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John Galsworthy's Strife: Striving for Balance or the Audience as Jury

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

Rudolf Weiss
Rudolf Weiss
Affiliation:
Rudolf Weiss is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Vienna, Austria.
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Extract

Strife, arguably John Galsworthy's best play, can most fruitfully be studied from four different perspectives: theatre history, textual history, dramatic analysis, and critical reception.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , Spring 1995 , pp. 7 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1995

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References

Notes

1 The principal part of the paper is devoted to an analysis of the most relevant differences between two versions of Strife, that of the LCP copy of 1907 (British Library, Lord Chamberlain's Plays No. 491, date of licence: 30 September 1907) and that of the printed text of 1909 (Galsworthy, John, Plays: The Silver Box, Joy, Strife, London 1909Google Scholar). All quotations from the published text refer to the following edition: The Plays of John Galsworthy, second ed., London, 1929Google Scholar, identical to the text of the first performance at the Duke of York's Theatre.

2 Letters from John Galsworthy 1900–1932, ed. Edward, Garnett, London, 1934, p. 143.Google Scholar

3 Garnett, p. 156.

4 Harley Granville Barker: Man of the Theatre, Dramatist and Scholar, London, 1955, p. 89.Google Scholar

5 Memories of the London Theatre 1900–1914, ed. Alan, Andrews, London, 1983, p. 17.Google Scholar

6 See McDonald, Jan account of the various problems responsible for the comparative failure of the enterprise in The ‘New Drama’ 1900–1914, London, 1986, pp. 34–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 John Galsworthy's Life and Art: An Alien's Fortress, London, 1987, p. 193.Google Scholar

8 Gindin, p. 198.

9 Letter of 21 October 1907; Garnett, pp. 157–8.

10 See also Gindin, p. 199.

11 Gindin, p. 199.

12 Garnett, p. 167.

13 See Purdom, p. 90 and Shaw's letter to August Strindberg of 16 March 1910, in which he outlines the venture (Collected Letters 1898–1910, ed. Laurence, Dan H., London 1972, p. 908.Google Scholar)

14 Shaw, p. 822n.

15 Galsworthy seems to have complained about this in a letter to Joseph Conrad in November 1908, as can be inferred from Conrad's reply of 20 November 1908 (The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, vol. 4, 1908–1911, ed. Karl, Frederick R. and Davies, Laurence, Cambridge, 1990, p. 152.Google Scholar)

16 Marrot, H.V., The Life and Letters of John Galsworthy, London, 1935, p. 241 n.Google Scholar

17 Compare , Galsworthy, Strife, with commentary and notes by Non, Worrall, London, 1984, xxix.Google Scholar

18 A practice also typical of Harley Granville Barker's and St. John Hankin's plays.

19 The ‘New Drama’ 1900–1914, p. 130.

20 Jan McDonald points out the analogy between ‘Enid's protective snatching up of her baby's dress… in the face of Madge's incipient attack’ and ‘Madge's concern for her young brother’, (pp. 128–9)

21 Once a loyal follower of Roberts, Rous has been blackmailed into apostatizing by Madge Thomas.

22 Garnett, p. 157.

23 Garnett, pp. 157–8.

24 Garnett, p. 143.

25 Garnett, p. 157.

26 Galsworthy, , ‘The Severely Naturalistic Medium’, ‘Preface’ to The Works of John Galsworthy: Plays I, Manaton Edition, vol.18, London, 1923, xiv.Google Scholar

27 Letter to A. S. Souvorin of 27 October 1888 (Letters on the Short Story, the Drama and Other Literary Topics, ed. Friedland, Louis S., New York, 1966, p. 60.Google Scholar)

28 The Sketch, 17 March 1909, 306.Google Scholar

29 Quoted in Marrot, p. 241.

30 The Stage, 11 March 1909, 18.Google Scholar

31 Punch, 17 March 1909, 197.Google Scholar

32 The Times, 10 March 1909, 10.Google Scholar

33 The Nation, 13 March 1909, 892.Google Scholar

34 See The World, 16 March 1909, 440.Google Scholar

35 The Spectator, 27 March 1909, 499.Google Scholar

36 Spectator, 499.

37 World, 440.

38 McDonald, p. 32.

39 The Times, 5 May 1913, 12.Google Scholar

40 The Daily Graphic, 10 March 1909, 7.Google Scholar

41 The Westminster Gazette, 10 March 1909, 3.Google Scholar

42 The Illustrated London News, 13 March 1909, 370.Google Scholar

43 The Scotsman, 10 March 1909, 9.Google Scholar

44 Punch, 197.

45 Nation, 893.

46 Westminster Gazette, 3.

47 World, 440.

48 World, 440.

49 Spectator, 499.

50 Westminster Gazette, 3.

51 Nation, 892.

52 Harley Granville Barker, p. 89.

53 Letter to Galsworthy of 20 November 1908 [Letters, vol 4, p. 152.]

54 McDonald, p. 25.

55 However, one prominent critic, Joseph Conrad, though panegyrical about the play, described the production as suffering from ‘Barkerism’. Apparently, the irony and understatement of Barker's style were not to Conrad's liking, who seems to have preferred the histrionics of the preceding decades. (Letter to Ada Galsworthy of 25? March 1909 in Letters, vol. 4, p. 208.)

56 Spectator, 499.

57 The Saturday Review, 20 March 1909, 367.Google Scholar

58 Galsworthy, , Glimpses and Reflections, London 1937, pp. 222–3.Google Scholar

59 Nation, 892.