ew may be found in _Oxford Lectures
on Poetry_.]

[Footnote 7: The reader, however, will find considerable difficulty in
placing some very important characters in these and other plays. I will
give only two or three illustrations. Edgar is clearly not on the same
side as Edmund, and yet it seems awkward to range him on Gloster's side
when Gloster wishes to put him to death. Ophelia is in love with Hamlet,
but how can she be said to be of Hamlet's party against the King and
Polonius, or of their party against Hamlet? Desdemona worships Othello,
yet it sounds odd to say that Othello is on the same side with a person
whom he insults, strikes and murders.]

[Footnote 8: I have given names to the 'spiritual forces' in _Macbeth_
merely to illustrate the idea, and without any pretension to adequacy.
Perhaps, in view of some interpretations of Shakespeare's plays, it will
be as well to add that I do not dream of suggesting that in any of his
dramas Shakespeare imagined two abstract principles or passions
conflicting, and incorporated them in persons; or that there is any
necessity for a reader to define for himself the particular forces which
conflict in a given case.]

[Footnote 9: Aristotle apparently would exclude them.]

[Footnote 10: Richard II. is perhaps an exception, and I must confess
that to me he is scarcely a tragic character, and that, if he is
nevertheless a tragic figure, he is so only because his fall from
prosperity to adversity is so great.]

[Footnote 11: I say substantially; but the concluding remarks on
_Hamlet_ will modify a little the statements above.]

[Footnote 12: I have raised no objection to the use of the idea of fate,
because it occurs so often both in conversation and in books about
Shakespeare's tragedies that I must suppose it to be natural to many
readers. Yet I doubt whether it would be so if Greek tragedy had never
been written; and I must in candour confess that to me it does not often
occur while I am reading, or when I have just read, a tragedy of
Shakespeare. Wordsworth's lines, for example, about

poor humanity's afflicted will
Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny

do not represent the impression I receive; much less do images which
compare man to a puny creature helpless in the claws of a bird of prey.
The reader should examine himself closely on this matter.]

[Footnote 13: It is dangerous, I think, in reference to all really good
tragedies, but I am deali