22 P. H. Frye 
approbation with horror. And even when our feelings for the 
modern hero are mixed, these are, on the whole, the sentiments 
between which we are divided. What pity and horror we feel 
are caught up and engaged with these more or less loosely. 
For an exhaustive discussion of the subject, however, this is 
hardly the place. All I wish to do here, is to point out that these 
two passions, pity and horror, are critical of Greek tragedy alone; 
and though they may enter into the general description of any 
tragedy, yet it is misleading to use them as a universal definition 
of the whole genre without reference to specific versions of the 
tragic paradox and specific expedients for its accommodation. 
For as opinion changes with regard to the tragical contingencies 
of life—what they are and how humanity is to be reconciled to 
their existence; so must the feelings and sentiments voiced by the 
drama change also, and along with them the attitude toward the 
tragic character, whose qualifications will obviously be controlled 
by these very conditions. So it is with the modern protagonist. 
And it is by the same reasoning that Aristotle’s discrimination 
against certain types as compared with certain others, is to be ex- 
plained and justified. 
The main difficulty with Aristotle’s doctrine of characters seems 
due to the fact that it makes no provision for the prevailing 
pathetic or prevailing antipathetic protagonist of later tragedy— 
in particular, and the saying has been thought a hard one, it dis- 
qualifies Macbeth and Richard III. But the fact is that such a 
type is not Greek; it does not conform to the double réle for which 
the Greek protagonist was cast. While it is possible, of course, 
to rationalize the ruin of a thorough-paced villain by the law 
which he has violated, yet his downfall causes no dismay and 
inflicts no pang; it is just what ought to happen. Hence it offers 
no moral problem; in the eyes of the Greek there was nothing 
tragic about it. On the other hand, the virtuous or pathetic char- 
acter is unfitted to the part for a contrary reason. While the 
sight of such a person suffering an untoward fate, may indeed 
appear sufficiently enigmatical to trouble the spectator and awaken 
his suspicions, yet the very nature of the case precludes the pos- 
sibility of a moral settlement. In the adversity of the just there 
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