The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ...Gennaro permits his unrecognized mother to be insulted; in the second part, he himself insults her, not knowing her for his mother; in Act II she demands, and is granted, the death of her unrecognized son, then finds she has no recourse but to kill him herself, then is again insulted by him; finally, in Act III, she poisons him, and, still unknown, is insulted, threatened and slain by him. Be it noted that Shakespeare has not in a single instance employed this Nineteenth Situation, an altogether accidental one, having no bearing upon his powerful studies of the will. TWENTIETH SITUATION SELF-SACRIFICE FOR AN IDEAL (The Hero; the Ideal; the "Creditor" or the Person or Thing Sacrificed) The four themes of Immolation, of which this is the first, bring before us three corteges:--Gods (XX and XXIII), Kindred (XXI and XXIII), and Desires (XXII). The field of conflict is no longer the visible world, but the Soul. Of these four subjects, none is nobler than this of our Twentieth Situation,--all for an ideal! What the ideal may be, whether political or religious, whether it be called Honor or Piety, is of little importance. It exacts the sacrifice of all ties, of interest, passion, life itself,--far better, however, under one of the three following forms, if it be tarnished with the slightest, even although the most sublime, egoism. A (1)--Sacrifice of Life for the Sake of Ones Word:--The "Regulus" of Pradon and also of Metastasio; the end of "Hernani" (Carthage and Don Ruy Gomez are the "Creditors"). Is it not surprising that a greater number of examples do not at once present themselves to us? This fatality, the work of the victim himself, and in which the victory is won over Self,--is it not worthy to...