It has been objected to many masterpieces of lyrical poetry, especially some Odes of Horace (see, for example, the second of the third book) and several of Goethe’s songs (for example, “The Shepherd’s Lament”), that they lack proper connection and are full of gaps in the thought. But here the logical connection is intentionally neglected, in order that the unity of the fundamental sensation and mood may take its place, which comes out more clearly just by the fact that it passes like a thread through the separate pearls, and brings about the quick changes of the objects of contemplation, in the same way as in music the transition from one key to another is brought about by the chord of the seventh, through which the still sounding fundamental note becomes the dominant of the new key. Most distinctly, even exaggeratedly, the quality here described is found in the Canzone of Petrarch which begins, “_Mai non vo’ più cantar, com’ io soleva_.” Accordingly, as in the lyrical poem the subjective element predominates, so in the drama, on the contrary, the objective element is alone and exclusively present. Between the two epic poetry in all its forms and modifications, from the narrative romance to the epos proper, has a broad middle path. For although in the main it is objective, yet it contains a subjective element, appearing now more and now less, which finds its expression in the tone, in the form of the delivery, and also in scattered reflections. We do not so entirely lose sight of the poet as in the drama. The end of the drama in general is to show us in an example what is the nature and existence of man. The sad or the bright side of these can be turned to us in it, or their transitions into each other. But the expression, “nature and existence of man,” already contains the germ of the controversy whether the nature, _i.e._, the character, or the existence, _i.e._, the fate, the adventures, the action, is the principal thing. Moreover, the two have grown so firmly together that although they can certainly be separated in conception, they cannot be separated in the representation of them. For only the circumstances, the fate, the events, make the character manifest its nature, and only from the character does the action arise from which the events proceed. Certainly, in the representation, the one or the other may be made more prominent; and in this respect the piece which centres in the characters and the piece which centres in the plot are the two extremes.