The poetic dramatist needs the highest
poetic freedom, and only through this can he attain to that breadth
and largeness whereof the superiority of his form admits, and which
are such in Shakespeare, that in his greatest plays the whole world
seems to be present as spectators and listeners.
Observe that the highest dramatic literatures belong to the two freest
peoples--the Greeks and the English. A people, possessing already a
large political freedom, must be capable of, and must be in the act
of, vigorous, rich development, through deep inward passion and
faculty, in order that its spirit shall issue in the perennial flowers
of the poetic drama. The dramatic especially implies and
demands variety and fullness and elevation of _personality_; and
this is only possible through freedom, the attainment of which freedom
implies on its side the innate fertility of nature which results in
fullness and elevation.
Now in the subjective elevation of the individual, and therewith the
unprecedented relative number of individuals thus elevated, herein do
we exceed all other peoples. By subjective elevation I mean,
liberation from the outward, downward pressure of dogmatic
prescription, of imperious custom, of blindfolded tradition, of
irresponsible authority.
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