Shakespearean Tragedy | Page 7

minute sooner; an accident that
Edgar arrived at the prison just too late to save Cordelia's life; an
accident that Desdemona dropped her handkerchief at the most fatal of
moments; an accident that the pirate ship attacked Hamlet's ship, so that
he was able to return forthwith to Denmark. Now this operation of
accident is a fact, and a prominent fact, of human life. To exclude it
wholly from tragedy, therefore, would be, we may say, to fail in truth.
And, besides, it is not merely a fact. That men may start a course of
events but can neither calculate nor control it, is a tragic fact. The
dramatist may use accident so as to make us feel this; and there are also
other dramatic uses to which it may be put. Shakespeare accordingly
admits it. On the other hand, any large admission of chance into the
tragic sequence[4] would certainly weaken, and might destroy, the
sense of the causal connection of character, deed, and catastrophe. And
Shakespeare really uses it very sparingly. We seldom find ourselves
exclaiming, 'What an unlucky accident!' I believe most readers would
have to search painfully for instances. It is, further, frequently easy to
see the dramatic intention of an accident; and some things which look
like accidents have really a connection with character, and are therefore
not in the full sense accidents. Finally, I believe it will be found that
almost all the prominent accidents occur when the action is well
advanced and the impression of the causal sequence is too firmly fixed
to be impaired.
Thus it appears that these three elements in the 'action' are subordinate,
while the dominant factor consists in deeds which issue from character.
So that, by way of summary, we may now alter our first statement, 'A
tragedy is a story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man
in high estate,' and we may say instead (what in its turn is one-sided,
though less so), that the story is one of human actions producing
exceptional calamity and ending in the death of such a man.[5]
* * * * *

Before we leave the 'action,' however, there is another question that
may usefully be asked. Can we define this 'action' further by describing
it as a conflict?
The frequent use of this idea in discussions on tragedy is ultimately due,
I suppose, to the influence of Hegel's theory on the subject, certainly
the most important theory since Aristotle's. But Hegel's view of the
tragic conflict is not only unfamiliar to English readers and difficult to
expound shortly, but it had its origin in reflections on Greek tragedy
and, as Hegel was well aware, applies only imperfectly to the works of
Shakespeare.[6] I shall, therefore, confine myself to the idea of conflict
in its more general form. In this form it is obviously suitable to
Shakespearean tragedy; but it is vague, and I will try to make it more
precise by putting the question, Who are the combatants in this
conflict?
Not seldom the conflict may quite naturally be conceived as lying
between two persons, of whom the hero is one; or, more fully, as lying
between two parties or groups, in one of which the hero is the leading
figure. Or if we prefer to speak (as we may quite well do if we know
what we are about) of the passions, tendencies, ideas, principles, forces,
which animate these persons or groups, we may say that two of such
passions or ideas, regarded as animating two persons or groups, are the
combatants. The love of Romeo and Juliet is in conflict with the hatred
of their houses, represented by various other characters. The cause of
Brutus and Cassius struggles with that of Julius, Octavius and Antony.
In _Richard II._ the King stands on one side, Bolingbroke and his party
on the other. In Macbeth the hero and heroine are opposed to the
representatives of Duncan. In all these cases the great majority of the
dramatis personae fall without difficulty into antagonistic groups, and
the conflict between these groups ends with the defeat of the hero.
Yet one cannot help feeling that in at least one of these cases, Macbeth,
there is something a little external in this way of looking at the action.
And when we come to some other plays this feeling increases. No
doubt most of the characters in Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, or Antony
and Cleopatra can be arranged in opposed groups;[7] and no doubt

there is a conflict; and yet it seems misleading to describe this conflict
as one between these groups. It cannot be simply this. For though
Hamlet and the King are mortal foes, yet that which engrosses our
interest and dwells in our memory at least as much as the