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FOREWORD
IN order to understand the social and dynamic
significance of modern dramatic art it is necessary,
I believe, to ascertain the difference between the
functions of art for art’s sake and art as the
mirror of life.
Art for art’s sake presupposes an attitude of
aloofness on the part of the artist toward the
complex struggle of life: he must rise above the ebb
and tide of life. He is to be merely an artistic
conjurer of beautiful forms, a creator of pure
fancy.
That is not the attitude of modern art, which is
preëminently the reflex, the mirror of life. The
artist being a part of life cannot detach himself
from the events and occurrences that pass
panorama-like before his eyes, impressing themselves
upon his emotional and intellectual vision.
The modern artist is, in the words of August
Strindberg, "a lay preacher popularizing the
pressing questions of his time." Not necessarily
because his aim is to proselyte, but because he can
best express himself by being true to life.
Millet, Meunier, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky,
Emerson, Walt Whitman, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Strindberg,
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