316. 352 CHAPTER VI

352 CHAPTER VI

difference between the Sanskrit and the English drama- tists in this respect is that while the former presents the events in such a manner as leads to the identification of the spectator with the focus of the situation so as to arouse the same feelings in him as arise in the focus; the latter tries to transport the spectator from the ordinary situation, in which he may be, to the dramatic situation so that he views the central figure objectively as he may have been viewed by one not directly involved in it. The idea that the presented is an artistic presentation is attempted to be kept in a subconscious state by both.

(II) Emotions can be divided into two types: (i) social and (ii) personal or individual. The former are less intense than the latter. For, the larger the group of persons, by which a feeling or an emotion is shared, the less intense it is. Sympathy, for instance, has not got that intensity which grief has. Nor does pity have that lasting effect on mind and body which a personal loss has. It is because the former are social and the latter are individual, (III) One noteworthy fact about the personal emotion is that beyond a certain point the more intense a feeling or emotion the greater is the loss of activity of the nervous system and of the mind of the individual, affected by it, and accordingly there is less activity, loss of coherent activity or perfect inactivity, according as the emotion is at a higher or lower pitch. If we keep these points in mind, the distinction between Sanskrit and English dramas will become very clear.

(a) A Sanskrit drama arouses identical feelings and emo. tions. The hero in this case is not an ordinary individual, A, B or C, but the individual of the poet's imagination who is universalised at a latter stage. But an English drama