The Theory of Greek Tragedy 3 
I 
Like every other work of literature a tragedy is the product of 
two factors. There is, first, the crude stuff or substance, fact or 
invention—the “myth” or “ fable,” as it used to be called, the 
“story,” as it is called nowadays—which serves as the foundation 
of the action; and second, the handling or treatment, the “art,” 
which gives this raw material its literary value. It is only by a 
kind of license that we can speak of an event, whether real or 
imaginary, as a tragedy. In such a case we are merely availing 
ourselves of a handy theatrical figure. Literally we are justified 
in saying at most that such an occurrence might possibly yield a 
tragedy if properly worked up and presented. Even in the com- 
mon manner of speaking the force of the figure depends on a 
recognition of the necessity for dramatic elaboration for genuinely 
tragic effect. In other words, a tragedy is not a work of nature 
but of art. | 
Like the treatment, however, the myth or story itself, upon 
which the tragedy is founded, should have a special character of its 
own. It is probably a vague recognition of the circumstance that 
every transaction indifferently is not proper material for tragic 
handling, which confines the popular application of the term to 
certain occurrences in real life, however capricious and inexact 
this application of the word is likely to be. In short, tragedy is 
not wholly an affair of manner any more than it is wholly an affair 
of matter. The substance must be suitable; and it can be so only 
when it is of a sort to violate our feeling of moral congruity or 
fitness. That is to say, the tragic story or fable should involve 
a discrepancy between our sense of fact, as illustrated in the inci- 
dents of the action, on the one hand, and on the other, our con- 
ception of justice and right reason. And it is just this disheart- 
ening consciousness of inconsistency, implicit in the perception of 
the dramatic data, as between our knowledge of things as they are 
or seem to be and our vision of them as they should be, which it is 
one of the duties of the tragic dramatist to reinforce and deepen 
by his treatment. 
At first sight it may seem something of a paradox to rest trag- 
301 
