About “Marie Tudor”
There are two ways to captivate an audience in theater: through the grand and through the true. The grand appeals to the masses, while the true touches the individual. The goal of a dramatic poet, regardless of their overall views on art, should always be to seek the grand, as Corneille did, or the true, as Molière did. Ideally, the highest achievement of genius is to combine both the grand and the true, with the grand within the true and the true within the grand, as Shakespeare did. Shakespeare was given the ability to unite these qualities in his work, which are almost opposite or at least distinct. The danger of the true is that it can be small, and the danger of the grand is that it can be false. In all of Shakespeare's works, there is grandeur that is true and truth that is grand. At the center of his creations is the point where grandeur and truth meet, and where the great and the true intersect, art is complete.