which scores of eminent critics have taken
sides: a dispute revived but yesterday (if we omit the blank and
devastated days of this War) by the writers and apostles of _vers
libres._ 'Can there be poetry without metre?' 'Is free verse a
true poetic form?' Why, our "Book of Job" being poetry,
unmistakable poetry, of course there can, to be sure it is. These
apostles are butting at an open door. Nothing remains for them
but to go and write _vers libres_ as fine as those of "Job" in
our English translation. Or suppose even that they write as well
as M. Paul Fort, they will yet be writing ancestrally, not as
innovators but as renewers. Nothing is done in literature by
arguing whether or not this or that be possible or permissible.
The only way to prove it possible or permissible is to go and do
it: and then you are lucky indeed if some ancient writers have
not forestalled you.

IV

Now for another question (much argued, you will remember, a few
years ago) 'Is there--can there be--such a thing as a Static
Theatre, a Static Drama?'

Most of you (I daresay) remember M. Maeterlinck's definition of
this and his demand for it. To summarise him roughly, he contends
that the old drama--the traditional, the conventional drama--
lives by action; that, in Aristotle's phrase, it represents men
doing, [Greek: prattontas], and resolves itself into a struggle
of human wills--whether against the gods, as in ancient tragedy,
or against one another, as in modern. M. Maeterlinck tells us--

There is a tragic element in the life of every day that is far
more real, far more penetrating, far more akin to the true self
that is in us, than is the tragedy that lies in great
adventure.... It goes beyond the determined struggle of man
against man, and desire against desire; it goes beyond the
eternal conflict of duty and passion. Its province is rather to
reveal to us how truly wonderful is the mere act of living, and
to throw light upon the existence of the soul, self-contained
in the midst of ever-restless immensities; to hush the
discourse of reason and sentiment, so that above the tumult may
be heard the solemn uninterrupted whisperings of man and his
destiny.

To the tragic author [he goes on, later], as to the mediocre
painter who still lingers over historical pictures, it is only
the violence of the anecdote that appeals, and in his
representation thereof does the entire interest of his work
consist