ABSTRACT
An extract from a long article in which Courtney outlines the development of dramatic construction from the Greeks to Bernard Shaw and uses Chekhov as the example of the way in which the old ideas of plot and dramatic categories have gradually broken down. W.L. Courtney (1850-1928) was a philosopher and religious writer as well as essayist. He was the editor of ‘Fortnightly Review’ from 1895 to 1928 and wrote on incredibly diverse topics, from a ‘Life of John Stuart Mill’ (1889) to ‘Feminine Note in Fiction’ (1904) and ‘The Bedside Bible’ (1926).
