COMEDY, OR MEDIATED DRAMA.

THE IDEAL CLASS.

That class of comedies in which the mediation takes place wholly through the Real World has been already considered. There is a conflict in society portrayed, but it is healed through the ordinary instrumentalities which man employs for this purpose. Institutions are made to correct their own wrong. But now we are to treat of a class of comedies in which the mediation is relegated to a new realm - distant, wholly different in character, essentially ideal The logic is that the Real World of institutions, since it is in conflict with itself, and productive of wrong to the individual, must be entirely abandoned, and a human abode be sought in which conflict cannot exist, and, hence, in which institutions are not found at all, or only in their simplest state. This may, in a general way, be called the Ideal World, as it is an abstraction from thereal life of society.

It will be noticed that such a dramatic idea is more profound and more consistent than that which lies at the basis of the previous class of comedies. When institu- MND tional life becomes utterly self-contradictory, and it cannot mediate itself, it must be left behind, and a noninstitutional life has to take its place. Moreover, the fact is deeply consonant with human experience; men do

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flee from society when its collisions become too strong for endurance, and betake themselves to a simpler social condition—sometimes even to the woods; but more frequently they remain in society, and construct, with the aid of the imagination, some purely ideal state, in which they may dwell free from all conflict. Indeed, pretty much everybody gets to building imaginary republics in times. when the external political world has become utterly corrupt and hopeless.

Still, such an ideal realm is an irrational abstraction, a transitory figment of the brain. It offers, however, a glorious field for poetic creation and embellishment — that beautiful sphere of pure fiction in which a poet is at home. But it is essentially comic- comic in the highest degree for through it the individual is led forward in the pursuit of an end wholly absurd and self-annulling. For, when he has realized his Ideal World, at that moment it is annihilated, since it must be real then, and no longer ideal. This is the essence of the comic character—his purpose is null in itself, and breaks to pieces in its very accomplishment.

Hence the Ideal World must vanish, and the true poet will not fail to portray both the manner and cause of its disappearance. The distinction is worthy of notice; it is only the sentimental half-poet that remains wholly wrapped up in his idyllic scenery. Though there be a flight from society to a pastoral or rural life, there must be likewise a return to society, and the poet should be able to comprehend it, and to portray it in its true nature. Let him not flee to the country and stay there, in his poetry; the complete circuit of experience must also be reflected in the artistic product. Hence there is a deep necessity for res

toration to society, which alone is the rational abode of man, and the true work of Art will not fail to embody the same thought in a faithful picture of human spirit.

The return to civilized life, therefore, is certain to take place; the individual must again produce those very institutions. which he has abandoned, or perish; society will spring up of itself even in this Ideal World. Hence the latter disintegrates within; it rapidly develops internal conflicts which destroy it- which compel it into some form of social organization. But the twofold result of its existence must not be forgotten-on the one hand, it has brought back the individual to institutional life, and healed the wounds of his spirit; on the other hand, it has harmonized the conflicts of society by removing the wrong which caused the flight, for this new society which has resulted from the Ideal World is free from the original injustice towards the individual. Thus the mediation on both sides is complete, and is effected through this Ideal World.

It will be manifest that a dramatic form of this kind

involves three essential movements. First is the Real 1)

World of conflict; man falls out with institutions which have become the means of oppression and wrong; usually both Family and State are involved in struggle; hence comes the flight to an opposite condition of existence. 2) Secondly, this is the Ideal World, whose prime function is

the mediation of the conflict; the guilty must be brought to repent, the injured must be restored, and, above everything else, society must free itself of wrong and contradiction. Then the Ideal World passes away, for the evil to which it owed its origin is cured, and there remains nothing but the return of all the conflicting elements to har Imony and to society. This last is the third movement.

The plays of the ideal class of comedies differ much from one another in the coloring, which may be sportive or serious, with all the intermediate hues. Some verge toward a tragic depth of earnestness, others tend toward the light gayety and capricious humor of Pure Comedy. But they cannot here be classified by this characteristic ; there is a deeper principle which distinguishes them, and by which they are to be arranged, namely, the presence of an Ideal World. But, if the reader so chooses, he can easily place them in groups of Tragi-Comedies and Pure Comedies, as was done in the previous class, and is usually done by writers. Such a distinction, however, is now not the essential one.

The forms of this Ideal World in Shakespeare are various. Already, in Love's Labor's Lost, there was an attempt to realize a realm of study- an Academe-but

it was not successful. Now we are to consider the different kinds of ideal life which appear in this class of dramas, and thereby divide them into groups. It may be the Church, in its Monastic Life, to which the individual flees in order to get rid of the struggles of the world. This is a religious realm, organized, and existent alongside of the secular realm, for the very purpose of mediating the conflicts of the latter. Such is the principle of the First Group of this class. Of the Second Group, however, the principle is Idyllic Life, which belongs to the country—to the woods; it is the most primitive social order, to which man goes back in seeking refuge from the complex, feverish organism of civilized society, for from this it is far removed, both in Time and in Space. It has, nevertheless, a tinge of reality; it may be-indeed, it has been though it beTongs to a period which has long since vanished for the civilized community. But the Third Group sweeps away the