"A novel is a static thing that one moves through; a play is a dynamic thing that moves past one"
About this Quote
Tynan draws a clean, almost cruel line between two kinds of attention: the reader’s sovereign control and the spectator’s surrender. Calling the novel “static” isn’t an insult so much as a description of its contract. A book waits. You can pause, reread, skim, dog-ear, wander. You “move through” it the way you move through a building: at your pace, choosing what to linger over, turning back when something nags. The power sits with you, and the story’s time is essentially yours to manage.
The play, by contrast, is “dynamic” because it has its own bloodstream. It “moves past one” like traffic or weather: you’re inside the event, but you don’t get to stop the clouds. That phrasing quietly demotes the audience from co-author to witness. The stage demands presence, not just interpretation; it’s an encounter with bodies, voices, mishaps, timing, the charge between performers and a roomful of strangers. Miss a line, cough at the wrong moment, and the thing is already gone.
Tynan’s subtext is a critic’s plea for seriousness about theatrical form. Mid-century criticism often treated plays as literature you could read in an armchair; he’s insisting that theater isn’t primarily text but kinetic experience, built out of pacing, breath, and irretrievability. The wit is in the grammar: novels are traversed; plays traverse you. It’s not just a difference in medium, it’s a difference in who gets to be in control.
The play, by contrast, is “dynamic” because it has its own bloodstream. It “moves past one” like traffic or weather: you’re inside the event, but you don’t get to stop the clouds. That phrasing quietly demotes the audience from co-author to witness. The stage demands presence, not just interpretation; it’s an encounter with bodies, voices, mishaps, timing, the charge between performers and a roomful of strangers. Miss a line, cough at the wrong moment, and the thing is already gone.
Tynan’s subtext is a critic’s plea for seriousness about theatrical form. Mid-century criticism often treated plays as literature you could read in an armchair; he’s insisting that theater isn’t primarily text but kinetic experience, built out of pacing, breath, and irretrievability. The wit is in the grammar: novels are traversed; plays traverse you. It’s not just a difference in medium, it’s a difference in who gets to be in control.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Kenneth Tynan — quoted on Wikiquote: "A novel is a static thing that one moves through; a play is a dynamic thing that moves past one" (Wikiquote entry: Kenneth Tynan) |
More Quotes by Kenneth
Add to List
