The giants of the theatre of our time, Ibsen and
Strindberg, had no greater comfort for the world than we: indeed much
less; for they refused us even the Shakespearian-Dickensian consolation
of laughter at mischief, accurately called comic relief. Our emancipated
young successors scorn us, very properly. But they will be able to do no
better whilst the drama remains pre-Evolutionist. Let them consider the
great exception of Goethe. He, no richer than Shakespear, Ibsen, or
Strindberg in specific talent as a playwright, is in the empyrean whilst
they are gnashing their teeth in impotent fury in the mud, or at best
finding an acid enjoyment in the irony of their predicament. Goethe is
Olympian: the other giants are infernal in everything but their veracity
and their repudiation of the irreligion of their time: that is, they are
bitter and hopeless. It is not a question of mere dates. Goethe was
an Evolutionist in 1830: many playwrights, even young ones, are still
untouched by Creative Evolution in 1920. Ibsen was Darwinized to the
extent of exploiting heredity on the stage much as the ancient Athenian
playwrights exploited the Eumenides; but there is no trace in his
plays of any faith in or knowledge of Creative Evolution as a modern
scientific fact.
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