The Cosmic Poet (1903-1908)
made play" are essentially Euripidean. It may remind the reader of the Shakespearean "chronicle-history" type—but "histories," from the lost Fall of Miletus on (which, according to Herodotus, caused an audience of Athenians to burst into tears), could nearly all come under the general heading of "tragedy." Hardy is closer to the Greeks than to modern writers in his lavish use of spectacle. The serious plays of to-day very rarely beguile their audiences with processions, pageants, armies, courts, or battles, but of these things the Greeks were very fond. They were naturally suggested also by the peculiar conditions of the vast open-air Dyonysiac theatre, built into the side of the Acropolis, and by the necessary processional entrance, choral evolutions, and exit of a large and stately chorus.
The function of the chorus when employed in a drama has never materially changed since the time of Æschylus. It has been called "the spectator idealized," but its greatest value, from the playwright's point of view, is that it enables him to reach the audience directly, and to permit the characters he has created to remain themselves. It is the instrument by which the dramatist relays what he considers to be the correct emotional or intellectual reaction to the audience. In The Dynasts the actors themselves merely act—they do not express the author's opinions, and the drama itself gains immensely in force thereby. The very individual interpretation of the significance of history is expressed solely through the "phantom intelligences" and their choruses.
Henry Newbolt has emphasized the differences between the choruses of The Dynasts and the Greek chorus
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