TRAGEDY, a drama which represents some grand and serious action, and which has frequently a fatal issue or end. Its genuine object is to purify and mode rate the passions, by exhibiting them in their excess, and to hold forth such a picture of the crimes and miseries of mankind as may teach us, by fear, to be prudent, for 'our own sake ; and, by compassion, to be charitable, for the sake of others. To produce this effect, three principles Are essential to tragedy first, it should represent our fellow-crea tures in peril and misfortune ; secondly, the peril should inspire us with alarm and dread, and the misfortune should inte rest and affect us; and, thirdly, the imi tation should be conformable to nature and truth ; that, while it engages our at tention, it may render even the emo tions of sorrow pleasing to us. On these principles are founded all the rules which relate to the choice of a subject, to the delineation of characters, and to the composition of the fable, dialogue, and action.
All events and circumstances whieh seriously influence mankind, and excite the stronger passions, are fit subjects for tragedy. Such, in the language of our great poet, are " —The whips and scorns o' th' time; Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes." To these ills men in all conditions are lia ble, but it is seldom that the poet con fines himself to a representation of them in common life, because the vicissitudes incident to greatness afford him wider scope to display them. Hence tragedy, as was before observed, is frequently the imitation of a grand action, involving some important state concern, the fall of a chief, or the acquisition of a crown. Such events naturally rouse the passions of ambition, love, hatred, and revenge ; and are calculated more deeply to affect the heart with sentiments of terror and pity. But whatever be the subject, the actual representation of tragic scenes ought never to be carried to excess. Murder and suicide thould be banished from the stage, or admitted only in ex treme cases, because the terror and the pity which such 'sights inspire are min gled with a feeling of horror, at which human nature revolts.
Of the rules for the composition of tragedy, the most important are those the unities. (See DRAMA.) By the uri ties of time and place, it is meant, that the story should comprehend no longer a period of time than the representation, or, at most, that it should not exceed four and twenty hours ; and that the place of action should never be supposed to change. These rules are insisted on, as necessary to preserve the illusion of the scene ; but in many. cases they must obviously tend to destroy it. In order to contrive the incidents of a fable to pass within the time prescribed, many im portant scenes must he related, instead of being represented ; and to bring all the persons concerned in the drama to one spot, during that time, many viola tions of probability must be made. Hence it is, that the regular tragedies of the French school are so barren of incident, and so replete with tedious declamation. The choice of a subject is there control led by the laws of time and place ; where as the observance of those laws should be regulated by the nature of the sub ject. Perhaps there is not a more genu ine tragedy than Shakespeare's "Lear ;" yet how vain would be the attempt to new model it by the rules, and render it equally sublime and affecting. The pow ers of the immortal author himself would be inadequate to such a task.
The unity of action alone is in all cases indispensable. A tragedy is something more than a history : it is a tissue of events not merely succeeding each other, but arising out of each other. It is one whole and entire action, developed by a series of incidents which sustain it to the end, and which concur all to the same point. If an episode or underplot is in troduced, it must be rendered auxiliary to the main story, so as not to be sup pressed without injury to it ; otherwise it must .necessarily constitute an inde pendent action of itself, and the unity of the subject would be broken.