ABSTRACT
If a given sentence, in itself rough and unmusical, suited the nature of the actions of the given characters, I left it in its initial state, without smoothing it for the sake of musicality. A sentence in itself has no meaning on the stage; it has value solely in connection with the action. The situation is quite different in poetry. Although even there, in my opinion, excessive musicalizing of the verse, without regard for the conceptual side (even devoid of logical and real-life sense) can produce fatal results. Leave to music what is musical, and to poetry what is poetic, that is, a synthesis of elements: conceptual, musical, and pictorial. Of course, defending this and not some other manner of speech on the part of my “heroes,” I do not do so from the point of view of life, in which people express themselves in a non-literary fashion. I am only concerned with the purely artistic side – the formal side.
