It is a question, I said, of the reader's relation to the writer; in
one case the reader faces towards the story-teller and listens to him,
in the other he turns towards the story and watches it. In the drama
of the stage, in the acted play, the spectator evidently has no direct
concern with the author at all, while the action is proceeding. The
author places their parts in the mouths of the players, leaves them to
make their own impression, leaves _us_, the audience, to make what we
can of it. The motion of life is before us, the recording, registering
mind of the author is eliminated. That is drama; and when we think of
the story-teller as opposed to the dramatist, it is obvious that in
the full sense of the word there is no such thing as drama in a novel.
The novelist may give the very words that were spoken by his
characters, the dialogue, but of course he must interpose on his own
account to let us know how the people appeared, and where they were,
and what they were doing. If he offers nothing but the bare dialogue,
he is writing a kind of play; just as a dramatist, amplifying his play
with "stage-directions" and putting it forth to be read in a book,
has really written a kind of novel. But the difference between the
story-teller and the playwright is not my affair; and a new contrast,
within the limits of the art of fiction, is apparent when we speak of
the novel by itself--a contrast of two methods, to one of which it is
reasonable to give the name of drama.
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