Behind the author we catch a glimpse
of the practical stage-manager who knows how a scene will look on the
boards and how a speech will sound--who can surmise with tolerable
accuracy how they will affect a first-night audience.
"Mary Stuart" is theatrically no less than dramatically conceived.
Theatrically it is far superior to Swinburne's "Chastelard" (not to
speak of his interminable musical verbiage in "Bothwell") but it is
paler, colder, and poetically inferior. The voluptuous warmth and wealth
of color, the exquisite levity, the _debonnaire_ grace of the
Swinburnian drama we seek in vain. Bjoernson is vigorous, but he is not
subtile. Mere feline amorousness, such as Swinburne so inimitably
portrays, he would disdain to deal with if even he could. Such a bit of
intricate self-characterization as the English poet puts into the
Queen's mouth in the first scene with Chastelard, in the third act, lies
utterly beyond the range of the sturdier Norseman.
_Queen_: "Nay, dear, I have
No tears in me; I never shall weep much,
I think, in all my life: I have wept for wrath
Sometimes, and for mere pain, but for love's pity
I cannot weep at all.
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