ked. 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 _between these groups_. It cannot be
simply this. For though Hamlet and the King are mortal foes, yet that
which engrosses our interest and dwells in our memory at le