Hebbel further considered that since dramatic art must involve the static with the dynamic, it necessitates certain modifications as opposed to real life. If the enduring is to be expressed, art must round the circle of Fate, whereas Life itself is a dubious thing, whose individual meaning may lie in the history of its generation. The whole then is expressed by the selection of significant parts, or as he himself expresses it, by an exaggeration of the detached. From this it follows that drama is more self-conscious than life. This is why, especially in Shakespeare, the characters are more self-conscious than they would be in reality. They become the centre-point of Fate, not merely by the action of the play but by their own foreboding and introspection. This is, however, to be reconciled with a living humanity, so that the mental processes are natural, if intensified. Added to this, in dramatic crises, the word comes straight before or after the deed, so that both are significantly linked to the principle. Any of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes will show the truth of this reflection. The classic drama, which fixed one mighty moment in a process, needed exposition rather than introspection, situation rather than development. But the dynamic element, on which Hebbel insisted, and which he found in Shakespeare, makes crucial the growth of the individual, as well as his will-attitude. In short, the self-consciousness of art makes situations psychologic as well as actual, yet not, as with Browning, positing the psychology as an end in itself. This atmosphere, in which the character assumes a slightly exaggerated contemplative attitude, never obscures him. Psychology brings in a third element, that of the poet’s own mind. Hebbel differed from realists proper in regarding sheer objectivity as impossible. Exterior mental processes must be strained through the poet’s own experience, and hence partake of his personality. Even if complete self-detachment were impossible, art existed for the expression of the poet’s own being. This applies as well to the material of drama. Neither actions of men nor events in time exist objectively. For this reason he called history “the deposit of time;” only the permanent elements left by the ages are history and the poet’s sphere is not the reproduction of events but the interpolation of their atmosphere. Following these tenets, Hebbel set himself to embrace the three main currents from which arise human problems--the historic, social and philosophic. In some he attempted to unite all three, in others he touched a single aspect. It was a gigantic task only partially fulfilled, but his greatest work has vindicated him.