[Footnote 16: The famous critics of the Romantic Revival seem to have paid very little attention to this subject. Mr. R.G. Moulton has written an interesting book on _Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist_ (1885). In parts of my analysis I am much indebted to Gustav Freytag's _Technik des Dramas_, a book which deserves to be much better known than it appears to be to Englishmen interested in the drama. I may add, for the benefit of classical scholars, that Freytag has a chapter on Sophocles. The reader of his book will easily distinguish, if he cares to, the places where I follow Freytag, those where I differ from him, and those where I write in independence of him. I may add that in speaking of construction I have thought it best to assume in my hearers no previous knowledge of the subject; that I have not attempted to discuss how much of what is said of Shakespeare would apply also to other dramatists; and that I have illustrated from the tragedies generally, not only from the chosen four.] [Footnote 17: This word throughout the lecture bears the sense it has here, which, of course, is not its usual dramatic sense.] [Footnote 18: In the same way a comedy will consist of three parts, showing the 'situation,' the 'complication' or 'entanglement,' and the _denouement_ or 'solution.'] [Footnote 19: It is possible, of course, to open the tragedy with the conflict already begun, but Shakespeare never does so.] [Footnote 20: When the subject comes from English history, and especially when the play forms one of a series, some knowledge may be assumed. So in _Richard III._ Even in _Richard II._ not a little knowledge seems to be assumed, and this fact points to the existence of a popular play on the earlier part of Richard's reign. Such a play exists, though it is not clear that it is a genuine Elizabethan work. See the _Jahrbuch d. deutschen Sh.-gesellschaft_ for 1899.] [Footnote 21: This is one of several reasons why many people enjoy reading him, who, on the whole, dislike reading plays. A main cause of this very general dislike is that the reader has not a lively enough imagination to carry him with pleasure through the exposition, though in the theatre, where his imagination is helped, he would experience little difficulty.] [Footnote 22: The end of _Richard III._ is perhaps an exception.]