o another reason. If the comic poet's object is to offer us
types, that is to say, characters capable of self-repetition, how can
he set about it better than by showing us, in each instance, several
different copies of the same model? That is just what the naturalist
does in order to define a species. He enumerates and describes its main
varieties.

This essential difference between tragedy and comedy, the former being
concerned with individuals and the latter with classes, is revealed in
yet another way. It appears in the first draft of the work. From the
outset it is manifested by two radically different methods of
observation.

Though the assertion may seem paradoxical, a study of other men is
probably not necessary to the tragic poet. We find some of the great
poets have lived a retiring, homely sort of life, without having a
chance of witnessing around them an outburst of the passions they have
so faithfully depicted. But, supposing even they had witnessed such a
spectacle, it is doubtful whether they would have found it of much use.
For what interests us in the work of the poet is the glimpse we get of
certain profound moods or inner struggles. Now, this glimpse cannot be
obtained from without. Our souls are impenetrable to one another.
Certain signs of passion are all that we ever apperceive externally.
These we interpret--though always, by the way, defectively--only by
analogy with what we have ourselves experienced. So what we experience
is the main point, and we cannot become thoroughly acquainted with
anything but our own heart--supposing we ever get so far. Does this
mean that the poet has experienced what he depicts, that he has gone
through the various situations he makes his characters traverse, and
lived the whole of their inner life? Here, too, the biographies of
poets would contradict such a supposition. How, indeed, could the same
man have been Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and many others? But
then a distinction should perhaps here be made between the personality
WE HAVE and all those we might have had. Our character is the result of
a choice that is continually being renewed. There are points--at all
events there seem to be--all along the way, where we may branch off,
and we perceive many possible directions though we are unable to take
more than one. To retrace one's steps, and follow to the end the
faintly distinguishable directions, appears to be the essential element
in poetic imaginati