IV. Questions and Objections

Extract

The so-called formal dialogue constituted between the years 1640 and 1700 a substantial part of ephemeral as well as serious literature. Like the present-day dialogue of fiction and of the stage, it was only approximately natural, and to a varying degree. In modern novels or in popular “talky” plays it is not hard to find passages which neither advance the plot nor build characterization, and wherein the interest is emphatically centered on the topics discussed. Yet, as every one recognizes, important changes in taste have taken place since the days of the formal dialogue. Disputations no longer hold their former sway in college and university. Other methods are now employed for discussing problems of politics, of religion, of philosophy, of science, which were once commonly argued in the formal dialogue. It is my purpose to show, through the consideration of some of the by-products of the dialogue in the day of its vogue, that its popularity was occasioned by a controversial or dialoguing spirit, and conversely that the form itself was largely responsible for the creation and continuance of this atmosphere of conflict.