a. [UN-1 7.]

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  1.  Lacking the essential qualities of drama.

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1754.  A. Murphy, Gray’s Inn Jrnl., No. 94. The following Lines … are certainly very inartificial and undramatic.

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1759.  Young, Conject. Orig. Comp., in Pr. Wks. (1765), 318.

        Where the smooth chisel all its skill has shown,
to soften into flesh the rugged stone.  ADDISON.
That is, where art has taken great pains to labour undramatic matter into dramatic life: which is impossible.

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1805.  Ann. Rev., III. 621. As works of literary art, these dialogues are dull and undramatic.

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1861.  Geo. Eliot, in Cross, Life (1885), II. 289. These less known undramatic tales of want.

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  2.  Not gifted with or exhibiting dramatic power; not adapted for the production of drama.

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1769.  Garrick’s Vagary, 10. Procuring the Stage’s deliverance from the many undramatic Beasts of Lumber.

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1821.  Byron, Lett., Jan., Wks. 194/2. Many people think my talent essentially undramatic.

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1870.  Lowell, Among My Books, Ser. I. (1873), 205. Goethe affirmed, that … Shakespeare was too undramatic for the German theatre.

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  b.  Unable to appreciate drama.

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1836.  T. Hook, G. Gurney, i. English audiences, who are … as undramatic in their notions as methodists.

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  3.  Not written in the form of drama.

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1840.  L. Hunt, in Dram. Wks. Wycherley, etc. (Rtldg.), p. xxxv. Congreve’s undramatic prose writings are few.

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  So Undramatical a., Undramatically adv.

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1829.  Beddoes, Lett., Feb., in Poems (1851), p. lxxx. The play is too long;… the second [act] dull and *undramatical.

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1827.  Sir H. Taylor, Autobiog. (1885), I. 97. If I were to write another play at this rate, I might die *undramatically before the fifth act.

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1901.  M. Pemberton, Pro Patria, xx. 223. I told him, undramatically, that I was the man. He cried ‘impossible!’

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