Tragick Muse: The muse of tragedy, in classical myth, is Melpomene, whose name means "songstress." It is interesting to consider this in light of Fielding's later use of Parthenope, a siren who, in desperation at not seducing Ulysses with her voice, threw herself into the sea and died. In addition to being a symbol of excessive, exaggerated female grief, Parthenope and her sisters "challenged the muses to a musical duel and lost" (Encyclopedia of Monsters, Etc.)

In De Poetica (The Poetics), Aristotle defines tragedy "an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions" (from Aristotle's De Poetica, translated by S. H. Butcher, chapter VI). Note that Aristotle cites the catharthsis of emotion through "pity and fear"; in Chapter XIV, he speaks about the ability of spectacle, one of the aspects of modern theatrical farce with which Fielding takes (complicit) issue, to effect catharsis.