SOURCE: Purdie, Edna. “Dramatic Technique” and “Conception of Tragedy.” In Friedrich Hebbel: A Study of His Life and Work, pp. 235-69. London: Oxford University Press, 1932.

In the following essay, Purdie discusses Hebbel's dramatic theory and technique.

Dramatic Technique

Any detailed analysis of Hebbel's plays must in great measure demonstrate the poet's sense of dramatic effect and his mastery of dramatic means. Moreover, it is impossible to draw a rigid line of demarcation between dramatic technique and the substance of a drama, since the very substance is to some extent the outcome of the form. But Hebbel's actual methods are worthy of some general consideration. They illuminate his individual aims, and in certain ways their influence may be traced in subsequent dramatic history.

Dramatic technique must comprehend all the means used by the dramatic artist to attain his ends—the sum of the practical methods by which he expresses...