early as possible an exact reproduction of the visual and auditory
realities of life. In the Elizabethan theatre, with its platform stage
under the open sky, any pictorial exactness of reproduction was clearly
impossible. Its fundamental conditions necessitated very nearly[4] a
maximum of convention; therefore such conventions as blank verse and the
soliloquy were simply of a piece with all the rest. In the theatre of
the eighteenth century and early nineteenth, the proscenium arch--the
frame of the picture--made pictorial realism theoretically possible. But
no one recognized the possibility; and indeed, on a candle-lit stage, it
would have been extremely difficult. As a matter of fact, the
Elizabethan platform survived in the shape of a long "apron," projecting
in front of the proscenium, on which the most important parts of the
action took place. The characters, that is to say, were constantly
stepping out of the frame of the picture; and while this visual
convention maintained itself, there was nothing inconsistent or jarring
in the auditory convention of the soliloquy. Only in the last quarter of
the nineteenth century did new methods of lighting, combined with new
literary and artistic influences, complete the evolutionary process, and
lead to the withdrawal of the whole stage--the whole dramatic
domain--within the frame of the picture. It was thus possible to reduce
visual convention to a minimum so trifling that in a well-set "interior"
it needs a distinct effort of attention to be conscious of it at all. In
fact, if we come to think of it, the removal of the fourth wall is
scarcely to be classed as a convention; for in real life, as we do not
happen to have eyes in the back of our heads, we are never visually
conscious of all four walls of a room at once. If, then, in a room that
is absolutely real, we see a man who (in all other respects) strives to
be equally real, suddenly begin to expound himself aloud, in good, set
terms, his own emotions, motives, or purposes, we instantly plump down
from one plane of convention to another, and receive a disagreeable jar
to our sense of reality. Up to that moment, all the efforts of author,
producer, and actor have centred in begetting in us a particular order
of illusion; and lo! the effort is suddenly abandoned, and the illusion
shattered by a crying unreality. In modern serious drama, therefore, the
soliloquy can only be regarded as a disturbing anachronism.[5]

The phys