Shakespearean Tragedy (PDF, MOBI, EPUB, FB2, TEXT)
curring by
'accident' in the midst of prosperity would not suffice for it. It is,
in fact, essentially a tale of suffering and calamity conducting to
death.
The suffering and calamity are, moreover, exceptional. They befall a
conspicuous person. They are themselves of some striking kind. They are
also, as a rule, unexpected, and contrasted with previous happiness or
glory. A tale, for example, of a man slowly worn to death by disease,
poverty, little cares, sordid vices, petty persecutions, however piteous
or dreadful it might be, would not be tragic in the Shakespearean sense.
Such exceptional suffering and calamity, then, affecting the hero,
and--we must now add--generally extending far and wide beyond him, so as
to make the whole scene a scene of woe, are an essential ingredient in
tragedy and a chief source of the tragic emotions, and especially of
pity. But the proportions of this ingredient, and the direction taken by
tragic pity, will naturally vary greatly. Pity, for example, has a much
larger p