14 P..H,. Frye 
Lear—or even Macbeth for that matter—solely by what he does? 
Such is the variety, richness, and complexity—such is the ethical 
interest of his character that it is impossible to confound him 
with his fate, even while one bewails the pity of it. In retaining 
his apartness and distinction he preserves a kind of saving grace 
or eminence in his downfall which makes it dramatically endur- 
able. He remains uncompromised because he seems so much 
more important than the catastrophe, or indeed, than the whole 
play itself. He stretches away, as it were, indefinitely beyond the 
boundaries of the drama in which he figures—often meanly 
enough in comparison with the impression of his psychological 
significance. There is hardly one of all the company who does 
not occasionally let slip some evidence to a trait of character 
which is not involved in the piece or required by it—some hint or 
reminiscence as though of a previous state of existence. Indeed, 
so complex is their consciousness that it occasionally splits up or 
divides against itself to the detriment of the dramatic action. It 
is as much Hamlet’s dissension with himself as anything else 
which embarrasses the tragedy. or these reasons it is possible 
to talk—yes, and dispute so much about any of Shakespeare’s 
main personages: there appears to be so much more of them than 
the action is adequate to account for that the remainder, the 
extra-mural portion, is an inexhaustible subject of speculation and 
conjecture. Hence the fascination of what may be called the pri- 
vate character of his dramatis personae, which manifests itself in 
innumerable odd ways—in biographies of his heroines’ girlhood, in 
discussions of Hamlet’s whereabouts and occupations before the 
curtain went up, even in references to Lear’s and Cordelia’s com- 
pensations in another world. 
That the stage has gained in a way by this treatment of char- 
acter is undeniable. But what it has gained in one way it has 
lost in another. Though it has gained in curiousness, in variety, 
or what we like to call human interest; it has as surely lost in 
dramatic and literary consistency. That the characters should 
outgrow the action and cease to be solely the creatures and serv- 
ants of the drama, is impossible without impairing the accurate 
adjustment of parts and functions, the nice application of means 
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