Thus it appears that these three elements in the ‘action’ are subordinate, while the dominant factor consists in deeds which issue from character.  So that, by way of summary, we may now alter our first statement, ’A tragedy is a story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a man in high estate,’ and we may say instead (what in its turn is one-sided, though less so), that the story is one of human actions producing exceptional calamity and ending in the death of such a man.[5]

* * * * *

Before we leave the ‘action,’ however, there is another question that may usefully be asked.  Can we define this ‘action’ further by describing it as a conflict?

The frequent use of this idea in discussions on tragedy is ultimately due, I suppose, to the influence of Hegel’s theory on the subject, certainly the most important theory since Aristotle’s.  But Hegel’s view of the tragic conflict is not only unfamiliar to English readers and difficult to expound shortly, but it had its origin in reflections on Greek tragedy and, as Hegel was well aware, applies only imperfectly to the works of Shakespeare.[6] I shall, therefore, confine myself to the idea of conflict in its more general form.  In this form it is obviously suitable to Shakespearean tragedy; but it is vague, and I will try to make it more precise by putting the question, Who are the combatants in this conflict?

Not seldom the conflict may quite naturally be conceived as lying between two persons, of whom the hero is one; or, more fully, as lying between two parties or groups, in one of which the hero is the leading figure.  Or if we prefer to speak (as we may quite well do if we know what we are about) of the passions, tendencies, ideas, principles, forces, which animate these persons or groups, we may say that two of such passions or ideas, regarded as animating two persons or groups, are the combatants.  The love of Romeo and Juliet is in conflict with the hatred of their houses, represented by various other characters.  The cause of Brutus and Cassius struggles with that of Julius, Octavius and Antony.  In Richard II. the King stands on one side, Bolingbroke and his party on the other.  In Macbeth the hero and heroine are opposed to the representatives of Duncan.  In all these cases the great majority of the dramatis personae fall without difficulty into antagonistic groups, and the conflict between these groups ends with the defeat of the hero.

Yet one cannot help feeling that in at least one of these cases, Macbeth, there is something a little external in this way of looking at the action.  And when we come to some other plays this feeling increases.  No doubt most of the characters in Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, or Antony and Cleopatra can be arranged in opposed groups;[7] and no doubt there is a conflict; and yet it seems misleading to describe this conflict as one