INTRODUCTION TO THE TRAGEDY OF NERO.

Few finer things have been said on the raison d'être of tragedy from the time when Aristotle in the Poetics formulated his memorable dictum.

" THE TRAGEDY OF NERO, Newly Written.

Marlowe's tragedy was first entered in the Stationers' books in 1600-1, but brought upon the stage many years before.

There is time to be allowed, also, for maturity of design: which, amongst great and prudent persons, such as are often represented in Tragedy, cannot, with any likelihood of truth, be brought to pass at so short a warning.

As, suppose it were the King's Bedchamber; yet the meanest man in the Tragedy, must come and despatch his business there, rather than in the Lobby or Courtyard (which is [were] fitter for him), for fear the Stage should be cleared, and the Scenes broken.

Many knew that Tom and his chum had made their ascent without a third passenger, and the presence of Lieutenant Beverly announced that some sort of tragedy of the air had occurred.

Then calling for his will, and settling his temporal affairs, the last scene of this tragedy, was the parting between the two brothers.

Insatiate Countess, a Tragedy, acted at White-Fryars, printed in Quarto 1603, under the title of Isabella the insatiable countess of Suevia.

Wonder of Women, or Sophonisba, a tragedy, acted at Black Fryars, printed in Octavo, 1633.

The tragedy of Gorboduc, the first regular English tragedy written in blank verse, was acted in 1561, three years before the birth of Shakespeare.

The tragedy of Gorboduc, the first regular English tragedy written in blank verse, was acted in 1561, three years before the birth of Shakespeare.

In spite of their heavy narrative form, these poems are in places even more dramatic than the dull tragedy of Gorboduc, which was fashioned after the classical rules of Seneca and the Greeks.

Thomas Kyd (1558-1594), although lacking a university education, succeeded in writing, about 1586, the most popular early Elizabethan play, The Spanish Tragedy, a blank verse drama, in which blood flows profusely.

The legend on which the play is based came from Germany, but Marlowe breathed his own imaginative spirit into the tragedy.

Romeo and Juliet has 405 lines of prose in a total of 3052 lines, while Hamlet, a tragedy of 3931 lines, has 1208 lines of prose.

In as excellent an early tragedy as Romeo and Juliet, the hero fights more with outside obstacles than with himself.

" Shakespeare is also the one English author who is equally successful in depicting the highest type of both comedy and tragedy.

In his greatest plays, for instance, in Macbeth, he sought to impress the incalculable danger of meddling with evil, the impossibility of forecasting the tragedy that might thereby result, the certainty that retribution would follow, either here or beyond "this bank and shoal of time.

Two of their greatest plays, Philaster and The Maid's Tragedy, are probably their joint production.

John Marston (1576?-1634) wrote Antonio and Mellida, a blood and thunder tragedy, and collaborated with Jonson and Chapman to produce Eastward Hoe, an excellent comic picture of contemporary life.

Three dramatists: John Webster (1602-1624), Cyril Tourneur (1575?-1626), and John Ford (1586-1640?), had a love for the most somber tragedy.

" Tourneur's The Atheist's Tragedy is in Webster's vein, but far inferior to The Duchess of Malfi.

Ford's The Broken Heart is a strong, but unpleasant, tragedy.

Bradley's Shakespearean Tragedy (excellent).