These facts lead us insensibly to the realm of art, of which I merely remark in passing that certain echoes of the fray may be detected in architecture and music, and that the representative arts and especially painting devote a wide field to combat, but that the real domain of internal fighting play is found in poetry. Fighting and love plays[493] contribute most largely to the enjoyable element in poetry, and the latter is less effective when divorced from combat. Even in lyrics, which would seem to afford the least opportunity for exploiting such themes, the tourney is a fruitful inspiration, and the triumphant note of victory is conspicuous. A verse of Heyse’s illustrates in mocking wise, and perhaps more forcibly than any other, how great is the importance to the poetic art of its connection with the fighting instinct. In dilating upon the literary status of the abode of bliss he says: “Für Drame, Lustspiel und Novelle Ist leider hier Kein günst’ner Boden; Die kultivirt man in der Hölle. Hir giebt es Hymnen nur und Oden.” “For drama, stage play, and novel There is, alas! no public here; These things are practised down in hell. Here hymns and odes are _de rigueur_.” In studying epic poetry we are struck by the frequency with which the excitement of fighting furnishes the motive. This is the case with almost the whole cycle of primitive epics and folk stories, down to our modern romance; and when an epic is produced, like the Messias, for example, without such stimulus to interest, it falls irretrievably under the reproach of dulness. In the drama war is all-important. A short time ago an unnamed author published an article on dramatic conflict to which I fully subscribe.[494] Since the time of Aristotle the idea of acting has been prominent[495] in any conception of the drama, though there have been some writers like Lenz, Otto Ludwig, and lately Gartelmann, who have stressed the delineation of character. Both theories easily lead to a one-sided view. “Not character as such, but character in conflict it is which lays claim to our interest in the drama, and only such acting is dramatic as reveals the conflict.... The essence of the dramatic consists in the presence of an overwhelming catastrophe which forms the central point of the poem, and its culmination is the writer’s chief task.” It strikes me that this is incontestable, though it may be urged that the conflict is only a means of bringing out the essential features of the character. Thus Wetz strikingly says: “If a poet wishes to portray his hero realistically, then must his environment contrast with his character. He must be put in trying circumstances, and thus be brought out of himself and reveal his utmost depths. Comedy as well as tragedy furnishes such situations; where the amusing complications or fatal passion have once been intimated they must be pursued to their final consequences.”[496]