Tragedy

drama as well as in Shakespeare, in plays imitating the Greeks as well as in plays revolting from their models. After a time this modification of the classical tradition came to have a distinct place in literary theory. Hegel gave it philosophical elaboration, and, in the romantic movement, when dramatists in different languages turned to Shakespeare for a model, they naturally assumed what may be called the Shakespearean definition. This important amendment to the tragic tradition may be briefly stated:--

The action of a tragedy should represent a conflict of wills, or of will with circumstance, or will with itself, and should therefore be based on the characters of the persons involved. A typical tragedy is concerned with a great personality engaged in a struggle that ends disastrously.

In the Aristotelian tradition thus amended by the Shakespearean or modern conception we have a definition of tragedy that, in spite of differences of theorists and variations in practice, is extraordinarily co