The Hostage, a Drama (Classic Reprint)

Introduction The Yale University Press does itself honour in publishing this book, the second drama of Paul Claudel to appear in English. The Hostage bears little resemblance to those theatrical works which sooner or later cross the Atlantic as a matter of course, even when they are not definitely written with a view to exportation. Like the other plays of Claudel, The Hostage has nothing in common with that facile art whose sole aim is to fill up or while away an evening for us with amusing adventures at once forgotten; with that art which is most at home in the region of the commonplace, timidly shunning the heights where dizziness threatens, and the depths where there is risk of losing ones footing in unaccustomed gloom. The Hostage is fundamentally opposed to that type of play in which virtuosity and metier count for more than soul and true art, in which interest is derived from the cleverness of the intrigue and from the complication of the action, a wholly material type, in which content counts for less than externals, intellectual beauty for less than volatile emotion, author less than actor, actor less than costume and scenery; tending, in a word, towards a kind of cinema, seeking in vain to hide the poverty of the thought by the lavishness of the concrete expression. The Hostage is the work of a great poet; it speaks to the noblest in us and can therefore only leave us nobler.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

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Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.

Forgotten Books' Classic Reprint Series utilizes the latest technology to regenerate facsimiles of historically important writings. Careful attention has been made to accurately preserve the original format of each page whilst digitally enhancing the aged text.