Excerpt from The American Dramatist
But research requires patience, and one is brought suddenly to a grim realization of its slowness. When this book was begun, A. M. Palmer was alive; during its initial period I profited by the unfailing help and encouragement of Bronson Howard, and later I was made to feel the necessity for such a book through the splendid enthusiasm of Clyde Fitch. Chapters written then have had to be altered because these men are dead. But they are not forgotten even though the literary critic fail to recognize them.
The American drama is a fact; it has a body, whatever the value of its spirit. In its local sense, it is a reflection of local condition and type characteristics; in its technical sense, it exhibits special mannerisms, and shows itself subjected to special influences. The American dramatist has evolved from certain social factors, and his product - the American drama - has developed by reason of theatrical economics. There are always definite reasons to be found for every literary activity. If at one time the American stage was filled with American types of similar cartoon value, such was the accepted convention of the time; if there was more French attitude than American in the early society drama, it was because French technique was being imitated; if Bronson Howard has a right to the title of Dean of the American Drama, he must have stemmed a current that opposed him; if journalism dominates our stage to-day, there must be some reason for the reportorial treatment of most of our present native drama.
I have tried to carry out this plan in the following pages: to emphasize the individual contributions to the idea of an American drama, to summarize the striking qualities of dramatists who are original in position, to enumerate the social and economic causes affecting the theatre, and through the theatre limiting the dramatist's work.
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