action in it, i.e. its Fable or Plot, that is the end and purpose of
the tragedy; and the end i.e.erywhere the chief thing. Besides this,
a tragedy is impossible without action, but there may be one without
Character. The tragedies of most of the moderns are characterless--a
defect common among poets of all kinds, and with its counterpart in
painting in Zeuxis as compared with Polygnotus; for whereas the latter
is strong in character, the work of Zeuxis is devoid of it. And again:
one may string together a series of characteristic speeches of the
utmost finish as regards Diction and Thought, and yet fail to produce
the true tragi.e.fect; but one will have much better success with a
tragedy which, however inferior in these respects, has a Plot, a
combination of incidents, in it. And again: the most powerful elements
of attraction in Tragedy, the Peripeties and Discoveries, are parts of
the Plot. A further proof is in the fact that beginners succeed
earlier with the Diction and Characters than with the construction of
a story; and the same may be said of nearly all the early dramatists.
We maintain, therefore, that the first essential, the life and soul,
so to speak, of Tragedy is the Plot; and that the Characters come
second--compare the parallel in painting, where the most beautiful
colours laid on without order will not give one the same pleasure as a
simple black-and-white sketch of a portrait. We maintain that Tragedy
is primarily an imitation of action, and that it is mainly for the
sake of the action that it imitates the personal agents. Third comes
the element of Thought, i.e. the power of saying whatever can be said,
or what is appropriate to the occasion. This is what, in the speeches
in Tragedy, falls under the arts of Politics and Rhetoric; for the
older poets make their personages discourse like statesmen, and the
moderns like rhetoricians. One must not confuse it with Character.
Character in a play is that which reveals the moral purpose of the
agents, i.e. the sort of thing they seek or avoid, where that is not