Starting then from the vantage of these general observations we may indicate the course of our inquiry as follows: _Firsts_ we propose to consider the dramatic composition, both in its general and more detailed features, in the contrast it presents to epic and lyrical poetry. _Secondly_, our attention will be directed to its scenic presentation and the conditions of this necessity. _Thirdly_, we shall pass under review the different types of dramatic poetry as we find them realized in the concrete facts of past history. I. THE DRAMA AS A POETICAL ART-PRODUCT What we have, in the first instance, to define more emphatically is the poetic aspect of the dramatic composition as such, that is to say in its independence of the fact that the same is necessarily presented to our direct vision on the stage. Our investigation of this will do well to concentrate itself on the following points: _Firsts_ there is the general principle of dramatic poetry. _Secondly_, we have the several specific types of dramatic composition. _Thirdly_, there is the relation which obtains between these and the public audience. (_a_) _The Principle of Dramatic Poetry_ The demand of the drama, in the widest sense, is the presentation of human actions and relations in their actually visible form to the imaginative consciousness, that is to say, in the uttered speech of living persons, who in this way give expression to their action. Dramatic action, however, is not confined to the simple and undisturbed execution of a definite purpose, but depends throughout on conditions of collision, human passion and characters, and leads therefore to actions and reactions, which in their turn call for some further resolution of conflict and disruption. What we have consequently before us are definite ends individualized in living personalities and situations pregnant with conflict; we see these as they are asserted and maintained, as they work in co-operation or opposition--all in a momentary and kaleidoscopic interchange of expression--and along with this, too, the final result presupposed and issuing from the entirety of this interthreading and conflicting skein of human life, movement, and accomplishment, which has none the less to work out its tranquil resolution. The mode of poetical composition adapted to this novel type of content can be, as already suggested, no other than a mediating union of the principles of epic and lyrical art respectively.