own than it appears
to be to Englishmen interested in the drama. I may add, for the benefit
of classical scholars, that Freytag has a chapter on Sophocles. The
reader of his book will easily distinguish, if he cares to, the places
where I follow Freytag, those where I differ from him, and those where I
write in independence of him. I may add that in speaking of construction
I have thought it best to assume in my hearers no previous knowledge of
the subject; that I have not attempted to discuss how much of what is
said of Shakespeare would apply also to other dramatists; and that I
have illustrated from the tragedies generally, not only from the chosen
four.]

[Footnote 17: This word throughout the lecture bears the sense it has
here, which, of course, is not its usual dramatic sense.]

[Footnote 18: In the same way a comedy will consist of three parts,
showing the 'situation,' the 'complication' or 'entanglement,' and the
_denouement_ or 'solution.']

[Footnote 19: It is possible, of course, to open the tragedy with the
conflict already begun, but Shakespeare never does so.]

[Footnote 20: When the subject comes from English history, and
especially when the play forms one of a series, some knowledge may be
assumed. So in _Richard III._ Even in _Richard II._ not a little
knowledge seems to be assumed, and this fact points to the existence of
a popular play on the earlier part of Richard's reign. Such a play
exists, though it is not clear that it is a genuine Elizabethan work.
See the _Jahrbuch d. deutschen Sh.-gesellschaft_ for 1899.]

[Footnote 21: This is one of several reasons why many people enjoy
reading him, who, on the whole, dislike reading plays. A main cause of
this very general dislike is that the reader has not a lively enough
imagination to carry him with pleasure through the exposition, though in
the theatre, where his imagination is helped, he would experience little
difficulty.]

[Footnote 22: The end of _Richard III._ is perhaps an exception.]

[Footnote 23: I do not discuss the general question of the justification
of soliloquy, for it concerns not Shakespeare only, but practically all
dramatists down to quite recent times. I will only remark that neither
soliloquy nor the use of verse can be condemned on the mere ground that
they are 'unnatural.' No dramatic language is 'natural'; _all_ dramatic
language is idealised. So that the question as to soliloquy must be one
as to the degree of idealisa