Page:The thirty-six dramatic situations (1921).djvu/123

 CONCLUSION 121 of the drama, since it is his appearance which will be the signal for the struggle. The first, who especially enlists our attention, is the Protagonist, already present in the earliest Thespian tragedy, altogether lyric, descriptive and analytic ; the second - - the obstacle arising or super- vening - - is the Antagonist, that principle of the action which we owe to the objective and Homeric genius of iEschylus. One of two strongly opposing colors will thus dominate the entire work, acording as we shall choose, near the beginning, which of the two parties shall possess the greater power, the greater chance of victory. Aristotle has taught us to distinguish between "simple" tragedy (in which the superiority remains upon the same side until the end, and in which, conse- quently, there is no sudden change of fortune, no sur- prise) and "complex" tragedy (the tragedy of surprise, of vicissitude), wherein this superiority passes from one camp to the other. Our dramatists have since refined upon the latter; in those of their pieces which are least complicated, they double the change of fortune, thus leading ingeniously to the return of the opposed powers, at the moment of the specta or's departure, to the exact positions which they occupied when he entered the hall; in their plays of complicated plot, they triple. quadruple, quintuple the surprise, so long as their imag- inations and the patience of the public will permit. We thus see, in these vicissitudes of struggle, the first means of varying a subject. It will not go very far, however, since we cannot, however great our simplicity, receive from the drama, or from life, more than one thousand three hundred and thirty-two surprises. One thousand three hundred and thirty-two? Obviously; what is any keen surprise if not the passing from a state of calm into a Dramatic Situation, or from one Situation into another, or again into a state of calm? Perform the multiplication; result, one thousand, three hundred and thirty-two. Shall we now inquire whence arise these vicissitudes, these unexpected displacement ol equilibrium? Clearly