cies or
tastes of races or nations, the laws of this branch of the dramatic art
remain based on the same essential requirements. What interests us in a
man or woman in real life, or in the impressions we form of historical
personages, is that which seems to us to give them individuality. A
dramatic character must therefore, whatever its part in the action, be
sufficiently marked by features of its own to interest the imagination;
with these features its subsequent conduct must be consistent, and to
them its participation in the action must correspond. In order to
achieve such a result, the dramatist must have, in the first instance,
distinctly conceived the character, however it may have been suggested
to him. His task is, not to paint a copy of some contemporary or
"historical" personage, but to conceive a particular kind of man, acting
under the operation of particular circumstances. This conception,
growing and modifying itself with the progress of the action, also
invented by the dramatist, will determine the totality of the character
which he creates. The likeness which the result bears to an actual or
historical personage may very probably, from secondary points of view,
affect the immediate stage success of the creation; upon its dramatic
result this likeness can have no influence whatever. In a wider sense
than that in which Shakespeare denied the charge that Falstaff was
Oldcastle, it should be possible to say of every dramatic character
which it is sought to identify with an actual personage, "This is not
the man." The mirror of the drama is not a photographic apparatus; and
not even the most conscientious combination of science and art can bring
back even a "phase" of the real Napoleon.

Distinctiveness.

Self-consistency.

Effectiveness.

Distinctiveness, as the primary requisite in dramatic characterization,
is to be demanded in the case of all personages introduced into a
dramatic action, but not in all cases in an equal degree. Schiller, in
adding to the _dramatis personae_ of his _Fiesco_ superscriptions of
their chief characteristics, labels Sacco as "an ordinary person," and
this, no doubt, suffices for Sacco. But with the great masters of
characterization a few touches, of which the true actor's art knows how
to avail itself, distinguish even their lesser characters from one
another; and every man is in his humour down to the "third citizen."
Elaboration is necessarily reserved for charac