C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, on incest, restraint, and tragedy in drama

6 December (1926): C. S. Lewis to Arthur Greeves, on incest, restraint, and tragedy in drama. 

"About the play—of course I ought not really to speak without knowing more details of your new ideas than I do: but I cannot help thinking that the introduction of incest is a mistake. I think it is quite legitimate for a man to take incest as his main theme, if he is really interested in a tragedy of i

t or the various moral and psychological problems which it raises. [...] But it is a very different thing for him simply to throw it in as the makeweight in a play whose real purpose and interest lie elsewhere. [...]

You bring it in only to make things ‘more so’. Wasn’t it just that desire for the ‘more so’ which spoiled so many Elizabethan plays—piling horror on horror and death on death till the thing turns ridiculous? It’s quality not quantity that counts..."

Read the rest here: http://theamericanreader.com/6-december-1926-c-s-lewis-to-arthur-greeves/