Creeping Toward A Culture: The Theatre in English Canada Since 1945

Abstract

It was the French critic, Ferdinand Brunetiere, who spoke of the curious relationship between periods of national awareness, national identity and major periods of dramatic literature, Utilizing in his essay, The Law of the Drama (1894), that keyword of 19th century thought — Will — and identifying Will with realization of national selfhood, Brunetière pointed out that . . . it is always at the exact moment of its national existence when the will of a great people is exalted within itself, that we see its dramatic art reach also the highest point of its development, and produce its masterpieces. Greek tragedy is contemporary with the Persian wars . . . Consider the Spanish theatre: Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderon, belong to the time when Spain was extending over all of Europe, as well as over the New World, the domination of her Will . . . And France in the 17th century? The greatest struggle that our fathers made to maintain the unity of the French nation was at the end of the 16th century . . . The development of the theatre followed immediately . . . I do not see a dramatic renaissance whose dawn has not been announced, as it were, by some progress, or some arousing of the will. 1