Perhaps the effects even of
Shakspeare's poetry might have been yet greater, had he not counteracted
himself; and we might have been more interested in the distresses of his
heroes, had we not been so frequently diverted by the jokes of his
buffoons.
There are other rules more fixed and obligatory. It is necessary that of
every play the chief action should be single; for since a play
represents some transaction, through its regular maturation to its final
event, two actions equally important must evidently constitute two
plays.
As the design of tragedy is to instruct by moving the passions, it must
always have a hero, a personage apparently and incontestably superior to
the rest, upon whom the attention may be fixed, and the anxiety
suspended. For though, of two persons opposing each other with equal
abilities and equal virtue, the auditor will inevitably, in time, choose
his favourite, yet as that choice must be without any cogency of
conviction, the hopes or fears which it raises will be faint and
languid. Of two heroes acting in confederacy against a common enemy, the
virtues or dangers will give little emotion, because each claims our
concern with the same right, and the heart lies at rest between equal
motives.
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