University of Virginia Library

PROLOGUE

Interviewer
Poet
Interviewer.

I understand you are about to publish a
play which you have written for the stage.

Poet.

Yes.

Interviewer.

Pardon me, but do you think it wise to
publish a play before it has been produced?

Poet.

I intend to produce it before publication.

Interviewer.

Ah, yes; to secure the dramatic rights.
But I mean that people will not read a play which they
have not seen.

Poet.

I would not care to invite an audience to witness
a play which I could not invite my readers to peruse.

Interviewer.

Well.—Is it in verse?

Poet.

Principally. There is some prose dialogue.

Interviewer.

Then is it a continuation of your attempt
to revive the Jacobean poetic drama?

Poet.

My attempt to do so? I never made such an
attempt.

Interviewer.

I understood you had done so in your
early plays, just as you attempted lately to revive the
Elizabethan eclogue.

Poet.

Nothing was further from my mind than either
revival. My endeavour was always to write Victorian
plays, Victorian eclogues.

Interviewer.

Then, do you assure me that your early
plays were written for the stage?

Poet.

I had the stage in my mind, but constantly lost
sight of it, except in “Scaramouch in Naxos;” it I hope
to see performed some day.

Interviewer.

But is not verse on the stage a lapse
from modernity—a backsliding?

Poet.

I think not.

Interviewer.

You have expressed somewhere in your
writings an intense admiration of Ibsen. Will his influence
be found in your play?

Poet.

I think not.

Interviewer.

Have you ceased to admire Ibsen?

Poet.

Oh, no! I share the opinion of those who regard
him as the most impressive writer of his time, as the
most expert playwright, and most original dramatist the
world has seen.

Interviewer.

But you are not a disciple?

Poet.

No; nothing comes of discipleship except misinterpretation.

That seems to me the history of all
schools.

Interviewer.

But if Ibsen is as great as you say, would
it not be wise to follow in his steps?

Poet.

No; it would be as foolish, as it is unnecessary,
to attempt to do over again what Ibsen has
done.

Interviewer.

Can you not extend the path he has laid
down, then?

Poet.

No; any step forward from Ibsen would land
me in some mystical abyss, or some slough of Naturalism.
For me Ibsen is the end, not the beginning.

Interviewer.

Do you propose your own play as a new
beginning?

Poet.

No. Before I sat down to write “Godfrida”
I read over my early plays, and the lot was cast for
Romance.

Interviewer.

What do you mean by Romance?

Poet.

A pertinent question. I mean by Romance the
essence of reality. Romance does not give the bunches
plucked from the stem: it offers the wine of life in chased
goblets. I have moulded and carved my goblet to the
best of my art; and I have crushed wine into it. To
leave this Euphuism, I take men and women as I know
them—the brain-sick, Isembert, Ermengarde; the

healthy, Godfrida, Siward; but that I myself may
realise them, and make them more apparent and more
engaging to an audience, I place them in an imaginary
environment, and in the colour and vestments of another
time.

Interviewer.

What is the main idea of your play?
Can you tell?

Poet.

It has been my companion long enough for that,
I hope. You may find the poles of my play in this
quotation:—

and in this,—

Interviewer.

What was your object in writing this
play?

Poet.

My object was to give delight.

Interviewer.

Do you consider that a high aim?

Poet.

I consider it the highest aim of art.

Interviewer.

To give delight?

Poet.

Yes; to give delight is to impart strength most
directly, most permanently.

Interviewer.

Is there anything else you wish to say
about “Godfrida”?

Poet.

Yes. When I was a boy I knew by heart Kingsley's
“Hereward the Wake,” having read it every Sunday
for several years in a bound volume of Good Words.
As I developed my play a memory of “Hereward,” which
I did not recognise at first, besieged my fancy. Becoming
conscious of its source, and being quite unable to get
away from it, I obtained the kind permission of Kingsley's
representatives to use it. The matter I have taken
occupies a few paragraphs of the novel; but it is important
in the play.

Interviewer.

When will it be produced in London?

Poet.

I have made no arrangements.

Interviewer.

Thank you.

Poet.

Good-day.