24 P. H. Frye 
by which an antecedent produces, not the consequence expected, 
but one entirely unlooked for and yet necessary and intelligible. 
In much the same way an agnition is the recognition by a charac- 
ter of some person or object of whose identity he was at first 
unaware. As such an effect is likely to cause a revulsion of feel- 
ing and a change of intention on the part of the character con- 
cerned, it frequently though not invariably involves a peripeteia. 
A sensation, as I have ventured to translate the term dos, is a 
particularly harrowing incident, which instead of being reported 
by messenger or otherwise, is enacted under the eyes of the spec- 
tators. As conducive of surprise and suspense, intensity and 
immediacy, these effects may be looked upon as elements of plot 
in the present connotation of the word. To be sure, they want 
the elaboration of the modern intrigue, where the dramatic action 
has come to be developed chiefly in the sense of the “ interesting” 
as the dramatis personae chiefly in the sense of the “ character- 
istic.” But though they have remained subject to the primary 
uses of tragedy in the enforcement of problem and solution, yet 
their very presence should be a warning against a not uncommon 
manner of speaking as though Greek tragedy were deficient some- 
how in dramatic action and were largely an affair of declamation 
and recitation. 
Such an insinuation is founded only in a serious confusion. It 
is not unusual nowadays to talk as though a lively and bustling 
stage or a picturesque and striking tableau were all sufficient evi- 
dences of dramatic quality. But if movement and stir, spectacle 
and panorama were indeed dramatic, then would vaudeville be 
justified of its triumph. Under the circumstances it is hardly otiose 
to remark that for genuine drama it is hardly enough to set the 
characters’ legs in motion; their passions must be aroused as well. 
It is not so much motion as emotion that makes drama. Mrs. 
Siddons is said to have had a way of pronouncing Lear’s curse, 
while holding her arms rigidly at her sides, with an effect that was 
terrible beyond gesticulation. Only as the outward act gives rise 
to feeling or expresses it, does the act itself become dramatic. Itis 
not mere action but significant action that counts. Nothing could 
be busier than a scene of Victor Hugo’s. It is full of sound and 
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