to stop fighting, but they are not even allowed to. "Cries and the noise of arms break out again as the Curtain falls". It seems that strife, although hostile to life, is inherent in life:

… Not man
But life it is that frets us till we die.

… life distract is savage in the throat,
A blind uncaptained vigour, and remote
From reason's airy palaces …

This propensity to destroy through fighting is a mysterious force in life:

… I only see,
Beyond disaster that I understand
Darkly as men the process of a hand
Obscure in heaven and hell, a little space
For rest.

X equals O portrays a scene from the Trojan war. A few Greek and Trojan soldiers give vent to their longings for peace and express their acute sense of the absurdity of the life they are leading. One is looking forward to a time when he may devote his efforts to the prosperity of his country, another feels inspired with the poet's gift and is waiting for favourable opportunities of writing poetry, a third one is lost in dreams of a quiet life in the country enjoying the love of his family and engaged in productive work. Suddenly death strikes its fatal blow. Their hopes are never to be realised. Their talents are lost to the world. And what is the cause of this calamity?

… There was some anger
Some generous heat of the blood those years ago
When Paris brought his Helen into Troy
With Menelaus screaming at his heals;
But that's forgotten now, and none can stay
This thing that none would have endure.

A petty offence starts the process of war, and the war continues to rage long after the cause has been forgotten. The idea of the absurdity of war may possibly explain the enigmatic title X equals 0. It need hardly be hinted that the author's thoughts are in places far from old Troy.

The insoluble problem of war recurs again in Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. When the southern States declare for secession from the Union Abraham Lincoln, who has a firm faith in imperial organisation, makes up his mind to declare war on them, and fights them for four years until they surrender unconditionally. It now appears that there are causes great enough to justify bloodshed, that the cause of life does not require the preservation of life absolutely irrespective of its conditions. On the other hand, the President's attention is firmly fixed on the aim, and he is determined to control the passions of vengeance and hatred, which, if loosened, are apt to blind the eyes of men to the real issue. There is to be no destruction of life beyond what is necessary for the cause to which he devotes himself.

Robert E. Lee reverts to the war started by a trifling offence. The Virginian government feels offended by the policy pursued by the central government of the States, and determines to secede in order to save national, or local, honour. Although being aware that the secession involves war, and fully conscious that this silly quarrel is an absolutely inadequate reason of starting a war, Lee lends himself to the provincial policy of Virginia, because he knows that opposition would be futile:

PEEL. I can't help feeling that the quarrel, whatever it is, is so little beside the desolation that is coming.

LEE. I know. But everybody feels that really. The trouble is that the world goes on without caring for our feelings. Only an adventurer here and there really wants war. But the strain comes, and men's wits break under it, and fighting is the only way out.

Not only in his imperial policy, but in his capacity of commander-in-chief also, the Virginian President is guided by the antiquated ideal of national honour:

We stand for the honour of the South. It can be vindicated only by our complete success, or our destruction.

It is the idol that demands the last drop of blood, which he worships. But even this monstrosity does not induce Lee to desert him. At a certain time he informs the President that everything is lost. To go on fighting only means shedding blood uselessly. The President's reply is: "Go on!" and Lee obediently leads his regiment into death. The abstract theories which Lee practises in this case are suggested by the following passage:

PEEL. YOU mean that you, or any of us, may be wiser than the state, and yet the state is the great good for which we must give all, life perhaps?

LEE.… a tragic mystery. But inescapable.

It is a conflict very like the old conflict between traditional patriotism and a rational love of one's country, known from Strindberg, Tolstoy and Bernard Shaw, which repeats itself in this play, but with the opposite termination. It might seem that the principles of Lee involve his desertion of the great cause of life. When he complies with the headstrong policy of the President against better knowledge he sacrifices a great quantity of national blood to an empty ideal of honour. But it is not quite so. Lee considers himself an impotent instrument in the hand of fate.

Probably Drinkwater reasons as follows: The gospel of rational nationalism was preached during years by philosophers and essayists. The theories were staged by leading dramatists. Then the war broke out, and was conducted as if no word of this kind had ever been spoken. Might we not look for the actual cause in some irrational and uncontrollable force of life? And might not after all the benefits derived from the system of states be worth the sacrifice?

The characters of Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee contrast on some points with the intellectual hero of the preceding epoch. Such figures as Wedekind's Bismarck and Shaw's Caesar militate against the ideals of nobility, generosity, self-sacrifice, the exaggerated sense of duty, pompous gestures, etc., in short, the romantic ideal of heroism. They demonstrate their greatness by evading shams and maintaining a rational policy; they assert the authority of reason in defiance of the blind instincts of the masses.

Abraham Lincoln has many characteristics in common with these types. He keeps a straight course between the principle of revenging injuries and humiliating enemies and the principle of making peace on any terms. He is accused of thirst for blood when he refuses to desert his cause by a premature peace. He risks friendships by checking murderous passions. And when his triumph is settled his terms of peace are limited to what is necessary for the realisation of his policy.

But Lincoln as well as Lee and other figures of the plays also conforms to the heroic ideal. When Lincoln opposes political intrigues he not only acts wisely, but he shows that he is prepared to sacrifice himself to his cause, and when he saves the condemned soldier he not only prevents useless waste of life, but he reveals a noble mind. The magnanimous terms of peace which Grant presents to the defeated opponent not only prove his capability of steering straight, but they contribute to the glorification of generosity.

GRANT. YOU have come—

LEE. TO ask upon what terms you will accept surrender …

GRANT. (taking the paper from the table and handing it to Lee):

They are simple. I hope you will not find them ungenerous.

LEE. (having read the terms): You are magnanimous, sir, May I make one submission?

GRANT. It would be a privilege if I could consider it.

(Lee unbuckles his sword, and offers it to Grant.)

GRANT. NO, no … It has but one rightful place. I beg you. (Lee replaces his sword. Grant offers his hand and Lee takes it. They salute.) …

In this climactic scene ideal heroism in the romantic sense is extolled.

Lee resigns his illustrious post as imperial commander-in-chief to play a comparatively obscure part in the national defence. He sacrifices his personal principles to comply with the bloody policy of the Virginian President. He displays greatness by subjecting himself to the strictest mental discipline and fulfilling a national duty of the most unpleasant kind. In contrast to Bismark and Caesar he deserts reason to identify himself with the collective will as represented by the President.

Yet Lee is no exact copy of the romantic hero. His eyes are open to the futility of the heroic ideal. He is conscious of acting irrationally, and he regrets that he feels forced to act thus. He is only an incarnation of fatal and destructive forces.

Drinkwater's plays express a fatalistic view of life. In the plays that have been surveyed an attempt is made to characterise the fatalistic forces. The early play The Storm suggests the destructive caprices of fate without any such attempt. A man is surprised by a snow-storm in the mountains. He is very well acquainted with the district and cannot reasonably be expected to come to any harm: yet his family is waiting for him in anxious suspense, they cannot explain why. Hours pass, and he does not arrive. At last his corpse is found. The atmosphere of doom suggests Maeterlinck and Synge. Specifically the presentiment of death parallels Sarah with the old man in L'Intruse and Maurya in Riders to the Sea. That side of fatalism which refers to nature is however frequently expressed in English poetry; the parallels may therefore be accidental.

The solemn, even somewhat pompous, tone in Drinkwater's essays on art is not quite justified by his practice. He is not nearly so original as he wants his readers to believe. In spite of his repudiation of the problem-play principles there is much intellectual reasoning and theorising in his plays. He does not always put the human element into the seat of honour which we might expect from his proclamation. He has constructed some effective characters; but often the characters subserve abstract thought. He admires Shakespeare, he quotes Shakespeare, and he attempts to imitate Shakespeare; we may even hear echoes of Shakespeare:

There is brain in you should be our piloting.

… Friends, let persuasion move
Not stripped of all its courtesy. May we not
Balance this issue with some temperate thought.

…It were enough
That love had made immortal one brief hour,
One period snatched out of the measured void
Men live by.

But Drinkwater has nothing like the Shakespearean felicity of phrase. He criticises Swinburne for monotony of style, but he does not himself escape this fault. His exaggerated solemnity tends to make him monotonous. And yet in spite of defects he maintains a fair standard. The student does not search in vain for passages of effective poetry.