All this may appear too obvious to be worth setting forth at such
length. Very likely it never occurred to Shakespeare that it was
possible to open the play at an earlier point; so that he can hardly be
said to have exercised a deliberate choice in the matter. Nevertheless,
the very obviousness of the considerations involved makes this a good
example of the importance of discovering just the right point at which
to raise the curtain. In the case of _The Tempest_, Shakespeare plunged
into the middle of the crisis because his object was to produce a
philosophico-dramatic entertainment rather than a play in the strict
sense of the word. He wanted room for the enchantments of Ariel, the
brutishnesses of Caliban, the humours of Stephano and Trinculo--all
elements extrinsic to the actual story. But in _Hamlet_ he adopted a
similar course for purely dramatic reasons--in order to concentrate his
effects and present the dramatic elements of his theme at their
highest potency.

In sum, then, it was Shakespeare's usual practice, histories apart, to
bring the whole action of his plays within the frame of the picture,
leaving little or nothing to narrative exposition. The two notable
exceptions to this rule are those we have just examined--_Hamlet_ and
_The Tempest_. Furthermore, he usually opened his comedies with quiet
conversational passages, presenting the antecedents of the crisis with
great deliberation. In his tragedies, on the other hand, he was apt to
lead off with a crisp, somewhat startling passage of more or less
vehement action, appealing rather to the nerves than to the
intelligence--such a passage as Gustav Freytag, in his _Technik des
Dramas_, happily entitles an _einleitende Akkord_, an introductory
chord. It may be added that this rule holds good both for _Coriolanus_
and for _Julius Caesar_, in which the keynote is briskly struck in