ABSTRACT
The most notable aspect of the essay is its proto-modernist emphasis on 'states of mind of the characters' as the sine qua non of the dramatic art, either in the theatre or in narrative fiction. It is plain in the first place that the derivation of the word is absurdly misleading. The drama is not principally concerned with action; and this appears to the author to be a fundamental distinction between it and narrative fiction. In drama there is no interest whatever in action qua action; in narrative it is very often the only interest there is. Drama, not only is the interest felt for the characters proportionately much greater, but the conditions of the stage make it possible to present the characters in a much more definite way. The Doctrine is that every drama should begin by stating certain conditions, and that from these conditions and these alone the whole of the rest of the drama should causally follow.
