The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1898-12-22
LAST OF THE SERIES.
PROF. MOULTON BRINGS SHAKES
PEAREAN TALKS TO A CLOSE.
OF THE DRAMA
The Subject of The Evenings Discourse
A Large Number Listen to the
Final Lecture and Express
Their satisfaction.

lures given by Prof MOultOn, OF the
University of Chicago, under the aus
pices of the Woman's Club, closed
Thursday evening with discussion of
Tragedy in General. From beginning
TO end the interest felt in this course of
lectures has not Jagged, but rather
grown. The long continued applause
which followed Mr. Moulton's speech
Thursday night was only a slight ex-
preston of the appreciation by Keno
sha people of the entire series of
lectures.
The preceding five lectures had each
dealt with a particular tragedy of the
master dramatist, Shakespeare, and
treated it as q study in some specific
element of criticism, such as nemesis.
pathos, etc. But Thursday evening
was devoted to a study of Tragedy in
| General.
The speaker began Dy saying that
he was not believer in definitions.
The only true way of getting at the
real significance of a thing being
through it's history. Accordingly he
did not give a definition of tragedy,
but rather went back to it's origin and
| followed its development up 30 the
present. He mentioned, as the two
ancestors of English literature, the
Greek classics and the Bible. The
latter had nothing to do with the sub
iect of the evening, but the former, the
Greek classic, was the cradle of the
drama. In the very dawn of Greek
classics the germ of the modern drama
is found in what is known as the ballad
dance. At this time the only motive
of the ballad dance was tragedy. 1t
was, moreover, almost entirely lyric.
To illustrate this ancient form of
drama, which, as Mr., MOultOn said,
could not IN itself be called drama, the
| story of Lycurgus was told just as it
was presented by the satyrs in the bal
lad dance. The dance consisted chiefly
of chorus which chanted the whole
tale, occasionally dividing itself into
two semi choruses which alternated in
the song, and thus afforded the dialogue
which relates it to the drama. In the
process of time this primitive mode
passed into the drama of later years,
when the people of Greek cities gath
cred by the tens of thousands in their
great theatres to witness the
tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides.
The drama thus became the Catholic
literature of the age and so in sense it
has continued to be down to the pres
ent day. The story of Lycurgus was
told again to illustrate the drama Of
the Greek theatre. The idea OF dia-
logue is enlarged upon. 1t becomes
more conspicuous and the lyric ele-
ment vanishes in some degree. From
the Greek theatre the drama, story, as
it was in reality, passed on through
Rome, being copied by the Romans,
but not changed. After Greece
the next period through which the
drama passed in the process OF its his
tory was that of the dark ages.
This period may be said to COM
prise the interval between the fall of the
Roman empire and the dawn Of
During this time the drama was per-
petuated by the bards. Ministries and
! troubadOurs, who, wandering from
place to place, sang their songs to
master and slave alike. During the
long time of unceasing wars when the
struggles of barbarian and civilized
nations required that men should de-
vote their energies to feats of arms
literature was naturally thrust under
| the fostering care of the church
Thence arose the drama again in the
shape of the miracle plays given by the
clergy. These were at first confined
to scriptural subjects, but gradually
grew to larger sphere. In
the course of time they came
to unite the romance of the
wandering MINISTRIES and the dramatic
form of the old Greek drama. This
union cOnsumated when the ro-
mantle Oh, IA of the Rainnaisance
made its appearance.
| no A1OOO1A 0uCOCSOOL CuO ACII Vi
the drama of Greece, the dark ages and
the revival, is the novel. The two ac-
credited inventors of the novel, De
Foe and Richardson, succeeded in car
rying out the spirit of the drama.
The romance and the dramatic form
are retained and addition to these, the
element of description. In the modern
work of such masters of fiction as
Dickens, Scott, Geo. Meredith, Eliot
and Victor Hugo, all the elements
which characterize the drama are
present beside those which belong solely
to the novel. In any of the works of
these great authors one can study
nemesis, as we'll as in Richard III, or
pathos as we'll as in Romeo and Juliet.
Mr.. Moulton paid fattering tribute
to the literary attainment and sign;fc-